There are hard limits.
And then there are hard limits.
Like watching the specks in the sky above me as they hurtle to the ground and knowing one of them is Emerson.
My hand shields my eyes, and my stomach churns when I think of the feeling of falling. It’s total bullshit, there’s no way you can launch yourself into thin air and not feel like your stomach shoves up into your throat.
“C’mon, c’mon,” I murmur to myself as I wait for what feels like hours to see the parachutes deploy.
“A few more seconds,” Leo says and startles me. I was so focused on Emerson that I hadn’t realized he’d walked out.
I glance back to the sky in time to see the first parachute explode in a bloom of color. One after the other they open, dragging each jumper higher before slowly floating down again.
I want to say I breathe a little easier, but fuck if I’m not nauseated just watching the whole process.
“You really don’t like this, do you?” Leo asks, giving me that look that says I’m a disgrace to the male gender for being such a pussy.
I glare at him from behind my sunglasses, saying, “You people are all fucking crazy.”
“Yes, we are.”
The phone rings in the office, and he heads back in to answer it while the parachutes continue to get bigger as they glide closer to the ground. From the corner of my eye, I watch the field person get ready to help jumpers if they need assistance, but I never take my full attention away from trying to find Emerson.
I mean, I know she’s fine, but I need to see it for my own eyes. And when I do, my feet start moving on automatic to where she is standing amid the long grass of the field with a huge grin on her face.
“Great jump, everyone,” she says as she goes from jumper to jumper and pats them on the back or gives them a high five. She takes pictures of a few of them, and some ask her to be a part of the shot with them.
“I have it, Em,” Leo says, appearing out of nowhere when she begins to detach the parachute rigs for the clients. “You need to make sure Nervous Nelly over there’s heart is still beating.”
I open my mouth to make a dig of my own, but when Emerson laughs, it stops the words on my lips. She looks my way and waves animatedly before holding up a finger to tell me just a minute.
Leo may have offered to help, but the control freak in her can’t simply walk away without checking all the rigs out. She heads to the pack nearest her and tugs on one part or another before moving to the next.
Definitely a control freak.
Which, of course, was why I let her think she was in control the other night. Anything to make her feel comfortable in the moment and keep what we had going.
And going it did. Very well, too. So well that I pulled the friends with benefits bullshit out of thin air yesterday as a way to get what I want—more of her, in any way, shape, or form I can get her.
She bends over and tugs on the last jumper’s pack before laughing at something Leo says to her. And the adrenalized, carefree tone of it stops me in my tracks. Realization hits that I want to be the one who makes her laugh like that.
Christ. I know I want more with her—what that more is, I’m not sure—but until I heard that tone to her laugh, I hadn’t realized how much I wanted it.
Studying her as she walks toward me, I know I’ll pay whatever cost to make sure that happens.
“You have some serious balls,” I say off the cuff the minute she’s within speaking distance.
“At least someone does,” Leo coughs out, and I lift a finger in his direction, but my attention is focused on Em—the flush in her cheeks, the lines around her eyes where her goggles pressed against her skin, the ear-to-ear grin on her lips.
She laughs and shakes her head. “We both know that isn’t true,” she says in a voice for only my ears followed by a wink. “You missed a good jump. Perfect conditions. Great visibility. Calm wind.”
“I appreciate the hustle, but I’m not buying.”
“You don’t have to buy; you already have a gift certificate.”
“You’re relentless.”
“And you’re handsome as hell.”
My feet stop moving as she keeps walking, her comment unexpected and probably one of the first things she’s said to me that was complimentary. The thought makes me laugh because to most people that would sound odd, but they’re not Emmy and me.
She’s sunshine with a little bit of hurricane thrown in, and I’m willingly walking straight into her storm with nothing more than the clothes on my back.
She turns to face me, her brow furrowing as I just stare at her as the realization hits me again that I want to be a part of her beautiful destruction. All of it. Without a damn forecast to prepare me for what’s coming next.
“What?” she asks.
“Why do you do it, Em?”
“Do what?” The setting sun plays against the strawberry highlights in her hair and pieces dance in the air like wisps of fire.
“Why do you push the edge?”
“I don’t.” She smiles and takes a step toward me so we’re a few feet apart from each other. Airstrip asphalt stretches all around us, and the excited chatter of the other jumpers coming down from their adrenaline highs turns to background noise.
“What if the chute doesn’t deploy?”
“Then it doesn’t deploy.”
The nonchalance in how she says it pisses me off. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Perhaps.” She shrugs, as if it were no big deal. “But we can die at any time. What if I get hit by a car? What if I have a heart attack? What if a meteor falls from the sky and kills me? What if, what if, what if. No use going through life living scared.”
“But jumping increases your risk.”
“Living every day increases my risk.” She laughs, but it’s the look in her eyes that shuts me up. “Look, I could wake up tomorrow with cancer and never get to jump again. I’d rather take the chance, Grant.”
“Em . . .” I know she’s thinking of her mom.
“Look, the probability that something will malfunction is so small that it isn’t worth even thinking about. Besides, I pack all my own gear, and unlike you, I trust what I do.”
I take the jibe because I deserve it, but it doesn’t help me process how casual she is being about this. “If it doesn’t work, no one can save you.”
“I’m well aware of that,” she says as her shoulders straighten, telling me I’ve activated her obstinate defiance. I’m too pissed at how she can be so careless with her own life to care, though.
“Every time you jump, that probability increases. Don’t you think that’s something to consider? It isn’t as if I could do anything standing here on the ground to help.”
“There goes Grant Malone and his hero complex.”
“I saved—” I saved you once, and I’ll save you again in a goddamn heartbeat without thinking twice.
The thought screams in my head, but I stop myself from saying it, from bringing the past into the present. From treating her like the girl she no longer wants to be.
Yet, I remember.
And I wonder.
And I worry.
Just like that fucking case file sitting in my house.
“You saved what?” She grits out the words as she takes another step closer, posture defensive and full of challenge. Sure, she’s angry with me. I’m questioning her, but fuck it, she needs to know I care. Too bad I’m a guy and am not sure how to get that point across without setting off that magnificent and infuriating temper of hers.
“Nothing.”
“I can save myself just fine, Grant Malone. And not just in skydiving. At least in jumping there’s a reserve canopy in case the first one malfunctions. Wouldn’t it be great if life had a backup chute for those moments when you’re falling without anything to catch you?” She shrugs with her hands out to her side.
“And if the backup chute fails?”
“Like I said, life fails all the time. The only way to deal with it is to roll with the punches. Besides, living safely is dangerous. It isn’t good for the soul or the psyche.” She flashes me a huge grin before turning on her heel and saying over her shoulder, “Come on, I’ve gotta close up.”
Standing on the tarmac, I watch her stride toward the office of Blue Skies.
Living safely is dangerous.
Well, shit.
Just as I’m about to walk after her, my phone alerts a text. I groan when I read it and realize I just screwed up royally.
Talking about sex possibilities with Emerson or fulfilling obligations to my family.
I know which one I’d rather choose, and I currently can’t take my eyes off her.