"Looks like they raided Disneyland."
"So the serious and brilliant Stef Costas really has learned to lighten up?"
"I told you, even I figured out that work isn't everything. It's a lot, and it's worth a lot of devotion, but there has to be something more."
"Something like fun?"
"Something like," he agreed, taking a lick of his cone.
"So it's all in the balance?" Sabrina persisted.
His black eyes were steady on hers. "Sure."
"So, in the spirit of balance and combination, I should probably get some of your chocolate ice cream to go with my sorbet. Kind of a black forest thing."
"The last person to try to steal chocolate from me was my mother," he said pleasantly. "She'll show you the scar on her hand if you ever meet her. Of course, I'm open to trades."
Sabrina licked around the bottom of her sorbet, catching the melting parts before they dripped. "Here," she held it toward him. "Have some."
"Oh no. This is chocolate ice cream with chunks of chocolate. I'm not about to trade for something as wimpy as frozen juice." He shook his head. "You've got to come up with something better."
"What did you have in mind?" Her heart began to pound just a bit harder.
"Something rich, something sweet." He nipped out a wedge of chocolate with his teeth. "Mmmm," he said, savoring it even as he watched her. "Something like this that melts in your mouth."
Mesmerized, she watched his tongue slide over the ice cream and desire swept through her. She wanted him, it was as simple as that. Maybe it wouldn't be simple later, when it was time to end it, but for now all she could think of was the way his fingers would feel against her, the brush of skin, how the sweat would taste on his neck.
Stef reached for the hand that held her cone and she caught a quick breath of surprise. Then his lips and tongue swiped over her knuckles. Sabrina's system jolted at the slick heat, her eyes wide.
"You're dripping," he said.
* * *
"Good evening to those passengers waiting in the gate area for Flight 1884 to Chicago's O'Hare Airport. Please stand by for an announcement."
Sabrina stared at her magazine. Stef was sprawled in the seat next to her, flipping through a copy of Esquire. She was excruciatingly aware of his presence. He reached down to tuck his magazine away in his carry-on bag and she caught a glimpse of his tanned, sinewy forearm. It sent a little flutter through her. She looked away, but not before she caught a flicker of his dark-eyed amusement.
A peal of laughter had her looking over to where Kelly sat playing cards with Kev. For someone who insisted that he wasn't her type, she seemed to be more than happy to spend time with him. Denial wasn't just a river in Egypt, Sabrina remembered Kelly's words with a smile. It seemed to be going around. Not that she was in denial about Stef, of course. She was hedonistic enough to want sex with him. It was just that her memory was strong enough to dissuade her from letting it go further.
At least she hoped so.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we've had a slight problem come up with the captain's seat in our aircraft," said the gate agent. "We've got a replacement here at the airport. We should be boarding around midnight." There was a mass groan from all of the passengers who'd begun gathering up their belongings. "Please stay in the gate area, though. If our timeline changes, we'll want to prepare for departure immediately."
"Well, hell," Kelly said feelingly, leaning back in her seat.
"No big deal." Kev glanced back down at the deck of cards he held. "We've got entertainment. Five card stud again?"
"You've cleaned me out of loose change, Cooper."
He shuffled the cards. "I take checks or credit cards."
"Not a chance."
"Euros?"
"Give it up, Kev."
He shuffled the deck elaborately with one hand, flipping segments of it around. "How about this. If you win this round, I don't bug you the whole time we're in Chicago."
"Swear?"
"Damn," he said obediently.
Kelly couldn't help smiling. "So what do you want in return?"
"If I win, you sit by me on the way."
"Look, it's a red-eye. I intend to get on that flight and go out like a light."
"Great. It'll be the first time we sleep together."
Despite herself, she laughed. "Why should I even play this hand? You've already hammered me every other time we've played."
"Because deep down inside, even though you pretend to be playing hard to get, you really like me."
"I never play hard to get, Cooper."
"I still think you like me."
"Deal," she ordered.
* * *
"Ladies and gentleman, in just a moment we'll begin boarding our flight to Chicago. Right now, we invite anyone who needs a little extra time to board…"
Sabrina yawned and dragged a hand through her hair. She'd managed to doze off as one delay succeeded another until two hours had gone by. Now, all she wanted to do was get on the plane and fall asleep, which she figured was probably the plan of everyone in the departure lounge.
Kelly sat down beside her in Stef's empty seat. Where he'd gone, Sabrina couldn't say.
"Hey."
"Ready to go?" Sabrina asked.
Kelly looked at her, eyes bright. "Do me a favor, change seats with Kev for the flight."
"Huh?"
"Change seats. We're in the middle of a poker tournament and I'm kicking his ass for once."
"So are you guys finally getting a thing going, here?" Sabrina asked, straightening up.
"No way," Kelly said too quickly. "We're just hanging out, that's all. But you and Stef seem to be getting along okay and I figure you guys can talk about the shoot. It's not like it'll be a hardship, will it?"
Stef came up from behind them. "It will be, but I can suffer with it."
"Easy for you to say," Sabrina grumbled, giving him a look as Kelly walked off.
"They're having fun. Why not let them? Don't be afraid, I won't bite."
"Biting's not what I'm worried about."
* * *
The flight attendants were marvels of efficiency. As soon as the plane had leveled out at cruising altitude, they had, it seemed, one goal and one goal only: to dim the cabin lights as quickly as possible and put everyone to sleep. She couldn't blame them, she supposed. Sleeping passengers were happy passengers, and in the darkened cabin, most of them were well on their way.
"Well, it's the last shoot," Stef said. The reading light above drew glinting highlights from his hair, but his eyes were still shrouded in shadow and mystery.
Sabrina nodded, aware of the warmth of his leg next to hers. "Just postproduction and on to the cable network."
"And you really want to get a rough cut out in two weeks?"
"Just enough to show to the cable guys so that they can make a buy. We don't need a soundtrack and we don't need transitions." She grinned. "I think the sex will be enough to grab them."
"It always does me." He lifted up the armrests in the row and reclined his seat. "Time to get comfortable."
Sabrina followed suit, tucking her blanket around herself.
"Off to sleep?" he asked, turning out his overhead light.
"Probably not," she said. "I've been having a hard time sleeping lately. Stress, I guess."
"I know a couple of cures for that."
"I bet you do."
He reached over to punch off her light and plunge them into the dimness that shrouded the rest of the plane. "Relax. Close your eyes and I'll tell you a story," he said softly and took her hand in his.
The touch registered in her whole body. Relaxing wasn't exactly the effect. Gradually, though, the shock dissipated, replaced by a calming warmth. Bit by bit, her tension eased.
"So let's see," he began. "Once upon a time, there was this film student named Scott, who had to fill in for a sick professor."
Sabrina's eyes flew open and she stared at him.
"Eyes close
d or I don't tell it."
Hesitantly, her lids fluttered closed.
"Scott was a typical graduate student, which meant he thought he knew it all. He started the lecture already planning the segments he was going to edit when class was over. It was just a bunch of freshmen, mostly bored, half-awake, looking for the easy A. He was up front, wondering why he was wasting his time, when he saw her. It was like her face was the only one he saw in the entire room. Everything else was … gone."
Sabrina lay back, eyes closed. He was just a voice and a touch in the darkness. Slowly, softly, he began stroking her hand with his finger. The touch made the hairs on the back of her neck prick up.
"It wasn't just that she was gorgeous—she was beautiful," he continued, "but there was something that brought her face alive. Life, maybe? Intelligence? Whatever it was, it totally threw him. He had to go back and review his notes before he could start again, and then she raised her hand and began to argue with him about the use of symbolism in Citizen Kane. And it shocked the hell out of him, but when he thought about it, she was right."
The strokes lengthened, until he was running his fingers up Sabrina's forearm with a whisper-light touch. Instead of getting used to it, she found that she felt each stroke more and more intensely. It was as though his fingertips awakened her nerve endings with every passing second, sending little chills through her body.
"Her name was … Renee, he found out later. He would have sat and listened to her just to watch her as she talked, but the things that she said, the things that she knew, blew him away."
His touch moved to her upper arm. The jolts were stronger.
"Scott had a very big problem, though, because he was her teacher, and yet every time he saw her, all he could think about was what it would be like to touch her. Fortunately, the professor came back before he lost it. That night, Scott was in his office, thinking about Renee when he heard a sound. And she was there."
Suddenly, the stroking stopped. Sabrina shivered. And then she felt his fingertips running down the sensitive triangle of skin in the open collar of her shirt. Her eyes flew open.
"So why is it we keep finding ourselves on airplanes when all I want to do is get you naked in bed and keep you there?"
She stared at him, half-mesmerized.
"Tell me we're going to do this, Sabrina," he whispered. "I've never wanted anyone as much as I want you, and maybe it's not smart and maybe we'll be sorry, but God, tell me we're going to see where this goes."
And then, hot and hard, his lips claimed hers. There was no teasing and tempting; he simply took her directly in that moment to that melting, liquefied desire. Now, she thought, and shivered under her blanket.
Oh, she wanted it. She wanted him. She could tell herself all she wanted that it wasn't smart. It didn't matter, any more than it had mattered in Candy. Right here, right now, she wanted him with the intensity of days' worth of stored desire. To be so near him, yet with no privacy, was making her crazy.
Under the blanket, his hand slipped over her thigh. Sabrina jumped. "What are you doing?" she hissed.
"Quiet, or you'll wake everyone up," he murmured, sliding his hand up farther. "We're lucky there's no one else in our row. I think we should take advantage of it."
She felt his fingers slip under the silk and lace she wore beneath her mini. The ache between her thighs intensified. The small sound of protest she made was swallowed up in the rush of white noise from the engines and the air conditioners.
"It's these skirts you keep wearing, I think. I wouldn't be nearly as tempted if you were in jeans, say, but these skirts, they just give me this irresistible urge to have my hand beneath them."
She jolted as his fingers brushed at curls of hair, then slipped in between her folds to find her slick and waiting.
He gave a soft exhalation that sounded very much like a quiet groan. "You know what it does to me to find you like that?" He dipped his fingers into her and kissed her hard.
Sabrina was drowning in the heat and the touch, amid the silent darkness of the airliner. Around them were hundreds of dozing people, blithely unaware of what was going on underneath her blanket. Stef moved his fingers up over the achingly sensitive point of her clitoris and she gulped for air, shifting against his hand. "If you keep doing that," she whispered. "I'm going to—" she broke off and gasped.
He laughed softly against her throat. "I know. I want to make you come when you can't do anything but feel it, can't do anything but take what I'm giving and go where I take you."
The words were maddening. The hot, slick stroking, that surprising, hidden flash of intimacy in the middle of the very discreet public space, had her fighting for silence. She let out a shuddering breath, her body stiffening even more as he brought her closer to the edge. Then he was plunging them into a kiss, lip and tongue, hard and deep, stroking in time with his fingers. He plunged one finger deep inside her and that was all it took to send her over, fighting to remain motionless, fighting to keep even the smallest cry of exultation within her from escaping.
Finally, she relaxed, lying limply in the seat.
He brushed his lips over hers, over her cheeks, her eyelids. Sabrina stirred and kissed her way along his cheek to his ear. "Of course, we haven't done anything about you," she murmured.
"It's different for guys, remember? We can't exactly play under the blanket."
"That wasn't what I had in mind. Three words," she said with a grin. "Mile high club."
"You remember how that story ended?"
"I think it's just a matter of avoiding the obvious pitfalls. Learn from their mistake and don't do anything that can be dislodged by turbulence." She gave him an impudent look. "Come on," she breathed into his ear. "We're three rows from the back and the flight attendants are hanging out in the galley up front. Everyone's asleep. As long as we're quiet…"
He reared back and stared at her, his eyes hot with excitement. "It's chancy."
"I know." She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him to her. "I want you inside me," she breathed and climbed over him to get into the aisle.
The half circle of rear lavatories was vacant, the little waiting area silent. During the day on a flight like this, there would always be someone everywhere, but at two o'clock in the morning, people were locked in slumber, with earplugs, sleep masks and inflatable pillows to make oblivion just a bit easier to find.
Stef opened the door on the central lavatory and stepped inside, turning to face the door. Sabrina gave a quick glance around and slipped in with him. When he shot the door bolt and the lights came on, the sight of the two of them together sent a frisson of excitement through her. To be in this small room, to be doing something so very private and strictly forbidden, brought on a rush of arousal.
Stef pulled her to him, and for a moment he luxuriated in the feel of her body against his, of having her against him, soft and yielding, and fragrant. Then the desire he'd been fixedly holding at bay twisted within him. He folded the seat cover down and sat, pushing her skirt up around her waist to catch a glimpse of the scrap of silk and lace below. Black, he saw with a swallow. The color of decadence, the color of midnight sin.
And then he pulled it aside and put his mouth on her.
Sabrina gasped as the surprising heat of his tongue bloomed through her. She hadn't thought that so soon after the last time she'd be ready, but the velvety caress had her writhing against him.
He raised his head for a moment. "No noises," he said softly. Then he bent back to his task, and she twined one hand in his hair, pressing the other against the ceiling to hold herself in place. With other men, she'd sometimes fantasized during sex to heighten her arousal. How could she ever need to fantasize now, when the very act of what they were doing was a fantasy in and of itself? When she could glance over in the mirror and see him, see herself, see them both.
Heat drove her, the slick, relentless friction of his mouth, sliding over the sensitive inner lips, dipping into her, and always, always returni
ng to her clit. She was trembling on the edge, assaulted with chills, and still he drove her. Then she was bursting over, shuddering hard against him, against his hands on her ass. He raised his head and pulled her to him, just breathing her in for a moment.
Sabrina stirred and bent down to unzip his jeans. "Now it's your turn."
"This has all been my turn. Do you know what it does to me to make you come like that?"
"Do you know what it does to me? Shall I demonstrate?" She reached between her thighs and got her fingers slippery, then ran them up the hard length of his erection.
His breath hissed in.
"Stay quiet now," she whispered. "We don't want to get caught before you come."
Lubricated with her own wetness, her fingers slipped up and down him, over the glans, down the shaft, feeling him grow harder and harder. "Oh, I think it's time now, Stef, don't you?"
She turned around to face the door and he brought her down. The hard tip of him slid through the slippery cleft between her legs, and then she was impaled on his cock, so hard, so thick, so rough that she wanted to cry aloud. Instead, she bit her lip with desperation.
His hands on her hips, he slid her up and down until she caught the rhythm, one hand pressed against the mirror, one hand gripping the handle on the wall. It was happening again, she thought in feverish delight. The pressure, the movement, the wetness, were sending her up even as she felt him harden, heard the catch of his breath. And when she felt his orgasm burst through him, that was all it took to send her flying and shuddering and gulping for air.
And, oh, it felt so right.
"Are you okay?" Stef murmured into her ear.
"Better than okay." She wiggled a bit against him. "I'm perfect. In fact, I'd have to say this is the best flight I've ever been on."
"We try to provide only the finest service, ma'am."
Sabrina leaned back against Stef and he wrapped his arms around her. "Well, if there's anything I can do to make your flight more comfortable, just ask."
* * *
15
« ^ »
Sabrina pushed through the doors of the Chrysalis Hotel and stepped into the slate-floored lobby. On one side of the lobby, a staircase of warm wood and brushed steel curved up to the second floor. Ahead, floor-to-ceiling windows looked out onto the bluffs and the waters of Lake Michigan beyond. Sabrina turned to the front desk, toward the bearded, bespectacled man behind it. "Walt, right? I'm Sabrina Pantolini, with the documentary crew."
TURN ME ON Page 13