Up in Flames (Crash and Burn, Book Two) (A Military Romance)

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© 2016 by Favor Ford Publishing

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T
his bar is packed
. I sip my beer and scan the crowd to get a feel for the bar’s vibe. My brother should pay me overtime for the recon work.

“So when are your friends showing up?” my buddy Dave asks as he settles onto the barstool against the wall. We got here early enough to snag the corner of the room with the pool table and a small table for resting our drinks and snacks. Dave shoves a handful of chips in his mouth and chews. Despite being a stereotypical tall, dark, and handsome man, with angled facial features and a muscled body, he’s not one to put on any airs. Dave’s as casual as they come.

I glance at my watch. “Should be anytime now.” There’s a vibe of anticipation that’s been in my gut all day. I’m anxious. I know Lauren’s been avoiding talking to me, so I’m hoping having some chill-out time tonight will ease her nerves.

Has she been thinking about what happened two nights ago as much as I have? If I close my eyes and sink back into that moment, I can still taste her. I make myself push that mental image out of my head. I can’t sport wood all night. Gotta play it cool, take my time.

It’s been hard as hell to not pursue her after having my mind blown by her sexual reception to me, but I know my friend. She needs her space, and I don’t want to push her away. So I’ve backed off.

Tonight should give me guidance on how to proceed. To suss out how she feels now that she’s had time to reflect. But even more importantly, just to be around her, soaking in the warmth of her smile.

A few more minutes pass before I see Lauren and her sister, Christina, trailed by a blond wearing a super-tight black dress, work their way through the crowd toward us. My heart hammers in response to Lauren’s approach. I barely notice the other two women, because my eyes are locked on her.

All these years, and she still has the power to blow me away, to steal my breath. She’s wearing a pair of faded jeans that are molded to her legs. Her off-shoulder blood-red shirt cups her breasts, hugs her waist. Her glorious red hair is down around her shoulders, free, begging for me to bury my fingers in their depths.

Her eye makeup is smoky and makes her look beyond sexy. Fuck, I want to suck that lower lip into my mouth, touch her pussy again… Shit, there goes my cock. This might be harder than I thought.

When she reaches us, I dart my hand out to grab hers and tug her into my arms for a hug. My excitement at having her near means it takes a moment for me to realize she’s a bit too stiff in my arms.

I pull away and eye her. “Hey, kitten. How was your day? Have fun shopping?”

She gives me a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. My heart hammers harder. “Fine, thanks.”

“Cole!” Christina says with a squeaky laugh. She dives into my arms, and I chuckle and hug her. “I’m so glad you’re home.”

Lauren’s fake smile wavers and she turns away from us, scouring the crowd.

The blond waits until Christina extracts herself from me before reaching a hand out and giving me a handshake. “Patricia. Glad to meet you. Christina offered to let me crash the party, since my plans for tonight fell through—hope that’s okay.” Her eyes are smoky too, and her red lips are pursed in perfect flirtiness. She looks over at Dave, and I can practically see the shift in her body. She extracts her hand from mine and steps toward him. “And you are…”

Dave’s helpless to resist a beautiful blond. The charm comes on full force, and he flashes her a toothy grin. “I’m Dave.” His thumb strokes her flesh as he holds her hands for about an hour too long. “Can I buy you a drink?”

And there it is. I shake my head and give a good-natured laugh. Dave’s gonna have a great night, I can tell.

Lauren and Christina are whispering to each other, and the latter’s eyes drift to me. There’s a strange tension between them, something about their body language making me uneasy. Did Lauren tell her what happened? Is she ashamed of it?

It’s hard to keep my cool when on the inside I feel so shaky, but I hold on to it, take a draw from my beer. The bartender comes around, and the ladies order beers and a round of shots for us all. I wasn’t planning on getting loaded tonight, and I’m tempted to wave it off, but Christina shoots me those cute little puppy eyes and I can’t resist making Lauren’s sister happy, so I grudgingly give in.

Dave and Patricia play a friendly game of pool. And by friendly, I mean they basically find every chance to touch or be near each other. I can’t help but feel irritated, and I know it’s only because I want to do the same with Lauren. But after that shitty hug, she’s basically keeping her distance from me.

My pride stings like a bitch. This isn’t how I thought tonight would go.

I steel myself and start to walk toward her. Maybe I can pull her aside, make her talk to me. Clearly Wednesday night is haunting her, and she regrets what happened. The stiffness in her back, the way she keeps staring at her sister while avoiding eye contact with me…I feel like a third wheel. Or rather, a fifth.

“Another round of shots?” Christina says in a loud tone.

Lauren starts to shake her head, but Christina shoots her a pleading glance. When she caves and shrugs, Christina claps her hands and darts off to the bar, getting a couple of appreciative looks from guys as she goes.

“Haven’t seen your sis in ages,” I start off to help break the tension.

“She didn’t send you any pics of herself? In your email exchanges with her, I mean.”

I frown. “No, why would she?”

“Just curious.” Lauren inclines her head toward her sis at the bar. “She was happy to go out tonight. Thanks for inviting us. Work has been crazy for her lately, and she needed to relax.”

And what about you?
I want to ask. Does Lauren need to relax too?

My hand has a will of its own, and I find myself reaching out to cup her shoulder. Not in a sexual way, but more to comfort. The heat of her skin pours into mine, and my thumb strokes the soft flesh. “Christina’s always been a friend to me, so it’s a no-brainer. It’s good to be able to make plans with you, though. I missed that when I was away.”

“Me too,” she admits, and some of the stiffness in her body eases. We’re moving back into that comfortable friend zone. God help me, I both love and hate it. But I push my disappointment away, because right now, she needs to find her footing.

As I try to find a way to broach the subject of Wednesday night, Christina comes back, hands loaded down with shots. I reach over to help take a couple. We distribute them, and I notice Dave’s already caressing Patricia’s hip as he tugs her to his side. Dude works fast.

We swallow the shots down, and the music in the background changes to an upbeat dance song with a thudding bass. All three girls start shaking their asses and cluster in a circle the way girls do when they’re buzzed and dancing. Dave sidles over to me, unable to stop staring at Patricia’s ass.

“Patricia’s fucking hot,” he says, and I can hear the raw appreciation pouring from his voice over her hotness. It makes me laugh in response. “She told me if I beat her in pool best two out of three, she’d come home with me tonight. She won the first game, though—gonna make me work for it, I can see. Apparently she’s some kind of amateur pool shark.” He grins. “Totally worth it.”

A pool bet. I wonder if that would work with Lauren. Not to bribe her into something sexual, though fuck, I would love that, but to get her focused on something outside of her awkwardness and just…relax. As chicken as she is sometimes, she also has this strange competitive streak. Any time I challenged her to race me on the way to school, she ran balls out, giving it everything she had.

My brain stalls when I see Lauren run her hands through her hair, shimmying her hips, eyes closed, lips parted. So sexy. My cock stirs at the sight of her beauty, her sheer sensuality. God, I want her with a strength that almost scares me. I can’t stop thinking about her grinding against me on Wednesday, her pussy pressing toward my hungry mouth, my fingers stroking her channel…

I blink and pull myself out of that dangerous line of thought. Christina, beer in hand, is looking at me, and her cheeks burst into a delicate pink blush as she cocks a brow in my direction. Shit, totally busted staring. I laugh and shrug to play off the intensity of my attention toward their group, and I see her mouth twitch. Then she turns her focus back to dancing, wiggling her hips and shaking her boobs.

Christina downs that beer in record time and dumps the empty on a nearby table. Her glazed eyes and increasingly swaying movements make me concerned, combined with the awkward looks she keeps throwing my way as they dance. Is she unhappy about me having feelings for Lauren and uncomfortable with me now? Her email correspondence when I was overseas was always light and brief, but it was nice hearing from her time to time and having the reminders of home. We never talked about anything serious, keeping the conversation to trivialities. Perhaps she doesn’t think I’m right for her sister? Should I be making a better effort for her to get to know me? I don’t know what to think, and I’m confused.

Dancing ends, and we resume our grouping, with casual conversation about nothing in particular. Lauren stands by me; we watch in silence as Dave and Patricia battle it out on the pool table for a while. They’re tied and playing their last game now.

“You and I are next,” I tell her quietly. Her sweet perfume wafts to me, and it’s so hard to not close my eyes and lean toward her to breathe her in.

She gives a low chuckle. I’m glad to see she’s not as rigid as she was earlier. Either the liquor is easing things up, or she’s growing more comfortable with me. Come to think of it, she’s only done those two shots tonight—she hasn’t even finished her first beer, and she doesn’t seem drunk. Hope blooms in my chest.

“I’ve been practicing, you know,” Lauren says, her tone cocky. “Get ready to be schooled in the art of pool.”

“I look forward to it,” I murmur. I shift just a touch so my arm brushes hers, to see what her reaction is.

She gives very little away, not moving her body, but I hear her breath hitch a fraction, and her lips press together.

Victorious pleasure surges in me. Lauren’s fucking aware of me sexually and she’s unable to hide her own response. Not all the way, anyway.

Dave leans down and calls his final shot, eight ball in the side pocket. He nails it and pumps a fist in the air, then turns to Patricia and leans against the table, a cocky grin covering his face. “I won.”

“Yes,” she purrs as she steps toward him, raking a fingernail down his chest. Her eyes are hooded and clearly filled with undisguised desire, and I see Lauren freeze at my side as she watches them. “You won. Guess I’ll have to…pay up.”

Then his mouth is on hers, and they’re entangled in the corner, kissing.

Lauren rips her gaze away from them, a pretty pink flush riding high on her cheeks. Her focus shifts to my chest, then slides toward my eyes, and her pupils are dilated. Her chest is rising and falling. Yeah, she’s thinking about me right now—I can see it all over her face, the way she’s staring at me with that intimate familiarity that comes from previous sexual encounters. She’s thinking about that night and she’s turned on.

My cock is so hard it hurts; it twinges in my jeans, and I’m sure if she looked down she could see how hot I am for her. I take a step toward her, and she shudders, licks her lips.

“I…feel kinda sick,” Christina interjects, pushing between us. She turns to Lauren and exhales, and Lauren cringes at the puff of boozy breath on her face. “I’m gonna…” Her face pinches and she staggers to the women’s bathroom about twenty feet away.

“Shit,” Lauren says, and gives me an apologetic smile. “I should make sure she’s not going to puke everywhere. She drank a lot more tonight than she usually does.”

“Is she okay?”

Lauren’s eyes shutter. “She’s fine,” she replies coolly, then follows Christina to the bathroom.

The girls are gone for several minutes, and Dave is practically impregnating Patricia, so I stand there and rack the balls, then sip my beer, unsure what to do. If Christina isn’t well, I should take her home. Maybe Lauren will hang around and wait for me—Christina’s place is only about fifteen minutes away, I believe.

When they emerge from the bathroom, Christina looks green around the gills. “I…wanna go home,” she says on a sigh, frowning. “Sorry. Ugh. It’s been a hard week.”

“Totally fine. I can take you if you like,” I offer.

Dave unlatches from Patricia’s mouth, traces of her red lipstick smeared on his lips. Patricia moves her attention toward nuzzling his neck. “No, I got it,” he says. “We’re gonna take off anyway, so we can drop Christina on our way out.” His hand darts around Patricia’s waist possessively.

“I don’t mind taking her home,” Lauren protests, “but thank you guys.”

My stomach sinks. Fuck. I don’t want her to go, not when I feel like we’re finally getting somewhere.

Christina leans in and whispers in Lauren’s ear. Since she’s drunk, her whispering is loud, and I can hear snippets of words, like “bad impression” and “help” and “nervous.” Lauren nods, her face tight.

Then Christina grabs her purse and moves to Dave. “A ride home would be great, thank you.”

They leave the bar a minute later, Patricia with her arm looped though Christina’s. Lauren and I watch them go. I’m dying to ask what the fuck is going on, but I’m nervous about Lauren freezing up on me again, like she did before she followed her sister into the bathroom.

She sighs and fidgets with a strand of hair. “I should probably go too.” I can hear the edge of reluctance in her tone, though.

I make a split-second decision and turn to stand in front of her. We’re not touching, but given the electricity zinging between us, we might as well be. Both of us are charged, aroused, and it’s crackling in the air. “If you want to head out, that’s fine,” I tell her. “But you owe me a game of pool first.”

I can see the indecision in her eyes. She’s weighing the dangers of being alone with me versus the safety of retreating to her home. I stretch a hand out and stroke the flesh of her inner wrist, and her breath gives that sexy little hitch again.