My hands gripped the sides of the ladder tightly as I stared up at Zach. Edith had given us a list of last-minute things that needed to be done before the big weekend and we’d been working all morning to get them finished. We’d already pulled the extra-large grill out of storage and set it up near the bait shop, then we’d arranged tiki torches around the various camping areas. After completing a few other tasks, we moved on to our final project, decorating the lake for Memorial Day.
We talked easily as we moved around the property, hanging the red, white, and blue decorations from the light poles. Zach seemed different, more comfortable than I’d ever seen him. Most people probably wouldn’t have noticed the slight change in his smile or the relaxed set of his jaw, but I’d spent so much time with him, studying him while he worked or ate or breathed that I knew him, probably better than I knew myself.
It was ridiculous the amount of time I spent thinking about the guy. When I was with him, I couldn’t get enough of watching the way he moved or listening to him speak. Late at night, when we were each in our own cabins, I’d drift off to sleep, picturing his face in my mind. Most of the time, I felt like an infatuated teenager, but I couldn’t help it. Zach made me feel things I’d never felt with anyone else, like something had been missing before that wasn’t missing when he was around.
The memory of his hand in mine had played on my mind all night until I felt sure I’d go insane. I’d never felt that kind of connection before and I desperately wanted to try it again, just to see if it would be the same the second time around. I fought the urge to reach for him though; mostly because I didn’t want to make him feel awkward, but also because a little part of me was worried that he would reject me if I tried again.
As a pararescueman, I’d been through extensive training, which taught me to act quickly and trust my instincts. Lives had literally depended on my ability to think clearly and move forward without second-guessing my decisions. I’d jumped out of countless helicopters, often landing in enemy territory to find and rescue one of our own, and I’d done it all without a second thought.
Being near Zach was entirely different though. From the moment I’d laid eyes on him, I’d done nothing but question myself and worry over how to behave around him. I wasn’t used to feeling so insecure, and it was frustrating.
I let out a sigh as I stared up at Zach’s perfectly curved, denim-clad ass and tightened my hold on the ladder to keep it from swaying with his movements. The thin material of his white T-shirt stretched tight across his shoulders as he climbed up, accentuating the muscles of his back and leaving my throat feeling dry.
Once he reached the top, he stretched his arms around the pole, tying the two ends of the decoration together. The maneuver caused his T-shirt to rise above the waistband of his jeans and I had to swallow back a groan as I caught a glimpse of smooth, golden skin. His jeans hung low and the sight of the two sexy divots on either side of his spine made my mouth water.
I turned away as soon as Zach’s feet touched the ground, hoping he wouldn’t notice my growing erection. It didn’t help though that all I wanted to do was throw him down in the grass and lick the sweat from his body.
“God, it’s hot out today,” Zach said.
“Mhmm,” I responded noncommittally.
“You okay? You’ve been really quiet today,” he said. I could feel his eyes on me and I busied myself with lowering the ladder back down.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I guess I just have a lot on my mind,” I told him.
“Is there anything I can help with?” he asked cautiously.
I picked the ladder up and held it at my side before I looked at him. I could see the concern in his eyes and when he smiled gently at me, something warm spread throughout my belly. I suddenly wanted to tell him that he was what I had on my mind. He was the reason that I couldn’t eat or sleep or even think clearly. Before I got a chance to say anything though, we were interrupted by the sound of an engine and we both turned to see Edith driving towards us in her truck. Dust and gravel kicked up behind her as she pulled up next to us.
“Hey, boys! The place looks great,” she exclaimed, wearing a big grin.
“Thanks. We were just finishing up. Thought we’d grab some lunch and then see what else you needed us to do,” Zach told her.
“Well, I tried to call you, but then I remembered you don’t keep your phones on you when you’re working. My sister just called, and my niece fell and broke her leg. I need to get over to the hospital and see if I can help out. I’ll probably end up spending the night,” she explained.
“I’m sorry to hear that. What can we do to help?” I asked.
“Everything’s pretty much all set, but I’d already given Freddie the night off since he’ll be working the bait shop all weekend,” Edith said. “Would you boys mind working the night shift for me?”
Zach and I shared a glance and then shrugged our shoulders. “No, of course not,” we said at the same time. Edith laughed.
“Great! Thank you so much. Brenda’s got it covered now, so you should get some rest since it’ll be a late night. I’ll be back in the morning and will take care of everything so you two can have the weekend off like I promised,” she insisted.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” Zach said. “We’ve got it covered and if you need more time with your family, you know we don’t mind helping out.”
Edith smiled at us and her eyes softened. “I know that, and I appreciate it more than you boys will ever know, but you both work very hard and you deserve some time off.” With a final wave, she drove away. We watched until her truck had pulled out onto the main road and then we turned back to each other.
“Well, it looks like I’ll be learning a new part of the business tonight,” I joked.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Zach laughed.
He lowered the tailgate on his truck and waited while I slid the ladder in before closing it up again. When we were finished, we climbed inside and drove back to the bait shop. I followed Zach out to the shed and looked around as he put the ladder away. There weren’t many people there that day, and I wondered if they were all at home, getting ready for the long weekend.
Edith had been right. We’d worked hard the last few weeks, making sure that everything was in order and I had to admit, the results were splendid. The grass was trimmed neatly around the shore of the lake and the picnic tables that dotted the edges looked pristine with their new red paint. The sky was perfectly blue with big, billowy white clouds and I couldn’t help but think the place looked like it belonged on a postcard.
The sun’s rays were hot, and I could feel the sweat trickling down my back and soaking through my shirt. I stared down at the dock at the bottom of the small hill, the water lapping against it looked cool and inviting. I heard Zach move up behind me and I had to hide my grin, so he wouldn’t know I was up to anything.
“It looks like a board is loose, down on the dock,” I told him.
“Really? Where? We just fixed that thing,” he said.
“Come on, I’ll show you,” I said, already walking away so he’d be forced to follow. Zach trailed along beside me and when we reached the dock, he began searching the platform for any loose planks.
“Are you sure? I don’t see any boards that look loose,” he said, his face scrunching up adorably as he continued to look. I almost felt bad for what I was about to do, but then I thought about how good it would feel instead.
“Oh, my bad. It’s not on the dock, it’s in the water,” I told him.
“What?” he asked. He turned around to face me and I barely had enough time to register the confused look he was giving me before I was rushing forward and grabbing him around the waist, hurtling us both off the side of the dock and into the water. We broke the surface at the same time and I laughed at the shocked expression on Zach’s face.
“What the hell was that?” he sputtered, making me laugh even harder.
“It’s really hot out and I thought you’d want to cool off. If you think about it, you should be thanking me,” I explained, trying to sound innocent, but failing miserably.
“Oh! You’re exactly right. I really should thank you,” he said.
My lips quirked up at the mischievous glint in his eyes and relief rushed through me that he wasn’t angry. Zach dove under the surface of the water and I took off in the opposite direction, trying to get away. A few seconds later, I felt his hand clasp around my ankle and I let out a startled shout as he yanked me under.
He was laughing hard by the time I reached the surface again and I stared at him as I caught my breath, completely enthralled by the sound of his laughter and the sparkle in his blue eyes. His wet hair was pulled back away from his face, exposing the jagged scar that ran along the side of his right eye, pulling the tender skin down at the corner.
I swallowed hard as a mixture of emotions swirled through me all at once. Sadness for the pain he’d experienced, anger towards whoever had dared to touch him and awe at the strength and determination I know it must’ve taken to survive such a vicious attack. Of course, I was going with the assumption that he was in fact Zane. For all I knew, he could’ve received that scar from a car accident, but either way, I thought he was amazing and beautiful.
A sliver of guilt pierced through me. I was there to do a job. Micah was counting on me to do that job, but instead, I was playing around with Zach and getting to know him. I’d convinced Micah and my friends that I needed to get close to him in order to find out if he was Zane, but somewhere along the way, my reasons for getting close to him had changed.
I wasn’t exactly sure what my feelings towards Zach were yet. I knew I liked him…a lot. I liked being around him and talking with him and of course, I was extremely attracted to him. He hadn’t told me much about himself and I had a million questions I wanted to ask him. Most of which had very little to do with uncovering his identity. I wanted to know what his favorite foods were and if there were any that he hated. I wanted to know what movies he liked and if he loved to read like I did. I wanted to know what made him laugh and when the last time he cried was. I wanted to know everything.
“Oh, God! I’m so fucked,” I mumbled under my breath.
I did really like Zach and could tell that my feelings for him were beginning to go beyond that of a friend. I knew I shouldn’t allow that to continue; that I should fight it with everything I had because I had a job to do and orders to follow. But for the first time in my life, it seemed like there might be something more important than following orders and that terrified me.
There was a certain sense of security in doing what you’re told. It takes away any of the guesswork and leaves no room for doubts, because it’s someone else’s decision you’re upholding. I’d done it for years in the military and I’d done it for Micah since I began working for him. I’d always looked to my leaders for answers and I trusted their decisions. I still trusted Micah, wholeheartedly, but there was a part of me that was starting to feel like Zach was worth breaking all the rules for.
We spent the next half hour splashing and chasing each other around the lake until we were exhausted. Finally, we swam to the dock and pulled ourselves out, collapsing onto our backs, and lying side by side. I closed one eye against the gleaming sun and turned to face him. His eyes were closed, and a serene smile was on his lips. What I wouldn’t give to be able to lean over him and trace his lips with my tongue.
We lay that way for a while, soaking up the sun’s rays and letting it dry our clothes. The sounds of the water lapping against the sides of the dock lulled me into a peaceful state and I could feel myself drifting off. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed before I felt a hand shaking my shoulder.
“Jeremy, you need to get out of the sun. You’re starting to burn.” I looked up, blinking against the bright sun and saw Zach kneeling beside me, a look of concern on his face.
“How long have I been out?” I asked with a yawn. I sat up, shaking my head in order to clear the sleepiness from my mind.
“Only about thirty minutes, but your skin is starting to turn pink. Let’s go home and get some sleep before we have to work tonight,” he suggested.
He stood up and then reached down, offering me a hand. I stared at his hand as I slipped mine into it. I immediately felt a tingle that traveled up my arm and my eyes shot to his, wondering if he’d felt it too. His hair hung over his face in a haphazard mess, but I could see his eyes peeking out from behind that curtain and the look I saw there said it all.
His eyes were wide and full of wonder and dare I say it? Excitement. He pulled me to a standing position and swallowed hard as I stared down at him. We were standing very close, our chests nearly brushing against each other and I could see the long dark lashes that framed his eyes and brushed against his cheeks whenever he blinked. My eyes lowered to his lips and they parted on a quick gasp. Zach dropped my hand as if he’d been burned and spun away from me.
“I’m going to get some shut eye. I’ll meet you back at the bait shop around nine,” he called out over his shoulder, not stopping to wait for my response.
I stood there as he climbed the hill and disappeared around the side of the shop. A few moments later, I heard the sound of his truck as he started it up. By the time I made it to the top of the hill, he had driven halfway around the lake. There was only one reason why he’d taken off like a bat out of hell. Zach had felt the same thing I was feeling, and he was scared. I smiled the entire way back to my cabin.
It was difficult to sleep after that, but somehow, I managed. My dreams were filled with images of Zach’s golden skin, firm muscles and tantalizing mouth. I woke up with a raging hard-on and had to jerk off in the shower, so I’d be able to make it through hours of working with him without suffering a terrible case of blue balls.
The last of the sun was just beginning to fade and the sky was streaked in beautiful purples and pinks as the stars began to peek out. The temperature had cooled off to a pleasant seventy-five degrees and I decided to walk instead of drive around the lake to the bait shop.
As I walked, my mind wandered to my friends back home. I felt guilty that I hadn’t given them or my assignment much thought over the past few days. Micah had been extremely patient, but I knew eventually he was going to want some real answers. He deserved real answers. After all, he had hired me to do a job. He was the reason I was there in the first place and I had a loyalty to him. But at some point, the line between my loyalties had begun to blur and I wasn’t sure who I was really there for anymore; Micah or Zach.
I didn’t see Zach’s truck as I walked up to the door, but he was behind the counter when I walked in. He looked at me nervously and I smiled at him. “I guess you decided to walk too?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s really nice out and I wanted to take advantage of it.” He smiled back at me and I saw his shoulders relax.
He gave me a tour of the shop, showing me what containers to use for the various types of bait and what the prices of each were. Then he showed me where the food was stored and how to work the machines that cooked them. Afterward, we restocked the shelves with snacks and fishing gear, cleaned the windows and floors and checked the temperature on each of the bait tanks.
Things were slow. Only three customers had been in and we had nothing left to do, so we grabbed a couple of stools behind the counter and sat down beside each other. Zach pulled a deck of cards out of his back pocket and I arched an eyebrow at him.
“The night shift is always slow, but I knew tonight would be even worse since everyone’s getting ready for the weekend,” he said with a shrug. “I figured we’d need something to help pass the time.”
“Sounds good to me. What are we playing?” I asked him with a smile.
Zach smiled back. “Are you a poker man?” he asked.
“Hell yeah. I’ve played for years. That’s how my buddies and I would pass the long, boring nights in between missions,” I told him.
“Missions?” Zach stopped shuffling the cards and looked up at me, his brow pinched in confusion.
“Yeah. I spent twelve years in the Air Force. Ten of them were as a special ops pararescueman,” I explained.
“Pair of what?” he joked, and I laughed.
“Pararescueman, but we’re also known as PJ’s. It’s part of the Air Force’s Special Operations Command as well as the Air Combat Command,” I told him.
“I’ve never heard of that before. What kind of things did you do?” Zach asked. I could see the genuine curiosity in his gaze.
I pulled the deck of cards from his hands and began passing them out. “Occasionally, we’d get called to help NASA recover their astronauts after they’d landed in the water, but most of the time we ran recovery missions and provided medical treatment for people involved in combat situations.”
“Wow! Are you some kind of doctor then?” He looked at me suspiciously.
I shook my head. “No, not at all. I’ve had some medical training, but I worked more on the rescue and recovery parts of the operations. I would jump out of the choppers and find the missing or wounded person we were there for and bring them back to the actual doctors to get medical treatment.”
I looked up and found Zach staring at me, his jaw hanging open. “That sounds really dangerous. Were you ever under fire?”
My jaw clenched as I nodded. “Nine times out of ten,” I told him quietly.
“Weren’t you scared?” he whispered.
I shrugged my shoulders. He didn’t need to know about the night terrors I had suffered the first few years on the job or the images that refused to leave me of the people that I wasn’t able to get to in time, their mangled bodies and lifeless eyes staring back at me.
“Our motto is ‘These things we do, that others may live,’” I answered instead.
“For what it’s worth, I think you’re incredibly brave,” he said quietly. The eyes staring back at me were filled with sincerity and I gave him a small smile. His next question had the smile slipping from my face as pain lanced through my chest. “So, why did you decide to leave the Air Force?”
“I got a call one day that my mom had suffered a heart attack. I was her only kid, the only family she had left, and I wasn’t there when she died. I decided then that I needed to get out,” I said, my voice cracking at the end.
I’d never spoken to anyone else about that, about the guilt I still carried over not being there for my mom when she needed me the most, but it felt good to talk about it with Zach. He reached out and covered my hand with his. I glanced up at him in surprise and saw a mixture of pain, sadness and complete understanding in his eyes.
It hit me then that Zach probably knew exactly how it felt to carry the weight of that kind of burden on his shoulders because he’d been through the same thing when he’d stood there, watching helplessly as the paramedics tried to save his mom, knowing there was nothing he could do. The same connection I’d felt when I’d held his hand surged between us once again and it was as if we were the only two people left in the world.
We continued to stare at each other and I felt the subtle shift between us as the sadness in his eyes was replaced with desire. My eyes dropped to his lips and I had to fight back a groan as his tongue darted out to wet them. His bottom lip was full, almost pouty, and it begged for me to lick it, nip at it and tug it between my teeth. Without even realizing we were doing it, we’d begun to lean in towards each other, like two magnets being pulled together.
I stared into Zach’s eyes, searching for any hesitation, but there was none to be found. I reached for him and slid my hand along his jaw. He shivered under my gentle touch and his breath puffed out against my face as I moved in closer. My heart beat frantically inside my chest as my hand continued its journey to the back of his neck. My fingers sifted through the silky strands of his dirty-blond hair and he sighed. Zach tilted his head and his eyes slid closed, his thick lashes fanning against his cheeks and I thought that I’d never seen a more stunning sight.
“Beautiful,” I whispered as my lips brushed against his.
I took my time, savoring the moment I’d been waiting for. My other hand came up to hold him in place as I nipped at his bottom lip with my teeth and then licked over it in a soothing gesture. Zach moaned in pleasure and he stood without breaking the kiss, moving forward until he was between my spread knees. He took charge then, letting his tongue sweep through my mouth and a deep growl echoed up from my chest.
Our tongues danced around each other, tasting and exploring all the hidden treasures within our mouths. My cock strained against the fabric of my jeans, begging to be let out to play and I nearly lost all control when Zach shifted his hips and his own impressive bulge pressed up against mine. My body felt like it was on fire and I desperately wanted to drag him to the back room and sink to my knees for him.
I was about to suggest it when the door flew open and two older men walked in, fishing poles in hand. Zach spun away from me quickly, his face turning a brilliant shade of red as he faced them. He stepped all the way up against the counter, letting it hide the evidence of his arousal, but there was no hiding the lust-glazed look in his eyes or the kiss-swollen appearance of his lips.
If the two men noticed, they didn’t say anything, and I was grateful. I sat quietly as Zach gathered the supplies they needed and rang their order up on the register. After they’d paid, they walked out, shutting the door behind them. Zach turned to me then and I tensed, waiting for him to be angry about almost getting caught. He smiled at me instead, a small, shy smile and my heart tripped all over itself. I stood and walked towards him until our chests were pressed together. My hands cupped his face and his hands went to my waist, his fingers curling into the belt loops on my jeans.
“I want to take you out,” I told him.
“You mean, like on a date?” he asked hesitantly.
I nodded. “That’s exactly what I mean,” I said.
Zach looked at me for a few minutes and I held my breath. “We can have a date on one condition,” he said.
“Name it,” I responded. There was no doubt in my mind that I’d do whatever he asked if it meant I got to spend more time with him.
“I want to plan it.” He smiled up at me. My heart did a somersault inside my chest at the pleased look in his eyes and I smiled back at him.
“Sounds like we’ve got ourselves a date,” I said.