Big Bad Easy (18 page)

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Chapter One

Kirsten Tanner expected to celebrate her new job hoisting a drink, maybe two, with her best friend, Suzy. The host of flyboys laughing and smiling in the bar didn’t figure into her plans. She did live in the coastal city of Pensacola, Florida, that housed the Navy base where all the basic flight training began, and you couldn’t go to any bar with music without seeing a pack of men sporting close-cropped hair. Except tonight, she’d wanted the clink of glasses over a gourmet meal to mark the special occasion.

Marine and naval officers had filled her life lately.
Damn
,
I’m so done with them.
Yet, Suzy had arranged to meet these guys, and Kristen knew she needed a night on the town. She regarded them from where she stood waiting to pay the cover charge. Alluring? Men so sleek, shiny, and filled with bravado ensured a yes from her. Ready for a fling? If she asked them, she’d get a very loud yes. With her? Are you kidding? She refused to acknowledge that a single woman, finally swinging her leg out of the pit of an overwhelming situation, needed a romp with a younger man.

Over the music of a 80s band, Kirsten told her friend just that. “I know you meant well, but forget it.”

“Forget those hot studs?” Suzy shook her head for emphasis before wiggling her fingers at her boyfriend who stood in the middle of the guys waiting at the back of the long room that pulsed with bass and bodies dancing. “No way. Plus, they’re lonely, just like you.”

Kirsten prevented Suzy from walking with a grip on her arm. “I’m not lonely. I’m a woman who’s trying to sail smooth waters after a really rough year. You should have warned me. I’m not even dressed for this.” She wanted to turn around, walk out the door into the chill of the January night. She’d let the breeze that blew in from the bay calm her and maybe take her back to the days when she would have jumped at the chance to dance with a flight student. Back to the time when she did, but not to the moment when one of them crushed her heart.

“Not on this night. No backing down from this is allowed. None. We do this celebration right, with music, a cocktail, and men. It’s not every day that you become a real professor. Please? Be that person you used to be. I know she’s in there.”

How many times had Kirsten challenged herself to do just that? Too many to count, and she hated that she hadn’t discovered the right mix of emotions to do it consistently. Why not experiment with it tonight? Her shoulders slumped with a sigh before squaring. “Okay. Just don’t get wedding bells and baby blankets in your head if I decide to like one.”

“I won’t, and I’m well aware of you being firmly on your career path. Husband optional and kids never.” At least Suzy didn’t roll her eyes like she usually did when they discussed life plans.

Kirsten eyed the flight of pilots with their closely cropped hair. “I’m not going to waste time going through all of them. Just tell me which one is best for me. And, I only, only, only mean talking or dancing.”

Suzy clapped her hands in a flutter. “Love you. Love this strength. Go for Duff. He’s a big guy, dark hair, and he’s older than the others. In the green shirt with his back to us. Eric said this one is perfect for you.”

Nausea gripped her insides and twisted. A twinge of excitement shot through her. Could it be him? She couldn’t see much detail about the men from where she stood. “What did you say his name was?”

Suzy leaned closer. “Duff. It’s a nickname. I think.” She tugged on Kirsten’s elbow.

Kirsten held her ground, whirled her friend around, and hid behind a slender post. How many Duffs could there be in the world that were also tall and happened to be in a city with aviators? “Wait. I think I know him.” She neglected to add that she knew him intimately, like backseat of the car knew him.

Suzy waved her off with swish of her hand. “There’s no way. You never go out. How would you know him?”

“He’s a Marine.” Kirsten shouted next to Suzy’s head.

“Yeah, they’re all jarheads.”

Sometimes, she wanted to smack her roommate, but she gave her the benefit of the doubt due to the loudness of the music. “I’m saying I know him from before because he is a Marine. From way back. Way, way back.”

“That’s possible. He’s a major. Teaching flight school.” Suzy kept looking at the back of the room. “My guy says he’s a major hard ass.”

Fabulous, sculpted ass that she used to love holding as he thrust into her pussy. Kirsten cleared her head of the memories of their sexual encounters. “Helicopters? Does he fly helicopters?” Her stomach flipped as she remembered her past where she dated only men who flew fast and furious machines. That had led to her recent resolution—no military men, ever. She was determined to settle in one place to build a career.

“Yes. He’s looking this way. No more hiding.”

A familiar face assaulted her eyes when she glanced to where Suzy gestured. The muscles in her legs went slack, and she had to lean on the post. “I can’t go back there.” She’d dressed for an evening out with Suzy, not to see an ex-boyfriend. That required higher heels, different makeup, and tighter clothes. She’d gone with a loose top over a simple pencil skirt. That didn’t scream successful woman who had done just fine without him. Thank you very much.

“Dammit, Kirsten. So you know him. Big deal. Say hi. Get a drink. Dance. Then you can go home and over think the night. Just wear earplugs. I’m bringing one home.”

Kirsten hadn’t ever said much about the time with Duff to Suzy or to anyone. Most of her friends thought she’d done the loving and leaving of the older flight student who’d made her summer and the year after interesting. They’d filled their days playing on the beach, being lovey-dovey in the water, partying with his buddies to the strains of steel drum music with a happy beat, and following up by fucking each other senseless. When he left, he took a part of her with him. Eleven years had erased a lot of pain, but that particular spot on her heart had yet to heal. She couldn’t tell Suzy the whole story here, with the music and the people and the dim lights.

“He’s an ex.” Kirsten ignored the part about the earplugs. Their rooms were on opposite ends of the house.

“Good ending?”

“No.” She sighed at the understatement. She’d been on the losing end of love ’em and leave ’em fast.

“Then get revenge by enjoying yourself with one of the young’uns. You can be a cougar for the night. Or, even better, show him how you’ve gotten over him with revenge sex. You’re good at exorcising your demons that way. Maybe I’ll be the one trying to drown out the sound.” Suzy patted her shoulder and danced her way through the crowd.

Kirsten swallowed. She willed her feet to move. They stayed. Inside, she felt like a teenager, not the thirty-one-year-old assistant chemistry professor. With a wince, she considered Suzy’s advice. Sex had been cathartic for her, a way to deal with roiling emotions. To say she needed that now was an understatement. She had to get these exploding emotions bottled back up. So she did the one thing that she couldn’t have done when she first met Duff—get a drink. She dodged the dancers on the way to the polished oak bar with miniature hot air balloons hanging above it.

Right as the bartender moved her way, she felt a hand on her back. “She used to like banana daiquiris, but I’m thinking wine is more her thing now.”

That voice. No mistaking the light Boston accent interlaced with the Southern drawl he’d acquired while living in Florida. She used to love hearing him telling her to come for him. “I want to hear you, baby. Let it out,” he used to say.

Damn
. Her mind was going in all the wrong directions. She didn’t want to think of his chest lightly covered with light brown curls or of his tight ass. “Beer. Something on the dark side.” She ignored the man behind her, although her nipples were doing the opposite, tightening at the mere sound of his voice. Actual pain stabbed at her chest when she realized she’d become wet. She placed a hand over her heart. Soon enough, she’d have to turn around to say hello to John Duffy, the first man she’d loved and lost. She pushed back her hair and wished that she’d not let it become the darker blonde that age demanded. If she could only push back the hands of time to her sun-streaked hair from hours on the beach, back to the moments when she thought he loved her.

“Make that two.”

She could even smell him despite the press of people in the club. He never wore cologne and had a thing for a particular soap that smelled like the air after a spring rain. His arm brushed hers as he leaned on the bar and, even though the thin fabric of her shirt, her skin prickled. She used to love putting her hands on his biceps, and she wanted to do that now. His muscles had always managed to bulge just enough to make him manly, but not so much that she thought him a mindless pretty boy. From the glance she managed without turning her head, he hadn’t let his body age much, at least not the arms.

“Kirsten.” Even that hadn’t changed. He’d always been a man of few words.

“Duff.” She faced him. The same strong jaw, dotted with a day’s stubble, jutted from his handsome face with the nose that some might think too long. She bit her lip at his still broad shoulders and the arms that appeared to be larger than before. Memories of rubbing her breasts across the short hairs of his high and tight haircut brought more wetness spreading between her legs. Some celebration this was turning out to be. She wished she hadn’t agreed to a night out, new job or not. Nothing had prepared her for confronting Duff.

Memories of kisses in the breeze on a beach came unbidden at just the sight of the smile on his lips. Feelings deeper than any others she’d experienced swept across her brain. They’d had beautiful moments of joy, romping on the beach, standing by the bay watching trains rumble beside them, and all of it ended in pain like a kick to her gut. She hoped none of these thoughts, either of happiness or anguish, transferred to her face.

“It’s great to see you again. How are you?” His smile caused her heart to flutter. She made herself remember his casual wave as she left his house that last time and how she’d fought the tears for all the miles of road between their houses.

“Good,” she lied. As her heart palpitated against her ribs, she constructed the mask she wore at any social gathering. Happy, fine, normal, it read.

“Are you here visiting?” He had a few more lines around his deep brown eyes and a scar at his temple, yet his handsome face touched a nerve that longed to feel his heated breath upon her neck as he pumped furiously inside her.

“No, I live here now. Job promotion.” She scratched her fingers instead of letting them trace the path of a vein on his arm. It used to lead her to his shoulder, then his chest where she’d follow the hair down his stomach to his…She shook her head to clear the thoughts. “We’re celebrating.” She pointed to Suzy, who danced with Eric.

“Congratulations.” He slid money to the bartender when he delivered the drinks to them. “A toast to you. You want to move to a quieter place? We could catch up.” He looked hopeful as brown eyes bore into hers. She looked for a ring. None.

What good would telling him about her life do? What would it change? Nothing. Gone was the romantic past and the ideals of having children as they moved from base to base every three years. She’d matured into a woman who realized the benefit of staying in one place to develop a career. Today, she had a house, her father’s estate to close, and a job that promised a real future. She wouldn’t risk falling into a funk again when it was time for him to leave.

He wouldn’t be allowed to know any of that. She refused to be weak and melt for him. Suzy had urged her to be the party girl of the past, so Kirsten pasted that party persona on the outside as her heart cried for what she once lost.

The music carried her away as she said, “I’m here to celebrate, not to reminisce.” She wouldn’t do it. He’d not get the chance to hurt her again, because she knew, in no time she’d be right back in love with him and in his bed. That wouldn’t do at all.

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