27
Annalise
“We will begin boarding Flight Twenty-Three to New York shortly.”
I turned in the direction of the gate agent, checking my watch as I talked on the phone to my sister in Paris, nine hours ahead of me.
“How is Mom doing today? How was the doctor’s appointment?” I paced the boarding area, scanning it for Michael, nerves skating across my skin. It was so weird to be traveling with him. This was what we had dreamed about when we were younger—this sort of freedom, including the freedom to change my flight. I’d been slated for a later one to New York, but had moved it up so we could fly together.
“Her day was all right, but not great, to be honest,” Noelle said on the other end of the line. Our father had passed on a few years ago, and our mother lived alone in a small flat in Paris. That wouldn’t be a problem ordinarily, except she’d had a bad fall a year ago, and her hip hadn’t been the same since, so she relied on her two daughters. Noelle and I did our best to stay close, check in on her daily, and help with whatever she needed. These efforts were complicated by my frequent travel for work, but I picked up the slack when I was in town. “Her doctors are switching her to a new medication,” Noelle added.
As my sister and I discussed side effects and dosages, I wandered through the noisy boarding area. Then the crowds cleared, and I spotted him.
My stone-cold heart thawed again. It shed its covering, and a grin tugged at my lips as Michael walked toward me, dressed in crisp black slacks and a light-green shirt, the top button undone. My eyes raked over him, snapshotting every detail, from his trim, tight waist, to his deliciously messy black hair, to the hint of stubble on his face. His ice-blue eyes lit up when our gazes met, and a slow, sexy smile spread across his handsome face.
As if a tropical sun caressed me, I warmed all over. Butterflies took flight inside my belly, surprising me. I’d expected lust, raging hormones, or the mad desire that Michael had unleashed in me the other night, but this was out of left field, this strange and new stomach flipping. It caught me off guard, especially when the butterflies soared to the stratosphere as he stopped less than a foot away from me, said nothing at all, and simply dropped a kiss on my cheek, which was the sexiest greeting he could have given me.
My focus on the call with Noelle was shot to hell. I was simply lost in this moment, as if all the travelers, all the noise, all the sounds of the world had blurred.
When Michael stepped away from me, I blinked and refocused, but I was still lightheaded, just from the sight of his face and the brush of his lips. “Take care of Mom. I’ll be back soon to help out. Just a few days in New York for the shoot,” I said to Noelle.
“Fly safely, mon petit papillon,” my older sister said. “Keep me posted on everything. Love you. Miss you. See you soon.”
I ended the call, slipping the phone into my back pocket.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Fancy meeting you here.” My voice was laced with flirtation.
“What a surprise. I had no idea you were on this flight,” he said, playing along, as if we’d just met.
“Perhaps we can sit together and catch up on the plane,” I suggested, as if the two of us hadn’t already made those plans.
“I like that idea.” He leaned closer, his lips dangerously close as he said, “Maybe then I can whisper filthy things in your ear as we fly.”
I wobbled, his words making me hot. My hand darted out, and I gripped his shirt, holding on. He looped an arm around my waist, steadying me.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he murmured, as he roamed his eyes over me. I wore skinny jeans, heels, and a silky tank top that showed a peek of cleavage.
“Yes. So much. Would you?”
His eyes blazed darkly. “I would absolutely love getting you hot and bothered.”
I brought my lips closer to his ear. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I’m already there.”
A few minutes later, the gate agent’s voice warbled across the tinny speakers, calling for first-class passengers. Michael swept his arm to the side, letting me lead the way.
As we stepped onto the plane, he asked, “How’s your mom?”
The question surprised me, but I figured he must have heard the tail end of the conversation, picking up a few French words that I’d taught him once upon a time. “She’s okay. Well, she’s not great. I was talking to my sister about her,” I said and shared some more details as we settled into our seats.
Michael tipped his chin toward the bags that contained my camera gear, which I’d tucked under the seat in front of me. “What’s the job in New York? More bikinis?”
“We have one more day for Veronica’s at some very iconic New York locations. We’ve actually booked the New York Public Library and have some fantastic shots planned of the ladies lounging in their pj’s on leather couches, reading old books. It’s going to be very cool.”
His eyes twinkled. “Can I have your job?”
“You want to lounge in your pj’s and read in the library?” I asked, nudging him with my elbow.
“Yeah, that’s it. Exactly.”
“When Veronica’s adds boxer briefs, perhaps I’ll suggest you model them.”
He leaned his head back and laughed, a deep, hearty sound that warmed my soul. I loved his laugh—he’d been so laid-back and carefree when I knew him before, quick with a joke or an easy comment. He was more serious now, so I craved these moments when he dropped his guard. When his chuckles slowed, he lowered his voice to a dirty whisper. “But you don’t know if I wear boxer briefs.”
I arched my eyebrow in a challenging stare. “No. But I fully intend to find out the answer to that, and to discover it . . .” I let my voice trail off, watching him linger on my every word with parted lips before I added, “Very soon.”
He drew a sharp breath, and I zipped right back into the conversation. “Then after that, I have a boudoir session with a private client.”
“Private client?”
“Just a woman who wanted to have some shots done as a gift for her husband.” The woman was the CEO of a sex-toy company, Joy Delivered, and she’d found me through a mutual contact—her brother worked and lived in Paris with his wife, and I had met them a few times at dinner with friends.
“Do a lot of women do that?”
“Enough to make it a good living for me,” I said.
Michael shook his head in admiration. “Never knew boudoir shots were such a hit.”
I nodded enthusiastically. “They’ve actually grown immensely popular in the last several years. More and more women do them. Some just do them for themselves.”
He cocked his head, his eyes hooked on mine, then answered in a thoughtful voice, “That sounds very empowering.”
“Yes! That’s it exactly. Not everyone gets that, but you do,” I said, grateful that he understood something few men truly got.
He tapped his temple. “I’m a feminist.”
“It’s hot,” I said.
He smiled. “Ever shoot guys?”
“Shockingly, most men don’t do boudoir sessions,” I said in a deadpan voice. “But I have photographed a few couples.”
“Really? That’s pretty sexy. What about turning the tables though? Because I want a one-on-one with the photographer,” he said, running his fingers across the ends of my hair, watching it fall from his hand onto my shoulder. “I want to be the one behind the camera, shooting photos of her looking gorgeous in anything and nothing.” His blue eyes were fiery, intense. “Then I want to set down the camera and have her invite me to join her on the bed. And all the sensuality she poured into the pose, she gives to me.”
I shuddered and swallowed. My throat was dry. My skin heated up. “I would do that,” I whispered. “I would do that with you. I would give that to you.”
The flight attendant began the announcements, and I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, trying to get some sort of hold on these raging hormones. Bu
t with him next to me, it was futile.
I resigned myself to being turned on the whole flight.
It was all his fault. That fucking hot, sexy man.
28
Annalise
Once we were airborne, Michael returned to the topic of my family. “How is your sister? Did she ever start the bakery like she wanted to?” he asked, and I loved that he remembered that little detail from our phone conversations years ago.
“Yes, she did. She runs it with her husband now, and she has three kids. So she’s been busy.” I pictured Noelle and Patrick up before dawn, peddling baguettes and croissants, and loving their little corner shop in Paris. I adored that bakery too.
“Does that mean you have to take care of your mom more?”
I shrugged. “Sometimes, but that’s okay. My mom took care of me. It’s only fair,” I said, then softened my voice, placing my hand on his arm. “Is it weird to hear other people talk about their mothers?”
His eyes darkened briefly, then he shook his head. “No. It’s the way it should be.”
“Do you ever see her? I know you did at first, but then you didn’t want to anymore.” He’d told me that he’d visited her in prison a few times when he was in high school and college, but hadn’t since.
His jaw was set hard, and he heaved a sigh. “Yeah, I used to, a long time ago, because I wanted to try—I don’t know—maybe to understand what had happened, and why she’d done it. But soon enough it was clear there was no way to make sense of it. I couldn’t be near her anymore. I don’t think of her as my mother, and I haven’t in years.”
I ran my hand down his arm. “I understand why.”
He turned his head and met my gaze. “Not everyone does,” he said in a quiet voice.
“You mean other women?” I asked, and a brief burst of jealousy flared inside me at the prospect of him with other women, of him sharing such personal details with someone else that he’d once shared with me.
He ran a hand across his jaw, shaking his head. “Just people in general. My brother Ryan, and even Shan for a while. They wanted me to visit her, but I just couldn’t.”
“Do you think it’s because you were closest to your father, or just because that’s how you feel?” I asked as the plane began to level out, nearing its cruising altitude.
“Probably both.”
“Do you think that will ever change? Your feelings for her?”
“I don’t see how it could. Unless she was found to be not guilty, and that won’t happen,” he said with a scoff. “I believe there are other people who are also responsible, but she did this. So I don’t see how I’d ever think of her as a mother again.”
“Are you okay with that?” I asked quietly.
“Are you okay with that? With me feeling the way I do?”
I nodded resolutely and ran my fingers across the back of his neck. “Of course. It’s your life. It’s your choice.” The tension seemed to lessen in his shoulders as I touched him, and I was struck with a memory as crisp as the images in front of me—a phone call years ago, a couple of months after I’d left Vegas and returned to France. It was one of the few times I’d heard him shed tears. His mother had just been found guilty of murder for hire, and had said her goodbyes to her family before she was taken away in the bus to prison. He was choked up, and it had shredded me to hear him recount the day. But my emotions were nothing compared to what he was feeling at age seventeen, his family pulverized by tragedy. The pain had started to fade from his voice over the next few calls and letters, and he’d told me, Talking to you is one of the few things that makes me feel okay.
Okay.
Such a small, flat word. But it was all he wanted, and it was enough. To feel okay. Somehow I’d given that to him. Perhaps I was doing the same now, helping him see that it was indeed okay to not want to be his mother’s son.
“You sure?” he asked, and his voice was laced with nerves, like he desperately needed my reassurance.
I cupped his cheek and spoke confidently. “Yes. You’re a man without a mother. And it’s okay to be that way. It’s like she died too, and your mourning for her just took a different shape.”
His eyes locked onto mine, and he relaxed further. “Sometimes I wondered if I was too hard on her. Too angry. Too unforgiving. But then she admitted to Ryan that she did it. I don’t need to forgive her.”
“Some things are unforgivable. Obviously, this is one of those things,” I said, letting my hand drift down from his face to rest on his leg. “Do you still miss your dad?”
“Sure. Of course. But you get used to it. It becomes part of your life, doesn’t it? The missing,” he said, as the flight attendants began to move about the cabin.
I nodded, and though he hadn’t said my husband’s name, I knew what he was getting at.
“Do you miss Julien?” he asked. Point-blank. Direct.
I swallowed, my heart rising up to my throat and sticking there. “Sometimes I do,” I admitted quietly, looking down at the armrest, the in-flight magazine, the screen on the back of the seat in front of me. Then I gazed into Michael’s eyes, clear and fixed on me. “But not right now. And not lately.”
The crackle of the speaker interrupted our talk as the attendant announced that we were free to turn on computers and other approved devices. Neither he nor I made a move to do so.
Instead, we talked. We talked as we flew over Colorado, then Kansas, past Illinois and Ohio, through drinks and the afternoon lunch service, and through the movies that others watched. He told me about his family, catching me up on his brothers and sister. I remembered them all from when we were younger, and I savored every detail he shared. His sister’s pregnancy was going well. Ryan was engaged to a beautiful philanthropist who made him happier than Michael had ever seen him. And his youngest brother, Colin, had started up a serious relationship with a social worker who had a teenage son. I loved hearing everything as I pictured the Paige-Princes—now the Sloans—in their new lives, healing from the damage that had ripped them apart years ago.
“What about you?” I asked, meeting his cool blue gaze. “They all sound so happy. So settled. Are you happy too?”
The corner of his lips curved up in the barest lopsided grin. “I’m happy now.”
Now.
The word echoed. Reminding me that now was all anyone ever had. This moment. To make the most of. No guilt—only pleasure, only passion, only the present.
I threaded my hand into the back of his hair, feeling those soft dark strands on my flesh, and he groaned. Low, barely audible. Just for me.
“Come closer and kiss me,” I murmured, and he obliged, dipping his head and kissing me like we were the only two people on the plane—flying across the sky, leaving Vegas far behind, and heading to a new adventure.
29
Michael
I had always been perfectly content to fly commercial. First class was great, but I’d never longed for a private jet. Not that I’d have minded one, but it was along the lines of a yacht or a mansion—nice to admire, but wholly unnecessary for my happiness.
That was no longer the case. A private jet was the only thing in the world I wanted right now. No, want was too small a word for it. I craved it like air. Because this kiss was different. It was as hot as all the others we’d shared, but it was something more too. It was crazed and beautiful. It was hungry and full of regret. For years gone by. For missed connections. For the past and for the present. It was as if everything that could have been between us was bottled up, stored, and aged to perfection, all in this one kiss. With her hand on the back of my head, she kissed me deeply, but tenderly too.
The wildness at the nightclub was gone. The frenzy of the dressing room had slunk away. Right now this was a kiss that made me a little drunk, like my body was buzzing with some kind of sweet opiate, and that opiate was her. I wanted to pull her on top of me, run my hands over her soft flesh, unzip her jeans, and then slide into her. Wanted to watch her fuck me here on the plane. To enjo
y the view of her straddling me, riding me, slow and unhurried, lingering and lovely.
I loved and hated this moment.
This was just a fucking kiss.
But it was so much more.
I’d never kissed like this before. Fierce and greedy. Needy and dreamy.
I wanted to live in this kiss.
At some point, I broke the contact, because I had to. Because another second of her kisses would be too much. I brushed her hair away from her ear. “You keep doing that, and we’re going to be putting on a show.”
She grinned naughtily. “I think we already are,” she said, glancing clandestinely over her shoulder.
“Tell me something,” I whispered. “How do you say ‘I want you so much’?”
“In French?”
I nodded.
“Je te veux tellement.”
I repeated it close to her ear, flicking the tip of my tongue over her earlobe as I said those words to her.
She shivered visibly. “Mon dieu. I love the way you say that.”
I slid into another question. “How do you say ‘Fuck me harder’?”
Shuddering, she whispered breathlessly, as if she were in the throes of passion, “Baise-moi plus fort.”
Lust slammed into me from all sides. I bent my head to her shoulder, dusting the barest kiss on her collarbone. “You’ll be saying that later, won’t you?”
She nodded, a small, sexy sigh escaping her lips. “I will.”
Soon enough, the plane landed, and twenty minutes after that, we were in the town car I’d reserved. I raised the partition, and in seconds, her hands were on my pants, unzipping them.
Well, I wasn’t going to say no to that.
30
Michael
She was a sexy vixen. A fiery lover—a woman who liked to take and who evidently liked to give too, judging from how she rubbed her palm against the outline of my erection.
My Sinful Love (Sinful Men Book 4) Page 11