3 BOOK BUNDLE: Flown By The Billionaire I, II, & III (5 page)

“E
xcuse me?” I
indignantly replied, my eyes angrily flashing up and discovering that Nathan
and I were no longer alone.

Alex stood almost directly behind him. His hands were
casually dipped in his pockets, but his face was rigid and stern in a way I’d
never seen it before. His usually smooth forehead was furrowed with deep lines.
His jaw, which had always looked so strong in its definition, suddenly seemed
harsh. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Nathan responded, spinning to look at the man
by his shoulder. “Melissa and I were just talking.”

“Hmm,” Alex responded, his deep brown eyes moving toward me
as if he wanted my interpretation of what had been happening.

I could not hold his gaze, and as my hand automatically went
back to rubbing the dishcloth in small circles; my focus dipped to the shiny
surface of the bar.

“I think Melissa is wasted,” Nathan continued, oblivious.
“She could be doing so much more than just serving drinks and snacks.”

“Yeah,” Alex replied absentmindedly. Even though I couldn’t
see him, I could tell his eyes were still on me.

“Yeah,” Nathan echoed. “You seen that ass? Damn, that girl
could be offering the executive staff something much more interest than
coffee.”

There was a moment of uncomfortable, intense, heavy silence.

“What did you just say?” Alex muttered.

I looked up, mortified not only by the objectification but
by the fact that Nathan had possibly struck on a kernel of truth. Did Alex see
me exactly the way Nathan did? Had I just been an additional perk; another
luxury of his private plane? Was I anything more than a rich man’s toy?

“I’m just saying,” Nathan replied, shrugging and chuckling.
“I think she could provide an additional service.”

Alex moved so fast that I barely saw his hands emerge from
his pants pockets. They lunged forward, grasping Nathan by both lapels of his
expensive jacket. “Melissa is a member of the company,” he said, his voice low
and dangerous as he tugged Nathan toward him. “Now, unless you can treat her
with the same respect you would the board members, you’ll need to start looking
for another job. Do you understand me?”

Nathan was trembling and laughing nervously. “It’s just…it
was just a joke.” He tried to sound easygoing, but he stumbled over his words
in panic. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Alex. Jeez, man, calm down.”

Eventually, the color came back to Alex’s knuckles as he
released his hold of the squirming man. “I want you to apologize,” he said
bluntly.

“I’m sorry,” Nathan mumbled, rolling his shoulders and
smoothing his palms over his ruffled lapels.

“Not to me, you idiot,” the taller man sighed. “Apologize to
Melissa, and then I suggest you sleep off the booze. It’s not flattering on
you.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, this time his head turned
begrudgingly toward me.

I chose neither to reply nor acknowledge it. Instead, as
Nathan made his way back to his seat at the front of the cabin, my eyes lifted
to Alex’s.

“I’m sorry about that,” he softly announced. A small muscle
in his jaw flexed; a residue of his anger.

“That’s all right,” I shrugged. “It’s not your fault.”

“If he gives you any more trouble, you will tell me?” he
asked, setting his smooth, large palms on the edge of the bar and leaning
toward me. I knew what those hands felt like. I knew how strong they were. I
knew how gentle they were capable of being. I knew that the memory of their
caress was enough to instantly turn my mouth dry.

“Sure,” I nodded.

Suddenly, he visibly relaxed, his pink lips lifting in a
small smile and his broad shoulders loosening. “He’s right about one thing,
though,” he offhandedly mentioned, inclining his head ever nearer. “You have
got an amazing ass,” he whispered.

With shock and some amusement, I tried to stifle a grin. If
anyone else had said that, I would have been offended. Something in the way
Alex said it made me feel good. Or maybe it was not how it was said, but
who
had said it. Nevertheless, I tried to affect a slim veneer of displeasure.
“What happened to respect?” I asked, keeping my own voice low. Glancing over
his shoulder, I could see that Nathan was lying down on the couch while Laura
was reading a newspaper.

“You don’t think I respect you?” he replied, chuckling.

“I don’t know,” I told him honestly, the smile fading from
my lips.

He sighed, regretfully turning his head over his shoulder to
look behind him. By the time his face twisted back to mine, he was biting on
the corner of his bottom lip. “If we were alone right now, I would respect the
hell out of you,” he joked.

“That’s not quite what I meant,” I replied, sharing a small
smile with him. “I suppose…I’ve just been wondering-”

My attempt to speak was cut off by the nasal sound of Dan’s
voice coming over the small speakers that embedded in the walls along the
length of the cabin. “We’re about to start our decent, so buckle up everyone.”

“What did you want to say?” Alex urged, ignoring the
announcement.

“It’s okay,” I sighed, brushing the matter aside. “It
doesn’t matter, really.”

“Alex, have you seen this?” Laura asked, getting out of her
seat and waving the paper at him.

“Go on,” I encouraged, nodding my head toward the woman
behind him.

“We’ll pick this up later,” he promised, with sincere
insistence.

I hoped by the time he’d finished with his meeting and got
back to the airport that afternoon, he would have forgotten about it. But he
hadn’t. Even though nothing was said, I could tell out brief conversation it
was still on his mind. He kept looking at me, even when he was supposed to be
discussing the legal terms of a contract that had been drawn up during the
meeting in Detroit. I tried to maintain my distance, only occasionally
interrupting them to ask if they needed anything.

When we’d landed and the three of them got off the plane, I
thought I had gotten away with it. Straightening up the cushions and tossing
away some of the rubbish that had been left sitting on the coffee table, I
prepared to leave, too. However, not two minutes after leaving the plane, Alex
jogged back up the steps. He almost collided with Dan, who was on his way out.

“Oops, sorry,” the pilot chuckled, shrugging his black
jacket onto his shoulders. “I thought you’d left already.”

“Yeah,” Alex nodded. “I forgot something.”

With a pleasant nod, Dan stepped around Alex and made his
way down the noisy metal steps.

Standing just inside the cabin, Alex looked at me. Nothing
was spoken; we both listened to the soft clump, clump, clump of footsteps until
we could no longer hear them.

“What did you want to say earlier?” he asked, tossing his
briefcase into a nearby seat and taking a step toward me.

“It’s really not important,” I replied.

“Yes, it is,” he countered. “You don’t think I respect you?”
he asked, tilting his head to one side.

“I don’t know whether you do or not,” I slowly responded.
“I’ve spent the last week wondering if it meant something, wondering if it
meant as much to you as it did to me. Then, Nathan said what he did…” I continued
to ramble; the faster the words flowed, the less control I had over them. “And
I began to think; maybe that’s how you felt about it.”

“What do you mean?” he said, shaking his head in confusion.

“I’m just an executive perk,” I shrugged.

“You weren’t thinking that at the time,” he stated, before a
questioning look drifted over his features. “Were you?”

“No,” I quickly assured him.

“So, what’s changed?” he wondered.

“I’ve had seven days to overthink everything,” I reply,
humorlessly laughing at my own stupidity. “I’ve had a week with nothing but my
own internal monologue telling me that it was a mistake, and that it can’t
possibly mean anything to you.”

“Why can’t it possibly mean anything to me?”

“Because,” I offered in the same way a small child would.

“You want to know what’s been going on in my mind for the
last seven days?” he asked, taking another step toward me.

He was so close; so close I could have reached out and
touched him. But I didn’t. Instead, I clasped both hands at my solar plexus and
entwined my fingers anxiously.

Alex did not wait for an answer to his question. “I haven’t
been able to stop thinking about you,” he said simply. “The way you feel, the
way you smell, the way you taste.”

Heat rising to my cheeks, I swallowed with difficulty. “I…”
I opened my mouth to speak, but very little came forth. “I—”

“Come with me,” he urged, his hand suddenly smoothing over
mine and disentangling them. Taking my left hand in his, he turned and walked
toward the rear of the cabin.

I followed, unable to think clearly and unwilling to tug my
fingers free of his.

Alex paused only momentarily, pushing the door of the
plane’s large bedroom open. Quickly, he led me inside and, as he closed the
door, he pushed me against it.

Sweeping down, he claimed my surprised mouth in an ardent
frenzy. I made some muffled groans in response to the way his lips had roughly
claimed me, but I had no intention of pushing him away. He still held my left
hand and, squeezing it firmly, he lifted it over my hand, clamping it to the back
of the door.

With my free fingers, I seized his belt just above the hip
and tugged his lower half to me. The action elicited an excited whimpering pant
when I felt his burgeoning erection push against my lower belly.

Gasping, he pulled his lips away. Eyes locked on mine, he
smiled before sinking to his knees before me. As he went, his hands smoothed
their way slickly over my arms, ever so slightly stroking the curve of my
breasts and caressing down to my hips. Reaching behind me, he easily unfastened
the small button and zipper at the base of my spine, which held my clinging,
knee-length skirt to my body.

I gazed down at the top of his head. My fingers, drawn to
the rich, dark hair, played idly with it. Threading my hands through its
softness, I involuntarily shivered as Alex slid my skirt down, stroking my
nylon-covered legs all the way. When he’d reached my ankles, he began the
return journey, leaving my skirt on the carpeted floor. This time, he grazed
the backs of his hands up the inside of my legs, creating a tingling over every
inch of my skin.

Without realizing I was doing it, I parted my thighs
slightly, as he gently worked his way higher. The tips of his fingers responded
by rubbing small, almost ticklish circles as they crept toward the crease of my
leg.

“Alex,” I gasped, his touch sending sparks of liquid heat
shooting through my body. My fingers were stroking through his hair more
frantically now, desire pulsing hot and fast.

Taking his eyes away from the movement of his hands, he
peered up at me with a blissful gaze and continued to do so as he grasped the
edges of my white panties and coaxed them from my hips.

I was unable to break eye contact, so fascinated by the
expansion of his pupils; that gleaming darkness that seemed as though it would pull
me right in and never release me.

As my underwear reached my feet, Alex gently lifted one of
my legs, then the other, before tossing the pale cotton to one side. Except for
tan holdups and black heels, I was naked from the waist down.

His face was still tilted up, staring at me with an
incongruous mix of fierce, almost violent, passion and warm affection.
Suddenly, his head thrust forward and he began scattering open-mouthed kisses
over the hard curve of my hipbone.

“Oh, God,” I muttered, head flopping back and hitting the
door with a clunk that, any other time, would have been painful.

He lingered, his tongue and lips tracing a path from my hip
to my mound.

During the week away from him, I had considered removing all
of my hair, but as he’d already seen me with a neat pattern of dark curls and
hadn’t seemed offended by it, I’d decided to leave it as it was. Of course, if
I’d imagined his mouth making the kind of explorations it was, I might have had
second thoughts.

As he slowly kissed downward, reaching the very top of my
vulva, he swept his strong right hand behind my left knee and encouraged it
upward.

Unable to resist, I lifted my leg and allowed him to hook it
over his shoulder. The fingers that were still deep within his thick hair
clenched nervously. No man had ever done what Alex was doing to me. None of my
boyfriends had expressed any interest, and it hadn’t been something I’d given a
lot of thought to.

With the tips of his soft, warm fingers, he parted my
flushed outer lips and his tongue swept luxuriously between them.

“Ugh,” I panted, my entire body clenching at the new
experience. It was so much sweeter than the caress of a hand.

As the tip of Alex’s tongue reached my swollen clitoris, he
tapped it, circled it and lapped teasingly at it.

“Alex…arghh,” I sighed, my breath coming heavy and nosily,
while the backs of my legs began to twitch uncontrollably. Forcing most of my
weight into the door, I hoped that would keep me on my feet, although I
suspected I was mere minutes away from having liquefied limbs.

Suddenly though, the movement of Alex’s mouth ceased and he
lifted his head from my body. “Crap,” he mumbled.

In a daze, it took my brain several seconds to catch up. By
the time I managed to say, “What’s wrong?” he was already leaping to his feet
and brushing at the small pieces of lint on his knees.

“Wait here,” he softly said, reaching a hand to the door and
quickly opening it.

“Alex?” I asked, as I was nudged to the right by the opening
door.

He said nothing in reply. Slipping out of the room, he
quickly and quietly closed the door behind him.