Page 79 of Cuffed (Everyday Heroes 1)
“Oh, c’mon.”
“Sorry, Em. Trust isn’t going to save me when I’m hurtling to the earth at a million miles an hour and my parachute fails to open.”
“Pfft. Such dramatics.” I roll my eyes but smile when I realize he really is petrified of the idea. It’s in the shift of his feet and the sudden shaking of his head as if he’s physically rejecting the idea every time it gets brought up.
It takes a lot to overcome that kind of fear.
I should know.
“Dramatics? Life and death,” he says as he pretends his hands are scales weighing each one. In his scenario, death wins. “I’ll stay here and watch with my feet planted firmly on the ground.”
“Suit yourself.” I shrug as I slip my arms into the sleeves of my flight suit and zip it up over my red tank top. “You’re gonna miss one hell of a ride.”
“I know somewhere else I can get a ride,” he murmurs suggestively as I walk past him and laugh.
“Head up. Wings out,” I say.
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.
