“Don’t think they’ll want to clean up champagneandblood,” the voice cut in.
A man's voice.
Deep and well…manly.
He chuckled as he slowly pulled my hand back from the mess.
My skin heated under his touch.
Then he let go the second my arm was back within the space between the armrests on either side of me.
“For the record, I wasn’t trying to scare you,” he said.
Again, that deep, baritone, manly voice.
I turned my head toward the sound, swallowing down the rising humiliation, and got my first proper look at the man behind the voice.
And promptly forgot how to breathe for half a second.
Tall. Older, maybe mid-to-late forties.
Mostly silver hair that looked like it belonged in a goddamn cologne ad, swept back from bone structure that was just wholly unfair.
A smattering of scruff along his jawline, blacks swirling into the grey, just enough to know you’d feel it if you ran your fingers over it.
And hiseyes, Christ, hazel and sharp.
He was striking, commanding almost, like he expected the world to move when he snapped his fingers because itwould.
But most of all, he just looked amused.
“Are you going to speak, or should I just assume I can sit?” he asked, raising a single mostly-black brow at me.
I blinked away enough of the fog clouding my head to get my mouth to cooperate. “Um—yeah, yes, sorry,” I swallowed, gripping my carry-on’s handle and dragging it slightly out of the way for him. “I can, like, move if you want this section?—”
“I’m not asking you to move,” he chuckled again, gripping the sides of the arm rests as he lowered himself into the plush seat to the right of mine, cocked at a ninety-degree angle. “Saw you when I was at the bar. Your hand was shaking. Thought you might be nervous about flying.”
A dry laugh crackled out of me. “Yeah. That’s it. Planes.”
He didn’t call me on the lie — just leaned back slightly, giving a subtle nod to the bar staff.
A second later, a suited attendant appeared like magic to clean up the glass, and I stared at him for half a second too long before remembering that I probablyshouldn’tlook like I was in shock from someone cleaning up after me.
The hot, silver fox to my right hadn’t said a word, and the attendant had just moved, and I couldn’t get over how absolutely ridiculous it was that he somehow expected and received the world following the order of the jut of his chin.
Rich. Definitely rich, and not in the flamboyant,posting photos of Louis Vuitton bags on Instagramkind of way.
No, this man had weight.
The kind that didn’t need to brag.
The kind that knew he could walk into a room and own it without saying a damned word.
“I should’ve just stayed home,” I muttered, mostly to myself as I turned my head away from the last bits of broken crystal being swept away.
“Why didn’t you?”
The words were casual, but the answer to them was charged, sticky in my mouth.
