Free Light Up the Night by M. L. Buchman Page A

at least he kept his air this time.
    While trying to butt him, she must have gotten a foot up on the deck edge of the helicopter behind her. She drove at him, using her body as a battering ram. If she’d weighed even five pounds more, he’d have crashed to the hard deck with her atop him, but he managed to stand fast.
    She was so close, so wound up, that she made his head spin. She smelled of fire and summer. Of grass fields at the height of their growth, filled with so much life that it practically burst forth.
    In the near-darkness, he could see the flash of her bright smile, almost feral.
    Because he still held her wrists, it only took a small step to push her back against the side of her now-just-warm chopper and lean down to kiss her.
    Her mouth opened without hesitation, consuming him, filling him with her scent and her taste. He could feel her smile against his lips.
    He wasn’t smiling. He was filled with a need so strong that he barely recognized it as his own.
    She slid one cool hand, that he didn’t remember letting go, along his cheek and held him tight to the kiss, offering no escape. As if he’d want to. Her taste was even more captivating than her smell, like comfort food if it was made into a hot, sensual woman.
    Then he felt cold steel against the scar that ran down the other side of his face and froze. He didn’t have to see it to know that a large, sharp knife now lay against his cheek.
    Patricia eased back just the slightest inch, making it clear she could cut his throat if she wanted to, or leave him with a fresh scar.
    â€œUh.” He managed to clear his throat, though it sounded rougher than he liked. “I shouldn’t have done that.” He could feel the knife biting his skin so he made an effort to move his jaw as little as possible as he spoke.
    She nipped her teeth lightly on his chin, without removing the blade.
    â€œMaybe some other time, sailor. For now, I think the lesson is done.” She shifted out from between his body and the side of her helicopter.
    The cold steel edge moved away with just the slightest rasp, as if she were shaving him with it.
    A shimmering twist of steel spun between them, highlighted by the few work lights on the deck. She caught the knife by the blade and held it out to him.
    He wrapped his fingers around the hilt and she was gone.
    Just before she disappeared around the next chopper, she called back, “Time to gear up, sailor, if you want to go flying tonight.”
    The deck lights, red for night flight operations, began flashing on.
    By their light he could see what he’d known the instant he’d wrapped his hand around the hilt.
    It was his own knife and he never felt her take it.
    He slipped it back in the leg sheath and did his best not to smile.
    ***
    Trisha entered the gear locker room to get her flight suit and survival vest but collapsed back against one of the locker doors. Turning her face to the side she was able to lay her cheek against the cool metal. It burned with the heat of Billy’s kiss and the heat of his body pressing hard against hers.
    She’d had her share of good times, but no one had ever fired her up like that. Not so fast, not so far.
    The kiss should have been a joke, a distraction. It was supposed to be, or she wouldn’t have let him push her back to begin with. After all, everything’s unfair in love and in war. She’d learned that long ago. But if she’d learned it so well, why had she used a kiss rather than one of several dozen other tactics that now came belatedly to mind? And why had she suggested, practically promised a rematch? And why was her heart still beating so damn hard?
    â€œHey, O’Malley.” Kee Stevenson came in and popped her locker open with a sharp rap from the side of her fist. Her daughter, Dilya, almost shoulder tall, drifted in carrying an e-reader in a bright pink cover. They were a funny-looking pair. It had been obvious the kid was