Next time?
He should be focusing on the present and the stunning woman in the seat next to him. Her hair sleekly upswept, Phoebe stared out the window at the night sky as they left the nation's capital behind after an evening of dancing.
The vibrantly red satin gown hugged her elegant curves, the strapless cut revealing a hint of the gentle swell of her breasts. Landis diamonds around her neck and dangling from her ears refracted the muted overhead light as if the stars from outside had come inside. The European ambassadors hadn't been able to keep their eyes off her.
The intercom system crackled to life. "Mr. and Mrs. Landis," the pilot's voice filled the cabin, "we're at cruising altitude. You are free to walk around."
Kyle unbuckled his seat belt and strode toward the galley kitchen. "There's a midnight snack here if you're hungry."
He'd planned ahead for this private time with Phoebe. The pilot was in front behind a closed partition, and a sleeping compartment was built into the back behind another partition. He really didn't need to think about the bed a few feet away. Not yet, anyway.
Phoebe unbuckled her seat belt and stood, stretching with a sensual moan of pleasure that shot straight to his groin.
"Thanks, for the food, for the whole evening. This is so surreal," she twirled in the middle of the floor, her hand sweeping toward the sofas lining one wall and the rows of leather seats on the other, "having a babysitter while we jet up to D.C. for dinner and dancing, home before Nina even wakes up."
"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. You look … " He took in the curve of her exposed neck, her creamy skin glowing against the deep red strapless dress. "Absolutely amazing."
"And thank you again. You look very handsome yourself, Mr. Landis." She stepped closer to him, toe to toe, and tugged his tuxedo tie straight again. "Do you miss your uniform?"
He stilled under her touch, careful not to startle her away. "Do you?"
Some women were downright groupies when it came to military men. The person inside didn't matter to them, only the trappings that came with the job.
She patted his chest once before backing away. "You're just as good-looking in the tux as you are with the medals, and you know it."
His chest still bore the phantom feel of her touch, his skin warm under the stiff fabric. But he was making progress, so he let Phoebe have her space. He pulled the protective wrapping off a silver tray of brie, bread and fruit, and opened a chilled bottle of sparkling water. "You must really think I'm egotistical."
"I think you're confident and sexy and exasperating." She plucked a purple grape from the platter and popped it into her mouth. "So you're okay with hanging up your uniform?"
He barely registered her words, so caught up in watching the way her pink lips moved, enticing him to kiss the sheen of juice from her lips. Then he saw she was waiting for his answer.
"Sure, I feel nostalgic about turning a page on that chapter of my life, but honestly, I never planned on the air force being a career."
"Then why did you join up if you always intended to get out before retirement?" She leaned a slim hip against the marble counter dividing the kitchen from the seating area.
His gaze lingered on that hip as he imagined his hand molding to fit the curve of her waist and trail lower to explore.
He filled two cut-crystal glasses with ice, then water. He wanted something stronger, but he needed a clear head around this woman. "It was about serving my country, about giving something back."
"That's really admirable." She studied him with curious eyes before looking away self-consciously. She reached for her water glass. "I read up on you before I came here, and I saw that you were in a plane that was shot down. There wasn't a lot of information in the article. The writer noted something about withholding details to protect you while you finished your tour of duty. I wondered if the crash had anything to do with your decision to get out of the service."
That day smoked to life in his memory like a dark but distant cloud. "Definitely not the highlight of my life, but I know I was lucky. Not a scratch on me. Apparently someone lurking around on a mountain shot down the plane. Everyone survived the crash landing, but we had to abandon the site to hide out from rebels. So the rescue mission took a while longer."
Her hand flew to her neck, her face creasing with concern. "Those hours must have been horrifyingly long for you. How did you get through it?"
He spread brie over a cracker slowly, his mind awash in memories. "We all opened up an MRE-meal ready to eat-and thought about our families back at home. As I sat there, crunching on the rat-nasty crackers, I kept remembering how Sebastian and I used to eat peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches when we were kids."
"That must have been frightening wondering if you would see them again."
It had been total hell. He offered her the cracker and cheese, surprised to see his hand was steady.
He lost himself in that past memory to distract himself now, as he had in the desert. "This one time when I was about ten and he was nine, we spent most of the summer playing in a forest behind our house. Well, it seemed like a forest, anyway. It was probably just a few trees with a bike path."
"Haven't you always lived at the Landis compound?"
"My grandparents used to live at the compound. We moved in when Dad got out of the air force and ran for senator. Dad said we needed the extra security the place afforded, but I sure missed the freedom of our old digs."
"That sounds like a haven for children." She brushed a cracker crumb away from the corner of her mouth absently, her eyes locked on him.
Kyle picked up his water glass, swirling the lime around and around. "We would hang out in 'our woods' all day long. We'd pack marshmallow and peanut butter sandwiches, take a gallon jug of Kool-Aid. And we dug tunnels."
"Tunnels?" she nudged gently.
"We dug deep trenches, put plywood over the top, then piled dirt to finish it off." He could almost smell the musty little cavern. "We were lucky we didn't die crawling around in there. We could have suffocated, or the roofing could have given way if someone had accidentally stepped on one of those boards."
Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself, plumping her breasts in an understated but alluring display. "What did your mother say when she found out?"
His eyes flicked over her neckline and he closed his hands against the impulse to learn the shape of her firsthand. He knocked back half a glass of water. "My mother never knew about the tunnels. She would have grounded us until we left for college if she had." And they would have deserved it. His mother had been tough but fair. "We made Jonah stand guard and let us know if she was coming."
"How much did you have to pay him not to snitch?"
"Who said we paid him?" He winked. "He's the youngest. He did what we said."
She leaned closer for another grape, her vanilla perfume drifting over him. "And your oldest brother, Matthew?"
"He's too much of a rule-follower. We never let him in on the secret. I was especially into it-I would sneak out there on my own sometimes. Sebastian says it's no surprise I went into the military."
"So you're all four even closer now that you're adults." Her gaze danced down to her glass of water. "I envy that kind of love and support."
"We're lucky. I was lucky that day in the desert. I thought about those sandwiches a lot while I waited in that trench in Afghanistan." What would he think about if the same thing happened today?
Without question, he knew his mind would be packed with images of Phoebe and Nina. They'd both filled his world so damn quickly, an unsettling notion given how short a time they'd both been in his life.