Lisa Jones - High Octane

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 goodness, his hat tipped back, his sultry bedroom eyes fixed on her.

“Good luck, honey,” Jennifer said. “You want him, he’s all yours.” Ryan sauntered into the room, his dusty boots some how only adding to his appeal as he gave Jennifer space to pass. Only she didn’t pass. She paused. “Behave.”

“Like a perfect angel,” he assured her.

Jennifer snorted and disappeared.

Ryan leaned on the table directly in front of Sabrina. “Any hope one of those reasons for choosing me is my hot body?” His eyes twinkled with mischief.

Sabrina knew how to talk the talk. She was a politician’s daughter, after all. “Actually, yes,” she answered. “If you were out of shape and wheezing with every breath you drew, I can’t say I’d be eager to jump out of a plane with you.”

“I got the impression you weren’t so eager to jump out of a plane with anyone.”

“I’m sure a lot of people feel that way right about the time they sign their paperwork,” Sabrina said.

“Only the ones who’re talked into coming by some one else,” he bantered. “But those people don’t normally come alone. They come with a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a pal. That ‘someone’ they are trying to please by pushing themselves. Who are you here to please, Sabrina?”

Her chin lifted, fingers lacing together in front of her, as they rested on top of the forms. “Myself.” For the first time in a very long time, she added silently.

His eyes narrowed. “By pushing yourself to do something that scares you?”

“More like something I wouldn’t normally do,” she countered, not giving him more than she had to. This was her private journey. He didn’t need to understand it to be a part of it.

“I need more than that if I’m taking you up,” he said, rejecting her evasive answer.

“Why?” she snapped back instantly.

“Because I’m responsible for you up there,” he said quickly, and then hit her with another question. “Are you afraid of heights?”

“No.”

“Flying?”

“No.”

“Falling?”

“No.”

He studied her from under the ridge of his hat. “Dying?”

She considered that a moment. “No. No, I’m not afraid of dying. Once it’s over, it’s over. I think I’m okay with that. And do you ask these questions of everyone you take up for jumps?”

“No,” he said. “But Caleb does.”

“I didn’t ask for Caleb,” she said. “I asked for you.”

“Why?”

Why. She’d walked right into that, but decided quickly she didn’t care. Fine. He needed to know. He could know. Maybe sharing what she felt was a part of letting go of control. “Because I want to be pushed when I’m on the edge, not pulled back,” she said, repeating what Jennifer had said when comparing the two men. “And because I know all about calm control, but I also know my limits are way too narrow.” In other words, she wanted what he had offered.

A bit of surprise flickered across his face, followed by full-blown interest. “You really think you can handle me, Sabrina?”