Girl on a Plane

by Cassandra O'Leary

  Needing a distraction, she explored the rest of the suite, especially her ensuite bathroom. An expanse of white marble tiles led to a massive, glass-walled shower with two massage-type shower heads. There was an inviting designer bathtub which looked like a sculpture of a giant egg and it called Sinead with its siren song. But what if she fell asleep in the tub? She’d miss work, if not risk drowning. The fancy shower would have to do. She stripped off her uniform and tossed it across an armchair near the bed.

  She reached for the cotton balls to remove her mask of work makeup. A door slammed, so loud and so close, she jumped.

  Jayzus!

  She wrapped herself in a towel, then dashed in her bare feet on the slippery floor out of the bathroom. Catapulting through the bathroom doorway into the bedroom, she came to a stop near the bed, only to be confronted by a man. A tall, blonde and looming man, standing beside her bed.

  It was the passenger again. The dishy ride of a man. The coffee nut. Gabriel. A moment ticked by, pure stunned silence as she stared at him, and he stared right back.

  She clutched her towel, then screamed bloody murder.

  “You! What in the name of all things holy are you doing in my suite?”

  “Your suite? This is my suite.” He waved his key card around and dumped his overnight bag by his feet. As if that proved anything.

  “Look here. I’m about to have a shower in my suite. I’ve half a mind to call hotel security right now. Explain yourself.”

  “I can see you’re going in the shower,” he paused, but made no effort to hide the way his eyes slid right under her towel as he mentally undressed her. “I’ll call the concierge and sort it out.”

  “You can get out while you do it.” She placed her hands on her hips. The towel slipped slightly.

  “I don’t think so. You can’t kick me out of my own suite.”

  “My suite. Mine! Get out!” Lord, was the man actually crazy?

  “Settle down, sweetheart. Why don’t you put some clothes on and lose the attitude?”

  Her attitude? What about his? Busting into her room, then telling her what to do. “Why don’t you bite me?”

  “Feisty. If I thought you really meant it, I’d bite you all right.” His eyes twinkled in such a playful way, all the fight went out of her.

  Sinead huffed out a breath and sagged down onto the bed. The interloper took it as his cue to sit next to her. She stared, hardly believing his audacity. The bloody cheek of it. Then he picked up his phone and called the concierge as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  “Hello, this is Gabriel Anderson. I just checked in and there’s a mix-up with my suite. There’s a woman in here.” He laughed, low and throaty.

  Everything under her towel clenched and tingled. That’s all she needed. Traitorous libido, getting all uppity.

  He glanced at her and grinned. “No, I didn’t order a woman.”

  “You cheeky bastard …”

  “No, I don’t know her. Except from the flight. She works for the airline.” He paused and she tried to listen in to the voice babbling on the other end of the phone. “I see. The airline usually books the suites in case of emergency. Double booking. Right. We’ll discuss it. I’ll get back to you.”

  Gabriel’s expression lit up with the kind of smile which could melt her knickers. If she’d been wearing any.

  “We both have a valid booking. You, through the airline, and me, through my corporate account. I guess we’re stuck here together,” he said with a shrug, as if this were a perfectly acceptable situation.

  “You guess wrong. You have thirty seconds to get out before I call security and scream ‘stalker’.” Sinead stood and marched towards the door, holding her towel firmly across her breasts. She opened the suite’s door and waved him out into the hall. “Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight …”

  He raised his hands in the air. “Okay, I’m going. But you’ll see me again soon.” His grin was infuriating.

  She rolled her eyes. “Not if I can help it.”

  “Sooner rather than later, sweetheart.”

  He walked through the door and she slammed it in his smug, sexy face. Her towel dropped to the floor and she groaned in frustration. All kinds. The I’ve-had-enough-of-this-day kind and definitely the I-haven’t-had-sex-in-a-year and I-can-feel-it-all-over-my-naked-body kind. Time for a shower. She scooped up her towel from the floor, checked the door lock and retreated to the luxurious bathroom. She locked that door too.

  Many long minutes later, she emerged dripping wet, clean and refreshed, but feeling ever-so-slightly dirty. It was one of the best showers of her life. She may have fantasised about a certain blonde man with a grumpy disposition. Gabriel. She loved his name. But she didn’t understand why she was attracted to him when he was so annoying. It hardly mattered now. It was unlikely she’d see him again. He probably had the means to rent a hundred suites and then charter a private jet out of Singapore.

  Would they have liked each other if they’d had time to talk? She’d have liked to get to know him, intimately. Up close and personal. There was no point in denying it. And he’d been helpful on the plane when the heckler was giving her trouble. He’d watched her during the flight, then again in the lounge. His gaze almost searing her, sending sparks flying willy-nilly through her body. Then he had to go and ruin it by being a grumpy-pants. As she towelled her skin dry, the ache of lingering want low in her belly bothered her.

  It had been a long time since she’d last touched a man. Over a year since her ex-boyfriend, Brian The Banker, left. Even before they broke it off, they hadn’t been together often. With their busy work schedules, it was amazing they’d managed to get together every few weeks. She’d known it hadn’t been working, even before he pulled the plug by announcing he was moving to New York. Brian hadn’t suggested she go with him and she hadn’t broached the subject either. Since then, she’d been footloose and fancy-free, and more than a little lonely.

  She stood naked in front of the large bathroom mirror and applied a few dabs of an expensive perfume sample, a freebie on the bathroom vanity. In the mirror, her reflected body looked pretty good. Not bad. Not as taut as she was at twenty-one, but slim and tall, with decent breasts and pretty nice hair.

  Why did she have so much trouble meeting a man who wanted a real relationship with her? It was what she wanted, eventually. But she wasn’t even seeing anyone. No man had sparked her interest for years, Brian included. She’d gone for a different type with him. Safe. Undemanding. Boring. It hadn’t worked out so well.

  She was the first to admit she’d been scared to get into anything serious, after Padraig. She’d been scared and alone and almost broken. But now she was strong and independent. So she told herself every day.

  Was it something about her personality scaring the men away? Her mother would say so. Ma had always loved to criticise her, like a kind of hobby. She would’ve said Sinead was too quick to speak her mind. But since when was honesty a bad thing?

  She shook her head to dismiss such depressing ideas and wandered through to the living area. Rifling through her bag for fresh clothes, she made a snap decision to get dressed. She didn’t want to stay in her room moping all night. She put on her off-duty clothes. Nice lingerie, skinny jeans and a funky silk top. She styled her hair so it hung in loose waves down her back.

  It was so good to express her own style and feel unconfined after hours of having her hair pinned back, dolled-up like Barbie in her straight-laced work uniform.

  As she bent to pick up her phone from a low coffee table, she stumbled, lightheaded, as a wave of dizziness hit. She’d forgotten to eat lunch on the plane and then left the airport lounge after only a coffee. On a whim, she decided to check out the dinner menu at the restaurant downstairs.

  After a quick pit-stop at the mirror to apply some lip gloss and mascara, she zipped on her ankle boots. She was good to go.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Damn it! Gabriel couldn’t believe his luck. His flight status h
ad officially changed from delayed to cancelled, along with every flight scheduled for the evening and he was stuck with nowhere to stay, like your typical cattle-class passenger. He’d backed down with Sinead, let her take the suite. He didn’t want to scare her or snatch the room when she was clearly there first. Just a few floors up from where he now sat in the hotel bar. She was probably in the shower.

  He left another furious message for his PA in Melbourne, then punched at his iPad and tried to make hotel rooms magically appear. No luck. Of course the Global Village website was down too. Just perfect.

  The airport hotels were both fully booked and there wasn’t a taxi or a bus in sight to take him to the heart of the city. He’d tried to charter a flight but had missed his chance. He wasn’t going anywhere for at least twelve hours. The airport was officially closed.

  The news reports on the bar’s TV screens advised everyone to stay indoors. The weather was much worse and they were in the thick of it at the airport. The rain beat hard against the windows facing the street at the hotel bar, pounding like someone urgently banging on the door, begging to come inside. He was stuck, sure as shit.

  Gabriel signalled to the barman from his prime barstool and ordered a Tiger beer. He checked out the bar, full of stranded passengers like him. Except most of them probably had comfortable rooms upstairs. Rooms they would actually get to sleep in. As he sipped from his tall frosty glass, he spotted a new patron entering the bar. A tall, curvy vision of a blonde bombshell. His night instantly improved.

  Hello again, Irish.

  Sinead walked into the bar looking like a hot rock chick. Even better than the flight attendant uniform, and that was something. Tight jeans clung to her long legs and fine arse. Some sort of slinky shirt skimmed the curves of her absolutely outstanding breasts. Long blonde hair hung loose and tousled like she’d rolled straight out of bed. His bed. He could still be in with a chance to convince her to share the suite.

  His pulse thrummed wildly and he tried to get a grip. How should he play this? His standard treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen approach hadn’t worked. She was smart enough to see through it. Time for Plan B. His mum had always said flattery would get you anywhere. It was worth a shot.

  “Sinead!” Gabriel shouted loud enough for a few heads to turn his way.

  Her head snapped round too and she met his eyes, but with eyebrows raised sky-high. She was wary of him, based on their last conversation. Fair enough.

  “Come and join me.” He tried not to sound desperate. Not cool.

  “Hello again. Ready to haggle for the suite, are you?” She sighed and sat on the stool next to him. Then she looked up at him from under long eyelashes. She was obviously pissed-off and exhausted, but the fire in her eyes nearly burned him alive.

  Wow. His voice caught in his throat and he swallowed, hard. “Look, I’m sorry about earlier. Let me say, you look stunning. I thought it was you, but I had to double-check.”

  “Are you saying I didn’t look good earlier? Because I had a pretty hard day and I don’t need to hear it.”

  This was not going according to plan. “No! I meant you looked so neat and perfect in your uniform and then you were in nothing but a towel.” He cleared his throat. God, that towel. “Now you look …” He reminded himself to be charming. He didn’t want to put her off. “You’re absolutely smokin’. Stunning. Beautiful.”

  “Well thank you. It’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me all day.”

  She moved closer, hitting him with a dazzling smile and leaning an elbow on the bar. Warmth rolled through his stomach. She might like him. Her body language was giving him the go-ahead.

  He gestured to the bar. “Can I buy you a drink?”

  “Um, I haven’t eaten and I’m not sure if I have to fly soon, so I’d better not.” But she scanned the printed wine list on the bar. She was tempted.

  “Didn’t you hear? The airport’s officially closed. The typhoon’s moved closer.”

  “Really? The update must have come while I was in the shower.”

  Gabriel instantly pictured her naked under the shower, her luscious skin dripping wet. So very distracting. But definitely in a good way. He gave his body a talking-to. Down boy.

  Sinead pulled her phone from her clutch purse and checked her messages. “Yep, everyone’s grounded for the night. Grand, I can relax. I’m so glad I booked a hotel room earlier. I had a feeling I might get stuck here.” Her lips pursed, the expression was so smug, she was obviously winding him up.

  “I tried every hotel I could think of and everything’s booked. Too bad I don’t have hot-chick superpowers to steal a suite from an innocent man.” He graced her with his cheesiest grin, reserved for occasions when he had to pull out all the stops.

  Sinead rolled her eyes at him. Strangely, he found it cute.

  “Superpowers aside, I know how to book a hotel room. I’ve been stranded before. I soon learned to beat the stampede of passengers looking for a bed for the night. First in, best dressed, Gabriel.”

  Her husky voice as she half-whispered his name and all her talk about being first into bed, or whatever she said, had his pulse racing again. Add the flutter of her eyelashes against her cheeks and the fact she mentioned her hotel room, and he was losing his mind. Maybe she was interested.

  “Well, I still haven’t snagged a room. But I could get lucky. If there’s any cancellations, I mean. Let me buy you dinner to apologise for busting into your suite. You said you’re hungry, right?”

  She titled her head, then shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

  Gabriel reached for her hand as she slid off her stool. Their fingertips connected and the charge between them was instant. Hot, electric. Well, this was new. He glanced down and searched her face. She blinked slowly, then stared, her eyes wide.

  Oh yeah. She felt it too, the wild pull of attraction.

  He took her elbow and led her through to the restaurant. He didn’t want to let go.

  He was so transparent. Sinead blinked in disbelief as Gabriel led her into the restaurant, squiring her on his arm like the lord of the manor. This turnaround in pretending to be nice and throwing a few compliments her way was so obviously a ploy to get into her bed. Actually he probably planned to steal her bed out from under her, beds being few and far between during a typhoon. He’d lost out. She won.

  But she’d play along, if only to tease him. Her instinct said Gabriel usually had women falling into his bed as soon as he looked at them. Not her. As much as she might like to.

  The slight contact when he took her hand, and now the feel of his large hand on her bare arm, had heat suffusing her skin. The sensation was delicious and it had long-neglected parts of her body humming with pleasure. But she didn’t trust it. She’d eat a good meal, ogle a handsome man and then get a good night’s sleep in her big hotel bed. All alone.

  The only problem was, she was tired of sleeping alone. It would be wonderful to snuggle all night next to a warm, strong man with his arm wrapped around her, holding her close. After she’d shagged him senseless.

  Whoa, Nellie!

  She tried to rein in her errant sexy thoughts. She’d need to be on guard with Gabriel. Her footsteps stuttered as he pulled out a chair for her at a secluded corner table. She took her seat, keeping her head down so her hair curtained her face, hiding the rosy glow no doubt lighting up her cheeks.

  Gabriel’s fingertips grazed her bare shoulder as he pushed in her chair. Shivery anticipation zipped across her skin, a sensation hard to ignore. She liked it. Her body liked it, but her head told her to be careful.

  A Singaporean waiter stood nearby, dressed in trendy black from head-to-toe. It was a modern Asian-fusion restaurant and amazing aromas of chilli and fragrant jasmine rice wafted from nearby tables. Her stomach grumbled, reminding her to eat something soon. The manly vision in front of her was distracting. Earlier she didn’t think she’d ever see him again, but she didn’t mind running into him. At all.

  Sinead stealthily admired Gabri
el as he took his seat. He looked a little rumpled. His hair was ruffled and stubble dusted his jaw, blondish brown against tan skin. He’d lost his jacket and tie. White shirt open two or three buttons, revealing smooth skin and the outline of broad shoulders beneath, narrowing to a slim waist and hips. A swimmer’s build – he was in great shape. She’d like to unwrap the rest of him. It was okay to fantasise.

  Her eyes snapped back up to meet his gaze and a gasp hitched in her throat. He’d caught her checking him out. A self-satisfied smirk crossed his face.

  “What do you feel like eating?” he asked.

  You. The answer popped into her head uninvited. Luckily she didn’t voice it.

  “Let’s see.” Sinead picked up a menu and held it up to hide her blush. How embarrassing. “The Curry Laksa and Hainanese chicken both sound good.” She lowered the menu and ran her finger down the dessert list. “I like nearly anything, but especially foods beginning with the letter ‘c’. Coffee, chocolate, champagne, they’re my favourites. What do you like?”

  “Oh, I could be tempted by many things, Sinead. But tonight, I’ll let you choose.”

  Her mouth popped open and heat charged through her system. She’d run with it. She was attracted to him. Whatever this thing was between them, why not let herself have some fun for a change?

  “Then let’s get both dishes and we’ll share. And I think a drink is overdue.” She waved at the waiter. Sinead was about to order white wine but the waiter suggested cocktails.

  “For the lady, we recommend our specialty, the Singapore Sling. Very nice.” The waiter hovered with a pen poised over his notepad.

  “Sure, sounds good. Gabriel, how about you?”

  Gabriel cocked his head to one side and seemed to consider the idea carefully. Finally he nodded.

  “All right, I’m game. Sling me.”