by Dani Wyatt
Shock covers me, even as my heart speeds and my nipples tighten. I jerk my hand back, unwilling to give over my power to some strange man. Especially one who I can’t figure out if he wants to kiss me again or tell me to leave and catch a flight on my own.
I cross my arms over my chest and look out the window at the workers guiding the plane to the runway. Two minutes later, it speeds and we are airborne, sitting in silence with my pulse racing in my ears, wondering how I’m going to spend the next eight hours next to the man that has invaded my every thought and dream since the moment I set my eyes on him.
Once the plane levels off, a delicious scent drifts on the air and my mouth begins to water as I try to figure out if my stomach is doing this fluttery dance because of Damon, or the smell of food, or if I’m going to be airsick.
But for the first time, I’m not gripping the handles on my seat and thinking the plane is going to go down at any moment. That has to be an improvement, right?
Still, I look up where the man stowed my purse, knowing I should take the medication Melany gave me before I have another panic attack and embarrass myself in front of Damon.
“I need my purse.” I finally announce with a snip in my voice.
Damon’s green eyes snap to mine and he licks his lips before standing and opening the compartment, handing me my purse.
“I need to go check on something.” He licks his teeth. “What do you want to drink? I’ll bring the flight menu back as well, you can choose whatever you’d like to eat...”
His manner is softening but my resolve to keep a minimum safe distance from him is solid.
“Water is fine. And I’m not hungry.”
I urge my stomach not to growl and give away the lie.
“Uh huh.” He shakes his head, giving me a stare. “I think we’ve had this conversation before. I’ll just bring you everything. You need to eat.”
With that, he turns and retreats to the back of the plane through a closed door, leaving my head spinning. As soon as he’s gone, I find the blue pack of pills, toss two into my mouth as Melany instructed and swallow hard.
A few minutes later I hear the door open and turn to see his massive form coming back through the plane, three attendants close on his heels with trays of food which they set on the table in front of us as Damon returns to his place next to me. Only this time, he doesn’t even leave an inch between us.
“I said I’m not—”
He doesn’t wait, bringing a bite of some luscious shrimp delicacy to my lips. “Open.” He orders, and as much as I know I shouldn’t, I cave.
There’s a warm care in that single word, and the hardness that has cloaked him since I got in the car instantly melts away. It’s the first bite of food I’ve had in over twenty-four hours, and I moan in pleasure.
For the next ten minutes, I take bite after bite of the deliciousness until I hold my hand up in protest.
“No more. Really. I have a tendency to get air sick...I don’t want to...” I shrug, raising one eyebrow, and finally he smiles that smile that ruined me in the ballroom that night.
“Fine.” He takes a napkin and touches it to my lips. “But, just so you know, if you do get sick, I’ll take care of you. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”
I narrow an eye at him. “So, Dr. Jekyll...where’s Mr. Hyde gone?” He shoots me a quizzical look. “You’ve been a bit of a jerk since I got in your car. Not the man I met the other night in the ballroom, and not this guy who’s suddenly appeared once again.” I make a small circle toward him with my index finger.
He blows out a long breath. “Sorry. I’m a man of extremes sometimes.”
“You’re a total jerk sometimes. You practically bit the heads off both the pilot and that guy that helped with the luggage. Just because they looked at me? Men look at me, I’m used to it...”
He sits up straighter, looking directly forward for a long beat before answering. “I don’t want to hear about men looking at you. And I don’t want to see it, either. Not like they look at you.” He bites out, and as he looks back at me our eyes lock. “I hate it.”
I shake my head. “Why do you care who looks at me or how? You’re just protecting your investment.”
Anger clouds his eyes for a moment before he answers. “That’s what you think?” He huffs, then softens. “You’re an investment, sure. But not the kind you think. Not to me.”
His words are softer but still intense and that flutter in my stomach increases as he reaches again for my hand, and this time I don’t pull it away. I settle at the contact, his eyes on my face, then drifting lower to where my dress is high on my thighs.
“I like when you touch me.” I dare, remembering how it felt the other night when he kissed me. When his hands pushed up on my thighs, making me want more.
“I like touching you. It’s like touching heaven.” He half growls back, adding, “I don’t want anyone else touching you, Doralee. I’m sorry, you’re right I was rude to those guys, but the thought of even their eyes touching you...it’s unbearable to me.”
I’m buzzing inside as Damon’s eyes roam over me, this time with a fire and desire he’s not trying to hide. Sitting next to him, he’s even bigger than he looked when I met him before. He’s got to be six feet six inches at least, and close to three hundred rock solid pounds.
He’s all muscle and as my mind wanders to thoughts of him on top of me, I realize this mammoth man could crush me easily.
“So.” I start, reaching over to run my hand down his chest, feeling the beat of his heart there. “Are you still interested in touching heaven?” Heat courses through me as a rumble vibrates under my hand.
He reaches down and unbuckles my seatbelt, then his own, taking me by the hand and half jerking me up and out of my seat, dragging me toward another closed door in the back of the plane where there’s an entire bedroom suite, decorated in gold and white. As soon as we’re inside, he clicks the door shut behind us, pushing a button, and a red light illuminates above the door.
Panic tightens my throat as I look around, then back at the red light and put it all together.
“Wow.” I feel like every time I let my guard down, there’s some other red flag that starts waving, reminding me how naïve I am. “You’re a real Austin Powers, huh? This what you call your shag room?” I spit out, trying to tug my hand from his.
He glares at me, holding my hand tighter, then pulling me into him, his thick arm reaching around my back.
“That’s what you think?” A deep chuckle vibrates from his chest.
“Let go of me.” I smack at his shoulder with my other hand, but it’s like pounding on concrete.
“Stop.” He takes my blows, shaking his head. “I bought this plane two days ago. It’s brand new. You know why I bought it?”
“Because you broke your last one with all the shagging?”
He reaches out, his other hand grabbing the one I have pounding his shoulder, holding me still as I struggle and step on his size sixteen loafers. “Stop that. I bought this plane after I met you. Because someday, I knew I’d have you here. With me. And for the first time, I want to give someone everything. That someone is you, Doralee, if you will ever just stop overreacting and listen before you transform into a toddler.”
There’s sincerity in his voice, but I glare nonetheless. “How do I know what you’re saying is true?”
“You promise to stop hitting me?”
“For the moment.” I answer and he shakes his head, then lets me go and presses a button on the wall.
The pilot’s voice comes through. “Yes, sir?”
“Is this my plane?”
“Uhhh...yes, sir.”
“When did I buy this plane?”
“I helped you pick it out and do the paperwork, day before yesterday, sir. Is there a problem?”
He looks at me and I roll my eyes, but nod.
“Nope, no problem. That’s all.” He releases the speaker button and comes back toward me. “You can be a brat. You
know what brats get?”
My stomach knots, and the pulsing between my legs is almost unbearable. “Juice boxes and candy corn?” I snap back, trying to hold back my smile. I’ve never been this cheeky with someone before, but with Damon for the first time in my life, I feel like I can be myself.
“Maybe, after they get their ass spanked. Keep that up and I’ll flip you up and over my knee before you can take a breath.”
“Really? You think you can...” But I don’t get to finish the thought.
Chapter Seven
Damon
MY LIPS CUT HER OFF. Inside, I’m secretly loving the sassy girl that has taken the place of the frightened mouse I encountered in the ballroom just a few short days ago.
I want her to be herself around me. I want the good, the bad and the ugly. So to speak. It would be impossible for her to ever be ugly.
She’s too perfect.
And once I’ve touched perfection, I know there is no living without it again. I know I’m a lunatic for lying to her. I’m flying us to Paris, sure, but not to the agency rooms. We’ll go to my apartment. We’ll spend New Year there, then see where things go. My plan is to keep her there until I can explain everything. And one way or another, I’ll make her understand.
At least that’s what I’m telling myself.
Her red silk dress falls off her shoulders, exposing her too prominent collarbones, but we will work on getting her healthy again. I’m so fucking hard I can barely breathe.
I reach down and grip her ass, easily mounting her onto the front of me before laying her down on the gold silk of the bedding, her slick black hair splaying out to frame her creamy skin like a masterpiece hanging in the best museum in the world.
I want to be inside her, more than I’ve ever wanted anything, but even more than that I want to taste every inch of her. To feel the silk of her cunt against my mouth as my tongue dips into her honey, feeling the tightness there, knowing no matter what happens, no one will ever have her but me.
“Your dresses are too short. From now on, you won’t wear things like that out, unless you are with me.” I look down to see the pink silk panties, dark between her legs, as she throws her hands above her head and kicks off the six-inch black pumps from her feet, her knees falling open as she does.
“So, you’re going to dress me, too?”
“Yes.” I answer and the sureness of it hits me. “I’m going to dress you, feed you, bathe you, teach you, laugh with you, fuck you...” Her eyes light up at that last one, but I continue. “But right now, I’m going to eat you. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Your pussy is already wet for me, isn’t it?”
She nods as I step forward and she brings a foot out and presses it against the erection straining against the fabric of my pants. “You’re hard. I’m wet. We’re a matched set.”
I can see I’m going to have my hands full with her, but I’ll take whatever she has to dish out as long as she’s by my side.
“Soon enough, my sweet Songbird. When my cock takes that cherry of yours, you’ll understand just how matched we are. But right now, I’m hungry for you. I’ve imagined how sweet you taste every second of every day and night since I kissed you in my ballroom.”
I reach up and grab the elastic of her panties from her hips, feeling the bones there as I tug them down and off her legs, bringing the fabric to my face to take a long draw of her scent before dropping them to the floor and shoving her knees apart with my hands.
She gasps at the power of my movements, but when she reaches down and slips a single finger between her glistening bare lips I know she’s baiting me.
I don’t waste any more time, climbing onto the bed to settle myself between her legs and taking the first long slow lick from down low, all the way up to her clit as her moans fill the bedroom and her hips rise to move against my face.
She’s already sticky with her honey, and as my mouth works her clit I look up to see her watching me, the lust in her eyes nearly more than I can stand.
I latch onto her cunt, sucking down her juice as I slip my tongue into her drenched opening, feeling the resistance there and knowing soon enough my cock will tear through that cherry, making her mine forever.
Another need wells up inside of me, something I’ve never felt before, and it’s overwhelming me as I dry hump the bed, sucking on her clit as I listen to the sounds she makes with each move of my mouth.
I need to mark her flesh. The thought consumes me as I grip her thighs and pull her legs as far apart as they will go, flicking and sucking her clit until her hands find my head, pulling at my hair as she grinds against my face, twisting and arching off the bed, her body beginning to shudder.
I’m a beast. I’ll never get enough. She shakes and drenches my face and beard as I swallow down every drop of her release, my own hips rubbing my cock against the bedding, searching for relief from the pressure that’s been building inside of me for days.
“More.” I growl into her as her body trembles and she tries to push my head from her too sensitive flesh. “More...”
“No, wait!” She pleads as the need to mark her becomes impossible to resist a second longer.
I turn my face, taking the soft flesh of her inner thigh between my teeth, biting down, listening to her yelp and writhe as she tries to get away from me. I turn my head again, doing the same on the other side, only this time her cunt releases another round of cream against the side of my face and I know from this day forward she will belong to me.
Utterly and completely.
I want it all and I can settle for nothing less.
“Cum for me again.” I order as I return to sucking on her clit, fucking my tongue into her opening, and before long she gives me what I need, screaming my name as she kicks her legs, slapping at my head, twisting her body, trying to get away...but I keep her cunt plastered against my face until she’s a panting, soaking mess, spent and breathless in front of me.
As I release her thighs, I look down to see the purple marks rising there, and the animal in me wants to mark her every day, from this day on, so every other fuck knows she’s taken and no one will ever touch her but me.
I gather her in my arms, pulling us both up onto the pillows, dragging the bedding back as I go. Her hot skin is cooling quickly in the air of the small bedroom, goose-pimples rising on her soft skin.
I strip down, needing her flesh against mine, knowing it’s not time for me to take her completely yet but unable to not be against her in this more intimate way.
Pulling her back to my chest, I whisper soothing sweetness into her ear as she comes down from her orgasms, wanting to hold her as she sleeps almost as much as my greedy hard-on wants to fuck her.
We lie quietly, and I know when I take her, I want it to be because we are both ready. I don’t want a fuck. I want to make love to her. I want her to be sure. To know I’m as much hers as she is mine.
I turn her toward me, coming up on my elbow to kiss her lips, and find her already half asleep.
“I’m feeling so tired.” Her words are thick, slurred, and her body melts, her eyes fluttering like she’s drunk, not just tired.
“You okay, baby?”
She swallows, then tries to bring a hand to my face, misses and breaks into a laugh, her eyes closing as she drags her hand down her face, flinging it across the open side of the bed. A second later, she’s passed out, saliva already dripping from the corner of her mouth.
Something is wrong. I feel it down into my marrow. This isn’t just post-orgasm exhaustion. She went from completely alert to slack and drooling, her skin clammy and her eyes not just closed but rolled back into her head.
“Fuck, what is going on?” Panic grips me as I cover her chilled body, shoving my legs into my pants and getting my erection covered up before barreling out of the bedroom door. “Hey!” I shout into the open cabin.
“Sir?” Theresa, an attendant that’s been with me for years, comes out from the galley.
“Watch her, watch her br
eathing. I need to find her purse...”
Concern darkens her eyes and she moves to the open bedroom door as I rush to where Doralee’s purse sits on one of the open seats. I dump it out, tearing through the contents and unzipping a small red satin bag. Inside, what I see has me cold.
I dump out the six pill bottles as well as two other prescription boxes of medication. There’s a folded piece of paper that comes out with the contents and when I unfold it I go numb.
It’s a handwritten list of all the medications and instructions on dosage and frequency. At the bottom of the list, in red, it reads:
AS YOU BOARD YOUR FLIGHT: Take two blue capsules.
I shuffle through the medications until I find the blue pills prescribed by Melany Jorganson, then read the tiny writing on the box label: Take One Half a capsule as needed, for pain relief.
Pain relief? She didn’t appear to be in any pain, and the sheet of paper had her taking four times the dosage for an adult—and for all intents and purposes Doralee is more the size of a child.
If that’s what happened, there’s no way we are flying all the way to Paris. And either Melany Jorganson is a criminal, or she’s a fucking idiot. Either way, there’s no way she’s going to have access to my precious heaven ever again.
I grab my phone and run back to the bedroom, where Theresa is sitting next to Doralee.
“She’s breathing slowly, but evenly. What’s wrong with her?”
“I’m going to find out. And someone is going to pay.”
I dial my personal physician, go over what’s going on, and finally hang up, anger and relief flooding through me as I press my lips to her ear.
“I’m here, sweet Songbird. You’re going to be okay. I’ve got you and I’m never letting you go.” I reach over to the phone on the nightstand next to the bed and hit the button for the cockpit. “Call in an emergency flight diversion.”
Chapter Eight
Doralee
I’M SUFFOCATING.
There’s no air.