wanted, Ryan Walker went after, and blood was the only thing that could stop him.
2
RYAN WAS LOCKED on to the brunette beauty, not about to let her get past him without getting what he wanted, and that was a whole lot more than name, rank and serial number. That was, until she was intercepted.
“Sabrina!” Jennifer shouted, charging past him and into the path of his target. “You’re late,” she accused, chiding the woman who’d become the center of his attention. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
“You mean you thought I was a big ol’ chicken,” replied the woman, Sabrina. She followed the response with a laugh. It was a sexy, smoky sound that did nothing to take the edge off Ryan’s growing desire or the bulge beneath his zipper.
Jennifer’s hands went to her hips, her back to Ryan, her body irritatingly blocking his view of Sabrina. “We both know your tardiness means you almost pulled a no-show.”
Jennifer stepped a bit to her right, her arms still planted on those hips, and Ryan could see the flush spread across Sabrina’s ivory-perfect skin before she asked, “Was there a specific time I was supposed to be here? I thought you said Saturday…as in anytime today.”
“Don’t play coy with me,” Jennifer scolded instantly. “I said before two o’clock and you know it.”
Sabrina laughed, skipping any attempt at denial. “Okay, I almost talked myself out of coming,” she admitted. “I know I’m late.”
“Ah-huh,” Jennifer said. “That’s what I thought. And you secretly hoped it would be too late to jump. Well, you got your wish. Caleb is booked all afternoon.”
Ryan leaned one elbow on the counter and crossed his dusty, booted feet. To hell with house-hunting. “I’ll take her up,” he said in a lazy drawl that defied the outright molten heat charging through his body.
Sabrina glanced around Jennifer, her pale green eyes glinting like crystals as they slid down his body in a long, lingering inspection, before her gaze popped to his. “And you would be?” she inquired.
“A better choice than Caleb,” he assured her.
“Not for Sabrina,” Jennifer countered and gave him her back. “Ryan is a wild ride you don’t want any part of. Trust me. You want Caleb.”
FROM WHAT SHE’D SEEN of Ryan, Sabrina was pretty certain he was the man she wanted. But she also had a feeling this “wild ride” equaled a plate of poisoned food to a starving man—pleasure with a lethal endgame. Jumping out of a plane was enough of a dare, thank you very much. She didn’t need to add a hot cowboy with a rock-hard body and sultry, brown, bedroom eyes. Besides, it wasn’t as if she was chomping at the bit to jump to her death anyway.
“I can wait for Caleb,” she said. “No rush, anyway. I can always come back next weekend.”
A slow smile filled Ryan’s too-handsome face. “I’ll be easy with you, darlin’. I promise.”
He promises. Said the cat to the mouse, she thought cynically, but that didn’t stop her imagination from conjuring an image of her strapped to a parachute, with his front attached to her…er…backside. Oh, yeah, he was dangerous. In all kinds of ways.
“No, Ryan,” Jennifer said urgently, and shifted her attention to Sabrina. “Caleb is calm and controlled. He’ll be a pillar if you get scared.”
“I’m calm and controlled,” Ryan said.
Jennifer took a long glance at Ryan. “There is a reason you take up the experienced jumpers, and you know it.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Because I teach them that calm control doesn’t have to be boring. I push them to the edge rather than pull them back. I show them how to expand their limits.”
The words resonated through Sabrina and spoke to her deep beneath the surface. She already knew how to be calm and controlled. She’d spent a lifetime living just that. What she didn’t know how to do was be calm, controlled and daring at the same time. To live outside her safety zone. Ryan was more than the man she wanted. Ryan was the man she needed. “I’ll jump with Ryan.”
Jennifer started to object. “Sabrina—”
Sabrina gently touched her arm. “It’s okay,” she said in a low voice. “Really. I’m here, and honestly, if I leave, I may never do this. And it’s a good idea. It’s a good thing.”
“You’re sure?”
“Am I sure about jumping out of a plane?” Sabrina asked incredulously. “Of course not. But I can’t go through hours of convincing myself to go through with this again. Now or never.”
Jennifer looked as if she might argue and then grabbed Sabrina’s hand. “This way.”
Jennifer then tugged Sabrina toward the interior of the office. In her path stood Ryan, whom she passed with mere inches separating them. Ryan, who looked hotter and harder, upon closer inspection. And inspect she did, she lingered on his long, muscular thighs poured into tight denim that would no doubt be hugging her thighs in the very near future. Her mouth watered, and she jerked her attention upward, her gaze colliding with the only soft thing about Ryan—his brown eyes—the sizzle between them impossible to miss. She was, indeed, in for a wild ride, and amazingly, though she was scared, Sabrina realized something she couldn’t ignore. She was excited. She felt alive for the first time in years. She was doing something she’d never have dreamed of doing a few months ago. She was changing her life, but also pushing herself to experience the world.
Unfortunately, the path to experiencing that world led—at least for the moment—away from Ryan and into what looked like a classroom. Sabrina soon found herself sitting at one of six steel folding tables, signing liability paperwork. Lots of it. Suddenly, she forgot long, hard Ryan and thought of the long, hard fall she might take if her chute didn’t open.
“Okay,” Jennifer said, sitting next to her. “Last signature.” She pointed to the release form. “Sign here.” But then she pulled the paper away. “Or don’t. You can still change your mind.”
Sabrina grabbed the paper and signed. “You are so not helping, Jennifer. Have you forgotten this was your idea?”
“It was my idea to send you up with Caleb,” she said. “Not Ryan. Yes, he’s part owner, yes, but that’s not the point.”
“Then what is?”
Jennifer let out a sigh and shifted in the steel chair. “I pushed you into this. I don’t want you to have a bad experience. I want you to feel it was fun, and that it really did help you with the whole control-freak thing. And Caleb…he’s sensitive, patient. He’ll know if you’ve reached your limits. He’ll know to pull you back. Ryan doesn’t know limits. He’ll push you. Especially if he knows why you’re doing this.”
“I can handle Ryan,” Sabrina said. “And, truth be told, I have my reasons for choosing him.”
“Jenn,” came the deep, silky male voice, “call for you.”
Sabrina’s gaze lifted to directly across from them where Ryan filled the doorway with all kinds of hot male
