Come Fly with Me

by Sherryl Woods

  “What’s he done now?”

  “The usual. I just got back from taking papers clear across the lot to be signed by the producer of one of those sitcoms for the fall and now our beloved boss wants me to trot back across to pick them up.”

  “Why didn’t you just wait while you were there?”

  “Because the man was not in his office and Mr. Langston wanted me back here ‘immediately!”’ She mimicked his authoritarian tone precisely.

  “Why? What was so urgent?”

  “Dictation, which, by the way, is what I thought he was hiring me to do when I took this job. Hasn’t anyone ever explained to him that running errands is precisely why he maintains a very large messenger crew?”

  Lindsay grinned at the plaintive note in her voice. Janice had only been there two months. The previous secretary had lasted less than a week. She’d quit in a rage after making fifteen trips in a single morning. As she’d stormed out the door, she’d been mumbling something about joining a health club, if she wanted exercise.

  “We’ve all tried, but those are for ordinary messages. Mr. Langston’s messages are not ordinary,” she advised with mock severity. “They cannot be trusted to the simple folk. They are so top secret I’m surprised he hasn’t trained an entire fleet of carrier pigeons to fly them to their destinations.”

  “Why should he do that when he has me?” Janice grumbled. “By the way, if you want to see him, go on in. I’m not saving his hide from anybody today.”

  Lindsay chuckled and walked in.

  “I thought I sent you on an errand,” Trent groused without looking up.

  “No. That was Janice,” Lindsay said sweetly. “You sent me on another wild-goose chase.”

  His head jerked up and he beamed at her, those perceptive, crystal blue eyes of his scanning her from head to toe. “You’re back. Terrific. What’s the story? Have you made contact with Morrow yet? When are you meeting with him? I want this deal, Lindsay.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  “Well?”

  “I just wanted you to know that I’m taking the rest of the week off,” she announced blithely, giving him her cheeriest smile and watching his joviality vanish like a puff of smoke. She had a feeling it was a moment she would treasure always.

  “Oh, no, you’re not,” he roared. “You’re supposed to be setting up a meeting with Morrow.”

  “Oh, I will be seeing Mr. Morrow,” Lindsay replied airily as she retreated right back out the door.

  Trent beamed. “Well, why didn’t you say so? Take all the time you want,” he said, suddenly gracious again. She groaned at the turnaround. Oh, how he loved the role of benevolent dictator! She had an irresistible urge to prick his rapidly ballooning ego. She poked her head back in the door.

  “One thing you should know, though,” she added. Trent looked at her expectantly. “This meeting is strictly personal.”

  “Like hell!” She could still hear the rumble of his swearing as she ran down the steps chuckling to herself. She stopped by her office to pick up her purse—no briefcase this time, she thought defiantly—and took the elevator downstairs.

  An hour later she had finished a whirlwind shopping binge that included buying the sexiest lingerie she had ever owned. She had also picked up enough groceries to satisfy two starving people for a week. She had no idea when Mark would get in or how long he would stay, but she intended to be prepared for the start of a lifetime, if that’s what he had in mind.

  She put a bottle of wine on ice, soaked in a bubble bath, put so much cream on her skin she practically skidded out of bed and went to sleep.

  It was the middle of the night when she finally heard the buzz of her doorbell. Wrapping a satin and lace concoction around her nude body, she peeked out and saw Mark leaning back against the opposite wall. He looked beat. He also looked very, very desirable, which answered one question she’d had for the past few weeks. That had not changed.

  “Hi, mister,” she drawled sexily, after opening the door a crack. “Been in town long?”

  “Thank God,” he murmured fervently, as she gave him a puzzled look. “You’re actually here. I don’t think I could have taken one more flight.”

  She grinned at him. “I’m here. Are you coming in or has your energy run out?”

  His gaze roved over her then and his eyes darkened with a smoldering sensuality. “I think I’ve just been rejuvenated. Do you have anything on under that?” he asked, eyeing her curiously.

  Lindsay tilted her head provocatively and gave him a teasing smile. “Not a thing.”

  Mark groaned, pushed himself away from the wall and took three long strides toward her. Then she was in his arms, as he kicked the door shut behind him and lowered his face to taste her lips, taking them with the hungry urgency of a man too long denied. His hands glided over her slim, satin-covered body, inflaming her. Her tongue met his, teasing, taunting and then retreating. His mouth burned against her throat as he tasted her heated flesh, then cooled it with a gentle lapping of his tongue that made her tremble in his embrace.

  Lindsay’s breath caught in her throat as he undid the belt of the robe and slid it slowly off her shoulders. The material flowed to her feet, caressing as it went, landing in a satiny pool of aqua edged in white lace.

  “I want you, bright eyes,” he murmured against the creamy flesh of her breast. “I want you.”

  Lindsay arched back against the brace of his arm, waiting for his lips to capture her rapidly hardening nipples, but the desired touch didn’t come. She opened heavy-lidded eyes and looked at him, suddenly realizing that the man was half asleep on his feet. Subduing her own disappointment and rapidly escalating libido, she curved a supporting arm around his waist.

  “Come with me. I think it’s time you had some sleep.”

  “I want to make love to you,” he protested, but it was a weak argument.

  “Later, love. We have all the time in the world.”

  She barely got him out of his shirt and jeans before he collapsed across the bed... diagonally. She stood surveying him and the bed, then finally curled up in one corner, her head nestled on his shoulder, grateful for once that she was petite.

  This was not exactly the way she’d imagined their reunion, but the steady beat of Mark’s heart resounding in her ear as she drifted back to sleep reassured her: their time would come.

  And it did.

  Lindsay awakened in the still-dark predawn hours to the feather-light touch of Mark’s fingers playing over her breasts. It was the touch she had been longing for when he’d arrived and it held all the magic she’d remembered. The contrast of his tanned flesh against the pale silk of her skin excited her almost as much as the touch itself. She tried to remove her mind from her body and impartially observe Mark making love to her, his eyes blazing with the heat of desire, his hands stroking and caressing, seeking all of the tender, sensitive spots that made tiny whimpers of pleasure form in her throat. It was a vision more erotic than any film because of its very gentleness.

  Because it was Mark.

  Because it was Lindsay.

  Then, as his body poised over hers, slick with perspiration, muscles tensed, a gasp of intense pleasure escaped from between moist, parted lips and she welcomed him into her, welcomed him home.

  No longer was she able to pretend that she was a casual observer. She was a delighted participant, her body thrilling to each whispered word, each provocative stroke. Just when she thought she was at the edge, her pleasure mounting to an unbearable tension, Mark slowed his rhythmic pace, halted their climb. Then he began it all over again until Lindsay thought she would scream out with frustration, every fiber in her anxious and taut from wanting the shuddering, joyous climax that would carry them away together.

  This time, when Mark tried to hold back, she thrust her hips upward, demanding, seeking, determined to find release.

  “Please,” she pleaded with him urgently. “Please, Mark.”

  “Did you miss me?” he rasped out br
eathlessly.

  “Yes. Oh, yes,” she murmured against his throat, her fingers digging into his back. “I missed you terribly.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear,” he sighed, moving against her more frantically, lifting her hips, his teeth nipping and tugging gently at the tips of her breasts. Sensations coursed through her, sensations that originated in a dozen different ways, from every place his body touched hers, until she was on fire inside and out. She was certain that nothing could top this moment, this feeling, until the next touch ignited something more, something wilder and even more thrilling.

  Finally, when she thought she couldn’t bear another minute of the exquisite tension, they soared over the top, off on a magnificent journey into a star-filled midnight sky, then glided slowly back to earth on a flight that was like none she had ever taken before.

  Eventually Mark rolled over on his back, then drew her into his arms. “Do you have any idea how special you are?”

  “I do when you hold me like this,” she murmured as he sighed in contentment.

  “Mark?”

  “Umm.”

  “What happens now? You said you had a plan.”

  “Did I say that?” he taunted.

  “You did.”

  “Maybe my plan was just to get you back into my bed.”

  “We’re in my bed,” she pointed out.

  “Same principle.”

  She glared at him with feigned ferocity. “If that is the extent of your plan, David Mark Channing Morrow, you can haul your butt out of here.”

  “I love it when you act tough.”

  “This is no act, mister. Talk fast or move it.”

  A deep laugh rumbled through the room and he pulled her down on top of him. “Who’s going to make me?” he murmured, his lips whispering against hers.

  “I am,” she replied shakily. It was hard to maintain a suitably tough facade, when what she wanted to be was wildly, wantonly passionate.

  “How?”

  She held very still, wishing like crazy that her body would stop noticing the very solid muscles on which it was resting. It didn’t work. “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask that,” she admitted.

  “I thought so. You’re all talk, bright eyes.”

  “So,” she said disdainfully, “are you.”

  His twinkling eyes met hers. “Okay,” he said with an exaggerated sigh. “If it’s that important to you, I’ll tell you about my plan, though it seems to me there are more interesting things we could be doing.”

  “Talk.”

  “Well, I drew up this little agreement.”

  “An agreement? Like a prenuptial agreement?”

  “I suppose you could call it that. I figured you understood all about contracts, so this would be the sensible way to do things.”

  Lindsay had always thought that, too, but she’d never negotiated one that was so important, so personal.

  “What exactly is in this contract of yours?”

  “First of all, I was thinking that maybe Los Angeles wouldn’t be so bad after all.”

  “Yes,” she said, her heart practically stopping in her chest as she waited for him to go on.

  “If you’ll marry me—that’s clause one, I suppose I could come to Los Angeles part of the year. I guess I can write here as well as I can anywhere else, as long as the smog doesn’t seep into my brain cells.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked tentatively, not yet daring to believe that he meant it. His phrasing had certainly lacked conviction. Then he grinned at her, complete with those heart-tumbling dimples, and her doubts began to fade.

  “I’m sure. It’s in clause two a.”

  “And I keep my job?”

  “Until the children are born. That’s two b.”

  “Children?”

  “I was thinking of three, but I’m open to negotiations.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “What’s in the other clauses?”

  “We’ll get to those. Are you willing to accept everything so far?”

  “If you’re absolutely certain, then of course I agree,” she said happily. “What made you change your mind?”

  “I knew that I couldn’t bear to be without you anymore. The last few weeks have been hell. If I have to put up with Los Angeles for part of the year, I’ll manage.”

  “Part of the year?”

  “Yes. That’s clause three: you’ll spend the rest of the year with me in Boulder.”

  “In winter?” she asked skeptically.

  “Maybe not the whole winter. Just for the Christmas holidays,” he suggested.

  Lindsay regarded him cautiously. She was beginning to think like a lawyer again, instead of a smitten lover. She had a feeling it was probably a very wise transition. “Is that what it says in the contract?”

  “Not exactly,” he admitted. “Actually, it’s a little vague.”

  “Fix it. Then we might have something to talk about.”

  “But you will agree to spending Christmas there?”

  “Why is that so important to you? Why not sometime in February, maybe Valentine’s Day?”

  “Because I absolutely refuse to spend Christmas anyplace where there are palm trees, instead of evergreens. You cannot string lights on a palm tree.”

  “You have a Currier and Ives mentality,” she protested.

  “What’s wrong with that? Haven’t you ever wanted to go for a sleigh ride at Christmas?”

  “No.”

  “Make a snowman in the front yard?”

  She shivered as she recalled the day they’d spent making their snowman. The snowman had been cute with his crooked little smile. Mark had been amused. She’d been frozen.

  “No way,” she muttered.

  “How about waking up early on Christmas morning, opening your presents in front of a roaring fire and then making love?”

  Her eyes sparkled. “Now you’re talking my language.”

  “You like the making love part.”

  “More and more.”

  “You won’t even notice you’re in Boulder,” he promised, as his hand drifted low over her abdomen and settled on the sensitive triangle between her thighs. Lindsay moved into that touch.

  “Probably not,” she said with a satisfied sigh.

  “Good. Then pack your bags.”

  “What for?”

  “So we can go to Boulder.”

  “Now?”

  “Christmas is only a few days away. We may as well start the tradition this year.”

  “You’re kidding. It can’t be Christmas already.”

  “Doesn’t Trent ever let you look at a calendar?”

  “Not if he can help it. We might ask for time off. The weekends tend to get a little blurry that way, too.”

  “Not this one. You’re going to remember every minute, especially the part when you say, ‘I do.”’

  Lindsay propped herself up on her elbow and gazed straight into Mark’s eyes. “Are you suggesting that we get married this weekend?”

  “Grace and Jeb are making all the arrangements.”

  “Oh, they are, are they? Weren’t you being just the tiniest bit overconfident?”

  “Well, I knew you’d want to give me something for Christmas,” he said innocently. “And this is the best present I can think of. What about you?”

  Green eyes twinkling like Christmas tree lights, she said softly, “The very best.”

  Then, with a wicked grin, she added, “Just two things.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t you think we ought to sign this contract of yours?”

  “Later. What’s the second thing?”

  “Do you suppose it would be okay, if we did another run-through of Christmas morning? I want to be sure we have it right.”

  He chuckled. “Oh, we have it right, bright eyes. No one has ever had it better.”

  “Show me.”

  “With pleasure.”

  Much, much later, he murmure
d in her ear, “Merry Christmas!”

  A soft smile tilted Lindsay’s lips. It was going to be a terrific Christmas all right. She knew just exactly what to give her mother, too...a ticket to Boulder for the wedding. First-class, of course.

  * * * * *

  “Sherryl Woods writes emotionally satisfying novels about family, friendship and home. Truly feel-great reads!”

  —#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

  Looking for more great reads from #1 New York Times bestselling author Sherryl Woods?

  Return to Chesapeake Shores for the heartwarming story of a beloved O’Brien family member finally claiming the life she’s always dreamed of:

  Willow Brook Road

  Catch up with the O’Brien family in Chesapeake Shores, where stories of friendship, family and love await—you may never want to leave. Collect the complete series today!

  The Inn at Eagle Point

  Flowers on Main

  Harbor Lights

  A Chesapeake Shores Christmas

  Driftwood Cottage

  Moonlight Cove

  Beach Lane

  An O’Brien Family Christmas

  The Summer Garden

  A Seaside Christmas

  The Christmas Bouquet

  Dogwood Hill

  “Woods’s amazing grasp of human nature and the emotions that lie deep within us make this story universal.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Driftwood Cottage

  Take a trip to Serenity, South Carolina, where the Sweet Magnolias are always in season and sweet romance is only ever a stone’s throw away:

  Stealing Home

  A Slice of Heaven

  Feels Like Family

  Welcome to Serenity

  Home in Carolina

  Sweet Tea at Sunrise

  Honeysuckle Summer

  Midnight Promises

  Catching Fireflies

  Where Azaleas Bloom

  Swan Point

  “Woods employs her signature elements—the Southern small-town atmosphere, the supportive network of friends and family, and the heartwarming romance—to great effect.”

  —Booklist

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