by K. L. Kreig
When I saw the dinner he’d pulled together in such short order, however, I was dumbfounded. It was considerate and sweet and utterly romantic, even if he didn’t mean it to be. It came from the selfless, vulnerable boy I always remembered instead of the ultra smug, I’ll-stop-at-nothing-to-get-what-I-want man that I now know and I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t ruin the moment. I couldn’t take all the effort and thought he’d put into the night and trample it like it meant nothing.
Because it meant everything.
Then, when he held me in his arms, let me tell him about my mother, and he listened—really listened—I heard genuine regret that he wasn’t there when I needed him, I chucked the white flag high in the air, consequences be damned. For a few precious hours, I put all the hurt, the guilt, the remorse aside and took what I desperately needed: what Connelly wanted me to have and what I wanted to give him in return.
Love.
Devotion.
A good memory to erase the bad ones in the past and those yet to come.
But lying in his arms after he’d lavished indescribable pleasures on me, all of it came rushing back like a tsunami against my will anyway, the burden so encumbering, so suffocating to carry alone that I almost caved right then and there in the safety of his arms. But once again, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t crush the hope my selfish actions had just given him. Had given me.
“Are you cold?” he asks rubbing his hands rapidly up and down my arm, genuine concern for my well-being lacing his tone.
“No.” His body heat burns me up from the outside while my betrayal scorches my innards. My entire being is on fire. I feel as if I’ve been thrown directly into the pits of hell, the agony debilitating.
“Come home with me.”
“I can’t, Connelly.” I feel absolutely sick, dinner rolling around in my traitorous stomach, trying to push its way back out. I’m paralyzed beneath the weight of my deceit and lies. Unable to move. Hardly able to breathe.
“I’m not letting you run, Nora. Not this time.”
“I’m not running. I…don’t you think we’re moving too fast?” Shit…I need more time to figure this out. I just found him again; I selfishly don’t want to give this up already, but my time is now out. I have no choice.
“As far as I’m concerned, we’re not moving fast enough. I’ve wasted enough time without you. I’m not wasting a second more.”
Still naked, he rolls on top of me, desire stirring anew in my belly at the feel of his raw masculine perfection pressed against my bare flesh from head to toe. Pinning me with his open and exposed stare, he asks, “You love me, yes? Please tell me you love me, Nora.”
Cupping his face, I confess softly, “Since before I even met you.” No hesitation, no qualms, no lies. It’s the truest thing I’ve said to him in weeks.
His brilliant, victorious, megawatt smile simultaneously lights me up and shreds me to ribbons.
“But there’s so much about each other we don’t even know anymore,” I whisper more to myself than to him. My secrets swirl like deadly poison in my belly, a boiling mixture of regret and guilt. My eyes prick with reminders of my deception.
“Then we’ll learn. I love you and nothing will change that, Nora. Nothing.”
As he presses his lips to mine once more, I think, you’re wrong. God help me because I don’t know how our love will be able to survive the resentment and hate he’ll feel for me once he knows.
A knock on my window makes me squeal and jump, dragging me back to the darkness of my deceit in the light of a new day. I look up to see Connelly’s face outlined through the fog of the driver’s side glass. I’ve been sitting here so long the entire inside of the car is now coated with obscurity. I wish I could stay encased in it forever. But I can’t. My days of anonymity were always on a countdown clock to annihilation.
Taking a deep breath, I open the door, cold rain pouring inside the car.
“What are you doing, princess?”
Planning to run.
“Waiting for you,” I lie.
Fact is, I was contemplating running…coming up with any plausible excuse not to spend more uninterrupted time with Connelly. I need some space to get my emotions back on lockdown and my thoughts in order and that will never happen by spending nearly twenty-four solid hours alone with him.
He holds out a steady hand. I pull back like it’s a viper ready to strike.
While last night sits hard in the pit of my stomach, the reason I’m on panic’s razor-sharp blade right now has little to do with that and everything to do with the fact that the dinner meeting with Kinnick Investments is in Memphis, not Chicago. And since it’s a nine-hour drive to Memphis and I didn’t know until last night when Connelly walked me to my car that we were meeting at the Chez Phillippe, the renowned French restaurant located inside the historic Peabody Hotel, I couldn’t very well drive. I have no idea why I thought we’d be meeting in Chicago. My only excuse is that every time I’m around Connelly, my brains get scrambled. I become a blazing hot mess.
“Come on. I’m getting soaked,” he says, wiggling his hand for me take it. I set my palm in his, mine slightly shaking, and join him under his huge golf-sized umbrella, burrowing closer to shield myself from the chilly sideways downpour. He starts us toward the hangar when I stop, water pelting me, drenching my business suit.
I’m barely holding my shit together. I cannot get on that plane. I cannot.
“My bag.” I gesture toward my practical Ford Focus, stalling for time.
With an arm around my waist, he hauls me back under his protection, kissing me hard and quick on the lips. “Ham will get it,” he says, moving us forward across the wet concrete until we’re in the safety of the large, cavernous hangar. Well…safe from the rain anyway.
Connelly briefly lets me go to fold the dripping umbrella and instructs someone who looks like he could bench three of me to get my bag. I almost turn and run when he places his warm hand at the base of my spine, right above the curve of my ass, pushing me toward the stairs that could take me to my death.
With each step I take toward the small white jet that has GRASCO emblazoned across the fuselage in crisp, navy-blue letters, my vision fades, my stomach violently churns. It becomes harder and harder to suck air through my restricted airway.
“Nora, what’s the matter? You’re shaking like a leaf.”
When he told me about dinner in Memphis, I didn’t tell Connelly I couldn’t do it. I didn’t tell him I’m now illogically petrified of something I once loved to do. I didn’t tell him of my father’s death. I was a complete emotional wreck from our lovemaking. By the time we’d reached my car, I was barely holding my tears inside as he kissed me goodnight and held me in his arms, telling me again how much he loved me.
“Nothing,” I choke, forcing my feet up the six narrow metal steps.
I keep reminding myself it’s just a little over an hour in the air. One hour there today, one hour back tomorrow. Two hours of my life. Statistics show only one in over twenty-nine million dies in a single airplane crash, I tell myself. And if we do crash, I have a 24 percent chance of survival. I convince myself this is far safer than driving nine hours on the road with a bunch of idiots distracted by texting and crying kids.
When we step inside, the smell of new leather hits my nostrils and I freeze. Unwelcome thoughts pummel me from all sides.
I wonder if this was what my father experienced just before his demise. Did he ogle over the fancy interior of a small, private jet? Did he sink into the soft-as-silk leather seats and gaze out the small round portholes wishing he’d done things differently as life passed him by while he spent it cooped up in a lab? And as the plane went down, did he regret not being there for me, my daughter, my mother?
“Nora, baby, what’s wrong?” Connelly gently coaxes in my ear, rubbing his hands up and down my freezing cold limbs. I lean into his comfort, needing his strength.
“I don’t really like small planes.”
I like li
fe.
“I thought you loved to fly?”
“I used to,” I mumble. Trying to be strong, I force my body to one of the plush, buttery-colored leather chairs. When I take a seat, my fingers fumble with the belt and then his are there, pushing mine away so he can buckle me in tight. When he’s done, I keep my watery eyes on my lap. He grabs hold of both hands.
“Nora, look at me. Sweetheart, please,” he cajoles after I hesitate.
When our eyes connect, I immediately feel safe and loved and cherished. “First, this is a Gulfstream five fifty, one of the best and safest private jets money can buy. I have a pilot and a copilot, and between them, they have over one hundred and fifteen years of experience flying in both the military and the private sector and over twenty thousand hours of flying time. That may not sound like a lot, but it can take pilots their entire careers to reach those milestones, if ever. Phil and Ham know what they’re doing. You’re safe. I promise.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I can promise this. I’ve only just found you again so I’m not going to let anything, even the Messiah Himself, take you away from me just yet.”
“Connelly,” I breathe. I love this man so very much. I have no idea what I’m going to do when his eyes are full of contempt instead of love.
“It’s okay, princess. I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
The way he says those words with such conviction, such sympathy…
“You know,” I whisper.
He nods slowly, squeezing my hands. “I just found out this morning.”
“How?”
“Google’s a pretty powerful tool.”
Yes. I suppose when a renowned researcher and three of his colleagues meet their fiery deaths where pilot error was to blame, it would make the news. I don’t know. I didn’t watch TV for weeks after that. I didn’t pick up a paper. I didn’t look at the World Wide Web.
I grieved.
I pitied myself for all I’d lost. And not just my father. I relived every loss, every mistake, every choice. Every time I felt I was pulling my life together, fate dealt me yet another cruel blow. I felt defeated, doomed. It was wrong. I knew it then and I know it now, but the only way I could survive my seemingly never-ending string of pain and suffering was to turn inside myself and shut everyone else out.
“Ah.” I take a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. Connelly waits patiently, his gaze full of affection. I treasure it then tuck it away. I know my expiration on it is rapidly approaching. “I was going to tell you. I just…I…”
I didn’t know how without completely breaking.
“I know. I’m sorry, Nora. I’m so fucking sorry you had to go through all of this shit alone. I should have been there.”
His sincerity slays me. The hurt he feels because I hurt cuts me so deep I feel the unintentional sharpness of his words slice my heart like jagged glass. It’s excruciating.
I decide in that very moment that I’m going to get through this trip, this meeting, these next twenty-four hours with Connelly and then I’ll come clean. I’ll tell him everything. I owe him that much, even if it means I’ll lose everything in the process.
“Sir, we’re ready to take off. You’ll need to take your seat now,” a deep, masculine voice calls from behind me.
“Thanks, Ham.” He looks back at me. “You okay?”
“It’s still raining.” The torrential downpour has lightened up, but it’s still coming down pretty hard. The wind still howls angrily as if it knows my devastating secrets.
“They wouldn’t take off if it wasn’t safe. I don’t have a death wish, either.”
“We’ll climb quickly, ma’am, and be above the storm in just a few short minutes. It will be smooth sailing to Memphis after that.”
Clutching Connelly’s fingers tightly, I nod, not realizing the guy named Ham is still standing behind us.
“Need my hands back, babe. Gotta buckle up. You can have them right back, promise.” Panic must be written all over my face because he leans up to kiss me. It’s slow and sweet and when he teases my seam open, his tongue touching mine, it immediately floods my core with want. And it also does its intended trick. I let go of his hands to frame his face instead, wanting to deepen our connection.
With his lips stuck to mine, I feel him shift and move, but I don’t let go, my body straining to stay fused with his. I hear the sound of his seatbelt latch. Then he does as promised. His hands are back, covering mine.
Breaking our lip-lock, he pants, “We need to stop or I’m going to take you in the lavatory and fuck your brains out the minute we reach cruising altitude.”
His words send a zing of lust straight to my nipples and clit, hardening both so the only thing I can think about is getting him inside me again, even though I know it’s wrong.
My eyes roll briefly to his groin and his hardening erection before rising to meet his. “Okay.”
He groans as if my agreement caused him physical pain. “Nora, for the love of God, don’t tempt me.”
“Why?” I ask. I don’t blink. I don’t move. I don’t look away as I watch hunger tighten his face and thirst cloud his vision.
“Is that what you want?” he asks gruffly, now stroking my bottom lip with his thumb, fingers wrapped around my jaw.
His touch. God. It weakens me and strengthens me. It burns me and soothes me. A single press of his skin to mine brings me absolute and utter peace but sends a rush of desire barreling through me like a freight train.
“Have you done this with anyone else?”
His eyes snap to mine. Then they turn positively ravenous. They are dark seas of desire I fall helplessly into every time I look at him.
“No.” His voice is low, seductive. Unmistakably sinful. And indisputably inviting.
“Then yes.” I push those two words out on a puff of air that I didn’t even know I had left in my lungs, my breaths now coming in shallow gasps just imagining being the first woman he takes thirty thousand feet in the air. If I’m going to go out with a bang, I might as well be enjoying the hell out of it. Or fuck out of it, as it were.
“Nora,” he says with a growl, hazels arresting me, searching for truth in my words. “You are so damn perfect.”
Everything else fades away. I don’t know how long we sit there, staring at each other, the air thickening and heating around us. All I do know is my stomach hasn’t stopped flipping since I set my hand on his back in my car. Next thing I know, he’s popped out of his seat and is undoing my safety belt. I’m in his arms while he carries me through the small space. It’s not until now that I register we’re smoothly sailing above the clouds below. Moving through the galley, he drops me to my feet before opening the lavatory door, ushering me inside.
Shutting the pocket door, he says nothing while he shimmies my skirt up and skims my damp panties down my legs. Tapping my feet, I lift each one so he can remove them. After taking a deep whiff, he stuffs them into his pocket and wags his brows, which makes me laugh.
“A souvenir?”
Flashing a quick smile, he quips, “Hell yes.”
But his smile fades and my laughter dies as voracious hunger for each other wraps herself around us again. Palming my nape, his mouth takes mine. Swift. Hard. He owns it. Devours it. Consumes me. This is the polar opposite of his tenderness last night and I love every single second of it. This is the domineering man I’ve craved since the minute I laid eyes on him a month ago.
“Turn around. Hands on the mirror,” he rumbles. His face is fierce and filled with aggression.
I hesitate too long. He grabs my hips, turning me toward the small sink until our mutual desire collides violently in the reflective glass.
He looks like he wants to eat me.
God, how I want him to.
I jump when the plane shudders slightly. His fingers tighten, digging almost painfully into me.
“Eyes on me, Nora.”
I obey. I want to obey. I want to relinquish complete control
to this man.
Reaching around, he undoes the two buttons on my moist blazer and removes it, hanging it on a hook behind him. Next is my silk blouse. His movements are sharp, clipped, hurried. At last, he removes his jacket, but nothing else.
I take the opportunity to glance behind me in the mirror, taking in the enclosed room. It’s surprisingly large for an airplane bathroom. I even spot a small shower behind us.
“You’re not following directions. Don’t look away.”
“You—”
“And no talking. Just watch, listen…and feel.” The last whispered word drips seduction over me like a gentle rain shower, drenching me in delirious longing.
Taking my hands, he places them above me on the cool glass, pressing them hard and flat like he’s trying to glue them into place.
“Don’t move, princess,” he rasps against my lobe before biting hard, making me shudder. Coarse whiskers brush against the column of my throat. I need them between my legs instead.
Our gazes bolt tightly together. He draws his fingertips down my limbs, barely touching. Teasing, taunting. At the same time, he steps into me. Heat warms the chills of anticipation running down my back.
“You are absolutely exquisite.”
Awe threads his low words, setting my very blood on fire.
Palming my breasts with his large hands, he kneads and plumps before tugging down the white lace demi cups, groaning when his eyes drop to my taut nipples. Taking each between his thumbs and forefingers, he twists and pulls. When he pinches them hard, I gasp, my head falling back to his shoulder.
Hot, openmouthed kisses land on my throat, my shoulder. I’ve never been so damned turned on before. Pressing my ass against his fabric-covered, rock-hard erection, I squirm, silently begging him to take me. Now. I can’t take much more.