One Breathless Night(27)

She ended up slipping into bed. Arranging the pillows so she could sit up and see her little screen Rick, she wasn’t surprised that he was off-camera for a bit. When he came back she said, “Do you mind terribly if I don’t do the sexy stuff this time?”

“No. I don’t mind.” When he got into his bed, it was as close to being with him as they’d ever been. “I vote for leaving our options open.”

“Right. We’ll just carry on, as usual.”

“But maybe once,” he said, “before we say good-night, you’ll let the covers drop to your lap?”

She smiled at him, and felt something shift in her heart. “I think we can work something out.”





14

LOGAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT was chock-full of business people trying to get home for the weekend and, for an ordinary Friday, a surprising number of families traveling with children. Jenna switched her carry-on to her other hand just as she spotted the Legal C Bar. Good. She needed a drink. The noisy kids didn’t help, but the real reason she was looking for a nice glass of wine had everything to do with the weather.

Not in Boston. Things there were fine. But that wasn’t true for the good people of northeast South Dakota. They were facing an unusually strong group of storms. Storms that, according to the National Weather Service, could and would turn into tornadoes. The state had a lot of them, but mostly they were small, and mostly, no one got hurt.

But this storm system was doing strange things. Jenna knew all this because now that she understood more about extreme weather, she was able to guess the times when she wouldn’t hear from Rick. Sometimes not for days. Except for the quick texts telling her he was out chasing storms or too busy messing with the data to take breaks, let alone go home.

There was a seat open at the bar, and she ordered a Pinot Gris. Her flight wasn’t due to take off for over an hour. She probably shouldn’t have gotten to the airport so early, but she was too nervous.

She and Rick were supposed to meet in Chicago in a few hours. She understood he might have to cancel at the last minute. She hoped with every ounce of her body and soul that he wouldn’t. God, how she wanted to see him. On the flat screen in the corner of the bar was a weather map. Her heart thumped as the news showed the destruction of homes and farms in South Dakota. The tornado was the first category-four they’d had in years.

Jenna sighed. She felt awful for all the poor people who’d been affected. And she was willing to admit that she felt awful for her and Rick, too. She’d only allow herself one glass of wine. It was pretty likely she’d be driving back home tonight.

* * *

RICK WENT TO the men’s room to look at his texts. He’d known they were from Jenna. And he’d also known she’d tell him to take care of business. That they’d reschedule if need be.

Damn it, he didn’t want to reschedule. Yes, he was taking more days off this year. But since he’d only taken three vacation days in the previous four years, he had no qualms about getting away for a weekend.

Truthfully, no one gave him any guff about it. Were they surprised? Yes. Teasing? God, yes, and if he had a way to stop it, he would. His text back to her was short: Don’t give up on me yet.

The energy of the floor changed the second he walked out of the restroom. Of course they were tracking South Dakota. Rick had personally trained two of the storm chasers out there, and there were lots of good people in the office of climatology. They were using their warning signals properly, and their reporting of data was excellent.

There was no reason he shouldn’t leave. The team in the tornado group had it covered. But...this was what he did. He tracked tornadoes. He could count on one hand plus one other finger how many times he’d missed tracking anything above an F2 on the Fujita damage scale. This storm cluster could bring a lot of hell down on Dewey County. And if it picked up enough debris, it could get to be a giant.

His heart was already pumping fast, and they just had supercells forming. He couldn’t help it. He remembered those few seconds where he was awake and cogent in that tornado. Every tornado brought excitement and stress, but even if he couldn’t be out there himself tracking the big boys, he felt the memory of that rush. That unbelievable feeling of flying. Of unimaginable fear mixed with dazzling wonder.

“What’s up with you, man?” Antwan eyed him. “Why aren’t you on your way to the airport? You think we can’t handle things here?”

“Of course you can. But you know how that adrenaline calls me.”

“Rick, you idiot. You want adrenaline? How about you walk into your hotel room to find your Jenna waiting for you?”

Rick grinned as his focus shifted to Jenna, and the dilemma disappeared. “Mi gaan, mi bredda.”

Antwan laughed, as he always did at Rick’s attempt to speak the patois. “I’m never taking you to visit my family. They’d all die laughing and probably disown me, but I’m glad you’re going, and that the power has been given to me.”

Rick slapped him on the back and headed off to see Jenna. His pace quickened as he reached the parking lot until he was almost running. Before he opened the door to his Jeep, he texted her one line: Board that plane.

Now he needed to stop thinking about tearing off her clothes the second he saw her. It wasn’t easy.

* * *

THE HILTON GARDEN INN was just three miles from the airport, but because of the snow, Rick took the shuttle. He could have been nicer at the registration desk, but Jenna was just up a floor, and fourteen doors down.

It took two tries to get the green light, and then he opened the door and there she was. He dropped everything where he stood, including his coat and his laptop case. Despite imagining her every day, and sometimes using Skype, he’d forgotten vital things. How she always stood with her shoulders back, her head squarely on her shoulders. Dance lessons, maybe? He could ask. Not text.

It took three seconds for her to reach him.

He put his hands on the side of her neck so he could memorize the shades of brown in her eyes and watch the black of her pupils take over. The dimple on her nose. Damn it. He loved that dimple and he’d forgotten it. Probably because of her lips and the way they stopped him from thinking too much.

Her lips parted and neither one of them shut their eyes until they had to. He wanted to stay right there. Learn every single way it was possible to kiss Jenna, then start again, only rate the kisses in terms of her answering moans.

Someone somewhere laughed, but it didn’t concern him. The low voice telling them to get a room got through, though, and he shoved his stuff inside and then kicked the door shut, all without losing a beat.

* * *

JENNA FINALLY PULLED BACK, gently, reluctantly. She smiled at Rick and he smiled back as if they shared a secret. Coconspirators meeting in a hotel for a long weekend of nothing but sex and kissing and cuddling and room service and getting to know each other better. “Hi.”

Rick nodded, which was oddly sweet, and whispered, “Hi.”

“You came. I wasn’t sure until I saw you.”

“They’ll call me if something drastic happens at work.”

“I have no idea what you mean by that. Isn’t a tornado drastic by definition?”

“Sort of, depending on where it hits. There are hundreds of small tornadoes that cause no damage to property or people.”

She hadn’t taken her eyes off him as they stood in the little entryway just inside the room. “Okay. I’ll do my best to remember that, although, sorry, don’t mean to hurt your feelings or anything, but I don’t care. No idea why I brought it up. You’re here, and I get to touch you any way I want.”

“Yes, you do,” he said, right before he pressed his forehead to hers.

It certainly wasn’t the touch she’d expected, but after a few seconds it calmed her down, let her come back to the moment. Where had he learned to do that? She’d never have imagined how intimate it would be to connect like this.

Her stomach growled, and they both laughed.

“We should order something. Damn it,” he said. “My timing’s off. I wanted to slam the door behind me, rip off every stitch of clothing from your body and then ravish you on the bed. I imagined it the whole flight here. It was total caveman stuff.”

“I’m not that hungry.” She touched the side of his face with her thumb, the feel of him coming back to her in bursts. “You’re completely welcome to take—not rip—off my clothes, as long as you get naked, too.”

She grabbed the lapels of his jacket and started to walk backward. She’d practiced this, but he didn’t know that. He wasn’t the only one who’d thought about their first meeting since New Year’s weekend.

Stopping when the back of her legs hit the side of the bed, she kissed him before letting him go.

“I don’t think I can last another minute without seeing you naked.”

Jenna grinned. “You say that as if I’m going to object.”

“Okay, then,” he said, stripping off her short black sweater in a very smooth move. Then he started on the buttons of her white blouse. She couldn’t wait to see what he’d do with her skinny black jeans. Even she had trouble taking them off.

But the real kick for her was what he’d find underneath. A black-and-white polka-dot demi bra and matching thong. He liked thongs.