Hotshots (Wildfires Book 1) (8 page)

He smiled at the girl Stryker had been so proud of, and knew that his old friend would be grinning from ear to ear knowing that his kid had followed in his footsteps. “If you are as much of an adrenaline junkie as your old man, you’ll soon be as legendary as he was.”

She wanted to deny it, she wanted to tell Gibs that she was more cautious than her father had been, but why disillusion the man? She knew how to “set the chopper on a tree top” as Nix had said, but she wasn’t about to play the superhero, or anything close. She did love to fly, but that was not her only interest. Unlike her dad, she didn’t have that wild steak that made her want to push herself and her machine to the limits, and then push just a bit more each time.

They talked about her mother moving to Colorado and he promised to stop by once she settled and visit with her. Jez decided to get moving, and gave him a hug on her way out of the door. Ms. Prim-and-Proper was staring at her with narrow eyes, and she couldn’t resist sending the woman a little finger wave as she left the room. Quinn hadn’t been in the room or she would have said goodbye to the friendly woman.

All the way back she kept hearing Gibs telling her how Nix had kept her alive and given her mouth to mouth. It was a shame she didn’t remember those firm lips on hers, but with a little luck, she might find out how it felt to receive a real kiss from the handsome man sometime in the future. Now that she knew what he’d known all along, she needed to figure out how to deal with him.

He told her the proof would be in the doing, and she resolved to show him she wasn’t her father. She loved her dad, and nothing would ever take that from her. He told her many times he was happy she was a good mix of him and her mother because the world wasn’t ready for two of him, and they’d laughed together as he taught her some new maneuver that scared her, even as she mastered it under his critical eyes, and received praise for accomplishing the feat.

Jez decided to again attempt to resolve the trust issue with Nix. It bugged the hell out of her and she wanted to get it out of the way so they could form a good, solid working relationship and hopefully he would open his mind to the possibility that she was not her father.

After dinner, she went looking for him and saw him standing with Gray and Trystan. She could feel the tingles beginning from just watching the three men laughing and wondered how any woman stayed on a subject around the three of them together, let alone one at a time. It was a good thing she would be heading to bed after their talk, because her panties were being soaked with the fantasy that they were smiling at her.

Trys and Gray had made no secret of their interest in her, but neither man had made a move or asked her for a date beside the dinner bet with all three. Nix had made no secret of the fact he didn’t like her as a person, but he was attracted to her. It made her feel all girly when any of them made some comment about her being pretty, or complimented her on passing the day’s testing. Nix didn’t praise her, but the assessing look he often wore when he thought she couldn’t see, let her know he might not like her, but his eyes certainly did. She could almost laugh at the insecurities she had when she first came into the program. To these men, her scars didn’t seem to matter at all. Too bad a woman had to choose between men. She had heard of ménage couples, who hadn’t in this day and age? All she could think about that subject was ‘Lucky Bitch’, to have the guts to take on two men that loved her. She shook her head at the pictures floating through her mind. “Leave it to you to have to go one further and dream about all three of the men standing five feet away from where you are.”

The thought of being made love to by Trystan and Gray was last night’s inspiration for the self-induced orgasm she enjoyed in the shower before dinner. The only disruption to her fantasy had been a picture of Nix, and those golden brown eyes of his popping into the fantasy of having a man sucking her nipples and one licking her pussy. Imagining his hand tangled in her hair, urging her to suck his cock had shoved her over the edge and into the most intense orgasm she’d ever enjoyed on her own.

She hated to interrupt, but there was no way she would sleep with the issue of trust—lack of his trust—on her mind. She also owed him a long overdue thank you for saving her life that day. “You can do this, Jez, nothing to be worried about, just tell him that you know, and thank him. You can tell him about your dad and…” Dammit, she took a deep breath and walked over to the trio of men.

They seemed to have radar given the way they turned at the same time as she approached. Her ego got a boost from the varying looks from lust to blatant heat, and she had to smile. If only those looks wouldn’t dim if she chose one or the other of the men to take him up on the offer their eyes were making.

“Hi, guys, I need to have a chat with our fearless leader for a minute if you have time please?”

Nix was in a decent mood and was happy she had come to them, even if it was to talk serious shit. “Sure thing, what can I do for you, Jez?” He waved toward his companions. “Ignore them, they are so nosy they would be peeking around the corner or have a water glass to the door, so go ahead. What do you want to talk about?”

She hadn’t expected this, well, if that’s the way he wanted it. “I had a talk with someone at Headquarters today. He told me about what you did for me when…when the bird went down. I wanted to thank you for saving my life that day. I know it was routine for you, but it’s kind of a big deal for me and my mom, you were right, she needed me alive. So I, how do you tell the person that saved your life thank you? Words don’t seem to be adequate, but it’s all I have. Thank you.”

Nix figured sooner or later she would start asking questions concerning the crash, oddly he felt let down that she felt the need to say the words. Didn’t she know he gave all of the people listening on the com link plenty of reason to speculate about his feelings for her anatomy, and he didn’t even want to think about what he’d said about her old man?

He kept telling her how beautiful she was, even as her blood coated his torso and arms. He walked as fast as he could without jostling her body too much. Her beautiful long brown hair had wrapped itself around his neck and strands blew in his mouth as he kept her head cradled between his shoulder and neck. The shrapnel acted as its own pressure bandage, and he didn’t touch it.

Trys later told him about how he gave a description of her beauty and had speculated out loud about if she shaved everywhere because her skin was so smooth to touch. “
Damn, brotha’, I had a semi chubby listening to you telling her you would wait until she was awake to tell her how pretty her tits looked. That was about the time you panicked and gave her CPR, I thought you were gonna lose it when you started yelling at her to breathe.
”

When times were stressful, you talked until you were no longer coherent and then you spoke gibberish. Everyone had chalked it up to stress and his attempt to wake her or make her listen to his voice, keeping her responsive while he carried her through the dense brush and open spaces to safety.

What he’d never told anyone at the time was that she had curled her body into his like she belonged there. Her body kept moving, and it felt like she was rubbing her breasts over his suit to help with stimulating them. It was fucking awesome, if she’d been in her right mind and uninjured, he would have let the fire burn down every tree in the forest while he fucked her where they met.

“You are welcome, it was fortunate that you were alive to begin with, you were doing the hard part, I just needed to keep you breathing.”

They shared a smile, and she touched his arm when he began to back away from her. “I have one other thing to tell you, well two actually. The day was bright and sunny; Dad got the call while he was with me and I tagged along, it was reported as a small fire, no one told him the fire had spread so fast. As we approached, Dad kept tapping on his headgear and frowning, we had the same headgear, but his transmitted to mine, I never heard anything coming over the com link, neither did he, I am certain of it. I was told you thought he was disobeying directions again so he could come in hot and save the day as he was reputed to do too often for coincidence. So you see, he wasn’t to blame for the accident; the communication gear was the problem.

“There is something else you should know, I am not a daredevil like my father. I can do the fancy stuff, yes, and I can do it well, but I don’t take chances just because I think my way is better, I might question a decision, but I follow orders. If I take the bird up on my own time, and something makes me want to practice some maneuver, I will do it then, not at work.”

She waited until he nodded, then turned sideways looking around his body, and waved at the other two men, before walking back to the kitchen to make sure everything would be there for breakfast the next morning. She also planned to haul Keely’s ass out of the bedroom to help. If nothing else, she could learn to scramble eggs.

They thought they could just take people’s dreams and crush them. Who the hell did they think they were? To make it into the training alone was an accomplishment, but when you were cut, it went on your record and everyone looked at it. Why did you get cut? Was it too hard? On and on the questions will go and no one will ever hire someone who was cut from this program. It was bullshit, we knew more about fire than anyone.

Fire was real, fire was consuming, and fire was the only thing that would ease their pain. For this reason they needed to understand that cutting someone from the program who was intimately aware of the effects of fire… Well they were going to find out firsthand how fire will affect them. Then they will be sorry not to have trusted them, they were the masters of the flame, no one knew more about it than they did.

Ever since they were children fire had called to them. It took their family, it was unrelenting and vicious, and until they were older, they would never understand why they were chosen.

“Come on, we have to hurry. They said they were going up the gondola, we need to make sure everything is ready for them or they will never understand.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course, you saw them and how they reacted to us. They think we are weak and we don’t know what is going on, we have to show them.”

“Maybe we can get on another team.”

“No, it has to be this one, you know why.”

Jez looked in the mirror and frowned. Yeah, she hadn’t brought any clothes to wear to go out to dinner. Keely lay on the bed watching her as she looked in the mirror at herself.

“I wish I would look that good in a pair of jeans and a flannel,” Keely sighed and Jez turned around quickly and frowned at the woman.

“I am pretty sure you look better than I do. Hell, why they asked me is even confusing. I mean, look at you,” Jez said and waved to her friend.

She knew she was right, Keely was fucking gorgeous, and she was like a cross between a Freddy Kruger and Cabbage Patch Doll. Seriously, she could be the Bride of Chucky. Not that she cared, but still.

Keely stood and walked to her, turning her around so she was facing the mirror again. “Okay, time for a little reality here, chiquita. Look at you.”

“Uh I am,” Jez said and rolled her eyes.

“Okay, let me tell you what I see. You have gorgeous eyes; semi-long thick natural dark brown hair, a rocking body that fills out the jeans to perfection. I mean if I swung that way I would be all over your ass. As it is, you are competition and need to get with the guys so all the other men stop whacking off to the thoughts of you when we go into town.” Keely smiled.

“Please,” Jez said, turning around. “You are beautiful and you know it.”

Keely shrugged, “Shit, we are both hotties, more than spanking the monkey material, so get on with it so I can get on with it and make this shit entertaining up here at least. Next weekend it is girls’ night in town. I need a break from all this Alpha male bullshit. I need to find me a nice quiet dude who will pander to my every whim and worship the ground I walk on.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Jez smiled.

Keely looked seriously at her. “Yes.”

Jez shook her head. “Yeah well, I am pretty sure the guys on our crew are nothing like that. More like Cro-magnon men in disguise.”

“Yeah they are a bit manly,” Keely agreed. “But still, to be in a plural relationship they have to be a bit more free thinking than some of the other duds, I mean dudes, around here.”