Tempting the New Boss

by Angela Claire

  He could have been talking about Camilla on that last one.

  Mason hugged her closer to him.

  “I’d just rather check with the captain,” the pilot said, “before we get back in. And if there’s some other shelter around here, it might be better to, ah… But if not, we’ll go back on board.”

  “Fine. We understand.” Mason surveyed the view in the distance, the captain no longer visible, black closing in beyond the lights of the plane, slashes of rain all around them, and certainly no buildings that he could see. Just woods and a lake and the long gravelly strip they had landed on, a makeshift runway perhaps for air deliveries to wherever the hell they were. Or it had once been. Now there was nothing. He shook his head and shivered a little in the cold air. It was a fucking miracle they were alive.

  She stared at him intently as the captain came back, shaking his head. “Nothing but a battered old sign with some kind of word on it I didn’t recognize, Indian maybe, and the remains of a shed, a hangar I guess, but I didn’t see anything of further use in it. No radio or anything.” He waved a folded sheet of something. “There was a map of Nova Scotia, though, so we can take a look at this.”

  “Okay to go back into the plane?” the other pilot asked him.

  “Yeah. Let’s do that,” the captain answered.

  “It’s safe?” she said. “It won’t blow up?”

  “No, it should be fine.” The pilots stepped back into the plane, but when Mason tried to urge Camilla, her feet seemed firmly planted on the ground.

  “If it was going to blow up,” he assured her, “it would have already done it by now. Probably on descent.”

  He managed to shepherd her back up and into the lit plane, the pilots closing the door behind them, shutting out most of the sound of the rain.

  Mason led her to the seats they had been in for the landing, then grabbed a blanket that had tumbled out of the overhead and draped it over her shoulders as they sat down, side by side. He held her hand, which was ice cube cold. “Rest a minute. Just take a deep breath. Do you want a glass of water?”

  “I’m fine. I’m good.” Her voice sounded stronger, and she bent her head into the crook of his arm, then laughed, a sound that started out kind of off, but ended more naturally, in pure unadulterated…well, something.

  One of the pilots, shit he could not remember either of their names, but he thought it was the captain, spread the map against an overhead as they consulted it, conversing in low tones.

  “Where are we?” he asked.

  “Well, since the radio went out along the way and some of the instruments failed, we can’t tell exactly where we are,” one of them said while the other nodded. “But that sign out there was a help after all. It looks like we landed considerably south of Halifax, in a state park called,” he paused and read from the map, “Kejimkujik. That’s what was on the sign. This must have been some kind of a landing strip for supplies, undoubtedly planes a lot smaller than this one, so we really lucked out that we made it down safely.”

  “Luck, hell, Boyd, that was some fancy flying!” His co-pilot slapped him on the back.

  “I second that,” Mason agreed. “But how far is this park from civilization?”

  “Says here the total area of the park is about one hundred and fifty six square miles. Unfortunately, we’re not exactly sure where we are in it, and with the storm and cloud coverage on the descent, we couldn’t see much in terms of nearest cluster of lights, which might’ve given us some indication of the direction to head.”

  Mason didn’t have much hope, but he pulled out his cell phone.

  “No service, sir,” a pilot said. “We already checked.”

  “Right.” He slipped it back into his pocket. “I guess we’ll have to walk out if you say the radio is down.”

  “Park itself is in the center of Nova Scotia, but considerably to the west,” the other pilot said, tapping the map. “And there’s a town to the north, Caladonia. Might make sense for us to split up, two of us go west, the other two go north.”

  “Nova Scotia’s an island province of Canada, right?” Camilla directed her question to the clean-cut, military-looking pilots in their wet white uniform shirts, stripes on their shoulders, with an attention that Mason didn’t like for some reason. “Will anyone be searching for us?”

  “It’s an island, miss, but a big one. And couldn’t say if anyone’s looking for us yet. With the radio out, we couldn’t send a message that we intended to change course. For all we know, the last airport that was tracking us won’t even have picked up the distress signal. And the airport we were originally heading to, Heathrow, won’t notice until we fail to show up at arrival time. By then, everybody might think we went down.”

  Camilla shivered. “My family.”

  She must be troubled about a call going to her parents, all those siblings, the worry she would be putting them through.

  All he had to be concerned about was Marcia. And hell, she wouldn’t worry. She’d just mount an all-out search for the plane, convinced she could rescue him wherever he was, even if that was three miles down in the depths of the ocean. He smiled. She probably could, too.

  “We might run into a ranger’s station, even before a town, where we could get a message through that we’re safe,” Mason suggested. “Maybe even before they know we’re missing.”

  “God, I hope so,” she said in a small voice.

  A pilot went to one of the closets and pulled out two leather jackets, trimmed with sheep’s fleece, throwing one to his co-pilot as they both shrugged into them. “I would suggest Ray go with one of you, and I’ll go with the other.”

  Camilla nodded, waiting for Mason to get up so she could get by and they could pair off.

  “Okay. I’m all for walking out of here,” she said.

  Mason looked down at her spikey heels. “Not in those shoes, you’re not.” He turned to the pilots. “Maybe she should wait with the plane, in case someone spots it.”

  “I don’t want to sit here all alone.” She glared at him. “I have flats in my bag.”

  “It could be a long walk, miss, and in this rain there’ll be a lot of mud. We trained for this kind of thing in the Air Force. You let us handle it.”

  “Right. These men trained for this, Camilla. Let them do their jobs. You stay here in case someone locates the plane. And whoever gets somewhere first will send help back, and if instead someone finds the plane, you can get help to us. How’s that?”

  She clenched her jaw and shook her head.

  The pilots opened the metal container of edible supplies, passing up the drawer with the small bottles of liquor for the one with water and energy drinks. They filled two backpacks, adding some trail mix and other snacks, not weighing in further as to whether Camilla should be joining one of them or not. From a closet they retrieved boots. “What size are you, Mr. Talbot?”

  “Twelve,” he answered. “Now listen, Camilla, what if someone comes upon the empty plane? They’ll think we’re all dead. Then what kind of message will get to your family?”

  “Without bodies, they will not. They’ll think we did what we did, which was walk to civilization. They’ll probably even see our tracks from the plane heading out.”

  “Not in this rain they won’t. The mud will wash the tracks away. And bodies can be flung a great distance from a crash, for your information.”

  “Too bad,” a pilot said. “We have an extra pair but it’s a size nine. And Ray and I are tens, so you couldn’t use ours.”

  “I’m fine,” he said, glancing at his sneakers.

  “Maybe you should stay, too,” suggested the other guy—in his defense, they looked very similar in their crew cuts and uniforms and now the bomber jackets.

  Mason stood up in the aisle. “No, I’m going.”

  “Then I’m going, too,” Camilla insisted, pushing him out of the way so she could get to the overhead.

  “She can go with the captain,” the man who’d made the suggestion he stay
said. “And you can come with me, sir. Boyd will take good care of her, won’t you?”

  “Sure. The terrain won’t be too difficult, I suspect. Just the hike could be quite a few miles.”

  When Camilla peeked in the overhead, it was empty, and upon spying her luggage perched on a seat farther back down the aisle where it tumbled, she went down to it and scooted low to unzip the side.

  He made up his mind. “Miss Anderson and I will go together. West, or north, whichever you think, and you two head in the other direction.”

  The pilots traded a look that said they didn’t want to interfere with the boss and shrugged. One went to the cockpit and came back with two small rectangular black instruments, handing one to Mason and keeping the other.

  “Walkie-talkies. They have a range of fifty miles, so at least we’ll be able to be in contact if we need to be for that distance, and hopefully, one of us will get somewhere before then. If you have any problems or questions, just depress the button and contact us.” He added in a lower voice, “Map indicated there’s a fair amount of wildlife on this kind of preserve. Moose, and, ah,” he lowered his voice even more, “black bear occasionally.”

  Mason glanced back to Camilla, who either hadn’t heard or was pretending she hadn’t. He took the walkie-talkie. “I’ll give it another try in keeping her here on the plane. Maybe I’ll have more luck after you guys leave.”

  The pilot glanced over his shoulder. “She does look pretty wired, and it’s going to be a long haul.”

  He nodded.

  “If you do change her mind, just get us on this, and one of us will start heading in the other direction. You could stay on the plane with her.”

  “No, I’m going.”

  The pilot handed him the backpack. “Let us know anyway, and if we’re not too far, one of us will double back and join you.”

  “Thanks. But I don’t know that’ll be necessary.”

  “Whatever you say, sir. There’s an extra jacket in the closet, but not one for her I’m afraid.”

  “She can have it.”

  “Two umbrellas in the backpack.”

  With a final good-bye called down to Camilla, the pilots left after confirming they would go west and handing a compass to Mason that they should use to head north.

  When they were alone, the sound of the pilots receding, he closed the plane door against the rain. She tried to pass him in the aisle, suitcase behind her, and he caught her arm. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked.

  “Am I okay?” Her voice was filled with wonder. “I’m alive. We’re alive!”

  He smiled. “I know. Hard to believe. That was a hell of a—”

  In the confines of the aisle, their bodies practically brushed against each other, and her face was close enough to kiss. Whatever he had been about to say, it flew right out of his head as every fiber of his being dismissed any plane crash in favor of reliving the interlude that preceded it. Being with her…his mouth on her soft lips, his tongue exploring, his cock thrusting up into her warm depths. He didn’t want whatever they had started to end.

  He cleared his throat. “I, uh, I should let you by.”

  But he didn’t move.

  And neither did she.

  She kept her eyes focused on the neckline of his shirt, still clutching the handle to her roll-on suitcase. He concentrated on the delicate shell shape of her ear until he started to imagine tracing its swirls with his tongue, tugging on the lobe gently with his teeth. He moved his eyes to her chin, a safe zone he hoped, but he only found himself wanting to taste that, too, then her neck, every inch of her…

  “We, ah, we were lucky.” She said it softly, a wisp of breath along the top of his T-shirt.

  “Yes.” He could barely get the one word out.

  “It could have, ah, it could have been a lot worse.”

  “Hmmm.”

  She looked up at him just as he was remembering how full and soft her breasts had felt in his hands, how eagerly she had ridden him, and he glanced down to see her nipples poking against the silk of her blouse. He met her gaze as she bit her lip and let go of the suitcase.

  “I should really get, ah, undressed— I mean dressed! Dressed! Ready I mean. To walk out of, ah…”

  Her cheeks were flushed, and he bent his head ever so slightly. Her lashes dipped and her chin lifted.

  And still there was a breath of air between them, and they both held their hands at their sides, not moving, not reaching out to each other.

  “Camilla—”

  “Mason—”

  With the simultaneous whispers, they closed the distance, both of them at the same time, frantically, wildly. He dug his hands into her hair, cupping her head as their lips came together, their tongues tangling, moans and pants filling each other’s mouths.

  “I want…” she mumbled, and “I need…” was his response as, still kissing, they fumbled to the end of the aisle and he backed her to a wall, harder than he meant to, but she was just as urgent, unzipping his pants and shoving his briefs down. He ran his mouth along her neck, her nipples through the silk, dampening it as he nipped, and she moaned, taking his throbbing cock in her eager hands and stroking, petting, till he gasped and grabbed her wrist to stop, afraid he’d come in her hand, her touch so sure, so hot. He yanked her skirt up.

  The surge of life, of energy, that sparked between them was impossible to resist, and he didn’t stop to question it, reaching between her thighs, thanking God that they hadn’t crashed and also that she hadn’t put her hose back on. He slipped his fingers beneath the crotch of her underwear and found her soft and wet as he rubbed her clit, the heat of her making his bare cock against her thigh throb even more. “Oh, yeah,” he mumbled against her lips.

  But she had no time for foreplay.

  “Rip them off,” she panted, adjusting her position to hike her skirt up even higher, and with one quick tug that tore the sides of the flimsy silk, he left her completely and beautifully open to him. He tossed the panties into the aisle, and before he could move away to grab another condom—which he was absolutely going to do if he could manage to stop savoring her warm, wild mouth for a second—she placed his hands on her sweet bare ass and her hands on his shoulders and he was lifting in one swift movement to seat her, slick and hot, on his aching cock.

  “Fuck,” he moaned.

  “Yes…”

  His jeans around his knees, he pulled back slowly till the tip of his cock was almost out of her hot clench. Then he slammed into her, hard, again and again, making a slapping sound against the wall, as he grasped the gorgeous cheeks of her ass, her feet still in her heels linking behind him.

  “Yes, yes…oh, God, I…”

  Her head fell back, the upswept hair more down than up, and he buried his face in the curve of her neck, tasting the sweet moistness there, clinging to her with a fury, her eyes closed, breasts bouncing against his chest beneath the silk of her blouse as he fucked her.

  “I should,” he tried to get out, maneuvering her desperately so he could go even deeper, grinding his cock into the tight wet clasp of her, “I should really get a…”

  “Yes!

  “Fuck!”

  They came together in a burst of intensity, of pleasure that surely must have mimicked the first time Adam and Eve got it on in the garden and realized how incredibly alive they were.

  Now that was poetic.

  Chapter Five

  “A condom,” he whispered when he could breathe again, letting her slide down the wall until she stood. “That was what I was going to say. I should get a condom.”

  She smiled at him, radiating some kind of crazy joy that made her even more beautiful and conversely rendered him almost shy. She tugged her skirt down and tossed the ripped panties into the trash. “That’s okay. I remembered I want children.”

  “What?” he said in alarm. He wasn’t exactly ready to be a father right now. Well, maybe ever. But even that thought couldn’t mess with his head right now. He was too sated. Cont
ent.

  “I’ll get my flats and maybe something warmer, and we can get going.”

  She retrieved her roll-on suitcase and headed to the bathroom. “Just give me a minute.” She hesitated. “Now that I think of it¸ don’t you have a suitcase?”

  “Didn’t need one. I have an apartment in London. I keep clothes there.”

  “Oh okay.” She disappeared into the bathroom.

  After a minute or two, still catching his breath—and resolutely ignoring the kids comment—he saw his wallet at the end of the aisle where it must have slid with the jostling of the storm and landing. He’d never retrieved it after they first had sex. He walked over and bent to pick it up. On impulse, he searched around for her computer case, found it under a seat, and opened the side pocket to retrieve her pearls. He slipped them into his jacket pocket right as the door to the bathroom opened. She had pulled on a sweater over her blouse and changed into jeans. Ballet-looking flats that didn’t appear to be suited to the rain were in her hand, and she slipped them on to her stocking feet.

  “Do you think we’ll need ID?” she said, nodding at his wallet that he still held.

  He extracted what he was looking for, pleased that Marcia as ever had discreetly made sure he had three condoms in his wallet, so there were two left. Waving them at Camilla, he said, “Just being safe.”

  Her eyes narrowed and her chin went up. “I was only kidding, what I said about having children.”

  “No, I didn’t mean—”

  “I had my period earlier this week. So it wasn’t an issue. And as I told you, after one scotch too many, I haven’t had sex in forever. So I’m certainly healthy. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I wasn’t worried.” He slipped the condoms into his jacket pocket alongside the pearls.

  “Apparently, you were.” Her voice shook a little as she headed toward the door, and he caught her arm.

  She looked up into his eyes, and he was horrified to see that hers were watery. Swiping at them, she bent her head and pulled away. “I’m still shaky from the whole plane thing. Don’t mind me. Of course I shouldn’t be offended that you reach for your condoms at the prospect of being alone with me. Why wouldn’t you? I’ve jumped you twice now, haven’t I?”