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‘“Prick” being the operative word.’ She made a grab for the bottle again and missed by about twenty nautical miles, her coordination skills—along with her dignity—now completely shot.
‘Why do you need this stuff anyway?’
Why was he looking at her like that—all stern and concerned? And why couldn’t she remember how to speak?
The plane made a lumbering turn onto the runway, then gathered speed. Her stomach lurched up to slam into her larynx. She gripped the armrest hard enough to fracture granite, her nails gouging the leather.
Flying is safe. Remember Rain Man. You are not going to die.
‘Dammit, Hal, since when have you been scared of flying?’
She would have shot him another give-me-a-bloody-break look but she was far too busy clinging on for dear life.
‘Why didn’t you say something sooner?’ he added.
Because it’s stupid and irrational and humiliating and I’d rather lose a limb than admit a weakness to you.
‘I’m not scared of flying,’ she said, her fingers now fused with the leather. ‘I just have issues with the whole concept.’
‘What issues, exactly?’
He wanted to have a conversation about this now? When they were both about to die?
Extreme exasperation got the better of her terror for a second. ‘Gravitational issues,’ she snapped. ‘Such as, how does a huge metal box that weighs several tons stay airborne?’
The plane tore away from the runway and her stomach—and the last of her courage—went into free fall.
Please don’t let me start whimpering. Or puking.
‘Hal, it’s called aerodynamics,’ he said, all knowledge and reason when she was embarking on a major panic attack.
His pure blue eyes blurred round the edges as she struggled to make sense of the statement. Her stomach rocked against her ribs as the plane banked. She caught a glimpse of chequerboard fields and ribbon roads dotted with toy cars through the window and slammed her eyes shut.
Do. Not. Look. Down. The first rule of upchuck avoidance.
‘Excuse me if I’m not convinced by your knowledge of aerodynamics,’ she hissed through clenched teeth. ‘I happen to know you bunked off every physics lesson you ever had.’
‘I did an article on the aerospace industry for a tech website last year.’
A weak scoffing sound was all she could manage, the rumbling thud of the plane’s undercarriage lifting into the fuselage echoing in her stomach.
‘And, by the way, this plane is mostly made out of carbon fibre, not metal, if that helps.’
It didn’t. She couldn’t compute his words any more. Her head tipped back, anchored to the seat, as she ground her teeth hard enough to crack a molar.
‘Oh, God.’ She panted, hyperventilation the only way to keep breathing as the plane lifted into the cloud bank. Her stomach levitated into her throat. She swallowed convulsively to stop it vomiting out of her mouth. ‘I’m not ready to die.’
That would be whimpering.
A warm palm covered the hand she had superglued to the armrest.
‘You’re not going to die. You’re indestructible.’ His palm curled over her whitening knuckles and his thumb stroked the small scar on her wrist left by the burn he’d noticed in Paris. ‘If we crash, you’ll bounce.’
She wanted to tell him he was right, she was indestructible, because she’d had to be. But she didn’t feel indestructible. And she had lost the ability to talk, every single muscle and sinew in her jaw and neck having atrophied.
‘I need a pill,’ she finally managed to squeak. ‘Please.’ The begging would have embarrassed her, but in the grand apocalyptic scheme of things, having Luke smirk at her while she died didn’t seem like such a big deal any more.
‘Is everything OK, Ms Best?’
Halle prised open an eyelid to find the stewardess looking down at their joined hands with a benevolent smile.
‘I’m fine.’ Her whole body shuddered like an alcoholic recovering from an all-night bender. The stewardess didn’t look convinced. ‘If I could just …’
‘For Chrissake, Hal.’ Luke’s grip on her hand tightened. ‘You’re freaking out. There’s no shame in admitting it. Loads of people don’t like flying.’
‘I a-a-am not freaking out.’ She never freaked out. She happened to be a champion coper—even if her chattering teeth weren’t helping to emphasise the point.
‘Let go of the chair,’ he ordered. ‘You’re about to break your fingernails.’
‘If I let go, I’ll fall.’ The plaintive plea sounded childish, even to her.
‘You’re strapped in, Hal. You’re not going anywhere.’
‘You won’t fall, Ms Best. This is an Airbus 380, the newest and best-designed plane in our fleet.’ The stewardess’s soothing tone managed to be even more annoying than Luke’s condescension.
‘You don’t know that,’ she whimpered.
Luke’s thumb caressed the web of flesh between her thumb and forefinger. ‘I do. Now let go, I’ve got you.’ He massaged into the pressure point. And her fingers released instinctively.
He threaded his fingers through hers and held on to her, just as he’d promised. ‘See, you didn’t fall.’
She rolled her head towards him, which wasn’t easy given that the sinews in her neck had about as much give in them as steel suspension cables. And managed a small nod.
‘Now breathe,’ he commanded.
Air swelled into her lungs and gushed out as the plane’s nose dipped to level off to their cruising altitude.
‘That’s it, keep doing what you’re doing,’ he prompted.
She concentrated on taking deep, even breaths, willing her lungs to cooperate. But continued to cling to his hand. The seat-belt sign pinged off and the purser’s reassuring voice droned on about their cruising altitude and flight path. Her gaze drifted to the fluffed cloudscape floating beneath them outside the window. The panic settled to purr under her breastbone, like a sleeping tiger ready to snarl at the first sign of danger, but subdued enough not to bite off her head at the slightest bump.
Luke squeezed her hand. ‘You OK?’
‘Yes,’ she croaked, her throat sore as her neck muscles relaxed.
‘You sure? You still look pretty spooked.’ He searched her face.
She took another careful breath, sighed when it didn’t hurt. ‘The take-off’s always the worse bit. I’ll be OK now.’ The Xanax must have finally kicked in, because she was starting to feel pleasantly numb.
Way to go, Xanax, only twenty minutes late to the party.
Luckily, Luke didn’t call her on her euphoric state, because she wasn’t quite ready to give him back his hand.
‘You look terrible,’ he said.
Way to go, Luke. You sure know how to make a girl feel good about herself.
‘I’ll look a lot better once I’m sure we aren’t going to get struck by lightning, hit a freak snowstorm, get hijacked or generally encounter anything that might cause us to go down in flames en route.’ The burst of verbal diarrhoea came naturally as the extreme panic downgraded to a bogstandard bout of nervous tension.
Nervous tension was doable. She knew how to handle that. She even knew how to use it to her advantage, because she’d had a lot of practice. Her nerves were an old and trusted friend.
The show’s first executive producer had once told her that her reaction to stress was the secret of her success, because the sharp, perky motormouthed quips she used to cope entertained while also making her totally relatable. Embracing the horrendous stage fright before every taping had become a key part of her ‘Everywoman appeal’.
‘Just so you know, if any of that stuff happens,’ she added, on a roll as her body sank into the seat, ‘I intend to arm-wrestle you for the Xanax. You have been warned.’
‘If any of that stuff happens,’ Luke replied drily, ‘you’re gonna need to be Dwayne Johnson to get to them, because I plan to bolt the lot.’
She laughed, the sound only slightly manic. And released his hand.
He flexed his fingers, probably checking for fractures, and she noticed the dark indents where her nails had dug into his skin.
‘I’ll keep these just in case.’ He flipped the bottle and caught it one-handed. ‘No more legal highs for you. Unless the slaphead executive over there turns out to be a hijacker.’ He nodded at the bald businessman, who had already resumed typing on his laptop. ‘In which case, let the arm-wrestling begin.’
He lifted his bum to shove the bottle of Xanax into the front pocket of his jeans, drawing her fuzzy gaze to his lap. The worn, comfortable denim cupped him, the metal studs of his button fly visible where the placket stretched over his groin. And a question from over twenty years ago popped into her head.
I wonder if he remembered to wear his underwear today?
Her pulse spiked and warmth settled into her lower body as she allowed her mind to drift into the safe, comforting fog of memory.
Chapter 7 (#ulink_6a3918ea-c44f-501d-85c1-f64512a39111)
She could smell dust and varnish and the faint whiff of boiled cabbage as she stood in the wings of the school hall’s stage, waiting to do her piano solo for the Year Ten end-of-term recital.
Her school shoes scraped from side to side on the scuffed floorboards, her lungs sawing in and out. Clammy sweat trickled between her shoulder blades as she undulated the fingers of her right hand, miming the opening movement of the piece she’d practised for hours the previous afternoon. It had to be perfect, or her mum and dad might start questioning the cost of her weekly piano lessons. Then they would surely ring her piano teacher, Ms Havilland, to ask what was going on. And Ms Havilland would tell them their daughter had stopped coming to lessons months ago, and then her mum and dad would know she’d been pocketing the five-pound lesson fee to sneak off and hang out with Luke at the precinct.
And if that happened, her life would be over, because they would ground her forever and she’d never be able to see Luke again.
So, basically, her whole entire life was balancing on the edge of a precipice, ready to plunge into the abyss at the sound of a single bum note in five minutes’ time.
Wiry forearms banded round her waist and a calloused palm captured her gasp as her captor hefted her back into the secretive darkness backstage.
The scent of Lifebuoy soap and the sweet whiff of marijuana had the blast of recognition careering through her and all thoughts of Beethoven, bum notes and imminent disaster shot out of her head on a wild rush of adrenaline and adoration.
It’s Luke. Luke’s here. Luke will make everything all right.
‘Luke, you shouldn’t be here. Miss Giddings will have a fit,’ she whispered frantically, the thrill pumping through her as she absorbed the determination on his face.
‘Let her,’ he said, and his lips covered hers.
Molly Tanner’s halting rendition of ‘Give Peace a Chance’ on the pan pipes dimmed, obliterated by the buzz of excitement as Luke’s tongue thrust deep, claiming her mouth in hungry furtive strokes. Rough fumbling fingers delved under the skirt her mum had ironed for her less than an hour ago and found the plump, yearning flesh already dampening the gusset of her knickers.
She cupped him in return—the illicit thrill of doing something forbidden streaking from the tips of her breasts to throb against his probing fingers. He hardened and lengthened against her palm, creating a big top in the coarse gaberdine of his uniform trousers.
‘That feels ace.’ He panted, cooling the sweaty hair stuck to her neck. The thrill turned to white-hot need, tempered by panic, when he ripped open his zipper and wrapped her fingers around the stiff column of naked flesh. Her hand jerked in shock.
‘Where are your pants?’
‘Forgot them this morning.’ His breathing became hoarse and rapid. ‘After this, I may never remember them again.’
She’d felt his erection before, prodding against her belly through their clothing when they kissed. She’d even seen it tenting his trousers when they’d done some heavy petting last Thursday, and it had fascinated her. But she’d never realised it would feel this wonderful. Soft and silky, and yet so large and rock hard. It leaped in her hand as she brushed her thumb over the head and made his breathing catch.
This was more than ace. It was totally amazing. To have this power over him, to know he wanted her this much.
His hand folded over hers, directing the speed and strength of her strokes, urging her on with soft grunts of approval.
‘That’s right, keep going, make me come.’ His other hand yanked down her panties. ‘I’m going to do you, too,’ he hissed, thrilling her even more.
She bucked against his invading fingers as he parted her folds and discovered the burning spot at the top. Excruciating pleasure coiled between her legs.
‘Oh!’ She sobbed, biting into her lip to muffle the sound.
‘Did I hurt you?’ He stopped. ‘Show me how to do it the way you like it.’ His demand sounded feral, intense in the darkness.
‘Don’t stop, it didn’t hurt,’ she managed. She grabbed his wrist, directing him the way he had directed her, until he began to press and circle the right spot. ‘That’s it.’
‘You’re so wet down there,’ he whispered, sounding surprised but pleased. ‘It feels wonderful, all soft and slick.’
She grasped his erection again to stroke him, too.
‘I know,’ she said, as if she did know, but she didn’t really.
She’d touched herself before, explored, but it had never made her feel like this. Terrified and desperate and cherished and bad all at once. The tight coil of need twisted and yanked, ready to shove her off a cliff and make her pee herself at one and the same time.
He groaned as if he were dying, his face pressed into her hair. ‘Oh, fuck, yes, yes, I’m coming.’
His thick cock grew even bigger, then jerked in her hand, splattering something warm against her belly where he’d wrenched up her skirt.
His body softened, but those magic fingers never faltered, still rubbing, circling, caressing. She widened her legs, rocked her hips to increase the pressure, and the coil yanked tighter, tighter …
‘Hurry up, Hal, go for it.’
‘Oh, yes … That’s …’
His hand slapped over her mouth, just in time to silence her sobbing cry, as blue ribbons of fire blasted through her torso. White light shot in a glittering arc right out the top of her head, sensation cascading through her body like a Roman candle.
The thunder of applause sounded over the hammering of her pulse, her body’s own standing ovation. But as she floated back to earth and saw Luke scrambling to stuff himself and his shirt tails back into his trousers, the enthusiastic clapping became real.
‘Oh, bloody buggering hell, Molly’s finished,’ she whispered, shocked into full consciousness. Of where they were, and what they’d just done. Together.
