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Urging the plane’s nose into the air, Ace reveled in the freedom of flight. The engine throbbed steadily beneath him, just like a hot, willing and undemanding woman. The sound of wind rushed past the fuselage, reminding him of the whisper of damp, musky sheets sliding to the floor.
He checked his instruments, then looked at his passenger. She hadn’t followed orders. The ends of the safety belt rested at the side of the seat.
Her chest rose and fell in shallow motions and her vivid green eyes stared at nothing, unblinking. The tips of her manicured fingernails dug into her palms, and streaks of artificial color painted her cheeks. Her lips were tightly pursed. Obviously, the grip of fear held her paralyzed.
Ace groaned. He’d been hired to shuttle an uptight businesswoman who got airsick before the land lay even three thousand feet beneath them. “Ms. Jackson?”
A sound emerged from her throat that was part whimper, part moan.
A knot twisted in his gut. The feeling was familiar, but something he’d thought he’d gotten rid of when Elana fled. Evidently not. Unfortunately, he no longer carried a bottle of mint-flavored antacid in his duffel to help tame the wild ulcer. Right now, his passenger could use it every bit as much as he.
“Are you okay?” he asked, hoping he would get the answer he wanted, not the one he feared.
She didn’t respond.
A burning in his stomach painfully reminded him of the ulcer’s existence.
Taking a hand from the yoke, he frantically dug through the map compartment for an airsick bag. There had to be one. Didn’t there?
A bead of sweat trickled down her patrician nose.
“Hang in there,” he urged. Ace prided himself on the ability to deal with anything life tossed his way. He’d flown through blazing fires, been shot at, tossed into jail for a crime he hadn’t committed, and another he had. And yet, he couldn’t deal with something so elemental, so natural.
Or maybe it was the woman herself who unsettled him.
The whimper in her voice became urgent.
“Damn.” While keeping one eye on the controls, he reached again and again into the compartment.
She flinched.
And surprisingly, Ace experienced a twinge of sympathy. Digging under the maps, he searched for the waxy-feeling paper. To no avail.
The woman’s shoulders drooped, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
Since there were no bags, he had only one option: try to keep her from needing one.
“Open your eyes, Ms. Jackson,” he said softly, barely above the lulling hum of the engines. Fighting back impatience, he kept his tone even and cajoling. “You’re making matters worse.” For both of them.
She blinked.
“Take five deep breaths. Hold each for at least three seconds.”
She followed his instructions, drawing in a drink of air. With each breath, his corresponding pain lessened.
“That’s it,” he added when she gulped again. “Exhale slowly.”
She did.
“Now look out the window.”
“The window?” The words were hardly above a croak.
“Try and fix your gaze in the distance. Don’t look up, and definitely don’t look down.”
He surveyed the plane’s gauges, though in reality he could fly unconsciously...and had done so on more than one occasion.
He noticed her hands had stopped trembling. “Take another couple of breaths, and whatever you do, don’t close your eyes, since that makes you more dizzy and disoriented.”
A few minutes later, she looked in his direction. A hint of color started to blend with her blusher.
“You okay?”
She nodded weakly. “I think so.”
Ace prayed so.
“How did you do that?”
“Learned that handy tip a few years ago. Dated a dancer.”
“What does dancing have to do with it?”
“She did ballet—you know all those spins. She said she always tried to focus on an object every time she spun around, said it stopped her from getting dizzy.”
“Evidently it works.”
“Next time, remember to take your motion sickness pills before you get on the plane.”
“I did.”
He silently pleaded with the sky gods for smooth sailing, sans turbulence. “Are you always such a poor passenger?” Ace had a hard time believing he wasn’t completely irritated by her—with her. Logic said he should have been. She was a painful reminder of his ex-wife and the hurt he’d run—flown—away from. Yet there was something vulnerable about Nicole Jackson, despite the way she dressed and acted. As if there was something more to the picture, something she didn’t want anyone to uncover...
Absently he wondered what it would be like to unlock the secrets. Her secrets.
She wiped back a wisp of escaped auburn hair and looked at him. “I do better in bigger aircraft.”
Dragged from his wayward thoughts by the sound of her voice, he responded, “Then why do you fly?”
“It’s more convenient.”
“For who?”
She shifted, squaring her shoulders. He saw her struggle to regain composure, hide the vulnerability he’d witnessed. With her looks, money and title of President, she was obviously accustomed to being in control. Which ought to make things interesting, because he had no intention of relinquishing half an ounce of his control to any woman.
“Fasten your belt,” he instructed, the words a little rough, as he tried not to notice how alluring she looked with the gleaming sun accenting the highlights in her hair.
Nicole Jackson was business, and in a few days she would be history. Noticing personal things—and wanting to discover them—wouldn’t make the trip any easier. And right now he needed easy.
Needed it bad.
* * *
Nicole fingered back the stands of hair that refused to cooperate. Her fingers no longer shook, but an uneasy sensation remained in her stomach. She recognized the feeling, and it had nothing to do with flying and everything to do with being out of control. She detested the feeling, knowing it was a sign of weakness. Nicole didn’t want to be out of control, especially when she was at the mercy of a man who didn’t appear to have an ounce of mercy in his soul.
To give him credit though, he hadn’t turned the plane around and gone back in for a landing. And judging by the expression on his face, the thought had obviously crossed his mind.
Cognizant of his gaze and the fact he’d glanced suggestively, more than once, at the belt, she forced her fingers to relax, then grabbed both ends and snapped them together.
Then he looked away, as if she weren’t even there.
While he was deep in thought, or just plain ignoring her, she surveyed the man sitting next to her.
Deep lines were etched beside his haunted gray eyes, indicating that he’d seen more of life than some men twice his age. His dark blond hair was brushed back severely from his furrowed forehead. She knew, without a doubt, that the valleys grooved in his face were formed from experience, not laughter.
A masculine shading of stubble covered his jaw, leaving her to wonder if he’d been up all night or whether the look was typical of his personality. Either way, it was different than what she was accustomed to seeing.
Nicole noticed the way his hands curved around the yoke and remembered the sensual feel of his calluses. The feeling had been unique. And tantalizingly thrilling.
Evidently aware of her less-than-subtle scrutiny, he glanced in her direction. His lips curved into something she thought might be considered a smile in less than polite circles. Momentarily, his harsh features had been transformed, until they weren’t quite as brooding. In fact, he was quite attractive. Ruggedly so. Teasingly so. If one went for that type of man, which she definitely didn’t. She had enough worries trying to save the account for her client, without adding Ace Lawson to the list of her problems.
“Are you still doing okay?”
Did she detect a slight hint of concern in his tone? “I think you and your plane are both safe.”
“Good.” There was no mistaking his relief. Nor her own. Obviously, the concern had been a figment of her imagination.
Without another word, he checked a map, glancing at the dials and gauges. He piloted the plane with confidence, almost arrogance. As much as he unsettled her, though, she knew she was in safe hands.
Ace Lawson’s firm, Risky Business, specialized in flying people to areas no one else would. She was aware of the recent rebel activity on Cabo de Bello, and knew that was why the last commercial airline had canceled flights to the island. Two months ago, following a hurricane that decimated the runways, the smaller airlines had followed suit. Which left her with Ace Lawson.
Their legs brushed. Worn, nearly threadbare jeans melded to his thighs like a second skin. A jolt of awareness pierced her. His masculine scent—that of adventure spiced with danger—surrounded her, making the cockpit intimate.
He grinned wolfishly; he didn’t apologize.
She scooted away, pressing her right shoulder against the cold glass window. She could survive anything for two days, she told herself. Including Ace Lawson.
After all, she was paying his wages.
And that made him just another employee.
Vaguely she wondered why that thought gave her absolutely no comfort.
Two
Several hours later, a pocket of turbulence jolted the plane. Nicole wanted to squeeze her eyes shut, desperate to keep the consuming panic at bay. But remembering Ace’s previous instructions, she forced herself to focus in the distance.
“That’s a girl,” he said.
She found the deep resonance of his voice oddly reassuring. Nicole clung to the lifeline of his calmness, and decided not to be ruffled by his patronizing manner.
Flying was the worst part of her job. Even though she’d logged nearly one hundred thousand air miles for the company her father started and she fought to save, Nicole had been unable to overcome the constant terror.
And this flight was worse than many of the others. Despite Ace’s earlier remarks, she hadn’t expected the comfort of a Learjet, but neither had she been prepared for the Cessna’s cramped confines.
Each sensation was magnified tenfold, from the loudness of the creaking fuselage and constant drone of the engine, to the shudder of the seat and roll of dash instruments.
She hadn’t thought she would have to sit so close to the pilot. His muscular thigh, wrapped in faded-to-white denim, pressed against her own, much softer leg. Sensually.
Each time he reached to check an instrument or map, his motions rippled through her. The faint scent of the tropical after-shave clinging to his neck seemed much more potent to her neglected senses than the hundred-dollar-an-ounce cologne she was accustomed to on her male colleagues and rare dates.
He shifted, his hip bone brushing her thigh. She sucked in a huge gulp of air. The man was dangerous, more unnerving than flying, and the aura of power he possessed told her that for the first time ever, she was way out of her league.
Since she’d grown up and learned to deal with the crisscrossing of scars left by an uncomfortable childhood, that of never fitting in or belonging, never being quite good enough, Nicole had allowed no man close enough to bother her.
And she wouldn’t start with Ace Lawson.
Straightening, she inched away from the close contact of their bodies.
“I have to stop to refuel before the last stint that’ll take us over water.”
The unease in Nicole’s stomach became acid. Needing another dose of Dramamine, she shifted as much as the restricting belt allowed. She grappled behind the seat for her suitcase. When her fingers were unable to locate anything except the coarseness of canvas and layers of maps, she asked, “Where’s my suitcase?”
“Under my duffel bag.” He turned to her. “You’re not sick again, are you?”
“I’m nervous about the landing,” she admitted.
“I’ll take it easy and steady,” he promised.
She wondered if he was only talking about the plane.
“But if you need more medicine right away, there’s probably some in the first-aid kit.”
She glanced around. “Where’s that?”
“My duffel.”
The idea of rifling through his personal effects bothered her...more than the thought of the landing. “I’ll be okay.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself. But there’s no need for heroics. In fact, I’d much prefer you didn’t attempt it.”
He guided the plane through puffy clouds. Nicole focused on a spot in the distance.
“Almost there.”
The plane rocked and bounced as the runway rose to meet them. She gripped the bottom of the seat until numbness froze her hands.
“You can wake up now, Sleeping Beauty.”
