by Melody Anne
The rest of the evening continued with Dakota and Ace seeing who could torture whom the most. By the time it was over, Dakota wasn’t exactly sure who the winner was. Normally she came out the victor, so she didn’t know if she wanted to keep playing games with Ace or not.
Of course, she squashed that thought immediately. Dakota didn’t go running for water just because the going got rough. Or something like that, she assured herself. When the limo pulled up to her place, she was having a hard time balancing as she rose.
“I’ll walk you to the door,” Chloe said.
“Not a chance,” Ace interrupted. “I’ll do it.”
Not one person argued with the man, and she wanted to call all of them traitors. She refused to look any of the Armstrongs in the eyes. They might have an inkling of what had been happening the entire night, but it would only be suspicion and not fact. So she had to rest assured that she had kept it hidden.
The silence of the night was overwhelming after being in the boisterous limo, but Ace placed his hand on her lower back as she walked as quickly as her legs would carry her to the front door. She fumbled in her purse, looking for her keys, shocked when she found that her fingers were shaking.
“Are you nervous about something, Dakota?” Ace asked, oozing with smugness.
“Nope, just drank a bit too much wine with dinner,” she replied.
“I don’t think so,” he said, boxing her in against her door just as she wrapped her fingers around her keys. “I think you had fun playing tonight, and now that we’re alone you’re nervous,” he guessed accurately.
“Well, you don’t know me very well if you think I get spooked so easily,” she assured him.
“Hmm,” he murmured as he leaned his body against hers. His touch was incredible, and she couldn’t even begin to pretend she didn’t like the sensation of craving him.
His lips fluttered across her neck, and her heart thundered as she anticipated the moment his lips would touch hers. She’d kissed him several times the night of the wedding, and each kiss had been better than the last. She didn’t mind another taste of him one little bit.
“Are you going to pretend you don’t want a good-night kiss?” he asked before his tongue swept down the curve of her neck, making her lean her head back to get more.
“No,” she said. Why lie? It didn’t do either of them any good.
He looked up, delight in his eyes. His arms wrapped around her as he dragged her tightly against him, then pulled her leg up so he could settle between her thighs. He let her feel his arousal pressing right where she wanted it.
“I like a woman who knows what she wants,” he told her.
He quit talking as his mouth took her lips in a harsh kiss that sucked all the oxygen from her. Dakota’s arms wrapped around his neck as she clung tightly to him and gave back just as much as he was giving.
She squirmed against his body, heat overwhelming her as she got lost in Ace’s embrace. It would be so easy to let it all go and fall captive to him. She wanted to do just that, but she couldn’t—not yet. She’d just become another notch on his bedpost.
With reluctance, she finally pulled back, sure that her eyes reflected the same desire she saw in his. Her fingers trailed across his jaw.
“You are an incredibly good-looking man,” she said with a wobbly smile.
“Why don’t I send the family home and take you inside for a nightcap,” he said, his voice pleading.
She actually thought about it for a few seconds before she sighed with reluctance. She wanted so badly to say yes to him, but they both knew she wasn’t going to do that.
“Good night, Ace,” she said. Then she pushed him back. He stepped away willingly, though with reluctance.
“It might not happen tonight, but it will happen,” Ace assured her. He then took the key from her hand and unlocked her door, pushing it open. “Go inside before I change my mind about being chivalrous and follow you.”
Dakota didn’t say another word as she stepped into her house and turned to look at him one final time before she shut the door in his face. She leaned against it as she listened to his steps moving down her walkway.
She heard the limo pull away and then walked slowly into her living room, where she sank down onto her couch and grabbed a magazine off her coffee table, fanning her flushed cheeks.
Dakota wasn’t going to be getting a heck of a lot of sleep tonight. And she feared the entire week was going to be shot. Her flying lessons began tomorrow, with her and Ace in very tight quarters with no one else around.
She wasn’t sure she was going to make it. She certainly knew she wasn’t going to without falling into the man’s bed. As much as she knew it would be wise not to do that, she couldn’t help herself. She wanted him as much as he wanted her, and it might be better to just get it over with.
By the time Dakota climbed into bed, she was no closer to finding answers than when she’d first set eyes upon Ace. Maybe the problem was she needed to quit thinking and go with basic animal instinct. That made her smile as she finally fell asleep.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ace was leaning against the small four-seater Cessna 400 he’d chosen for Dakota’s flying lesson. Yeah, he knew this wasn’t a plane most students would fly for the first time, but Dakota wasn’t just any student. She could handle the sexy plane and would appreciate its composite construction and lack of lumpy rivets. He also wanted to impress her. Besides that, Sherman had assured him she was ready for a powerful plane.
Ace had a clear view of the door, and he was highly anticipating the moment she walked into the room. In his life, Ace had done a lot of jobs, had been to many places. Never had he thought he’d so look forward to teaching someone how to fly.
But he was more amped up about this job than any other he had ever had. The thought of the two of them being side by side for hours high up in the sky was unbelievably appealing to him. He was closing in on making her his. And his conquest couldn’t come soon enough.
He feared the consequences of making Dakota his own, but his need for her was outweighing his reservations. Besides, he reasoned, he had come up with a solution by keeping their relationship in the dark. Plus, Dakota was more than capable of giving back just as good as she got. She was certainly the right kind of woman for him.
When the door opened and Dakota finally stepped through, Ace didn’t move from his position, but his entire body tensed as she drew closer to him. This was where he wanted to be and the woman he wanted to be with. Could he be losing his mind?
“Is this the plane?” Dakota asked. She made a wide circle around him as she looked at the clean lines of the beautiful plane.
“Yep. She’s perfect for you,” Ace told her.
“Why is it a she?” she asked, a hand on her hip and sassiness in her voice.
He laughed aloud as he followed her around the plane. She reached out and caressed the cool white metal like he imagined she would touch a lover. He was instantly hard and uncomfortable again.
“All planes are referred to as female,” he informed her.
“I think you need to prove that. Maybe I want to call it . . . Bob,” she said with a raised brow.
“Honey, with these curves and beauty, she couldn’t have anything but a lady’s name,” he assured her.
She laughed, allowing him to win the argument. And Ace had no doubt whatsoever that she was indeed allowing him to win. He’d never actually investigated to find out why planes were referred to with female names. But flying had been the good old boys’ club for so long, he was sure that’s where the naming of planes had originated.
“She’s a Cessna 400 with low wings, a carbon-fiber composite design, and, most importantly, a very comfortable interior,” he said as he opened the door and let her look inside at the clean leather upholstery.
“There’s not a lot of room in there,” she said as she looked from the inside of the plane to Ace and then back again.
“Nope. We’ll be squished in nice and
tight,” he said, his tone clearly telling her that was a perk to this job.
“Where do I pay for my lesson?” she asked.
Ace gazed at her at a loss. “Pay?” he questioned.
“Yes. This is a flight school. I’m supposed to pay,” she told him.
“I’ll talk to Sherman about it,” he said, shifting on his feet. He wasn’t going to talk to Sherman, because she wasn’t paying. He wasn’t taking money from the woman, especially when he would be more than willing to pay her to be up in the air with him.
“I’ll talk to Sherman about it. I don’t trust you,” she said with a knowing smile.
Yeah, so would he. Ace absolutely wasn’t taking money for this gig. He planned on some after-hours activities, so money was definitely off the table.
Dakota simply smiled at him, and he knew that she knew exactly what was going through his mind. It wouldn’t ever be easy to pull the wool over this woman’s eyes. She was too aware of herself and her surroundings.
Ace led her over to a desk, popped open a book, and leaned in behind her as she went over some basic techniques of flying. Her brows furrowed as she read the material, glancing up at him every once in a while.
Ace missed those days when he’d first learned to fly. Every single part of the reading materials had fascinated him. But nothing had compared to when he’d sat in the cockpit for the very first time. There had been a thrill then that he still felt when he took the controls of a plane. He could rise above the land and soar like the birds. There was utter freedom in the act of flying.
Then he’d flown for the drug cartel, he remembered with a frown. That had dampened his love of flying, because he knew what and whom he’d been transporting. He didn’t want those thoughts invading his mind at this moment, but it was hard to pull himself out of that dark place. Dakota’s presence made it a little bit easier.
“You ready?” he asked, shaking his head to clear it.
Dakota looked at him as if he had a screw loose. He wanted to tell her that since he’d met her, there wasn’t anything bolted down securely in his head anymore, but he held that in. Those words wouldn’t exactly inspire confidence in his student.
“Ready?” she said, her voice hesitant. He found he liked knocking her off-kilter. The woman was so damn confident. He was used to being around women who knew they were beautiful and knew how to use their bodies. But with Dakota, it was different. She had an aura about her that spoke of competence as well as confidence.
“You didn’t learn how to walk by sitting on your ass. You can’t learn how to fly by reading a book,” he said, holding out his hand to help her up.
She accepted his fingers, though she seemed unsure as she stood up next to him.
“I didn’t think we’d be getting into the plane so soon,” she said. Ace smiled at her as the two of them drew closer to the plane.
“It takes many hours of hands-on experience to learn how to fly. It’s no different than driving, really. The biggest difference is you’re in the sky if something goes wrong. Like driving, though, you have to act quickly, be prepared, and use your training to keep your wits about you and deal with emergencies properly.”
“You aren’t exactly inspiring confidence,” she said with a sassy glare.
Ace’s smile grew even bigger.
“You have plenty of that on your own. I don’t need to stroke your ego,” he assured her.
They climbed inside the small cockpit, and Ace wasn’t complaining at all with her pressed up beside him. He had to help her with the seat belt, and that just made him smile all the more. His pants were achingly tight, and her perfume was saturating the air.
Normally, he wouldn’t mind that one little bit, but he had to be in trainer mode, and it wouldn’t do either one of them any good for him to be distracted. He wasn’t going to be able to ravage this woman if he got them both killed.
“Everything is new and exciting the first time you fly. But most pilots will say that feeling never really goes away. You are either born to fly, or you’re one of the many who prefer to be shuttled around. I can see the lust in your eyes. You’re going to make a hell of a pilot,” he assured her.
“I’m scared, I admit that,” she said with a chuckle. “But you also might be right. I think I was meant to do this.”
Ace had known a lot of female pilots in his lifetime, but none as sexy as Dakota. He normally wasn’t one to ever be the first officer, but he would make an exception with her. Flying in the sky, just the two of them, sounded as close to paradise as he could imagine.
“As long as you’re open to new experiences and you take charge of your learning, this will be as smooth as butter,” Ace assured her.
“Well, I’m as smooth as a porcupine, so I’ve got this,” she said seriously as she gazed at the controls.
Ace waited for her to laugh, but she didn’t. “You really don’t get idioms, do you?” he said after a few moments. She looked at him with guileless eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“Smooth as a porcupine?” he asked, with raised brows. She still looked at him in confusion. He just laughed as he pulled out the preflight checklist. She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Douglas Adams said that flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss,” Ace told her. “So let’s make sure we miss.”
“I can promise you, I want to do exactly that,” she said.
During the next twenty minutes, he taught her how to go through the checklist, and then he showed her how to start the plane. She hung on every word he spoke, and Ace was glad he was the one teaching her how to fly.
The thought of her in this plane with some other guy sent feelings through him he didn’t want to analyze. He was already beginning to think of this woman as his. It was a frightening thought, so he pushed it to the back of his mind and refused to focus on it.
They taxied out to the runway, and Ace spoke to her through her headphones. “Even when I’m the one holding the controls, make sure you follow along so you can feel how I’m maneuvering the aircraft. This will build positive muscle memory and lead to good habits from the beginning.”
“Got it,” she told him as the plane revved up. They got clearance for departure, and Ace pushed in the throttle and gazed straight ahead. He could feel Dakota next to him as she held her controls and looked through the front and side windows. She was loving every moment of her time in the plane.
They climbed easily into the clear blue sky. Ace was able to let go of his raging desire for a while as he instructed her on the basic motions of flying. She was a fast learner, and he knew she’d be doing her first solo flight by the time she had ten hours logged. He was almost bummed about that.
“You don’t want to rely too heavily on your flight instruments. You are training to become a pilot under the Visual Flight Rules, or VFR, so that means the majority of time you’re flying, you need to be looking outside the plane. A lot of students rely too heavily on the instruments, and if something goes wrong, they don’t respond quickly enough,” Ace told her.
“The view is better outside the windows anyway,” she told him.
He decided not to take offense to that. He knew what it was like to fly—when first learning, a trainee can be so in love with every aspect of flying, it feels like no one else exists.
“Exactly. There’s no need to look at the artificial horizon on your panel when you can glance out the window and see the real thing. Of course, your instruments are needed and incredibly helpful, but they are there to validate what you are already seeing. The FAA recommends that pilots’ attention be outside the cockpit ninety percent of the time.”
Ace could see that Dakota was getting too relaxed simply being a passenger. He couldn’t allow that to happen. She was born to be a pilot, not a passenger.
“Take over,” he told her, removing his hands from the yoke.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her fingers gripping the control wheel, her knuckles turning white.
&n
bsp; “You have to learn by doing,” he assured her. He didn’t tell her he could take over at a moment’s notice. He needed her to believe in herself. He leaned back, his hands going behind his head in a relaxed gesture.
Her eyes flashed to his before they quickly darted forward again. She held on to the stick tightly. She was keeping them perfectly level. He was impressed.
“I want you to bank left,” he told her.
“I can’t,” she said, the plane not veering an inch from its forward trajectory.
“You can do it, Dakota,” he said calmly.
He felt a shudder pass through her body as she tensed even more, but then she took in a deep cleansing breath, and the plane began turning left. Ace had a difficult time taking his eyes from her beaming face as she learned what it felt like to make a plane do exactly what she wanted it to do.
“I’m doing it!” Her excited voice through his headset was music to his ears.
“You’re doing a hell of a job,” he confirmed. “I want you to go in a 360-degree circle now.”
This time she didn’t argue with him. She made a much wider turn than needed, but as they made it around into a full circle, he knew she officially had the flying bug. She would never go back to feeling the same way about the ground again. Ace really liked that he had been instrumental in Dakota’s first hands-on flight.
They stayed in the sky for about two hours, and still, Dakota pouted when it was time to come back down to the ground. He let her descend then laughed when they missed the runway—twice.
He finally had mercy on her and took over the controls, bringing them in for a smooth landing. When they got back to the hangar and Ace stopped the plane, he turned to her and said, “Good job.”
The beaming smile she gave him took both his breath and his words away.
“You are so stunning,” he said, utter awe filling him.
“Thank you,” she said, though he knew she wasn’t talking about the compliment he’d just given her, but about the experience they’d just shared together. She was on such a high, better than any drug. There was nothing that compared to your first time flying.