From Air (Wildfire)

Chapter Fourteen

JAYMES

I miss Fitz’s lips. It’s only been a week, but they’re missable lips, and that’s indisputable—a fact.

However, I’ve found a good distraction. Melissa’s parents are celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary, and I’m flying down to Miami for the party.

After buttering her up with pizza and wine, I share my fabulous idea with Maren. “How do you feel about a girls’ trip to Miami with me?”

“Really?” She washes our glasses in the sink. “Just say when.”

“Fantastic. This weekend.”

“Noooo. Say anything but this weekend. That’s in five days. I have to work. Have you heard of a little thing called prior notice?”

“Dang it. I know.” I deflate. “Melissa didn’t give me much notice. It’s her parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary. They debated on having a party and decided at the last minute to do it. I don’t want to miss it.”

“Sorry. I’d love to go, but ...” Her smile bleeds with genuine disappointment.

I fold the empty pizza box. “I understand.”

“Besides, you’ll be there with your friends. I doubt you’ll need me there.”

I nod several times, but then I cringe. “Full disclosure?”

“Of course.”

“It’s my first time flying. I’m a little nervous.”

Her eyes widen. “For real? You’ve never been on a plane?”

I shake my head, hugging the empty pizza box.

“Oh, you’ll love it.”

“Says the pilot.”

“Well, I’m bummed. Had you given me more notice, I would have flown us down to Miami.”

“It’s fine. I’ll survive. If I can dive in the ocean and swim with sharks, I can survive a plane.”

“For sure.” She dries her hands and winks.

“Survive what?” Will saunters into the kitchen in his black activewear for his tai chi class.

“Jamie’s flying for the first time this weekend.”

“Seriously?” He narrows his eyes at me before opening the fridge.

“Yes. Seriously. Let’s just state the obvious—I’ve lived a sheltered life. I have a lot of firsts left to experience.”

“You’ll love it,” Will assures me.

“See?” Maren grins, brushing past me. “Fitz will say the same thing too.”

“Fitz jumps out of planes. I don’t think he’s qualified to rate flying when you stay in the aircraft.”

Will and Maren laugh while I fish my phone out of my purse.

I message Melissa to let her know I’ll book my ticket before I go to bed, and then I head upstairs to shower, but Maren beats me to it. As I turn, Fitz exits his bedroom, pulling on a blue-and-orange Marmot hoodie over a white T-shirt.

“Hey,” I say in an unavoidably breathy voice while giving him a tight smile.

“Hey.” His gaze slides down my body.

I clear my throat. “Are you in for the night?”

He shakes his head, taking his sweet time, returning his gaze to mine. “Bowling with Gary and Evette.”

“Bowling?”

“It’s a heavy ball with finger holes, ten pins—”

“Fitz, I’m going to knock out your pretty teeth if you don’t stop mocking me like I was born yesterday.”

He gives me a shit-eating grin. “You think my teeth are pretty?”

“Have fun bowling.”

The bathroom door opens. “It’s all yours.” Maren adjusts her robe’s sash.

“Thanks.” I step toward the door.

“Fitz, did Jamie tell you she’s flying for the first time this weekend? She asked me to go, but I can’t. I told her she’d do just fine.”

I close my eyes. Thanks, Maren.

“Is that so? What were you ... born yesterday?”

“Be nice,” Maren scolds on her way to her room. “If I lived in Miami, I probably wouldn’t have any desire to leave either.” She shuts her bedroom door.

“Where ya going?” Fitz’s eyebrows slide up his head while he rests his shoulder against the wall, hands in the pocket of his hoodie. Freshly showered Fitz with damp, messy hair is too much for my ovaries. His face has a little more dark scruff than usual today, and his playful gaze makes me squirm.

I cross my arms. Then fold my hands. Then lace them behind my back. God, he makes me crazy with a need to touch him. “Miami. It’s Melissa’s parents’ anniversary. It’s just for two nights. And Maren’s right. I’ll be fine. No big deal. It’s not like I haven’t wanted to fly. I’ve just never needed to before now.”

“You asked Maren to go?”

I nod.

“Is she your person now?” He’s baiting me with a giant, fat worm.

“I thought we ended the you-being-my-person thing.”

“I thought we ended something else. I was unaware that the two were mutually exclusive.”

“They’re not.” I tip my chin up as if I know where this is going. I don’t.

“Then I’m hurt you didn’t ask me.”

I narrow my eyes. Hurt? He’s not hurt. He’s, once again, messing with me.

“I’m hurt you didn’t invite me bowling. You know I like Gary and Evette.”

He pushes off the wall and glances at his watch. “Hurry up. We leave in twenty minutes.”

“I ...” My words die when he gives me a challenging expression. “Twenty.” I smile and shoot into the bathroom.

“You’re late,” he scolds when I hop in his truck.

“Two minutes.”

“If you’re two minutes late for your plane, it will leave without you.” He pulls onto the street.

“So why didn’t you leave without me?” I stare at the side of his head.

His lips twitch.

“You knew I’d be worth the wait.”

Fitz gives me a sidelong glance. “Yeah. You’re worth a two-minute wait.” He returns his attention to the road.

“Five minutes?”

He bobs his head in contemplation.

“Ten?”

“No.”

I laugh. “Yet another reason you’re still single.”

“You think that’s it?” His brow furrows.

“Perhaps.”

He hums. “Then what explains why you’re still single?”

“That’s easy. I’m ten years younger than you. I’m hotter than you, which makes me intimidating. And I chose to be a travel nurse because I don’t want to stay in one place for too long, which makes me inaccessible.”

“You’re not hotter than me.”

I love that he latched on to that. “We’ll ask Gary and Evette.”

“ Pfft. Then you lose for sure. Despite what you think, they’re my friends.”

“Speaking of hot people, did you know that Dr. Reichart lost her virginity to Will?”

Fitz shoots me a glance with a sour face. “No.”

“Yes. And he broke her heart too.”

Fitz focuses on the road. “Fucker never told me that.”

I giggle. “Well, I wish I didn’t know. I don’t know if I’m comfortable hearing personal details about my boss. Don’t tell him I said anything. I need to convey a message. I just haven’t yet. It’s a weird topic to discuss with him.”

“Why are we discussing it?”

“Because I wanted to distract you from obsessing over my superior hotness.”

He grunts, and I grin victoriously.

When we arrive at the bowling alley, Fitz pays for our games and shoes.

“I could have paid.”

He struts toward the lanes, several steps in front of me. “You’re paying me back in other ways.”

I nearly trip over my own feet. “W-what?”

He stops, causing me to bump into him. “You’re paying for my plane ticket.”

“Plane ticket?”

“To Miami. I invited you to go bowling, so I’m paying. You invited me to be your emotional-support person this weekend, so you’re paying for my plane ticket.”

“I didn’t invite you.”

His gaze shifts to the side for a beat before he grunts a laugh and continues toward the lanes. “You did.”

I can’t take Fitz to Miami. That would be a disaster.

“Hey! You brought Jamie. I’m so glad,” Evette gushes, hugging Fitz and then pulling me in for a tight embrace, her wiry curls brushing my cheek.

“Do you have my back?” I murmur next to her ear.

“What?” She begins to pull away.

I grip her shoulders. “We don’t have much time. Just say you have my back.”

When I release her, she narrows her eyes and nods while straightening her camel-brown crisscross sweater that barely touches the top of her shapely hips.

I grin. “Can you two settle something for us?”

Gary sets his beer on the table and adjusts his black ball cap. “What’s that?”

“Who’s hotter? Fitz or me?” I pull back my shoulders and smile.

Gary sniggers, reaching for his bowling ball. “My wife’s here. I can’t answer that, even if she says Fitz, which she will.”

“No. I think Jamie is hotter,” Evette declares, eyeing me carefully to confirm she’s having my back .

I wink. “Thanks.” I blow her a kiss.

“Then I second that.” Gary gives me a resolute nod.

“Traitors,” Fitz grumbles.

I follow him to pick out a ball. “Well, that’s settled.”

“Don’t think I didn’t see you whispering in her ear.” He shoves his fingers into a ball and picks it up.

“That’s a little too much ball for you. Size down,” I say, picking out a pretty six-pound green ball with sparkles.

“I don’t know how to handle anything but big balls.”

“Stop,” I snort, returning to Gary and Evette.

“You started it,” he mutters behind me.

Gary and Fitz show their ultracompetitive sides for three rounds while Evette and I sip cheap wine and see who can have the longest streak of gutter balls.

“He’s pretty smitten.” Evette leans into me as the guys hover around the ball return.

“Who?”

She nudges me with her elbow. “Calvin, of course. Gary and I have never seen him like this.”

I squint. “Like what?”

“He can’t take his eyes off you. He couldn’t the night of the party, and ...” She nudges me again to make sure I see Fitz making a glance in my direction as we speak. “We’ve never seen this side of Calvin. What have you done?”

It was just a kiss.

“I think you’re mistaking his distrust of me for something else.”

“Hon, I’m not mistaken about anything. If you both are too blind to see it, Lord help us all. This kind of chemical reaction will be explosive.”

I return a nervous laugh and shake it off with an exaggerated eye roll. But for the rest of the evening, I can’t stop noticing Fitz stealing glances at me so often it makes me sweat.

“Thank you so much for coming.” Gary hugs me after the last round.

Fitz watches.

Evette hugs me again too.

Fitz watches.

It’s a little chilly when we emerge from the building into the late-night air glowing from the full moon.

“Brr ...” I rub my hands together. “Isn’t spring supposed to be here soon?”

“It’s in the fifties, Beach Babe.” He chuckles, opening my door.

I raise an eyebrow. “This feels too special. What’s the catch?” I climb into his truck.

“Catch? To opening a door?”

“You watched me dig my Jeep out of the snow shortly after I moved here. You’re not the guy who opens doors for a lady.”

His lips pull into a lazy, lopsided grin. “I didn’t know you were a lady at the time.”

I open my mouth to respond, but he closes my door and circles around the front of his truck. He starts it and turns on the heat. When he moves to put the truck into gear, I rest my hand on his.

“Let it warm up a bit,” I say because we’re parked at the far end of the lot with no one around us, and when we get home, Will and Maren will know we pulled into the driveway.

He eyes me with a neutral expression for a few seconds before nodding.

I take a gander out the window. “I’m booking my flight before I go to bed. Are you serious about going to Miami with me? Because you don’t have to—”

“I’m serious.”

“Is it”—I slide my hands between my thighs to warm them—“a good idea?”

Fitz draws in a long breath and releases it just as slowly. “Depends on who you ask.”

“I’m asking you.”

“I think ...” He’s full of sighs, but no two are the same, and I can’t distinguish what each one means. “I think Miami sounds like a great getaway before I jump into a long summer.”

“Have you been to Miami?”

“Of course,” he says.

I’m sure many people in their midthirties have been to Miami or somewhere in Florida. A twenty-five-year-old who has never been on a plane is a much rarer phenomenon.

“Why were you homeschooled?”

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t move.

I angle my body toward his. “I was homeschooled because my mom thought raising me without a father would make me more susceptible to the influence of boys in school, which I’m pretty sure was code for teenage pregnancy.” I grin.

Fitz finds a tiny one, too, when he glances over at me. “So you’re still a virgin?”

“Ha ha. Real funny.”

Fitz studies me during a long pause. “My parents homeschooled me for the same reason.”

“I see.” I bite my lip to hide my grin. That’s not why he was homeschooled. He’s so full of shit. But I play along. “Love comes in all forms. I’m sure what seemed extreme caution at the time was not meant to be anything more than love. Just before my mom died of cancer, I began to realize how incredibly different a mother’s love is compared to any other kind of love.” As the words slide past my lips, I feel a pang of guilt. “I wish I would have seen it years ago. My dad died when I was five. She raised me by herself. I have to wonder if his death made her extra protective of me. Like I was all she had left.”

He nods, gaze softening into something unreadable while we stare silently at each other. I wonder if he’s on the verge of sharing more of his past with me.

“I’ve noticed you’ve been rather pouty lately. I predicted it,” he says, not on the verge of sharing anything personal with me. He’s a labyrinth.

I don’t push it. Instead, I roll my eyes because I’ve not been pouty, and he knows it. “I’ve noticed you’ve been sulking lately. I predicted it.”

He grins.

“My friend Melissa will assume something is going on between us if you go with me to Miami.”

“That’s because you confessed you were having sex dreams about me.”

“Stop. No.” I shake my head. “It wasn’t a confession. She was pestering me, so I told her what she wanted to hear to shut her up.”

“Liar.”

I shove his arm. “I’m not lying.”

He laughs.

“Stop laughing.”

“I can’t.” He laughs more.

I unbuckle my seat belt and lean over the console to cover his mouth with my hand. “Enough with the mocking.”

He pulls my hand away, exposing a massive grin on his face that’s mere inches from mine.

I know it’s going to happen.

He knows it’s going to happen.

The only unanswered question is who’s going to cave first.

I think it’s me because I lean in closer, but he leans toward me simultaneously, and we meet in the middle.

The kiss is unhurried.

His hand skates along my neck. I grip a fistful of his hoodie while my mouth opens wide for his tongue to tease mine. It’s a heady mix of forbidden desire and utter weakness.

“No one’s getting evicted,” I murmur when he breaks the kiss to suck the sensitive skin below my ear.

“No one,” he whispers, gently tugging my hair so I’ll give him more access to my neck.

I have a painful need to rub up against him. I’d give anything to feel any part of his body brush along my breast or slide between my legs. My breaths fall from my lips in tiny puffs. I’m panting.

Showing zero control, I start to crawl over the console.

“Jaymes,” he mumbles, grabbing my hips to stop me.

“I’ll move out,” I say, without an ounce of blood circulating to my brain.

He chuckles. “You don’t mean that.”

I win. Wedging myself between him and the steering wheel, I thread my fingers through his hair and kiss him. Whatever’s been going on between us has been the slowest torture of my life.

I break the kiss and rest my forehead on his. “You can’t go to Miami with me.”

“Why?” His hand slides up my side under my jacket, stopping at my breast. His thumb brushes over my shirt, teasing my nipple.

“Fuck you, Fitz.” I breathe heavily, rocking my pelvis, longing to feel him everywhere . “You know why.”

“You don’t trust me?” His other hand does the same thing, making my breath hitch. He’s hard between my legs, thumbs slowly circling my nipples.

I’m ready to snap.

“I ...” Again, I rock my hips.

And again.

And again.

“I hate you,” I whisper over his lips.

He kisses me.

I moan. Not groan. It’s embarrassing but unavoidable, like the way I grind against him. Every cell in my body feels heavy and hyperresponsive to his touch. Though I’m not going to let him win.

Why would my orgasm be a win for him? I can’t explain it, but that’s what it would be.

Fitz grins against my lips. “Jaymes, are you about to—”

“No.” I grab his hands, removing them from my breasts while my heart thrashes around in my chest. I’m a hundred degrees and out of breath.

“Are you sure?” His lips brush my ear, hands gripping my hips while he shifts a fraction.

“St-stop.”

He palms my ass.

I should have worn jeans. These leggings are useless. His erection might be buried under denim and cotton briefs, but I still feel it, and that’s all it takes.

I bite my lip to suppress my moan or any other sound while remaining as still as possible. Does he know I’m holding my breath to hide the blinding orgasm ripping through my body? It’s all I can do to keep from jerking my hips and mumbling a low “Oh god ...”

This is a first. Never did I imagine the day would come when I’d feel the need to hide an orgasm. Fake one? Sure. But not hide it.

A fraction at a time, I release my breath. Nothing happened. Everything’s normal.

“We”—I clear my throat—“better get home.”

I lift my head from his shoulder and smile.

Fitz’s gaze sweeps across my face, his expression nothing short of wonder. He swipes a finger along my forehead. My sweaty forehead.

“It’s hot in here. You have the heat pretty high,” I say with a nervous laugh.

“Do you need a cigarette?” A slow grin takes up residence on his smug face.

“You wish.” I climb off his lap and plop into the passenger seat.

He laughs. It’s great that one of us finds this amusing. He responds to everything I say with a chuckle.

“I’ll get a hotel room. I assume you’ll stay with your friend. Problem solved.” He shifts his truck into drive.

I can think of a hundred places and ways we can have sex that don’t involve sharing a bed or even the same hotel room. He extinguishes wildfires. How can he not see the danger in this situation?

“Yup. Problem solved,” I mumble, staring out the window, feeling sweat between my cleavage and the warm, wet aftermath between my legs from dry humping Calvin Fitzgerald in the bowling alley parking lot.