Chapter 3
Sienna
He wasn’t joking.
That was the part that made my skin prickle.
My chest squeezed tight.
Like I’d suddenly been pressurizedmoreat 35,000 feet than the hunk of metal shooting through the sky had already done.
I swallowed and turned slightly back toward the bar, staring hard at the smear of condensation trailing down my glass.
If I just laughed, if I just told him tofuck off, this whole moment would dissolve into an anecdote that Jules and I could cackle about over too many margaritas.
Remember that stupidly rich, hot stranger who looked old enough to be my dad, who tried to talk me into joining the mile-high club on that flight to Italy?
But he wasn’t justhot.
And I wasn’t just annoyed.
I was starving.
Starving for something, for someone, for a clean and numbing break between who I was with Ryan and whoever I’d be after this trip ended.
Maybe that was supposed to start here.
“You’re very full of yourself,” I said, but the words came out wrong—too breathy, too insecure.
Too rattled.
He smiled regardless, like helikedthat I was pushing back.
“Not full of myself. Just observant.”
“You’re a stranger,” I shot back.
“So are you.”
“This is a red-eye. Peoplesleepon red-eyes.”
“Not all of them.”
My stomach plummeted 35,000 feet the second I felt the lightest brush of his knuckle against my knee.
He was shameless now, leaning in further, close enough that his stubble brushed my cheek and his cologne filled my nostrils—deep, masculine, clean.
“You don’t have to take me up on my offer, Sienna.”
He kept saying my name.
And every goddamn time, my mouth went dry.
“But if you let me,” he continued, that single knuckle turning into a warm hand, palm down, wrapped gently around my lower thigh, “I’ll make you forget that man’s name. I’ll make you forget what he did.Just for tonight.”
My throat closed.
My cheeks heated.
