“And now you don’t have to. Now you can put it back into your home, or do whatever you want with it, really. You’ve got a chance to do whatever you want, however you want.” He shrugged. “Not many people get that opportunity, you know?”
Erin nodded, trying to match his light mood, even though her emotions were a roil of gratitude, confusion, and that lingering sense of doubt, as if all of this was not quite real, not quite hers to keep. “And what would you do, if you had the opportunity?” she asked him. “If you had the chance to do anything other than carry on the James family tradition?”
Even as she said the words, Erin realized that it was somehow the wrong thing. Zander’s face shifted, his jaw going just a little tighter, his eyes a little darker. “Yeah, well,” he said. “I’ve sort of started a new tradition,” he said. “The army I know is a far cry from the one my dad or brothers experienced.”
Guilt knifed through Erin, as fresh and sharp now as it had been four years go. But she kept her eyes on Zander anyway. “Sorry just won’t ever be enough, will it?”
He glanced over at her, as if suddenly realizing that his words hadn’t just played out in his mind, but in the open between them. “Probably not,” he said, his blunt words knocking the wind out of her.
She nodded and looked away, quickly shifting her gaze to stare out the window as the plane began to taxi. But Zander wasn’t finished yet. “Sorry doesn’t cut it for a lot of things, though,” he said. “It doesn’t really work for me not realizing everything you were going through growing up. It doesn’t work for you not unbending enough to let me into your world.” He sighed. “It sure as hell doesn’t work for me not fixing things with my dad, before it was too late.”
Erin winced, looking back. “Zander—”
“Point being, no. Sorry doesn’t cut it,” Zander said. He shifted his dark gray eyes to meet hers. “We can’t take back what happened, we can only deal with where we are now.”
Where we are now? Erin nodded, not knowing what to say next. She didn’t know where they were right now, other than in a time out of time, still far away from the real world. The plane suddenly picked up speed and she glanced again out the window, gripping the armrest of her chair. This wasn’t anything like taking off in a large commercial jet. She felt every inch of the runway, the exact moment when the wheels lifted off the ground and they soared into the open air. She recognized that feeling, too, she realized. It’s how she felt every time she talked to Zander now. Like everything in front of them was wide-open space, and she was racing into it without any idea of what lay ahead of her.
Zander’s voice pulled her attention back to him, and she nodded, her brain taking in what he was saying, something about altitude and distance, and about the time they’d be in flight. To her, that time already seemed to be slipping by too fast. He asked a question and she frowned, refocusing. “What?”
“I’m just saying, it seems a shame to waste this opportunity.” His face creased with a smile as he spoke, and she realized it was the smile she’d always associate with him, now—a little weary, a little too knowing, but still ready for anything. “Wanna see what trouble we can get into?”
Erin jerked her gaze up to meet his. The dare was still evident in his eyes, but there was something more, something warm and intense and a bit too much for her to process. “Are you serious?”
“I could be,” he said, his brows lifting in a familiar challenge. “I mean, come on. How often are we going to find ourselves at ten thousand feet?”
He unbuckled his seatbelt then and leaned over, lifting his hand to angle her face toward his. His kiss was light, warm, and full of promise, and Erin leaned forward only to be caught by her belt, which Zander helpfully reached down and unfastened for her.
“I think you do have a future as a flight attendant,” she murmured, then sucked in a breath as Zander pulled her closer to him, his arm snaking around her as he half-hauled her into his lap. He deepened the kiss, and something shifted inside of Erin, something hard and fundamental, warning her to take this moment—to take it and savor it, because you just never knew when life would come around again to give you something so perfect, so important.
So…right.
Erin let her eyes drift shut and pressed closer to him, as Zander’s arms went even tighter. The plane chose that moment to bank, and she spilled forward, steadying herself against him. She tried to pull her hands away, but Zander caught them both in his steady, sure grip, flattening her palms against his chest as he gazed at her.
“Go ahead and lean into me, sweetheart, that’s what I want,” he said, his gray eyes dark with emotion. “I want to be right there for you.”
“Zander…” Erin blinked hard. She didn’t know how to accept the gift of him, didn’t understand what it meant, if it meant anything more than just these final moments they had together. And she found that, for once, she didn’t want to know. She just wanted to feel. To experience. To pour herself into everything he was and everything they were together, and ride the moment out as long as she could. She smiled as she angled back from him, drawing her hands down his shoulders, skimming them over the planes of his chest. “You’ve already done so much for me,” she said. “I don’t think there’s anything left you need to give me.”
“There’s this,” he murmured. He kissed her softly on the lips, his hands coming around to palm her breasts, setting off a swirl of need within her. She groaned and he cupped his hands more tightly, squeezing her through the thin T-shirt. “There’s this.” Zander slid his hands down and slipped them beneath the soft cotton, chuckling against Erin’s groan as his thumbs dipped inside waistband of her shorts, his mouth dropping to nuzzle the jumping pulse in her neck as he worked the buttons free. “There’s this, too,” he breathed, inching his fingers further south, turning her inside out.
Erin’s body reacted instantly, heat coiling within her, her pulse beginning to race as the now-familiar need sprang to life. “Please tell me you’re not just teasing me.”
“Not even the slightest bit,” Zander assured her, pulling her shorts down roughly as she fumbled for his shirt. He reached up and helped her out, taking off the T-shirt, leaving her with nothing to do but pull off hers as well. Then her brain seemed to register where they were. Belatedly, she held her shirt to her chest. “There aren’t any cameras back here, are there?”
“I asked about that,” Zander said with a flash of teeth. “Apparently, Mr. Jackson isn’t a big fan of spying on his own people, just on everybody else in the world. Pilot assures me that we’re quite private back here. And if he’s watching…,” Zander said, his eyes turning predatory now. “We might as well give him a show.”
Chapter 26
Erin’s face was rapt, focused, and Zander felt a thrill jolt through him that had everything to do with adrenaline and need, and with something more, too. Something that had to do with the way his heart thundered in his chest whenever he looked at Erin, the way his eyes sought out every nuance of expression, his ears strained for every breath, every sigh.
He didn’t want to examine all of that too closely, though, not yet. The future was hurtling toward them, and he didn’t know what it would bring. But this, this was theirs. This,nobody could take away from them. And this was setting up to be pretty much perfect.
Erin looked like she was on board with that plan as well. She was down to her underwear, unself-conscious about her body as she set about exploring his once again, with the same kind of open curiosity that made him hard just looking at her. Now she had him laid out on the seat, which, he’d just discovered, had the world’s best reclining position. She gingerly straddled his thighs, her breasts bobbing in front of him like a hypnotist’s mirror. And she appeared to be cataloguing each new scrape on his body, his arms, kissing each one delicately while her breasts brushed and tantalized every inch of skin they came in contact with. Zander was in his boxer briefs as well, but that wasn’t going to last for long if she kept this up.
“You
really want to join the mile-high club?” she murmured, a smile in her voice as she leaned over his him, tracing kisses over his chest.
“You got any doubt about that, darling?” he drawled, and Erin giggled, shifting aside to gaze down the length of him. The look on her face was something he’d carry with him through every dark night—she was flushed and excited, as eager for his body as he was for hers.
“Still. Maybe I should…give you a jump start?” She slid down to kneel between his legs, grazing her fingers along his cock, and Zander’s jaw locked, his erection leaping in her hand.
“Jump starts are good,” he rasped. “I’m a fan of jump starts.”
“You know…” She liberated his cock from the edge of his boxers and pulled the material down, but not very far. Zander fought the urge to reach around her and rip the things off, but—
“Christ, Erin!” he yelped, his attention riveted to where she wrapped her hand tightly around his cock while circling her tongue over its tip, everything shifting in different directions. Even with all they’d done so far in the last few days, that, somehow, was new. And amazing, for the record.
“You liked that? Or no?” She did it again, in case he’d forgotten the first time.
“Yes,” Zander managed to say. “Definitely yes.”
“Mmm,” she said. “I read about doing that move, too.” Her mouth drifted along his shaft. “I read a lot about doing a lot of things, actually, since you’ve been gone. I just haven’t had the chance to practice them much.”
“For which I am profoundly grateful.”
Erin laughed. She pressed her mouth over him then, her movements fast and urgent and wet, and so unbelievably good that he could do nothing but breathe for a second, his brain completely offline. He felt his briefs being dragged forcibly down his narrow hips until they cleared his ass, then Erin freed her mouth with a pop, to yank the briefs the rest of the way down. An instant later, she was back, her smooth, cool fingers slipping beneath his balls as her mouth came down again over him. “If you really like it, you know…,” she said, her words trailing off. And he got it, finally, his sex-starved brain registering that what she was trying to tell him was she could suck him off, if that’s what he had his heart set on.
“Not even remotely necessary—ah, shit, that feels good.” He ended his words on a moan and Erin giggled, her fingers exploring more as she focused on his cock, pressing up against him in a way that made him long for a week in a secluded cabin with no one but him and Erin and an enormous hot tub. Or an enormous bed. Hell, at this point the floor and a trickle of water from the faucet would work, but the possibilities were endless.
“See?” she said, bringing her head up with such bouncy goodwill that he was caught off guard, clenching his abs and trying to focus as a flood of endorphins rushed through him. “See? This makes you feel good. Why would you want me to stop if it makes you feel good?”
She purred the last few words over his cock as she eased her head back down again, nuzzling him, and Zander forgot how to make words for a moment. She murmured something indecipherable against his shaft and he shivered, recognizing the warning sign when he saw it. “Erin,” he said, his voice barely a growl. “I think you’re going to need to hold up for a second.”
“I don’t want to hold up,” she complained, speaking while her lips teased the tip of his head until he leaned forward a bit, tracing his hand over her soft, tousled hair. She looked up at him with that too-intense, too-determined look in her eyes. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“I’m most definitely enjoying this, but…we got lots of time, babe,” he murmured. “Flight’s only just begun.”
She frowned at him, looking more than just concerned or solicitous. Looking almost desperate, like something was sawing away at the fraying ends of her control. “But I just think…”
And a new realization clicked in Zander’s mind, like a child’s puzzle finally coming together in the most obvious way possible, that he somehow hadn’t seen until that moment. Erin was trying to repay him, somehow. She wanted to give him this, knew it was somehow a thing for him, something she could do. Even in this small, simple way, her own pleasure was once more secondary to his—just like her own life had been secondary, her happiness had been secondary, to the needs and wants of everyone around her since she’d been very young. She’d probably made herself secondary to his needs throughout their years together, if he thought about it hard enough. And he didn’t want to think too hard about it; he wanted to set about showing Erin that she could—and she would—experience all the pleasure she could handle, if she could just let herself go. For once in her life, if she could just leap off into open space, and know she was going to be caught.
There was something more that he wanted to assure her of, too. Something big and certain, surging on a wave inside of him. He didn’t know when that wave was going to crash, or what the impact would be when it did, but he felt like a swimmer too far out into the ocean, unsure of whether or not he’d make it to shore. And right now, Erin was his life raft, the only thing keeping him from going under, as this enormous tide swelled up and threatened to swallow him whole.
He wanted Erin. He needed her. And he wanted to make damned sure she needed him, too.
He glanced around the cabin, planning his next move. Most airplanes tended to open up their cabins to the sky with a line of windows marching down the wall, but apparently Jackson Security had other ideas. The perfect spot awaited them just across the aisle, next to the cabin door.
He caught up Erin’s hands, forcing her to look up at him. “Babe?”
“Yes?”
“You mind taking off the rest of your clothes?”
“But…” She swallowed, glancing up at him. Desire was warring with caution in her gaze. Whatever she saw in his look, however, must have convinced her. Because desire took precedence, and she stood up, gracefully shimmying herself out of her panties and dropping them in the seat behind her. He had a quick, memorable vision of Erin’s perfect backside, and the sight tantalized him, the urge to take her almost incontrollable. So when she turned back around, a smile curving her lips, Zander made his move.
—
Erin yelped as Zander launched himself out of the seat. One second he was watching her with heavily lidded eyes, the next he was exploding out of the chair so fast that she lost her breath as he gathered her up, her legs naturally spreading wide as she wrapped her legs around his hips, her hands grabbing for his broad shoulders.
And then her back was up against a smooth surface and she gasped, her body sliding down naturally until Zander was braced against her, the slick head of his shaft positioned directly at her entrance.
“Have you read about this?” Zander rumbled, pressing against her unmercifully, sliding against the most intimate point of her body, a point that was now slick with anticipation, desperate for more. But he just stayed there, taut and thick, when all she wanted was to feel him deep inside of her. “What about this? Like just going in a little bit?” And he did just what he said, pressing his shaft into her until Erin could feel her oversensitized nerves shudder and her body try to tighten around him. But just as quickly, he was gone again, sliding up and down, but not inside, not nearly inside enough, as need twisted and spiraled inside Erin sharp enough to be a pounding, physical ache.
“Oh my God, Zander,” she moaned. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what, babe?” Zander murmured. “You have to tell me or I might do the wrong thing.” And he was at her entrance again, sliding up into her further this time, the raw sensual weight of him stretching her wide, filling her up, as she threw her head back and her lungs heaved and she prayed for him to go all the way—only he slipped right back out again, adjusting her body, bracing her half on his hips, half against the slightly curving wall of the cabin.
Breath was clogging in Erin’s throat, her hands clawing at his shoulders. “You can’t…you can’t…,” she managed to say, only to hear him laugh, a hard,
intent laugh, and he pushed his way into her a third time, this time seating himself all the way, to the hilt. With that one shocking move, they both froze, breathing too hard. Zander bowed over her, sweat dripping from his brow to strike the overheated skin of her arms, as they both realized with growing awareness what they were doing—and how they were doing it.
“We seem to be making a habit of this.” Zander’s tone was wry, but when Erin wriggled against him he felt his control slip a little more. “Don’t…move, Erin,” he said. “Let me…let me restart here. I have a condom. Hell, I have a whole box. But they’re not going to do us any good if you keep moving.”
She couldn’t stifle a giggle as her hips twitched again and he cursed. “Where are they?” she asked.
“Shorts…pocket.” Zander gasped. “I’m going to lift you off on two, but swear to God, Erin, I will explode if you so much as twitch, okay?”
“Hey,” she said, loud enough that his head came up, his glazed gaze finding hers, holding. She kissed him, hard, on the lips, and then leaned up to his ear, reveling in the curse that he let out through gritted teeth. She clenched herself around him, feeling wanton and reckless. “I just want you to know that you feel amazing this way.”
He didn’t even give her a count of two. Zander stepped away from the wall and lifted her free, hauling her with him across the airplane cabin. Unsteadily, he grabbed his shorts, pawing at the pockets until he came up with the foil wrapper. He ended up having to use a second one, the first one eluding his shaking fingers, and by the time he turned back to Erin, the look in his eyes thrilled her to her very core. When he reached for her this time, she was right there, folding into his arms with a whispered sigh. He returned to the exact same spot she’d just left and she almost laughed, so focused was he on what he was doing, and where and how and when he wanted to do it, but when he entered her a second time she felt a curious shudder sweep through her, a sense of being unmoored.
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