Page 77 of Final Approach

My feet moved of their own accord and I raced through the ferns and bushes without care until his arms wrapped around me, warm, and strong, and real.

“Oh, thank god,” I cried into his damp shirt, my tears barely absorbing into the already saturated fabric. “Thank god, you’re okay.”

His grip tightened to the point of bruising, but I didn’t care. Nicolas Seymour, my flight attendant, my friend—and fuck me, I could love him if I gave it a chance—was here, in the flesh, alive.

“I’m here, baby girl.” He spoke as if hearing my inner thoughts, repeating his assurances over and over into the top of my head. “And I’m never leaving you again.”

Without missing a beat, he released me from his hold, cupped both cheeks in his palms, and kissed the ever-loving shit out of me.

I’d fantasized about kissing Nikki, when I allowed myself the pleasure of looking past our friendship and pretending all of his flirting teasing had been real.

The real-life version was so, so much better.

Unlike Ambrose, Nikki’s kisses weren’t soft or subtle. He held nothing back as he devoured me like he’d waited his whole life to put his lips to mine. Each press of skin, each flick of his tongue carried me away on another wave of sensation, a head rush and a soothing balm all in one.

“Nikki! Fuck, man! You’re alive.”

Ambrose’s voice sounded like it was on the moon and I was deep in Mariana Trench. Nikki pried his lips from mine in slow motion, as if it was painful to pull away.

When he turned to Ambrose, I got a good look of his profile. His eyes held puffy rings like purses beneath them, and light scratches marred his face and neck like he’d fought his way through a briar patch. The tight ringlets of his chestnut hair were filled with crushed leaves and reed-like sticks, and the crack in his glasses had splintered into a hundred micro-shards, completely distorting his eye behind them.

And he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“Thank you for taking care of her.” He said it solemnly, as if swearing allegiance to the Queen. He then booped me on the nose like I was a misbehaving child. “And thank you for taking care of him. I kind of like him.”

“Me, too.” The breathy admission came off my tongue before I could stop it. I blistered with heat from the blush that overtook my olive skin.

Nikki’s responding sinful grin set my panties on fire. I was completely cooked.

He locked eyes with mine, debilitating me with the tenderness in them. “Marley West, I’m not sure if this is love, but I’m absolutely obsessed with you. You’re all I’ve thought about since landing here—your well-being, your protection. You were my motivation to stay alive.”

My heart swelled in my chest, pulsing painfully against my ribcage. This wasn’t an illusion, right? This was real? How in the world was this real? Every skin cell in my body wanted to be touching him, each patch tingling with a violent want against his warm brown skin.

He kissed me again, or I kissed him. I wasn’t sure. Our tongues tangled like we were the only people who existed, feral to procreate and carry on our bloodlines for the sake of humanity.

We needed to get back to the group and figure out our next moves. We didn’t even have clean water to drink. My duties to our survivors needed to take precedence. Yet, my desperation to taste him was all-consuming. Everything else could wait.

I’d read about this in a survival manual once. Fucking to feel alive after shared trauma. Was this why I’d kissed Ambrose? Why was I suddenly so desperate to be held by Nikki?

No. I couldn’t label Ambrose, but it wasn’t nothing.

But Nikki—I’d buried my feelings for my friend so deep I had to excavate to find them. I hadn’t expected a raging flood to uncover the mounds of dirt that kept them hidden. Now they glared back at me like erected monuments in a desert—impossible to ignore.

“I thought I’d lost you,” I croaked out when we came up for air. My eyes still leaked the remainder of my relief and pain, but tears had slowed enough I could see through the dewdrops that clung to my lashes. Nikki’s misty eyes searched my soul as he held me tightly to his chest, like he couldn’t bear to lose my touch, either.

“The moment I pulled you from the water was the scariest of my life.” He admitted, gliding one finger along my cheekbone to catch an errant tear. “I can’t go through that again, Marley. My delicate sensibilities can’t take it.”

A snort-laugh broke through my need to kiss him. His responding grin was so boyish—so handsome—I got swept up in the magic that was this man. This kind, charming, devilish Brit who’d taken up residence in my head and my heart. I couldn’t witness his near-death again, either.

The desperation to touch him took over. I forcefully pressed my lips to his again in a kiss so ravaging, his incisor pierced my skin and drew blood. He sucked it clean with his tongue in a move that hardened my nipples to razors and turned my pussy to the water park setting.

With sloth-like slowness, he pulled back and stared at me like I was the eighth wonder of the world and it would kill him to pull his gaze away.

“I need you, baby girl.” His eyes fell several shades darker—the beautiful hazel shifting to deep, forest green. “I need to feel you from the inside out, to know you’re real, and safe, and mine to care for. I mean, with your permission,” he amended, with a wry grin. “Jesus, Marley, please give me permission.”

Every argument I’d ever given in my head—we were colleagues, I was his superior, he was too casual for me, he was too young—died on my tongue.

We’d crashed a plane full of contraband into a jungle. Was I really going to let the threat of an employment infraction make me say no? The heat of his gaze and the hardness brushing against my leg said not a chance in hell.