In Flight (19 page)

I came to for a moment when he placed a warm, wet cloth between my legs, cleaning me gently.
 

“Thank you,” I murmured to him.

“Mmm.
 
My pleasure,” he told me.
 

He left and came back again.
 
He rubbed some type of salve into my wrists and ankles, turning me effortlessly onto my stomach to knead it into my butt and thighs.
 
He stroked some between my thighs tenderly from behind.
 

“Any other sore spots?” he asked me.
 

“No,” I answered.
 

“What time do you need to wake up?” he asked.

I did some tired math.
 
I didn’t even know what time it was, didn’t want to know.
 
“4:30,” I answered.
 
Sleep took me.
 

I awoke in a sensual haze, in the most enjoyable way I could have imagined.
 

I was on my back on the softest bed.
 
I was gloriously naked, spreadeagled, and the most beautiful man I’d ever seen was lapping at my sex like it was a particularly delectable dessert.
 
I gripped his silky golden hair.
 

“Oh James,”
 
I moaned, and he looked up, smiling.
 

He rose, kneeling between my thighs.
 
He brought one of my legs up to his shoulder, lining it up at his neck until it made a diagonal line across his torso.
 
The other leg he straddled, lining his insatiable cock up at my readied entrance.
 

“Let me know if this is too much for you, k?”
 
His voice was soft, and his words held a note of concern.
 

Was the dominant master present this morning?
I wondered.
 
It seemed like his other persona, the tender lover, was driving at that moment.

I nodded, and he pushed into me.
 
The new position had him stroking new nerves that I hadn’t even known existed.
 
Yes, I was sore and tender, but I wasn’t going to stop him.
 
The soreness was a small deterrent to such pleasure.
 

He leaned his chest forward, pushing my legs farther apart and closer to my chest.
 
Using a twisting motion inside of me, he thrust.
 
He’s screwing me sideways
, I thought in a daze.
 

One of his skillful fingers began to rub my swollen clitoris, and I was lost.
 

He carried me into the shower after that.
 
He washed us both.
 

I felt limp and couldn’t imagine facing a fourteen hour work day after such an experience.
 
I voiced the thought out loud.

He’d been spooning me from behind, washing the conditioner out of my hair.
 
At my words, he froze.
 

“So don’t.
 
Take a day off.
 
I’ll reschedule my day, as well.
 
We could spend the day in bed.
 
I would make sure it was memorable for you.”

I sent him a baffled look, laughing.
 
Rich people
, I thought, a little resentfully.
 

“I’m off tomorrow,” I explained.
 
“If I took today off, I wouldn’t get paid.
 
And dropping a shift so last minute could get me in trouble.”

His arms tightened.
 
He rubbed his chin on the top of my head affectionately.
 

“You could quit.
 
Come work for me.
 
I’d be a generous employer.
 
You could be a flight attendant on my jet.
 
We’d get all the time we wanted together, then.
 
Or, if you want a change of careers, I could find you something else.
 
If you don’t care for the hotel industry, I have other companies you could work for.
 
Or hell, just take some time off.
 
Relax.
 
I’d be more than happy to support-”

“Don’t ever mention anything like to me again, please, or this is over, starting now,” I interrupted him, my tone icy, my face composed.
 
I was shaking a little.
 

The nerve of him
, I thought.
 
I had worked like a fiend since I was a young teenager, and he had just belittled every minute of it.
 
It was an effort not to storm out of the shower with half-rinsed hair, and just leave.
 

His hands began to stroke my arms in a soothing gesture.
 
“I meant no offense.
 
It’s just hard for me to see you struggle.
 
Can you understand that?”

Struggle?
 
I thought, a little wildly.
 
Could he know the meaning of the word, if he thought that my life was a struggle?
 
But then I remembered what he’d said about his parents, about how they’d both died when he was only thirteen.
 
He hadn’t led the perfect life that I had pictured.
 
It was a hardship and a struggle getting over the death of a parent.
 
We had at least something in common.
 
It warmed me towards him some, and helped me to give him another chance.
 

I shook my head slightly.
 
“Well, don’t worry about me.
 
And don’t mention anything like that to me again.
 
I mean it.
 
It’s a deal-breaker for me.”

His face was stiff but he nodded.

I took a few measured breaths to calm down, then moved away from him, rinsing off and stepping out of the shower.
 

“I need to go.
 
I don’t even know what time it is, but I need to get ready for work.”
 
I wrapped one of his big soft towels around me.
 

“It’s 4:40.
 
I woke you up a little early.
 
Sorry.”
 

He sure didn’t sound sorry
, I thought, moving into his room to look for my dress.
 
It was a crumpled heap on the floor.
 
I picked it up tentatively, my nose wrinkling.
 
I could see the stains on it from a foot away, and I wasn’t about to smell it.
 

I glanced back at the bathroom.
 

James lounged in the doorway, leaning against the open door frame nonchalantly, his arms crossed.
 
His face was expressionless, his eyes indifferent.
 
He looked suddenly as forbidding as his opulent home.
 
Perhaps I’d overstayed my welcome.
 

“Do you have a T-shirt or something I could borrow?
 
It doesn’t matter what.
 
I just need to drive straight from your driveway to my garage.
 
And I’m not wearing this.”
 
I dropped the offending dress back on the floor.

He nodded, moving to his closet.
 
He came out with a folded T-shirt and a pair of black boxer briefs.
 

“Will these work?” he asked, his voice toneless.
 

I nodded, grabbing them and heading into the bathroom.
 
I changed and used the bathroom in less than a minute, coming back out.
 

“Do you know where I left my purse?”
 
I asked him.

“In the entryway.
 
By the stairs.
 
You left your sandals there, as well,” he told me without hesitation.
 
I didn’t even remember leaving them there.
 

I nodded thanks, striding out of his bedroom in a hurry.
 
I had my shoes on and purse in hand before I turned back to him.
 
I’d felt him following my every step.
 

“Um, bye,” I told him, feeling very awkward and out of my depth.
 
I had certainly never had one of these goodbye scenes before.
 
I was sure he couldn’t say the same.
 
At least it wouldn’t be much of a walk of shame, since I was going straight from his front door to my garage.

He stepped closer to me, but without touching.
 
He still wore just his towel.
 
I kept my eyes firmly on his face.
 
He handed me something, and I looked down at a small silver box.
 
I blinked.
 
He wrapped my hands around it.
 

“It’s a gift.
 
It was just something that I hoped you would like.
 
You can open it later.”
 

He grabbed my hair suddenly, giving me a hard kiss on the mouth.
 
He pulled back almost immediately.
 

 
“I’ll call you,” he said.
 

I just nodded and hurried to my car.
 
I didn’t have time to open his gift, or to worry about it.
 
As it was, I’d have to rush to make it to work on time.

As I steered out of his drive, I wondered where he and I stood.
 
Everything had moved so fast, with so many ups and downs, both of us moody with each other.
 
He had said he would call me, but I knew from a lot of my girlfriends that men said that most of the time, whether they meant it or not.
 
The thought that I would never hear from him again was a knot of sick tension in my stomach.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Mr. Incredible

I rushed home, getting dressed in a hurry.
 
My hair was still damp, my face bare of makeup, when Stephan walked in my front door.
 

He called out a greeting, showing up in my bedroom an instant later.
 
I knew I looked like a hot mess.
 

“Have a good night?” he asked me with a mischievous grin.
   

“It was memorable, that’s for sure.
 
It isn’t fair for a man that perfect to be loose among the public.”

He laughed.
 
“Let me drive today.
 
We need to go, and you can do something with your hair and makeup on the way.”
 

He noticed the silver box I had thrown on my bed.
 
He gestured at it.
 
“What’s that?”

I grimaced.
 
“A gift from James.
 
I haven’t had time to look at it.”

He grabbed it, tossing it into my flight bag and slinging the bag over his shoulder.
 

“We can check it out when we get a break.
 
Let’s go, Bee.”

I braided my damp hair as Stephan drove us to work.
 
I put on the minimal makeup that I could manage in the car.
 
I even had a moment to spare before we got to work.

I realized how sore I was as I finished my rushed makeup job.
 
Every shift on my seat made aching muscles protest in unnamable places.
 

Well, he
had
offered to take it easy.
 
Now I could see why, though I still couldn’t regret our enthusiasm.
 
I doubted he would either, if he realized that every time I shifted in my seat today I would have to think of him.
 

The marks on my wrists had faded into the faintest of pink marks.
 
My old watch covered the mark on my left wrist, and I didn’t think the exposed marks on my right wrist were enough to draw attention.
 
But still, they were all reminders of himself that he’d left with me.
 

Part of me thought I wouldn’t see him again.
 
He’d been intense and passionate, but that may be how he was with every lover.
 
For all I knew, he’d already had his fill of me.
 
I was already bracing myself for the possibility.
 

We checked in for our trip and headed for the crew bus.
 

“Should I check real quick and see if we can pick up a turn tomorrow?” Stephan asked me while we waited.
 
“I wouldn’t mind taking the day off, either.
 
We’ve been working so much lately, we
are
due for a little break.
 
It’s up to you.”

I grimaced.
 
“Let’s see how today goes.
 
We could always check on the flip side.”

He just nodded.
 
Neither of us were usually chatty in the morning.
 
And I hadn’t even had a cup of coffee yet.
 
I really need to remedy that soon
, I thought.

I made coffee as soon as we got to our plane, downing a large cup fast enough to burn my tongue.
 
But it helped.
 
I felt like I could survive the day after that.
 

The first few hours of the flight passed by in a flash.
 
We had a full flight, and we didn’t get a break to eat until we were only an hour and a half from DC.
 

No one had wanted the breakfast offering of greek yogurt, so we both ate that instead of our crew meals.
 

“Ok, open that box James gave you,” Stephan said immediately after he’d finished eating.
 
“We have a minute, and I’m dying of curiosity here.”

I’d completely put it from my mind.
 
I winced as he reminded me.
 
I was dreading opening it.
 
It made me uncomfortable to get a gift from someone whom I barely knew, and for no reason.