“Em?”
Emerson turns to me, her face a startle of shock, hair pulled back in a bun, and there are circles under her eyes. The minute she sees me, she begins to walk the other way.
“Emerson,” I call after her and then jog to catch up.
“I don’t have time for you,” she says as she shakes her head and picks up her pace. “I’ve been gone for a few days, and I need to get caught up for the owners so that it’s in good shape for any potential buyers.”
“What?” My gut twists. “You didn’t get the loan?” Here I am being an asshole, thinking all of this was brought on by me, and it had to do with her not getting the loan. It has to do with her losing her dream.
“I don’t know if I did. It doesn’t matter. I’m pulling my application.”
What the flying fuck?
“What are you talking about?”
It’s the first time she stops walking and turns to face me. “I’m a gypsy, Grant. I don’t stick around. I get antsy and need to move on. It’s obvious I can’t trust my judgment anymore . . . I mean look at me . . .” She laughs. “I’m a twenty-eight-year-old woman trying to buy a skydiving school with money I don’t have. I make rules that I never keep. I sleep with you then run away. I cut myself when I promised myself I was never going to again. I mean . . . who is going to put their trust in me to teach them to skydive, repay a loan, or live a normal life when I can’t even trust myself anymore?” There’s hysteria ringing in her voice, and the resignation from it is reflected in her expressionless eyes. “I have to get back to work.”
And without another word, she turns on her heel and jogs toward the office and the comfort of company to prevent me from making a scene.
Panic hits me like a battering ram.
She can’t leave me.
She’s fucking crazy if she thinks I’m going to let her walk away and out of my life without a fight.
I guess it’s time to make a scene.
“Hey, Reeves,” I say as she pushes the door open. I follow her in, and Leo looks up from his desk, his eyes darting between Em and me as he leans back in his chair, watching the show. “Take me up.”
It takes everything I have not to sound like I’m choking the words out, but I know the fear currently coursing through my body has nothing on how I’d feel if I lost her again.
“What?” she says as she makes a show of slowly turning around, brow narrowed, confusion morphing into surprise. “What did you just say?”
“I said I’m cashing in my gift certificate. Take me skydiving.”
“But you’re terrified of heights.” She takes a step closer, as if she doesn’t believe a word I’m saying, and honestly, I don’t, either.
“Everyone has to face their fears sometime, right?” I shrug as she just stands there and stares at me. “Someone once told me that living safely is dangerous . . . I don’t want to be dangerous, Emerson. I just want to be with you.”
Her breath hitches, and she shakes her head back and forth. Her eyes say she wants to believe me, but her body tells me she’s not certain.
I take another step forward, my own pulse racing and mind struggling to believe what I’m asking her to do.
“You’re the only one I’d trust to get me down safely, Em,” I finally say, my coup de grâce, that she needs to wrap her head around.
“No.” It’s a half-hearted sound, chock-full of disbelief but laced with hope.
“You don’t get to say no.” I smile as I catch Leo in my periphery laugh. “I have a gift certificate paid in full, and I’m cashing it in on you. Right now.”
“No.”
“The customer is always right, Em.”
“Once you commit, you can’t back out,” she says, lifting her eyebrow and straightening her posture.
Exactly. Once you commit, you can’t back out. I hope she realizes the same goes when it comes to me.
“I won’t back out,” I say, ignoring the way my feet desperately want to walk the other way . . . but everything about her changing demeanor stops me. The way her shoulders square. How her lips quirk. The placing of her hands on her hips.
She’s back in her element, and hell if I’m not going to help her to stay there . . . whether it kills me or not.
Literally.
The growl of the plane’s engine roars in my ears and vibrates beneath my ass, but it has nothing on the absolute terror owning my every nerve. Fuck yes, I’m a pussy.
But this is a plane.
And a nylon parachute is about to be responsible for preventing me from falling to my death.
And Jesus . . . I’m about to willingly jump out of an airplane door.
All for a woman.
For Emerson.
To prove to her she’s just as fucking strong as she thinks she is. As I think she is. As everyone around her thinks she is.
Trust is an important thing . . . and I’m about to put one hundred percent of mine squarely in her hands.
How fucking stupid am I?
I go to run a hand through my hair but stop when I remember my helmet. I bounce my knee, close my eyes, and berate myself for not calling my mom to tell her goodbye and that I love her.
All of the things Emerson showed me in the classroom downstairs run on repeat through my mind. The initial jump at thirteen thousand feet. The belly-to-earth fall rate of one hundred fifteen miles per hour. Sixty full seconds of free fall. The arch of my back. The yank of the ripcord at twenty-five hundred feet above ground level. And then, of course, there is Emerson’s reassuring refrain—if in doubt, whip it out—about the reserve chute in case the main doesn’t deploy.
I’ve seriously lost it.
My ears pop, and I shift my jaw how she told me to equalize the pressure, but holy fucking shit am I nervous.
I can’t hear what she’s saying, but she’s joking and laughing with the pilot as if she is headed to the park to walk the dog. As if she’s not even giving this a second thought.
I try to be as calm as she is—which is pretty fucking impossible—and remind myself why exactly I’m doing this. For her. I took the one thing she knew I was absolutely terrified of losing—my life—and put it in her hands, telling her that I trusted her implicitly with its safety.
But doubt still reigns in my mind. Skill is one thing. Equipment failure is a whole other.
There’s a nudge against my arm, and I turn to look right into her eyes. They are alive, and I realize in that moment that she needs this like I need my work. She needs the high from jumping just like I need to be the hero.
I guess we both thrive off endorphins and adrenaline but obtain them in extremely different ways.
“You ready?” she mouths, grin wide, eyes animated as she stands so that Leo, who is sitting on the other side of her, can hook the two of us together.
Ready?
No.
I’m not.
I swallow over the lump of fear lodged in my throat and force a smile. My legs are wobbly as I stand, the plane ride rougher than I had expected, but then again, that could be because the door is currently open and wind is rushing into it like a chamber.
The next few seconds are all a blur. My fingers gripping tightly on to the ropes fastened to the ceiling so I can steady myself. Emerson’s body pressing against mine as Leo slowly begins attaching our harnesses so that we can tandem jump. The trembling of my hands as I look at the altimeter on my wrist to tell me we’re almost at the point of no return. The churn of my stomach as I want to hurl but know there’s no way I will be able to save face or my masculinity if I do.
Somehow, as I’m standing unsteadily, her hand finds mine. She links our fingers together and squeezes in silent assurance. It’s a simple gesture, but fuck, if it isn’t the lifeline I need to take those few steps forward to the open door.
Holy shit.
Holy shit, I’m doing this.
Holy shit, I’m going to step out of the plane.
We make it to the doorway, and Emerson moves my earplug and says, “Get ready to chase the moment, Malone.” It’s her laugh that rings the loudest. The carefree in it. The freedom. The ease and confidence. “Head up. Wings Out.”
And then she pats my side in a signal we’d practiced when our feet were firmly on the earth to let me know it’s time.
It. Is. Time.
She turns us around so that her feet are on the edge, her hands are beside mine on the opening of the door, and then before I can even blink, she lets go.
Head up. Wings Out.
Oh. Holymotherfuckingshitthisiscrazy!
Despite feeling like we are falling in slow motion, my brain processes everything—the fear, the euphoria, my mortality, the adrenaline—in snapshots of time.
The pressure of the air against my body. The rush of it in my ears. My initial gasp as we begin to fall. The lack of that stomach-in-your-throat sensation I hate, which she promised wouldn’t be there. The feeling of being out of control until we hit our arch. The calming presence of Emerson at my back and her arms helping to guide the positioning of mine. Her confidence overpowers my uncertainty.
It’s then that I find a few moments of utter peace.
Sure, the sound of the wind is roaring in my ears, but all I see is the whole valley laid out in its greens and browns with the ocean’s blue not far beyond. It’s breathtaking and eerie and so serene that I forget that I’m falling over one hundred miles per hour.
Then, before I expect it, we are yanked violently upward as the canopy is deployed. It robs me of my breath momentarily, and I have just enough time to wonder what the hell happened before I’m hit with the sensation of floating.
The sound of Emerson’s laughter is in my ears, and I follow her hand as she points to a few places for me to look at. And I do look, but my body has such a rush of adrenaline and nerves and disbelief that I just jumped out of a fucking airplane it’s hard to concentrate on anything other than this. The moment. The knowledge that I just cheated death.
All I keep thinking as we glide the rest of the way down to the big orange X-marks-the-spot landing zone is: I get it now. Emerson’s addiction to this high. Her need for it. Her use of it to escape her past that haunts her.
Before I know it, she’s shouting instructions in my ear. Pull the guide left to steer us. Right a little more. Feet up so she can take control. Prepare for landing.
The excitement in her whoop is followed by the jolt of her feet as they run beneath us and take the impact of the landing. We are both sitting on our asses, my butt between the V of her thighs as we slide a bit on the ground and the parachute collapses.
Then there is silence around us. My head screams so many goddamn things, but I’m on the ground. Alive. Whole. And Emerson got me here.
She laughs when I try to turn to face her because we’re still harnessed together and then makes quick work of unhooking us. Before I have a chance to process what the hell just happened, I turn around on my knees and kiss the life out of those lips of hers.
I’m riding a high like I’ve never known before. Cheating death. Proving to her I trust her. Facing a fear. Everything. And all I can think about is claiming the goddamn prize of Emerson Reeves because adrenaline definitely has my blood pumping and is intensifying my need to have her.