“In a manner of speaking.”
“Flying is an either-or type of activity, Liam. We either are flying or we aren’t.”
He considered this. “Define flying.”
Jaz narrowed her eyes. “Moving through the air, without a tether to a stationary structure, for a greater distance than is possible by jumping.”
Leaning across Jaz’s lap, he opened her door from the inside before getting out of the vehicle. “Does the direction of movement matter? In your definition, I mean.”
Jaz stepped out of the car, the wind whipping her face. It was oddly still here for an airport. No tourists bustling around with baggage, no tired children, no walls and arrows herding passengers through check-in. Instead, the place looked more like an oversized and very well-ordered parking lot, with small planes lined up in perfect rows. Beside the occasional sound of an engine, the place was quiet. Serene in its own way.
“Direction of movement?” Jaz echoed Liam’s words. “Like north, south, east, and west? No. Doesn’t matter.”
“There are a few more directions than those out there.” Liam led her to a white-painted building, its roof high enough to house more equipment.
“More directions than those on a compass?”
Liam shrugged a shoulder and pointed up and down with his finger. Before Jaz could process what he meant by that, Liam led them inside the hangar and to a woman with short purple hair who sat behind a computer desk in the corner. “Kristi, good afternoon. Are you ready for us?”
“We are. Henry will be your pilot today. Are you still planning a tandem jump?”
Jaz’s thoughts froze, her stomach clenching into a ball of lead. Grabbing Liam’s triceps, she pulled him away from the desk and glared up at him. “Jump?” Saying the word made her already taut insides cinch down harder around her diaphragm. “What the hell does she mean by tandem jump?”
“Means that you will be attached to my harness,” Liam said with absolutely zero contrition. Taking a liability waiver from Kristi, he slid it and a pen to Jaz, the words skydiving and risk of death popping out from the page in bold ink. “No time to send you through airborne school.”
Jaz’s fingers, which were still on Liam’s triceps, dug into his flesh. “So I’m crystal clear… For our date, you want to jump out of a perfectly good plane three days before the most important climbing competition of my life?” She didn’t realize how loudly she was talking until she heard her voice reverberating through the hangar.
Taking Jaz’s face in both his hands, Liam kissed her with a passionate thoroughness that made Jaz’s pounding heart hammer for a new reason altogether. When he pulled back, his face was still inches from hers and her lips tingled from the connection. Liam grinned like a cat with a bowl of cream, the mischief playing in his eyes so at odds with his usual signature severity. “It will be fun, Jaz. Pure, exhilarating fun.”
“This is insane.” Jaz swallowed, glancing back at Kristi, who was already pulling out jumpsuits and laying them out on the table. “You’re insane.”
“Agreed. Let’s do this.”
“This is Jaz, I take it? Nice to meet you, sweetie.”
An hour and safety brief later, Jaz was dressed in an orange jumpsuit, the twin-engine plane soaring 14,000 feet above the earth. Liam strapped his equipment on with the competent ease of someone who’d done this more times than he could count, then double-checked Jaz’s harness. She liked the feel of the webbing against her, the solidness of Liam’s body behind her back. It felt safe. Secure.
Right up until the part where Liam walked them to the open plane door and Jaz looked down at the impossible expanse of sky that opened beneath them. She gasped. The air tasted chillier up here. Goose bumps ran along her skin. Her breath stopped, then started again, adrenaline filling each molecule of her blood as the lub-dub lub-dub lub-dub of her heart pounded on her rib cage.
Liam said they were going flying. But he’d never meant the plane. He meant for real. Now.
He meant free-fall.
Jaz grabbed his hand.
“Clear!” Henry yelled from the cockpit.
Without the slightest hesitation, Liam stepped off the edge and plunged them into the sky.
Jaz screamed, but the air caught in her lungs and the sound morphed into something…joyful. Free. With the initial shock now only an echo in her bones, the sensation of weightlessness overtook her. The wind whipped her hair, and her cheeks flapped from the rushing air that filled her ears. She was cold and hot. Scared and safe. She was falling. She was flying.
Spreading her arms wide, Jaz whooped her joy to the mischievous skies and heard Liam’s low answering chuckle tickle her ear.
Liam finally pulled the ripcord. With a sharp jerk, the harness dug into Jaz’s body until she and Liam seemed to pause in midair before starting to glide along. The streaking world shifted to something new and majestic.
They floated down together, meandering like autumn leaves through the heavens until the patch of open greenery opened up amid the canopy of the forest. Liam shifted the ropes, directing them with perfect ease to the landing spot.
After Jaz’s feet settled on the ground, Liam detached the parachute and harness, and all Jaz could think of was how high she was on life itself. Twisting toward the man who’d given her this gift, Jaz curled her hands into Liam’s short hair and pulled their mouths together.
Instead of bending down, Liam hoisted Jaz up onto his hips. His hardness pressed into her through their clothes, and she pressed her own sex against it. Blood rushed in her veins, carrying a toxic mix of need and excitement through her. “Today was the most amazing—”
Liam’s radio crackled.
Jaz groaned.
Pulling away from the kiss for a moment, Liam pressed the radio button on the shoulder of his jumpsuit. “Ground control Alpha Charlie, this is Falcon Five,” he said evenly, despite Jaz continuing to press herself against him. “No need for a pickup. We’ll be hiking out when ready.”
“Acknowledged, no pickup,” a disembodied voice crackled back over the receiver. “Stay safe, Falcon Five.” Despite the radio discipline, Jaz swore she could hear the smirk come back. And she didn’t care.
After taking their time at the clearing, they returned to Liam’s apartment, where a dessert of crostata with blackberries, strawberries, and blueberries was waiting by the door. It wasn’t fancily wrapped or decorated with anything but a set of plastic utensils, but the berries were so fresh that each one exploded with flavor in Jaz’s mouth.
“That was the most reckless and amazing thing I’ve ever done,” Jaz told Liam. “If Vector Ascent ever found out I went skydiving, I’d be in so much trouble.”
Somehow, the threat of trouble didn’t bother her as much as it should have just then.
Liam grinned. “Naughty climber. What are we going to do about that?”
Jaz threw a berry at him. “Hey, it’s your fault I went astray. Before meeting you, I didn’t even play a game of friendly basketball when on sponsorship.”
“Oh, so the devil made you do it?”
“Well, yes, technically speaking.” She stuck her tongue out at him.
Putting down his finished dessert, Liam flickered his fingers over his knee.