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CHAPTER TWO

Casper stared after Laryn…and couldn’t help but let his gaze drop to her ass.

She was a powerful dynamo in a small package, and he couldn’t get her out of his head.

It had started on the deck of the naval ship after he’d returned from that goat-screw of a rescue.

Thankfully, his brother Nate, the woman who’d been a captive of the Iranian government with him, Nate’s team leader, and Pyro were all fine after their chopper had been shot down and they’d had to land in the mountains of Iraq.

He’d been kind of dreading facing Laryn when she found out her precious chopper had been destroyed. And she’d said everything he’d expected, giving him a rash of shit. But it was the look in her eyes that had stopped him in his tracks. The look of fear.

Fear for him .

He’d known Laryn for three years, and in all that time, he’d only seen exactly what she’d presented to others: an incredible mechanic.

The person who made it easy to be a pilot without having to worry about the inner workings of the chopper he was flying.

But seeing the distress in her eyes that day, and knowing she’d actually been worried about him , not the machine she lovingly cared for, had shaken him .

It made him realize just how much he didn’t know about the amazing woman who literally held his life in her hands when he flew. One bolt left untightened, one overlooked routine maintenance item, could mean the difference between life or death for him and his copilot.

Casper had dated his fair share of women. But the ones who seemed to want him most were specifically looking to date a pilot. Wanted to be on his arm not because of who he was, but because of what he did, and the status they thought he could give them.

When he’d first become a Night Stalker, he’d soaked up the attention.

Reveled in it. Now? Those women annoyed him.

When he went to Anchor Point with his fellow Night Stalkers, he wanted to relax.

Have a beer or two. Chill. Not fend off women who made his eyes water with the amount of perfume they’d bathed in, or wore clothes that were two sizes too small in their bid for attention.

Those women were a stark contrast to Laryn.

He couldn’t remember a time when he’d seen the diminutive mechanic wearing anything but gray coveralls.

They swam on her frame, which meant he hadn’t really gotten a chance to see much of her body.

Except her ass. She was well-rounded there, which made him suspect the rest of her was much the same way.

The thought of digging his fingers into her soft flesh as he held her against him made his cock immediately stiffen.

Which was another change…not the erection, per se, but getting one every time his thoughts strayed even one inch over the line when thinking about Laryn. He’d become extremely curious about the woman who’d been in his life for the last few years, yet who he knew so little about.

He walked toward the chopper she and her team were working on, the one that he and Pyro would be testing soon. His copilot was talking to Sergeant Wells, a younger mechanic who Casper had seen working with Laryn quite a bit .

“How’s she doing?” Casper asked.

For the next five minutes, he and Pyro were treated to a monologue from the eager younger mechanic, who told them everything that was being done to the helicopter and how, in his opinion, it was going to run even better than the one that had been destroyed.

Casper listened with interest, and when the young man took a breath, he grabbed the opportunity to interrupt and clarify what he’d really been asking with his earlier question. “How’s Laryn doing? She looked exhausted when she left.”

“Oh, she is,” Chuck said with a small shrug.

“She’s like a dog with a bone. She refuses to take a break when something isn’t working right.

She constantly reminds all of us that if something breaks or isn’t installed perfectly, or if a part isn’t kept perfectly lubricated, that it could be a matter of life or death for the pilots. ”

“She seems like a ball buster of a boss,” Pyro chimed in.

“Yes and no,” he said. The admiration and loyalty he had for Laryn was easy to hear in his voice.

“She’s a perfectionist for sure, and expects the same in anyone who works under her.

But she’s also the first person to tell us to go home when she thinks we’re overworked.

She’s kind of like a mother hen that way.

Always wanting to make sure we’ve eaten, and that we aren’t doing anything stupid, like drinking and driving on the weekends. ”

For some reason, that surprised Casper. Which made him feel like shit.

He just hadn’t imagined Laryn being the kind of woman who’d be so protective with the younger men who worked under her.

Which wasn’t fair. She bitched about how hard he flew his chopper and the work it created for her and her team, but she also always asked how his missions had gone before she asked how the machine flew during his operations.

Wanted to make sure he and the rest of his Night Stalker teammates were all right.

And when he spoke, she listened intently to what he was saying…

if the steering seemed off, if the rotors made unusual noises, if the engines seemed to be working harder than they should.

She made him feel as if they were the only two people in the world when they were talking.

It wasn’t until right that second that he realized how rare that was.

Most people were constantly on their phones, looking at them in the middle of conversations.

Or they were distracted by people and things around them, their eyes roaming.

Especially the women he met…always casing a room as if looking for someone who might have a higher rank or more money.

Even his teammates weren’t entirely focused on him, or each other, when they hung out, their attention half on their conversation, half on their immediate surroundings.

Casper was guilty of that too. Because of their training, the missions they’d lived through, and the general lives they led, they were constantly on alert.

Aware of who walked in the door, of who was milling around them, what kinds of bags they carried…

who might look innocent but could actually be a suicide bomber.

It was an intense way to live, but life experiences and training had made them who they were.

Laryn wasn’t that way. All her attention was on whoever she was talking to or whatever she was doing. Casper frowned, now that he thought about it. That wasn’t safe. To be so absorbed in the moment.

“She went home?” he suddenly blurted, wanting confirmation of what she’d told him. And probably sounding like a lunatic, butting into the casual conversation Pyro and Chuck were having about the upcoming flying tests that were scheduled for the chopper two days from now.

“Laryn? Yeah. She said she was,” Chuck told him.

Casper could feel Pyro staring at him intently, and he had a feeling he was going to be in for an interrogation as soon as they were alone .

“I need to talk to her about a hydraulic issue we had in the last test flight,” Casper said, lying through his teeth. The last test had gone perfectly. The chopper flew like a dream. The controls were extremely responsive, and he and Pyro hadn’t found anything that wasn’t working properly.

“Oh, something that wasn’t already reported? Laryn isn’t going to like that. You know how she is,” Chuck said with a worried frown.

Casper did know. If he’d actually forgotten to tell her about something that wasn’t right on a test flight, she would tear him a new asshole.

But since he was fishing for information and had no intention of actually telling his mechanic that anything was wrong with her work, he wasn’t too concerned.

Ignoring the way his brain had claimed Laryn as his mechanic, Casper did his best to sound completely nonchalant as he asked his next question. “The thing is, I’m not sure where she lives. Can you give me her address so I can go talk to her?”

Chuck’s frown deepened. “I don’t think?—”

“I could call her, but we both know how she is. And you said it yourself. She’s already been here too long today and works too hard.

I can just stop by on my way home and tell her what I need to tell her, while making sure she doesn’t get into her car and drive her butt back down here to immediately check things out.

Do you know where she lives?” Casper asked, both praying the young mechanic had the info he wanted and trying to tamp down the desire to beat the man to a bloody pulp for possibly knowing where Laryn lived when he didn’t.

It was irrational, and Casper wasn’t exactly happy with these new feelings coursing through him.

But ever since his twin had found a woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, Casper felt as if time was running out for him.

He wanted what Nate had. His brother had been through hell, losing his Navy SEAL teammates on an op, then getting taken captive during another mission.

But things were looking up for him now…he was engaged, had a new team he clicked with, and he’d seemed to break through the mental shit he’d been dealing with since his former teammates had been injured and killed.

Casper was thrilled for his twin, but he felt as if he was missing out after seeing how content and happy Nate was with Josie, his fiancée.

“I’m still not sure,” Chuck hedged.