‘This way’s best, believe me. For now, at least.’ He shouldn’t be teasing her, but pleasure surged through him when her lips curved at his suggestive comment.
Their gazes met, locked. Her eyes mirrored the bright blue of the New Zealand summer sky outside the Cessna’s windows. Something passed between them, invisible, chemical, and his heartbeat raced. A tingle began between his shoulder blades and descended all the way down his spine.
Then she lowered her long lashes, breaking the spell, and Garth frowned. What was he doing? True, a soft female bottom tucked against the groin would make most guys harden faster than quick-set concrete, let alone a man who hadn’t taken a woman to bed for an ice age. But even though he did tandem parachute jumps for a living, and strapped himself to the fairer sex anything up to a dozen times a week, he rarely gave the intimate position a thought.
He was happy to admit he missed the regular sex a relationship brought. But the emotional baggage he carried after Jess’s death meant he hadn’t even looked at another woman in ages. Why had this one affected him so much?
He watched her examine her shaking hands. She’d braided her long hair back, although a few wisps softened her hairline. Before they’d got on the plane, her skin had held a healthy tan like most young Kiwi women, a stark contrast to the pale skin of the girls he’d grown up with in Seattle, although now the colour had drained from her face.
He tipped his head to the side, studying her high cheekbones and straight nose, and smiled as she chewed her bottom lip. That was another reason why he’d reacted to her words. In spite of her attempt at humour, her anxiety was palpable. The urge to alleviate it had risen inside him instinctively.
He admired the way she was trying to cover her fear. He’d jumped with hundreds of people over the past year and had witnessed every gamut of emotion from exhilaration to fake bravado to downright terror. Chloe didn’t quite register at the bottom of the scale, but she wasn’t far from it. Her face now matched the whiteness of the clouds scudding outside, and she shook in her thick yellow jumpsuit.
He forced his mind away from the press of her between his thighs and the softness of her throat inches from his lips, and tried to concentrate. Now wasn’t the time to get distracted. He had to remember, ‘safety before sex’.
Smiling at the catchphrase, he checked all the clips connecting his harness to hers. Then he went over them again. Bottom left, bottom right, top left, top right. And again. ‘You’re all clipped in, Chloe. Check with me, okay?’
‘Okay.’ She lifted her right hand, and he moved it to either side of her waist and then to each shoulder. She tugged the clips with long, elegant fingers. An image popped into his head of that hand stroking his body and closing around him.
Jeez. He had to stop thinking about sex for five seconds.
He cleared his throat. ‘All secure. Are you happy?’
‘Right now I’m too terrified to be happy.’ Her forehead glistened with sweat and panic filled her eyes.
He sighed. Damn it. Another mule. Sometimes customers got all the way to the door before they dug their heels in and refused to jump. It didn’t occur as often as he’d expected when he first set up the business. In fact, it had only happened to him twice, and both times he’d managed to talk the person into jumping. They’d thanked him afterward, but he’d much rather have the sort of passenger who didn’t balk.
He understood why most people suffered from nerves before throwing themselves out of a flying metal box with a tiny piece of fabric to hold them up. But being nervous and being petrified weren’t the same thing, and Chloe obviously fit into the second category. He frowned as her chest rose and fell noticeably with her rapid breathing. Why leap out of a plane if the very thought of it terrified her?
His first ever jump remained clear in his mind, but he had no memory of terror or panic, only elation at the thought of freefalling into the clear blue. He still got that buzz every time he leaped out the door, which was the main reason he kept doing it. Because the second his feet left the safety of the plane was the only moment he actually felt anything nowadays.
Or it had been, until he met Chloe. His skin prickled as he recalled the heated look they’d exchanged. But he blinked and forced his mind away from the thought of taking it further. He shouldn’t be thinking about sex. Chloe shook visibly, and he had to reassure her and make this as pleasurable an experience as possible.
He rested his hands on her upper arms and rubbed them through the long sleeves of the jumpsuit. In late January – the height of the New Zealand summer – the temperature read in the mid-twenties on the ground, but at this altitude the air had a distinct bite to it.
‘Are you cold?’ he asked.
‘N-no.’ She shivered in spite of her denial.
He continued to rub her arms, lending her the warmth of his body, and glanced at Andy sitting opposite them, who’d be skydiving with them to video her jump. Andy raised an eyebrow, presumably to query whether she’d go through with it. Garth shrugged in return.
‘You okay there, little lady?’ His tone was gentle, comforting. ‘Won’t be long now, and then it’ll be time to go. No more waiting.’ The anticipation was the worst part for most people.
She nodded and swallowed, but didn’t reply.
He tipped his head to look at her profile again and tried to think of something to say to reassure her. ‘I’ve done this hundreds of times. Don’t worry – everything will go like clockwork.’
She closed her eyes. The pulse beat frantically in her throat. She gnawed on her bottom lip again and continued to shake in his arms.
He had to distract her or she’d be unable to move off the bench. ‘Why do you smell of chocolate?’ He’d been wondering since she first sat in front of him.
She opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder at him again, eyebrows raised. Then she released her plump bottom lip from between her teeth and smiled. ‘I’m a chocolatier.’ She sniffed the back of her hand. ‘I guess the smell must have seeped into my skin. Like when a person works in a fish and chip shop.’
The mention of chocolate made him think of Nick Stewart, owner of Cocoa Heaven, the confectionary shop in the nearby town of Paihia. Garth’s stomach twisted as he thought of the man who’d taken his wife. Bile rose in his throat, and he closed his eyes. He wouldn’t reflect on that now. Making a jump demanded absolute concentration. Unlike Stewart, he would not be responsible for another person’s death.
He opened his eyes. Chloe was looking at him. Concentrating on her might help take his mind off the man.
He lost himself for a moment in her eyes. They really were a beautiful deep blue, his favourite colour. He liked anything that reminded him of the sky…of freedom.
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. His gaze slid to her mouth, and she inhaled. The air between them crackled with sexual electricity, and his heart raced again. Bad idea, Rowland. Jumping with a hard-on would probably affect wind resistance. Plus it seemed impolite to strap himself to a customer and then press his erection into her butt.
He opted for a light-hearted attempt at conversation. ‘Chocolate’s a much nicer smell than fish and chip grease.’ The warm aroma of cocoa with a bite of ginger filled his nostrils. ‘You’re making me hungry.’
‘And you’re trying to distract me.’ An impish smile lit her face.
He grinned. ‘Maybe just a little.’
Andy signalled him, and Garth squeezed her arms. ‘Okay, Chloe. We’re at nearly fourteen thousand feet. Are you ready?’
She nodded. ‘I can do this.’ She said the words aloud, but the unfocused look in her eyes told him she was talking to herself. ‘I am brave, whatever he says. Screw you Ethan, you bastard. I can totally do this.’
So she was proving herself to a guy. Fair enough. His admiration for her grew. ‘Come on, honey.’ He pushed her to her feet and wrapped his left arm around her waist. ‘We’ll show him how much courage you have.’
Excerpt from New Year’s Kisses by Rhian Cahill
Emily Warner threw another skirt back into her closet and cursed Wade Johnson. The man had her questioning every decision she’d ever made right down to the clothes in her wardrobe. Indecision was not her thing. She was a take-charge-get-it-done kind of woman. Except when it came to Wade. Her shoulders drooped and her head fell forward as all the air left her chest. How had one man managed to shake her confidence with such profound effect? If only she hadn’t needed that favour. But she couldn’t put on a Christmas concert for the children without a Santa. Refusing his offer of help to avoid a date hadn’t seemed fair.
She’d met Wade months ago, their attraction mutual and obvious, but Em had a five year plan and nowhere was there mention of a man, least of all one who made her stomach drop and her mind wander through a white picket fence and down the garden path. With her plan firmly in place, she’d rejected every advance he made in the hope he’d give up and move on to greener, more amenable pastures. She should have known better. A man like Wade couldn’t be brushed aside so easily. He was like a dog after a bone and now that he’d finally sunk his teeth into her, she doubted either of them would come out unscathed.