We hit the end of the rope and recoiled like a rubber band, but my stomach stayed in free fall. Paisley screamed again, but her tone changed until she was laughing. It was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. Well, next to her screaming out my name when she came. I think that was always going to take the top spot. I held her tighter, bracing her head as we fell toward the water, remembering how much the secondary snap had hurt my neck the first time I did this.
“This is amazing!” she yelled as we bounced again.
My heart thundered in my ears, and a laugh unlocked the tension in my muscles. She let go of me, her arms stretching wide above her head in abandonment as she yelled out in joy, release, exhilaration. “I am invincible!”
Invincible and infectious. I let myself enjoy the rush tearing through me. It was only amplified by the perfection of her. I loved her, and not just in a girlfriend way. Hell, not even in a wife way. No. I loved her like the tide loved the moon, vital to sustain the life within. I slammed my eyes closed, both reveling in the feeling and terrified because I couldn’t imagine ever going back to the way it was before. Somewhere along the way, she’d become my gravity, holding me to the earth by her sheer existence.
Loving Paisley had the same effect on me as my first helicopter ride—I simply knew where I was supposed to be, whom I was supposed to become, and I was meant to be hers.
She ran her fingers along the sleeves of my shirt as we slowed to a vertical stop. I wound my fingers through hers and dipped my head, kissing her as we hung suspended. She met my tongue with her own, tasting like the strawberries she’d been eating as we arrived for the jump. Was I ever going to get tired of this?
She gasped into my mouth, then rubbed her hands over her eyes. “Jagger…my head.”
I pulled the tab we’d been told about, and the ropes shifted, bringing us upright as the winch cranked us back up to the deck. “It’s the blood pressure,” I murmured against her hair. “Better now?” She nodded and rested her head on my chest. “How do you feel?”
“Amazing!” Her grin triggered my own.
They reeled us up, and we sat back, enjoying the aqua water of the Emerald Coast of Florida. “Hey, look.” I pointed down the shoreline where a small line jutted into the water. “That’s where we met.”
She kissed my neck. “That’s where you saved me.”
“You’re almost ready to head back there and swim. Maybe a few more times in the pool and I bet you could handle the ocean.”
“You just want to get me wet and naked.”
“Who said naked?” My grip tightened on her as they cranked us the final few feet to the deck.
“I did.” She turned her face up to mine and kissed me until I forgot there were two men waiting to unhook us. Luckily, they cleared their throats, or we might have hung there for a while.
I let her sleep as long as I could, wrapping myself around her because I still couldn’t believe she was mine. Maybe one day I’d get used to saying that, knowing that she loved me. Until then, I’d just hold her while she napped. Once my phone hit four thirty, I pulled myself away from her, closing my bedroom door behind me.
“How is she feeling? She seemed tired,” Grayson said, looking up from his study seat at the dining room table. Our final check rides were this week, and I hadn’t cracked a 5&9. After my week in Chicago, Carter was edging me out, but I’d take him down.
“Yeah, she’s wiped out. We’re supposed to meet her parents in two hours, so I can give her another half hour or so.” I pulled a bottle of water out of the fridge and drained it.
“Ah, General Donovan. You know how to pick your women, man.”
I cringed. “Not women. Just woman. She’s the only one I’ve ever picked, and she’s worth it. You know, as long as I can survive our first family dinner.”
“I’ll keep you in my prayers. Do they know about her bungee expedition today?”
I shook my head. “I’ve never been that scared.”
“Because it’s a stupid thing to do? Tie yourself to a rubber band and bounce?”
“Yeah, well, I almost didn’t let her. I’m telling you, I’m turning paranoid.”
His pencil clicked against the table as he put it down. “Worse than when you saved her from drowning?”
“I didn’t love her then.”
He nodded. “Yeah. That love stuff heightens everything else, too. It’s like an amp.”
I threw the empty bottle into the trash and didn’t ask why he knew about it. “I can’t help but feel like there’s something she’s not telling me. Which is fair. We both have things we don’t like to talk about, you know? She doesn’t know all of my shit, I can hardly expect to know hers.”
“But you want to.”
“She won’t let me in. She changes the subject when we open the door to any of it.”
His gray eyes studied me with a perception I couldn’t escape. “Then you make her listen to yours. You’re both too concentrated on staying flawless for the other, not giving anyone a reason to run away because everything is shiny and perfect. Nothing stays shiny and perfect for long when it’s used. Unless you want this relationship of yours in a pretty glass case, you have to show her your cracks, your flaws. Show her that no matter what hers are, you’ll stay. Show her there’s nothing to be scared of, and she’ll let you in.”