The full scale of the deception was hard to grasp. Billions of dollars flowed secretly through the country’s economy all because of his father.
“I don’t like it,” Sara said. “So much power, and almost no way to rein it in. It’s ripe for abuse. Now there’s a director looking to claim all that power and influence for himself, and we stand in his way.”
They talked into the early hours of the morning. When the sky outside the massive wall of windows lightened and Liberty fell asleep for the fourth time, Derek called an end to the session. “The company will still be there tomorrow, and unfortunately our problems won’t go away either. We might as well regroup later—we’ve been talking ourselves into circles for hours now.”
There were no objections. Frustrations had run high as they tried to figure out their best path forward.
“Do you think we can solve this problem?” Sara asked Derek as they climbed to the top of the staircase. The height no longer bothered her. After being exposed to true altitude and surviving with nothing beneath her feet, standing on a solid floor two stories up was mundane.
Derek led the way to his bedroom and opened the door for her. She didn’t think twice about following him inside, even though they’d only slept together once so far. It seemed natural, as though this was always the place she had been meant to end up.
“We don’t have a choice,” Derek said. “It’s not something we can afford to ignore. We either figure it out, or else give up and wait for this Knight fellow to catch up with us.”
It was a sad state of affairs. A perversion of their nation’s capitalist ideals. When the owners had to fear their own company, it was obvious the machine had grown too deadly and was too dangerous. Something out of control like that should be put down.
“I’m sick of talking about it,” Sara said. She crawled onto the bed and struck as demurely sexy a pose as she could considering the cast wrapped around her arm. “Come to bed?”
“Only if you promise to lie back and let me take care of you,” he said. “And don’t complain—that arm of yours can’t take any strain. You can make it all up to me later.”
Sara pouted but the ever-present dull ache in her arm reinforced the wisdom of his words, so she stretched out on her back. “I can still do things,” she muttered. “I’d blow your mind, if you’d let me.”
Derek grinned. “Later. For now, let me spoil you.”
He helped her out of her clothes. The dress and bra were a pain to remove over the stiff cast, but he kissed her deeply to soothe away her frustration. With a light touch, he stroked the skin over her ribs with the back of his fingernails, making her squirm and moan into his mouth.
Circling her breasts, he skimmed along while refusing to touch her nipples, spiraling in until almost the bulls-eye before retreating once more. Derek switched breasts, giving each equal treatment and extending the teasing until Sara bucked and growled underneath him, demanding more.
His mouth followed in his delightful fingers’ wake, leaving her lips to lick and kiss down her neck and latch onto the flesh of her upper breast. Strong hands squeezed and lifted gently, giving as much stimulation possible without going where she wanted.
Her nipples were on fire without even being touched, so desperate for attention she had trouble thinking about anything else.
“Derek, please,” she whimpered.
A low growl was his only response. Instead of caving to her pleas, he left her breasts to travel a long and languid route down her side and lick along the top edge of her panties. Sara brought her good hand to her chest to caress herself, but he caught it and pinned it to her side. The erotic torture was enough to have her beside herself in need.
Nibbling at the insides of her thighs, still outside the region covered by her underwear, Derek slipped his tongue underneath the fabric for a moment, just catching the edge of her most erogenous zone but not enough for any sustained pleasure.
“God, you’re killing me!” Sara said. “Please, Derek. I need to feel you.”
At her request, he took the top edge of her panties between his teeth and pulled them down. She lifted her hips so the back of the underwear could slide away.
Now bare in front of him, Sara thrust herself up to get him to lick her.
He wouldn’t make it that easy. His skillful lips once more made the journey to her breasts, his body covering her but not in a way that gave her any relief.
Hot breath lingered over her nipple, moist and so close.
“Please, Derek. I need it. I need you.”
The moment his lips dropped the last inch and closed around her sensitive skin blew her away, the extreme pleasure completely unexpected. Sara had felt nothing like it—but then, she’d never been teased and wound up the way she was.
“Fuck yes,” she breathed as he moved to her other breast. His hands cupped and squeezed and caressed, an intricate dance she could barely follow but stoked her passions higher than anything she’d ever known.
The sensation was exquisite, almost painfully pleasurable as Derek worked his magic. The soft warmth of his mouth sometimes led to a careful pull of his teeth, the squeeze bringing forth a pain that melded with pleasure to create something more, something higher.
Locked in a trance, Sara paid no attention to the rest of Derek until the unmistakable feeling of his cock against her pussy, his head sliding through the soaking wet folds as she welcomed him in.
He sank fully into her in no time, her body more than warmed up for him. The movement sparked a loud moan as she struggled to deal with the way her body felt—her skin was alive and on fire, and every small touch of his was an electric jolt that wove through the whole of the experience.
“Yes,” Sara said. “Yes, yes, yes, yes. Like that. Right there. That feels amazing.”
Derek’s mouth left her nipple to reclaim her mouth. Their kiss was deep and passionate, yet gentle.
He moved within her for a long time. True to his word, he was easy on her, taking care not to rock her so hard that her arm hurt her. The entire time she danced on a knife edge, certain that all it would take for her to fall into a catastrophic climax would be his command.
Instead they built together, ever higher, each stroke melding them deeper and pushing them into new heights of pleasure. Time lost all meaning—all that mattered were their mouths, their hands, the way they joined to form a perfect union.
Finally, Derek’s hips sped, crashing into her own as she egged him on until her mouth could no longer form words. Then she held him with her good hand as he pushed even deeper inside of her and they climaxed together.
They stayed like that for a few minutes until shifting to a more comfortable position and drifting off to sleep.
Four Months Later
“Are you sure you’re ready?” Derek asked one more time. He felt like a broken record, but he didn’t want to rush his love if she wasn’t up to the task. This was a big step for her, and while she’d responded well to the idea, he didn’t know how she would react now the time had come.
“For heaven’s sake, Derek, just fire it up! Seriously, you’re worse than my mother!” Her tone made light of her words, and he grinned as she tore into him.
The flow of words stopped as he started the engine and the propeller turned in a characteristic high-pitched whine.
“Oh!”
They each wore a headset so they could hear each other over the noise, and his grin widened at her response to the sudden change. He wished he could see her face, but she sat in front of him in the tandem trainer plane. Each seat had a yoke and the ability to take over the aircraft although Derek’s was the teacher’s console and retained master control.
“Ready for takeoff?” he asked.
“Um… I guess so. You did all your pre-flight checks?” Her voice trembled, but her core of strength steadied her. It drew him like a moth to a flame.
“Three times. I’m never making the mistake of rushing through those ever again.” His shoulders still twinged whe
n he thought of the ordeal at the air race, even though it was months earlier and the injuries had healed otherwise.
“Then let’s do it.”
He taxied the plane out to the runway and waited for the tower’s permission to take off. Their speed built quickly until the wheels lifted off the tarmac. It was a smooth operation—routine, even. His passenger didn’t think so.
“Oh, holy crap!” Sara shouted, the volume making Derek wince. “This is ridiculous!”
“It’s okay,” he soothed. “You’ve gone way faster in my cars.”
Sara quieted down, and he turned his attention to ensuring as pleasant a climb as possible. Once they got to altitude, he leveled out and tilted gently so the ground was more visible.
“What do you think?” he asked. The lack of screams was encouraging.
Awe filled her voice. “It’s beautiful. Everything’s so small up here. I mean, I saw this before from the helicopter, but that was such a different situation. This feels so… safe.”
They had kept working away at her fear of heights. It had taken a mighty blow after her ordeal but remnants remained, and new fears had layered themselves in after the traumatic helicopter flight.
“How would you like to take control?” Derek asked.
“What? Derek! I told you that wouldn’t happen!”
He had told her he would take her up in the school’s instructional aircraft because it was the only one with two seats that had easy communication between passengers. It wasn’t a complete lie, but it wasn’t the total truth, either. He could have made do with a few of the other planes at the airfield. A few months into the opening of his piloting school, he had grown rather fond of the old plane.
“Just put your hands on the control column,” he coached, his voice pitched even and low to help calm her. “You won’t even notice a difference.”
One thing he loved about her was her willingness to step outside her comfort zone and confront things that made her squirm. It was something they had in common, he was just further on this journey than she was.
“Fine. What do I do?”
Her arm was finally out of a brace and able to move on its own without damaging itself. It had been a long and painful road to recovery, and there was still more work to do, but she could finally do things like drive a car or now fly a plane without a mechanical nightmare hindering her every movement.
He coached her as they made lazy circles above the ground, zig-zagging back and forth around the air field’s airspace. Just as he had expected, she picked it up with ease, although he was ready to take back control in case something went wrong.
It the moment he had waited for. He hadn’t been sure if this was the best time to do it, but it would be the most memorable.
“Okay, for the next maneuver, I’ll need you to open the compartment on the dash to your left.”
Silence. For a few seconds. And then: “Oh, my God! Derek, it’s so beautiful!”
He smiled. Gary had helped him pick out the ring. It was unique and gorgeous, just like his love. “Sara Flight, will you make me a complete man and marry me?”
“Of course, yes! I love you so much!” Her voice took on the special quality it did when she teared up not out of fear, fright or sadness, but because something had made her extraordinarily happy.
“I love you too, Sara. Forever.”
He couldn’t say no to her. Not now—not ever. From the moment she hung out the helicopter door clinging to nothing but his hands, he could never let go of her again.
She tried shifting to look at him, but was confounded by the harness that strapped her into her seat.
“Damn it, Derek! Why the hell did you have to propose in the air like this so I can’t kiss your face off? You better land this plane quicker than any move you’ve ever pulled in a race!”
That was the one downside of his master plan. “Yes, ma’am! One landing, coming right up!”
The nose of the plane tilted toward the ground until it was vertical and their speed increased threefold. The solid earth rushed up at them.
“Derek Devereux! What the hell!”
He chuckled, unable to help himself. “I won’t apologize for that, you asked for it.”
Sara sputtered, and by the time she had regained her equilibrium, the wheels of the plane kissed the runway.
Derek popped the hatch at the earliest opportunity and helped his fiancée out of the aircraft.
She looked up into his eyes. “You’ll infuriate me for the rest of my life, won’t you?”
“It will be my pleasure,” he said before giving his future wife a deep and rousing kiss.
Thank you for reading Taking Flight. The ongoing Onyx saga will continue in Chasing Charity, which will follow Gary Devereux as he finds his own path.
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Stephen and Liberty’s story is told in the novella Capturing Liberty. If you have not read it yet, continue on for the full novella.
Capturing Liberty
About the Author
Acknowledgements
CAPTURING LIBERTY
A DEVEREUX NOVELLA
D.G. WHISKEY
COPYRIGHT © 2015 D.G. WHISKEY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
DESCRIPTION
Stephen Devereux has just moved to New York City and flexes the power of his wealth by saving model/waitress Liberty from a Wall Street asshole.
Their whirlwind romance sweeps Liberty along but she refuses to give up her independence and goals as she fights to make it as a model. When a modeling gig goes wrong, Liberty has to fight for freedom and to be reunited with the man she's come to love.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TAKING FLIGHT
CAPTURING LIBERTY
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
“Be a good girl and get us another round of scotch, will you doll?”
The man’s voice was superior, patronizing, and he had a smug grin on his face. Either of those I could have put up with, but I drew the line when paired with his hand sliding down my back to squeeze my ass in the tight black dress all waitresses had to wear at Dorgo’s.
I slapped his hand away. “Please don’t touch me.”
The slack-jawed look on his face and low whistles from the other men at the table lit a fierce satisfaction within me. It didn’t last long.
“Did you fucking hit my hand?” He stood up from his chair. He wasn’t a tall man, but I wasn’t a tall woman and the flush in his face signaled that this was a man given to outbursts of anger.
“You’ve been making inappropriate remarks and advances for the past several hours. They aren’t welcome, and I want you to stop.”
His nostrils flared. He might have been handsome, but his actions over the course of my shift and his state of inebriation filled me with disgust and distaste.
“I’m paying over fifty bucks a drink. If I want to put my hand on your ass, then I’ll put my hand on your ass,” he said. He grabbed my arm and yanked me toward him, gripping my ass in his other hand so hard it hurt.
“Get off me!” I struggled against him, but he was too strong. It was hard to look around the bar with my motion restricted, and I saw none of the other servers.
The group had snagged one of the more secluded tables in the classy Wall Street cocktail bar. Situations like this didn’t happen at Dorgo’s.
The man pulled me even harder against him. “I’ll do whatever I want. Hell, if I wanted to take you home tonight then you’ll come with me, and like it.”
“Paul, let her go, man.” The other men at the table looked uncomfortable, but weren’t in any hurry to get up from their seats and help me.
“Don’t be such a fucking pussy, Grant. We own this town and we can do what we want.” The aggressor turned back and stared at me. “I want to teach her a lesson for being a frigid bitch.”
Words stuck in my throat. I should have been screaming, or calling for help, or struggling with all my might, but shock paralyzed me and I watched the scene unfold like a big screen movie. Somehow I was detached from it all, unable to believe it was happening.
A hand reached past me to shove hard against Paul’s chest at the same time another wrapped around my waist to wrench me from his arms. Paul stumbled back a few paces and almost fell, catching himself on his chair at the last moment.
For the second time in as many minutes a male body held me tight, but the hand on me was gentle and he smelled nice. When I looked up, I saw a chiseled face and high cheekbones under a set of dark green eyes that stared at the man who’d been assaulting me.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Paul shouted, having regained his feet.
The man who shoved him looked down at me, his eyes softening from their deadly glare when our gazes met. “Are you okay?” he asked, ignoring the belligerent man a few paces away.
Taking Flight (A Devereux Novel) Page 20