ready to deliver them to her, get showered, get out on the town and get laid in spades. He’d learned long ago that high-octane sex was a much better mood relaxer than any alcohol on the market. Thank god he knew plenty of women whose drug of choice was no-strings sex.
His cell dinged and he read the message, then sifted to look at the Rosens.
“I texted your daughter, Angela, earlier to let her know you were okay. She just texted back to let me know she’s waiting at the hangar.”
“Oh.” Nina Rosen took a deep breath. “Oh, thank you.”
“Yes.” Jim nodded. “More thanks. I—” He paused, swallowed. “We are more grateful than you can imagine. And happy that we can come home to our daughter.”
Neither of the Rosens said much after that. Blaze was pretty sure the aftereffects of their harrowing experience were finally taking over their bodies and minds. They wouldn’t be forgetting this for a long time, if ever. He buckled into the seat next to Saint, his location of choice. Watching the world slip by beneath them helped settle him after one of their missions.
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, thinking about the night ahead. He’d call Fran as soon as they landed, ready for a night of hot, unrestrained sex. Just as when he’d been an active SEAL, the work came first. When he was on a mission, he was totally focused on it. No distractions. But when the job was done and there was down time, he played as hard as he worked.
Fran was one of few women he felt comfortable with, a woman who made no emotional demands of him and wanted nothing more than a great night and hot, steamy sex. Fran was focused on her own career, as she’d told him the first time they’d had dinner, and she had neither time nor energy to invest in a relationship.
Fine by him. She had a body he could lose himself in, luscious breasts, full lips that knew exactly with to do with his cock, and—
Fuck!
As images flashed through his mind, said cock swelled and tried to push its way through the denim of his fly. He tried to shift without calling attention to himself, but Saint slid a glance at him and laughed.
“Getting a little ahead of yourself there? At least wait until we land.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Blaze growled.
“By the way.” He glanced over at Blaze. “Your brother called while you were doing the retrieval.”
Blaze lifted an eyebrow. His brother seldom called, busy as he was at the hospital. “Nolan? Called you?”
“Texted, actually. Said he wasn’t sure if you were around or not but knew I could get hold of you.”
“Huh. He’s usually too tied up with patients to call during the day. Did he say what he wanted?”
“Just that he gave your number to someone and you should definitely take her case.”
That was weird. Nolan never got involved in Galaxy business. The man’s position as head of the surgical department took up enormous amounts of his time, although Blaze knew Nolan wouldn’t have it any other way. Nor could he imagine who Nolan, in his very conservative world, would have come into contact with that he thought needed Galaxy.
“I don’t suppose he gave you a name or anything.”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, he texted me the info.” He pointed to the cell phone in a side pocket of his seat. “Go ahead. Look it up. You know the code.”
One of the things they had all agreed on from the beginning was how they handled their cell phones. With no landline, by design, they’d purchased the most powerful cells made, phones that they could use to call someone on the ground and maintain a conversation from the air if necessary. They also knew each other’s codes. In a high-risk situation, they needed to be able to access one another’s information.
Blaze picked the phone up and punched in the code to unlock it, then hit the text icon and found Nolan’s.
Hey. Can you pass along to Blaze that a woman named Peyton West will be calling his secret phone? Take good care of her.
Blaze read the message twice.
“That’s it? That’s all he said?”
Saint nodded. “He called me because he knew the four of you were actively involved with the rescue while all I did was sit my fat ass here in the chopper waiting for you guys.”
Blaze chuckled. “That’s one way of putting it.” He looked at the screen again.