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David studiously avoided looking at her skin, his eyes moving upward, touching on her chest. Lots of well-turned curves there, too. After that, he looked away, met Junior’s knowing eyes and glared. Heading to an altitude of thirty thousand feet, it wasn’t going to get any easier, so better to concentrate on other, less arousing things. Junior launched a Lego piece in his direction.
Like survival.
TWO HOURS LATER they were still at the gate. They were waiting on either a part, or a new plane, the pilots weren’t sure which would arrive first, but they had high—ludicrously delusional—hopes for getting away tonight. In the face of such facts, Ashley had long abandoned her fear of flying. It was obvious they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Instead she was thigh-locked with David, who had very nice thighs, too. Hard. His arms were fab as well. Thirty minutes ago, he’d pushed up his sleeves, and her gaze kept stalling out on the biceps, which were bigger than most, an odd incongruity for khakis and a button-down, and she wondered why. He wasn’t bulky enough to be a weight lifter, but his arms were too big for a swimmer or a runner, and definitely too big for a tiny airplane seat. They kept brushing against hers, casually, which didn’t explain the electric shock to her system.
Not that he was making it any easier. Conversation had ceased about half an hour ago when she caught him staring at her chest, and they both looked politely away.
Damn.
She crossed her legs, uncrossed her legs, and had a hare-brained urge to ask him to join her in the bathroom. She’d pulled out Vogue and Harper’s and Lucky, but even the lure of the sloe-eyed models in their daring designs hadn’t dimmed the awareness that simmered in the air.
The bright spot in the tension was Junior, which said a lot about her feelings of desperation. Junior wrote on David’s hand with a pen, and David laughed, sounding more relieved than amused. Junior ran up and down the aisle, and Ashley counted the number of times, choosing note to fixate on the discreetly covered ridge in David’s khaki slacks.
Do not go there.
Go there, Ashley.
Oh, yeah, good of you to talk. You can’t have sex on a plane, Valerie.
People do.
Not me.
There was a momentary pause in her thoughts, because right now, given readily available options, she could so have sex on this plane.
Another thirty minutes passed, and the flight attendants were passing out drinks. Yes, alcohol, the world’s most potent aphrodisiac. When the flight attendant stopped at their row, David shook his head, Ashley shook her head, and Junior’s mother and father opted for double vodka tonics.
Outside the window, the lights of the airport started to dim. If she lowered her hand one inch, just one tiny inch, she would be touching his thigh. If she were careful, it would look like an accident.
Junior spilled a glass of orange juice on those khakis that she was not looking at, and David shot sideways, and there was a momentary barrage of touches. His hand, her breast. Her hand, his thigh. She jumped back, arching toward the window, and he moved away, hugging his seat. Junior’s mother apologized, and Ashley’s nipples were powered by a thousand jet engines, ready for takeoff.
It was shortly after her breasts had recovered from the shock that the captain came on the speaker and announced that moment they all had been expecting.
“Ladies and gentleman, we tried. But there’s bad weather in New York, and we couldn’t get the plane that we were hoping for, and they can’t get the part here until the morning. So I’m sorry to say, we won’t be going anywhere. If any of you need hotel accommodations at the airport, there’s a flight attendant waiting to give you the details.”
A hotel. Suddenly the word took on new connotations and images. A hotel implied a bed, privacy, something much more comfortable than a tiny bathroom designed by Boeing. A hotel implied sex.
The cabin lights went on, and people around them began to move. Everyone was moaning and complaining, and, in general, not in a very happy place. However, Ashley’s happy place was getting happier by the second. She didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to assume, most of all she didn’t want to act as if she didn’t know what she was doing. After all, she was mature, she was an adult, and after eight hours of sitting thigh-to-thigh with this man, she was primed to explode with only a touch.
He turned, a slight inclination of his head, and she met his eyes. It was ESP of the most carnal kind. She licked her lips, his gaze tracked her tongue and she knew that he knew.
He leaned down, his mouth near her ear. “You should know that right now, I’m a very happy man.” Ashley felt the touch in her ear, down to the soles of her feet, and every single inch in between, especially the happy place. She tried to smile, but that involved mind-body cooperation, and right now there was none. Slowly she regained the capability to speak and she did manage to smile, although she wasn’t sure how it looked.
“Happy is good,” she told him.
She was going to have sex with David. She was going to peel off his shirt, feel the muscles of his bare chest crushing her breasts. She would rip off his briefs, since she instinctively knew he wore briefs—tight, white briefs, with his sex jutting out from the band—and then finally, finally, he would push up inside her, filling her…
She felt her muscles contract once, contract twice.
Her mouth tightened and her eyes opened and spied David, who was watching her with eyes that were nearly black.
Ashley nodded once. “I think we need to go. Now.” He grabbed the carry-ons and then they both took off running through the airport, Ashley’s bunny slippers cooperating nicely.
3
THE FIRST STOP was at the newsstand for condoms.
Condoms!
I can’t believe you’re sitting here watching a man buy condoms. I mean, I’m glad and all, but Ash, he’s not a serial killer, is he? This is not smart. How much do you know about this man?
I know enough that I want to sleep with him. No, not sleep. I want to have sex. I want to kiss him, I like watching his eyes get all dark and sexy. You’d be surprised what you get to know about a guy when you’re trapped on a grounded plane for eight hours. He’s not a serial killer.
It’s your funeral.
Shut up, Val. You’re not here, and he is.
She pulled out her flats from the carry-on and switched out of the bunny slippers. Not going to need those until tomorrow.
After an eternal four minutes, David walked back from the newsstand wearing a slight flush, his eyes dodgy, not like a guy who was an old hand at buying condoms at the airport—and not like a serial killer, either.
“I don’t carry them,” he apologized.
“I understand,” she said, and decided it was best not to talk about this anymore.
The shuttle to the hotel was fast and silent, and it glided through the darkness, getting them there way too fast. David didn’t touch her. He didn’t need to. She could feel him, feel his eyes, feel his thoughts.
When the shuttle arrived at the hotel, David took her bag, his arm brushing against hers, and she jumped. It was like a scene in some of her favorite horror movies, but not in the “someone’s going to get hacked up” sort of way, but more “someone’s going to get laid,” and it was going to be good. Really, really good. Her loins started to ache, her blood pounding.
At the front desk was a seventeen-year-old who didn’t need to be up this late. As David handled the registration, Ashley held back because she didn’t know hotel registration protocol for this arrangement. Did they need two names? If so, should she use her real name? It was a whole new world, and honestly, she didn’t need to know about it. There were much more important things to think about, so she and her aching loins were going to hang back and wait it out.
Three seconds later, and then David was back. It was time. It wasn’t enough time.
“You don’t look so good. You need a drink? We can chat more,” he told her, because obviously eight hours stranded on a plane wasn’t enough for Ashley. Oh, no, she needed more chat time.
“We should get a drink,” she said, her brain furiously stalling for chat time, while her other parts were yelling at her to get the heck upstairs.
To the right of the front desk was the hotel bar. It was dark, sleek, a place with low lights, big comfortable chairs, and an IMAX-sized mirror on the wall. Ashley leaned up to the bar. “I’ll take a double shot of tequila,” she told the bartender.
“Make it two,” added David.
While he waited for the drinks, she picked out two chairs, far from the bartender, but not far from the mirror. David set the shot glasses on the low table and settled in the chair next to her. “You should know that I have taken defensive driving, been married only once, have no contagious, nor sexually transmitted diseases and I never pick up strange women in airports.”
For some reason, that made her feel a lot better. “Me, neither. I mean, men. I never pick up strange men.” And after that mangled confession, she licked the salt from the rim of her glass.
David leaned over, and kissed the corner of her mouth.
“Salt,” he murmured.
“Mouth,” she responded automatically, staring at his mouth. It was a good mouth. It was hard, stubborn and looked liked it knew what it was doing.
“Tongue,” he replied.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, and then poured a sharp splash of tequila down her throat. “You would tell me if you think this is slutty, right?”
Ash, that’s a stupid question. He’s not going to tell you that. Men like slutty. When it comes to sex, men have no scruples, no morals, no ethics.
“Absolutely,” he lied.
“Okay. That was stupid.”
“We can get two rooms,” he told here, doing a great impersonation of an ethical man who still wanted sex.
Is this what you want, Ash? If it’s really and truly what you want, then Do It.
She looked at David McLean, the once-divorced, defensive driver with eyes currently tending to brown rather than green. Eyes that said he wanted her. And Ashley made up her mind. It was no contest. Not even a minor dilemma.
“I want to have sex with you. I want to do something new and exciting, at least once before I die, most likely in a plane crash. Stranger sex is exciting.” As she said the words, she caught her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were the same, yet different. She was…glowing, which could have been the warmtoned lighting, but she didn’t think so.
“Stranger sex?” he asked, his mouth quirking up at one side. She liked that about him, the way he didn’t fully smile, but only partly committed to it. Like a man who wants to laugh, but isn’t quite sure it’s the correct thing to do.
“Yeah, you know, stranger sex. The unknown, the forbidden, the lady and the tiger.”
Now she was fully staring at the mirror in front of her. Her, the wild-eyed seductress—slight overstatement—with him, the harried businessman, which was probably true.
Kiss him, Ash. Plant a big smoochie right there.
Throwing caution to the wind, Ashley leaned over and kissed him. Once, on the side of the mouth.
“Salt,” she murmured.
Then she boldly moved her mouth to his.
“Mouth,” he whispered against her lips.
It was nearly a kiss. A press of skin, an exchanging of breaths.
It wasn’t enough.
“Tongue,” she said, and magically, it was a kiss. Mouth, tongues, and oh, yes, that was passion. David McLean was a most excellent kisser. He was earnest, sincere, unafraid. Best of all, he made Ashley feel earnest, sincere and unafraid. She forgot about the mirror, and the hotel room, and only focused on one thing—his mouth. The way his tongue mated perfectly with hers.
He tasted like lime and salt and hot, sweaty, body-smashing sex. Maybe that was only her subconscious talking or the humming moisture between her legs, but she didn’t think so. Ashley moved closer, wild-eyed seductress that she was, and then his hand was at her jaw, holding her while that magic tongue moved in and out, intensifying the hum between her legs.
When he lifted his head, those hazel eyes were dark, sleepy and irresistible. Ashley could only stare.
“Two rooms?” he asked.
She shook her head, not wavering or worrying even once.
They walked to the bank of elevators without touching, because Ashley didn’t want to touch him at the moment. Touching implied combustion, and neither a hotel hallway nor a hotel elevator was the place for combustion.
Not for Ashley, and apparently not for David.
This is it, Ash. We’re sure he’s not a serial killer, right? What if you get strangled or something?
David looked at her, his hungry gaze falling to her mouth.
Ashley told the voices to shut up.
DAVID’S HAND SHOOK as he inserted the keycard in the lock, but honestly, he was too primed to try and be smooth about this. He opened the door, told himself to go slow, then immediately ignored all his normally responsible, conventional wisdom and grabbed Ashley, kicking the door shut behind them.
Her arms curled into his hair, pulling him closer, and they stumbled toward the bed. He wasn’t like this. He wasn’t ever like this, so who was that man fumbling her shirt over her head, lifting her skirts, or dive-bombing for her mouth?
That mouth.
She kissed like she dressed. Not completely stylish, but there was an understated flashiness, and a zing. Definitely a zing.
David heard a moan. Hers. Oh, definitely a zing. Now he was moaning, too.
He tumbled on top of her, completely without finesse, but thankfully, she didn’t seem to mind. Her legs wrapped about him, pelvis surging toward him, and his hands went to his fly. Her breasts pressed against him, soft peaks in white cotton. If his zipper would ever get unstuck, he’d shove the bra aside, because he wanted to see…
The room began to shake. What was that? He could hear the roar of a jet engine. The airport. They were at the airport. That wasn’t his cock. Calm. Remain calm.
Condom. Oh, shit. He needed a condom.
“Wait,” he nearly yelled. He needed to get control. He needed to breathe. In the dim light of the single bedside lamp, she looked up at him, clothes ransacked into parts, exposing more skin than covering. Great skin. Gold and rose mixed together like mother-of-pearl. She wore white cotton panties. With a sun-yellow gypsy skirt, she wore white cotton panties, and did she even know he had a thing for white cotton? He definitely had a thing for white cotton. It was sexy as hell. She was sexy as hell.
His hands were still shaking as he shoved her bra aside. Like a total amateur.
Dude, get a hold of yourself. She’s going to think you haven’t done this in like, months.
She’d be right, but he didn’t want to advertise the fact.
The foil packet tore exactly as it was supposed to, and then…
“Let me,” she whispered in a husky voice that sent every drop of his blood out of his head. Into his head. There was courage in her eyes. The bunny-slipper woman, who was a trembling coward at ten thousand feet, now seemed mightier than any warrior queen with her clothes askew.
Oh, no. Her capable hands got busy on his cock, sending ten thousand volts to his system. Concentrate on something else. The breasts, for instance.
Didn’t work.
David wasn’t going to last, he was going to explode and this was going to be over. No way.
He pushed her into the bank of pillows, roughly, again with the no-finesse thing, and then…
Then…
