A voice came over the loudspeaker. “Okay, everybody, get ready! Zero-g coming up in ten seconds!”
Her heart rate kicked up another notch, and she squeezed Hunter’s hand so hard it must have hurt him.
And then, just like that, she floated up into the air.
She was still holding Hunter’s hand. But except for that, she was . . . untethered. Released from something she’d taken for granted from the moment she was born.
Gravity.
She hadn’t realized how heavy her arms had always been, hanging off her shoulders like dead wood. Every bone and muscle and cell in her body had been pulled down all these years. Even her hair had been a burden to her scalp, the weight of it tending earthward like everything else.
And now all that weight was gone. Just gone.
Her hair was floating. Her body was floating. Her organs were floating in her body.
Even her heart.
Hunter was grinning, and she realized that she was grinning, too. She grabbed his other hand, and then they were facing each other and she was laughing, drunk with the euphoria of this extraordinary freedom . . . freedom from a burden she hadn’t known she was carrying.
“Feet down!”
That, they’d been told, was the warning that gravity would soon return—in case any intrepid zero-g cowboys had flipped over.
Had it really been twenty seconds already?
She and Hunter positioned their feet toward the floor, still grinning like fools. The return of gravity was gentle, giving them time to lie down before the g-force increased.
There wasn’t even a question of where they would look this time. They kept their eyes on each other, waiting for the hypergravity to give way to another bout of weightlessness.
Up they floated again. This was how it felt to be a spirit . . . or an angel.
“I want to do a flip,” she said, and Hunter laughed.
“Okay,” he said. “Show me what you’ve got.”
He grabbed onto one of the straps affixed to the wall so she could brace herself against him, and she did it—a somersault in the air. Then she used his shoulders as leverage to swing her feet up to the ceiling so she could hang there with her eyes on his but upside down, their faces and their grins inverted.
“Feet down!”
By the time they hit the fourth parabola, a few of their fellow passengers were throwing up. One guy had to go back to the seats and belt in, and he sat there clutching a white sickness bag in front of his face and trying not to move his head more than he could help. A few others were pretty sick as well, huddled with their vomit bags, and she wondered during the next hypergravity interval if Hunter would soon be joining their ranks.
But he didn’t. He seemed as enthusiastic as she and the other passengers were—the ones lucky enough not to get sick. It was like being in a bouncy house with a dozen eight-year-olds, only a million times better.
It was like every dream of flying she’d ever had.
They’d been warned not to stray too far (intentionally, anyway) from their original spots, not to try to swim or zoom around the cabin, since it would be all too easy to kick another weightless adventurer in the face. But on their last parabola, she knew she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t break that rule.
Just before gravity released them, she said to Hunter, “We’re going to be Superman and Supergirl.”
He blinked. “What?”
“Just follow my lead.”
When they floated up from the floor for the last time, she oriented herself so that she was crouching sideways with her feet against the wall of the cabin. Hunter followed her example, and she guessed he knew now what was coming next.
They pushed off gently, and then they were flying, their hands still clasped and their free arms outstretched like airborne superheroes, until they reached the opposite wall.
She’d felt a lot of different things in her twenty-four years. But never, not once, had she felt cool.
She turned to Hunter and grabbed his other wrist, and they spent their last few seconds of free fall facing each other with both hands clasped.
“We are so cool,” she told him.
He grinned, his eyes never leaving hers.
“Yeah, we are.”
During the flight back and the celebration afterward for weightless “graduates,” she couldn’t stop talking. Neither could the other passengers. They were giddy, exhilarated, jubilant, and they regaled one another with the experience they’d just shared until the party at the airplane hangar broke up. Then they shook hands and even hugged like old friends, despite the fact that they’d been strangers just two hours ago.
But as she and Hunter settled into their rental car—he’d wanted a Mustang convertible even though the drive from the airport to their hotel was only half an hour—they didn’t say anything for miles.
The dry air of Los Angeles was very different from the soft, lush air of Hawaii, but it blew her hair behind her as they drove with the top down, and she was glad Hunter had chosen this car.
She wasn’t ready to let go of the sensation of freedom.
“You didn’t get sick,” was the first thing she said after several minutes on the road. It was loud enough that she had to raise her voice, and he had to raise his to answer.
“I know,” he said. “I didn’t even think about it until we landed. I guess the secret is to go with someone you care about more than yourself.”
The words seemed to reverberate in the air around them. A beat went by, and then Hunter said, “Shit. You know what I mean. Someone you’re worried about more than yourself. It was your first time, and I wanted to be sure you were okay. I guess that distracted me enough that I didn’t feel sick. You know?”
“I know,” she said.
But as silence fell between them, a new kind of euphoria was spreading through her.
“What about you?” he asked after a moment. “You’re a natural. You were born to go into space, Airin Delaney. You have a stomach of iron.”
“I guess I have to have something of iron to make up for my shitty heart.”
“Your heart isn’t shitty. Your heart is strong. Just like the rest of you.”
The compliment felt overwhelming.
“Thanks,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
It was seven o’clock when they got back to the hotel. As they walked through the lobby Hunter asked, “Do you want to grab some dinner? There are a couple of restaurants in the building to choose from, or we could go out someplace.”
She shook her head. They’d reached the elevator bank, and she reached out and pushed the Up button.
“I think I’m just going to get room service. I want to take some notes on the day, capture my thoughts and impressions while they’re still fresh in my mind. Is that okay?”
“Of course. Yeah.”
The elevator doors opened, and they stepped inside.
“That’s absolutely okay,” he continued as they rode up to their floor. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then.”
There was a note of relief behind his words, and she smiled to herself as they walked to their rooms. They were across the hall from each other, just like at home, and after their respective key cards had unlocked their doors, they looked at each other.
“So . . . good night, then,” Hunter said.
“Good night.”
He turned to go into his room and then turned back again. “It was quite a day.”
“It sure was.”
“Are you sorry it’s over?”
“It’s not over yet,” she said, and he looked confused for a moment before nodding.
“You’re going to be making notes. I guess you’ll be reliving the experience, right? So . . . yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow. Sleep well.”
He went inside. She stood looking at his closed door for a moment, thinking about the plan she’d conceived in the car and wondering if she really had the guts to carry it out. Then she went into her own room.
I
t was a typical airport-area hotel: devoid of personality and with more beige than any human being needed, but more than adequate for a traveler’s needs. When she’d made the reservation she’d booked the highest-end suites they offered, figuring the Jacuzzi tub might help Hunter recover from what she’d worried would be a hellish day of motion sickness for him.
Now she was glad of the luxurious bathroom for her own sake.
The Jacuzzi was wonderful. The bubbles created a kind of effervescence that reminded her of being in zero-g, if only because any blissful physical experience would have reminded her of being in zero-g.
She soaked for a long time, and when she was ready to get out, she shaved her legs more slowly and carefully than she ever had before, aware of the curve of her calf and the line of her shinbone and the challenge of the areas around the knee and ankle.
She’d brought one nice dress with her in case they went out to dinner or something, but it wasn’t what she wanted to wear tonight. It was simple and black and appropriate for every occasion except the one she needed it for.
She was going to seduce Hunter Bryce, and she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
Well, unless he really did say no. It wasn’t like she could force him or anything.
Oh God. What if he said no? That was a kind of humiliation she might never recover from.
But if she thought about that, she’d lose her nerve. And she’d been weightless today, damn it. Anything was possible.
She needed to focus on what to wear.
It wasn’t like she had a lot of choices, other than the black dress. Jeans, a pair of navy cargo shorts, T-shirts, and cotton blouses.
After standing for what felt like a long time in front of her open suitcase—she hadn’t bothered to hang anything except her dress and one blouse—she made a decision.
She dug into the zippered pocket on the inside of her case and pulled out a bra and panty set. It was pale pink satin edged with lace, and while it was simple, it also fit her really, really well. It wasn’t the nicest lingerie she owned, but it was the nicest she’d brought with her, and it was, she hoped, enough to get the job done.
She stood at the full-length mirror on the back of the closet door and brushed her hair until it gleamed. She decided to skip makeup since her cheeks were pink enough without it—her pounding heart was delivering plenty of blood to flush her skin—but she put on clear lip gloss.
Her hands trembled so much as she applied it that she was glad she hadn’t attempted a makeup job requiring more precision.
Then she put on the white cotton hotel bathrobe and went across the hall.
Chapter Nineteen
She knocked, and after a moment she heard Hunter’s voice. “Yeah?”
“It’s me.”
There was a short pause. Then the door opened, and Hunter was standing there in sweatpants and no shirt, his bare chest as broad as a building and his shoulders like a professional athlete’s. His face looked freshly scrubbed, as though he’d taken a shower, but he hadn’t bothered to shave. The stubble that shadowed his jaw made her face tingle, as if she could already feel it scraping against her skin.
His expression was concerned. “Are you okay? What’s up?”
Her heart was beating faster than it had before the first parabola.
“I’m okay. I—”
She couldn’t finish the sentence. She could barely breathe, much less speak. She crossed the threshold into his room, keeping her eyes on Hunter’s as she reached behind her and pushed the door shut. Then she untied her robe and let it fall to the floor.
His eyes widened, and with one glance he took her in from her toes to the top of her head.
“Airin—”
She couldn’t let him finish, because he might tell her to go back to her room. She closed the distance between them with two long strides, threw her arms around his neck, and pressed her mouth to his.
If he’d any ideas about sending her away, she knew the exact moment he gave them up.
He groaned. Then he moved her backward until she felt the door behind her, holding her up, as his hands slid into her hair and he angled her head to deepen the kiss.
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
The last time they’d done this, her ribs had been injured. But now they were healed. Every part of her was healed. And every part of her surged into him as he held her against the door, his body pressing into hers so she felt his hard erection against her belly.
He tore himself away, his eyes wild as they looked into hers. “If you stay one more second, I’m not letting you go until the morning. If you don’t want that, leave now.”
She was shaking like an engine straining for more speed than it was made for. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He didn’t say anything else. He just reached down to hook an arm behind her knees, and then he was carrying her to the bed, that boring hotel bed covered in its boring hotel bedspread that looked to her, right now, as glorious as a bower on Olympus.
He tossed her onto it and followed her down before she could catch her breath. His body covered hers, and as her mouth opened for him her legs fell apart, too, making a cradle for his lower body that he slid into as if it had been designed for him.
A low groan escaped him as he broke the seal of their mouths, kissing his way down her jaw to her neck.
Yes.
It was a cry of the body she’d only experienced three times before—the three kisses she’d shared with Hunter Bryce. But this was deeper and wilder, because this time she knew she wasn’t leaving until morning.
Her pulse was beating like a hummingbird’s wings. Hunter pressed his mouth to the place on her throat where it throbbed, and she arched her neck back to bring him closer.
If he revealed himself to be a vampire who wanted to drive his fangs into her jugular, she wouldn’t refuse him.
She wanted to be consumed.
Just a few hours ago, she’d wanted nothing more than free fall. Weightlessness had felt like the most perfect gift the universe could offer. But now all she wanted was the heaviness of Hunter’s body on hers. The weight of him pressing her into the mattress was the most exquisite force she’d ever experienced.
Except that she wanted more.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and squeezed, and he groaned again, that delicious sound that made her feel like a sex goddess.
And then he was moving against her, surging and retreating, his hard length pressing against her center and pulling away and pressing against her again until she was writhing beneath him.
“Oh, please,” she heard herself say, and then she was saying it over and over again.
Hunter dragged his mouth from her neck to her ear.
“Wait,” he whispered, and before she could tell him no, she didn’t want to wait, she needed more of everything NOW, he had shifted down the bed so his head was at the level of her breasts.
Okay. This might work until they got to the other stuff.
She expected him to take her bra off, and she was ready to arch her back to help him. But then he bit her left nipple with her bra still on, and it felt so good she cried out.
He started to pull back. “Did I hurt you?”
“Yes. Do it again,” she panted, putting her hands at the back of his head and tugging him down.
He didn’t need any urging. He licked and bit at her breasts through the thin satin of her bra until the material was soaked through, and the sensation was so carnal and decadent that she twisted beneath him, not caring that she was moving like an animal and making small desperate sounds.
But when he shifted again, kissing his way down her belly to the place between her legs, she went still and silent. The only motion in her body was the quivering deep inside her, a kind of trembling in her very bones.
Hunter looked up, and their eyes met. She’d never experienced this before with another human being, this feeling like she was standing at the edge of an abyss that somehow felt like home. Her panties were soak
ed through, and she should have been embarrassed, afraid of what was coming next, but she wasn’t.
At this moment, it felt like she’d never be afraid of anything ever again.
“Open your legs for me,” Hunter said, his voice as rough as the scrape of his stubble on her skin had been.
It was the sexiest sentence she’d ever heard. Complying was the sexiest thing she’d ever done.
She spread her legs, and he was there between them, stretched out with his hands on her hips and his head between her thighs. Driven by a sudden need to feel and not to see, she pressed her head back into the pillows and closed her eyes.
He kissed her through her panties, and her hands fisted in the blankets beneath her.
“You’re so wet,” he murmured. “Jesus, Airin.”
He grabbed her panties and pulled them off. Then it was just her body and his mouth, and oh God, it was the kind of good no amount of research could have prepared her for.
She was hanging on to the blankets like she’d held on to his hands in the zero-g flight—so she wouldn’t float away.
His tongue was everywhere. Against her folds, inside her, and most especially on the center of all the exquisite agony that was making her moan.
It was going to happen. That thing she’d been trying to do for so long, during years of reading erotica and sex manuals and watching straight-up porn on the Internet. Nothing had ever worked. And now, after a few minutes between her legs, Hunter was making it happen.
But he wasn’t in too damn much of a hurry. When he moved away from the heart of the action for the tenth time to tease at her slit and nibble on her thighs, she couldn’t take it anymore.
“Go back,” she panted. “Please, Hunter, please. Go back where you were.”
She could swear she felt him smile against her skin.
“Here?” he murmured, and then suddenly his fingers were sliding inside her and his tongue was lashing at her over and over until . . .
The world seemed to split apart.
She hadn’t known she was at such a dizzying height, to have so far to fall. Miles and miles and miles of falling and rising and falling again, and Hunter’s hands on her body the whole time, steadying her, centering her, giving her a place to come home to.
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