by Julie Leto
A gleam flashed across his intoxicating champagne-colored eyes that, in anyone else, Annie might have thought implied that she wouldn’t need any clothes for the next two days. But this was Drew. Bianca’s brother. Bianca’s younger brother.
She simply was not that lucky.
“Aren’t we going to New York to shop?” he asked.
“I meant clothes for me,” Annie replied. “We’re filling Bianca’s trousseau in Manhattan, not mine.”
“Who says?” he asked.
“My bank statement,” she replied.
He waved her off. “Let’s not worry about details. I was supposed to spend this weekend on a gambling junket. Saved the money from the last time I left Vegas with a profit. Instead, we’ll have fun in New York. And if that includes picking up a couple of things for you, that’s cool. Now, let’s move. I want to be in the air before sunup.”
Drew started toward the tarmac, nothing if not decisive. Only a year ago, he’d taken what could have been the most chaotic time in her life—the emotional and gut-wrenching move out of her marital home—and turned it into just a blip on the radar that was her life. He’d directed every aspect of packing up her world, from the porcelain doll she’d found in a Dresden antique shop to the complete set of Cars toys her sons had collected from McDonald’s. He’d kept her boys occupied with little jobs like counting boxes or filling cartons with foam peanuts while she’d spent a day and half surreptitiously ogling some of the hottest guys she’d seen since the summer she’d spent as team photographer for the Brazilian futbol league.
Without Drew, the move might have spun into a maelstrom, not only for her, but for her children. Only five and seven at the time, Will and Andy hadn’t understood why they had to leave their Thomas the Tank Engine bedroom behind or why they were leaving town when their daddy was on yet another business trip. Wouldn’t he be mad when he came home and found the house empty? How would he know how to find them?
Her boys had no way of knowing that their father probably wouldn’t notice they were gone. Devoted to nothing but his job, her ex worked eighty hours a week—and that was during Christmas. She and the boys had been reduced to photographs he kept on his desk to impress clients.
The divorce had been quick and decisive—but thanks to a fit of raging guilt, her ex had been generous with child support and alimony. She’d always been frugal, but she could afford to spend a little on herself. Just this once.
The last new thing she’d bought for herself was the T-shirt she was wearing—a bright purple, form-fitting number that hugged her curves and made her boobs look much perkier than they actually were.
In fact, her whole body felt a lot livelier since Drew showed up.
Drew led her through a hangar. In addition to several other planes, she spotted his sleek red convertible. As he snagged a battered leather duffel from the passenger seat before motioning her to follow him out the large double doors at the other end of the building, she recalled tooling around in a similar car the year she’d spent in France, Italy and Spain with a ne’er-do-well author who’d hired her to shoot the images for his book on the origins of the kiss.
The publication had been a boon to her career, and the affair she’d had with the author hadn’t been so awful, either. Yet again, she was reminded about how drastically her life had changed in the past decade. She’d put her career aside to raise her boys and as for affairs, she hadn’t had one of those since she’d met her ex-husband.
But this wasn’t the time for regrets. The next three days were about Coop and Bianca and their incredible journey to matrimony which, hopefully, would turn out better than her trip down the aisle. Unlike her, her brother had found precisely the right woman.
Leo’s suggestion that they plan and execute a surprise wedding for Cooper and Bianca couldn’t have come at a better moment. Her ex’s parents, recently retired to the other coast, had her sons for the entire week. Though she’d arranged for them to return early to attend their uncle’s wedding, this was the longest she’d been without her children in almost nine years.
And as much as it went against every motherly instinct she’d acquired, she deserved a little fun.
Maybe a lot of fun, she thought as Drew leaned out of the plane and extended his hand to help her up the stairs. Her insides might have actually liquefied at his chivalry if she didn’t know that he was just being polite.
Well, maybe her insides melted a bit anyway, especially when she registered how nice his callused palms and long fingers felt against her skin. She wasn’t used to an adult male showing her any attention, even for the sake of manners. Most guys caught sight of her flanked on either side by her punks—known to everyone else as her adorable sons—and ran for the hills.
But Drew had liked the boys.
Probably because there wasn’t that much of an age difference.
Okay, that wasn’t fair. Drew wasn’t a boy. No, there was nothing boyish about him—except maybe that smile.
She followed him into the cockpit, watching with awe as he went through the flight checklist with rapid efficiency. He gestured for her to take the copilot’s seat and once she was buckled in and wearing the lightweight headphones he handed her, she found it a lot easier to forget she was a single mom with four loads of dirty laundry waiting for her at home. For the first time in years, she experienced that old, forgotten thrill she’d get from an exciting assignment in some unexplored or dangerous corner of the world.
Takeoff occurred without a hitch. Drew’s ease while responding to the command tower waylaid any fears she might have had, along with the way he flicked, pressed and manipulated the controls to the plane with total confidence. She’d just started to relax when music suddenly blasted in her ears.
He turned down the volume before she could identify the song, though if it hadn’t been released more than ten years ago or didn’t play on Radio Disney, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t have heard it before.
“Sorry. I like it loud once I’m at cruising altitude,” he explained.
“’s okay,” she said, willing her heartbeat to normalize. “Loud music and I are old friends, though for licks that loud, I used to go to live performances.”
“Don’t tell me you were a groupie back in the—”
He stopped himself, but the sentiment hung in the air like pea soup–thick fog in London.
“Day?” she supplied. “Like the dark ages? Yeah, those mandolins and pianofortes were hell on the eardrums.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” he said.
She reached over the console and patted his hand. She’d fully intended the physical contact to come across as motherly, but any thoughts of June Cleaver disappeared the minute her flesh made contact with his. No, her thoughts went straight to Demi Moore. She was a mother, wasn’t she? Had a whole passel of kids.
And she had Ashton Kutcher, too.
A much-younger-than-her Ashton Kutcher. At least he was over thirty, while Annie was sure Drew was only about twenty-six. Of course, Annie wasn’t exactly in her forties, either, while gorgeous Demi had passed that milestone a while back. Annie still had a couple of years left until she hit the big four-oh.
But not many—which made her wonder if the time had come for her to start making those years count.
So instead of shying away from the sizzle of sensation vibrating from his skin to hers, she surrendered to it, leaving her hand atop his, hoping he’d realize the contact was no longer meant to be conciliatory or even friendly.
It was an invitation. Would he accept?
A split second later, his fingers shifted. Her lungs seized at the thought of him pulling away, but instead, he turned his hand so that his was now possessively on top of hers.
2
AFTER THEY’D MAINTAINED cruising altitude and speed for ten minutes and received an all-clear from the nearest tower, Drew set the instruments to autopilot, removed his headphones and watched Annie stare out the windshield to the east, her hand still on the center console. He’d held it
for barely a minute before navigating the plane took precedence, yet the soft, warm feel of her skin beneath his still thrummed like an echo against his flesh—an echo of a sensation so powerful, he simply had to feel it again.
This time, when he brushed his fingers over hers, she turned with a start.
God, she was beautiful. Her irises, wide with surprise, sparkled like the emerald-green waters of the Gulf against pale white sands. Her hair, recently dyed red and styled in a sassy bob, contrasted with the anxiety quaking through her. She moved to tug her hand from his, but he held steady. The translucent skin at the corners of her lashes crinkled as she forced a smile.
“Small planes make me nervous,” she said, as if trying to explain her reason for holding his hand before, but clearly not wanting to now.
“No, they don’t,” he contradicted. “You used to fly all over the world in planes a lot less luxurious and reliable than this one.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know all about you,” he assured her, then decided he was going to sound like a stalker if he didn’t clarify where he got his information. “Bianca talks about you all the time.”
Her free hand flew to her heart as if she were hugely relieved. “Bianca’s sweet. And she’s good for my brother. He was always a homebody until he met her.”
He couldn’t imagine that anyone in the Rush family could be deemed a homebody. Cooper and Annie’s parents were both doctors and had worked in Third World countries before they set up a mobile clinic that went into the poorest communities around Florida. Coop designed software for Ajay’s technology firm, which financed trips to the four corners of the world for supposed “research.” And Annie used to be a sought-after photojournalist before she retired to get married and have babies.
“That’s funny,” he said, “because Bianca gives you the credit for inspiring her to travel the way she does.”
“Me? That’s ridiculous. I don’t go anywhere.” She leaned back against the seat.
“You used to. You led quite the life of adventure before you got married.” Again, she speared him with an incredulous look, prompting him to add, “From what I’ve heard.”
Her expression turned pensive. “That was a long time ago.”
“Only ten years.”
“That’s a whole generation.”
Reluctantly, he released her hand and checked the speed and altitude. If he maintained this course, they’d be in New York in less than three hours.
And then the real fun would begin.
“No, it’s only half of a generation,” he corrected her, stretching his arms behind his head. Did she really think their life experiences were so divergent? Their age difference wasn’t quite that pronounced, though it certainly did exist.
He unbuckled and stood, which made her sit up in alarm.
“Want something to drink?” he asked.
“Shouldn’t you concentrate on flying the plane?”
“But I always wanted to be a flight attendant,” he said, feigning exasperation.
From her frown, she did not think his joke was funny.
“We’re perfectly safe,” he assured her. “The skies are clear and this plane has an autopilot that has logged more hours than I have. It won’t take long for me to go back and grab us a couple of sodas. Caffeine-free Diet Dr Pepper, right?”
He didn’t wait for her reply, certain she hadn’t changed her beverage preference since the move. It was hard not to notice her cola of choice when she’d hoarded cases of the stuff. Of course, with Annie, it was hard not to notice anything.
Like the way she crinkled her nose when she was thinking. Or the way she twirled her hair around her finger when she was zoning out from exhaustion.
God, he had it bad. He was whipped, and except for that all-too-brief moment when his hand had touched hers in the cockpit, she barely knew he was alive.
Well, he was going to change all that.
He poured her drink into a glass with ice, courtesy of the plane’s well-stocked galley, and then popped a plate of pre-packaged cinnamon rolls into the microwave while he brewed coffee for himself. The aroma awoke his senses, but not enough to turn him away from his purpose.
To seduce Annie Rush.
No, more than that—to win her heart.
The bet with Leo had been a lark—an added incentive and, frankly, a reason to test the concept of him and Annie hooking up on some of the people who would, by virtue of their friendships and family ties, have a say-so in whether or not the relationship worked out. As expected, Leo had not been enthusiastic about the idea. But he also hadn’t dismissed it out of hand. As Cooper’s best friend, he could have taken the bullying big-brother role and warned Drew away from pursuing Annie. He hadn’t. He’d made a wager on his success.
Wasn’t exactly a seal of approval, but it was likely the best Drew was going to get.
He returned to the cockpit.
“Wow,” she said, taking a long, appreciative sniff of the warm, cinnamon-scented air. She moaned in anticipatory pleasure and Drew’s brain immediately conjured images of her making those very same sounds under much more intimate circumstances.
“I aim to please,” he said, reaching to the depths of his control. He slid into his seat and pulled out a tray table to hold the rolls. “You know, for someone who’s seen the world, you sure do get excited by the little things.”
With her hand hovering over the pastries, her fingers wiggling in anticipation of choosing precisely the right treat, she snickered. “I wouldn’t call this aircraft and all its amenities a little thing. I knew your business was doing well, but I had no idea you were so stinking rich.”
He checked the instruments and chuckled. “I do okay, but ‘stinking rich’ I am not. This plane doesn’t belong to me. I have a much more humble twin-prop.”
“So this belongs to?”
“Ajay Singh.”
“Coop’s boss?”
“Yeah, I move all his executives and I fill in as his private pilot when he’s in a pinch. In return, he lets me take this baby out every so often. For special occasions.”
“Like going to New York to pick up your sister’s wedding dress?” she concluded.
“More like impressing you while we go to New York to pick up my sister’s wedding dress.”
“Why would you care about impressing me?”
Her question was so honest, even she seemed a little surprised by it. God, did she really have no idea?
“Natural instinct,” he replied. “Men can’t resist showing off their biggest, most expensive toys when a beautiful woman is around.”
She nearly snorted soda up her nose. Unable to stop himself, he laughed.
“Yeah, that was really beautiful,” she said, grabbing blindly for her purse as caramel-colored liquid dribbled down her shirt.
Drew reached for a towel he kept in the storage pocket beside his seat. The woman of his dreams had a sweet, syrupy drink splattered down her chin, neck and across her generous breasts. This wasn’t a cleanup he could simply stand by and watch. He was, after all, a hands-on guy.
Kneeling beside her, he moved toward her with the towel, which she attempted to grab.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice so soft he almost didn’t hear her with the steady hum of the engines in the background.
“Helping,” he replied, keeping the cloth firmly in his hand.
“Drew,” she said, her voice thick with warning.
He dabbed the towel on her chin first, staring hard into her eyes until her blush of embarrassment was replaced by a deeper, darker flush from her cheeks to her chest. He imagined her skin was so hot that if he didn’t hurry, the soda might evaporate in one long sizzle.
“Just let me, Annie.”
She closed her eyes, squeezing them tight as if she expected his touch to bring her pain instead of pleasure. Wow. Just what had that ex-husband of hers done to make her fear a man’s touch—or was it only his touch that frightened her? Was it becaus
e of who he was and how old he wasn’t—or was it because she was terrified of what he would make her feel?
Desire. Passion. Fire.
He wiped away a streak of soda slinking down her throat, licking his lips as his gaze strayed down the long, clean lines of her neck. Her flesh undulated as she swallowed hard.
“I can finish,” she said, though not in a tone that demanded capitulation.
“No,” he replied. “Let me.”
“Drew,” she said again, but his name trailed off when he leaned forward and kissed the spot on her neck he’d just wiped free.
With a sigh, she relaxed into his kiss, which emboldened him to open his mouth and taste her. The combination of saltiness and sweetness threw his senses into instant inebriation.
She placed his hands on her shoulders. “You have to stop.”
“Why?” he asked, moving so he could reach the erogenous zone directly below her ear.
“Because this…is…wrong,” she replied, her whisper simmering with heat he intended to stoke—if she gave him the chance.
“No, it’s not,” he insisted, nuzzling against her. “We’re both adults and we’re alone and we’re attracted to one another.”
“I’m not—”
She cut her own denial short when he suckled her neck harder, her earlobe tickling his nose.
“Yes, you are,” he assured her. “And I’m dead tired of hiding how much I want you. Now that I’ve got you all to myself, I’m not letting you slip away.”
3
FROM THE DEPTHS of her strength, Annie summoned the self-control to push Drew away. This time, she meant business. Allowing him to kiss her was ridiculous. Crazy. Unexpected. Shocking and…delicious.
But the madness had to stop. Before it started. Before they’d gone too far.
Drew relaxed on his haunches, his expression wholly unrepentant.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.
He pretended to think hard. “Hmm, for starters, I don’t believe the word wrong relates to us.”
She barked out a laugh, snagged the towel from his hands and attempted to wipe the last of the cola from the front of her T-shirt, which, mercifully, was a dark shade of purple and would hide most of the stain. “There isn’t a better word in the whole English language for this so-called us.”