Millionaire in Command(16)

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.