I couldn’t believe I was doing this. “Wait, my laptop—”
“Is in the bag although you won’t be getting much work done,” he answered, tugging on my arm.
I had no choice but to follow his lead. It’d been a long time since I’d acted so spontaneously, least of all, with a man. For six years I’d guarded my heart just enough that I could date and enjoy a man’s company but never fall for them. Not like I’d fallen in the past. Yet, in the blink of an eye, not only had Tyler Townsend caused me to trip and fall, but to completely wipe out. I closed my eyes, as he pulled me by the arm toward my office door. I made a silent wish that he was there to catch me when I landed, because I was certain I couldn’t stop myself from tumbling even if I’d wanted to.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tyler
“Is there anything else I can get you, Mr. and Mrs. Townsend?” the flight attendant on our chartered plane questioned, leaning over as she smile brightly at Destiny and I.
“Oh, we’re not—”
“We’re fine. Thank you.” I nodded, dismissing the flight attendant.
Destiny turned to stare at me, eyebrows wrinkled. I knew what she was about to ask so I cut her off at the pass.
“You’re going to be too hot in the sweater you are wearing where we’re going. You should take it off.” I nodded at the black turtleneck sweat she adorned.
“Get naked right here?” she questioned, eyebrow quirked.
Grinning, I held out my hands. “If that’s what you’d like, I sure as hell won’t stop you.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Or you could just use one of the private bathrooms. But again, I’m not opposed to you changing right here out in the open.”
“I’m fine in my clothes.”
“That, we can agree on. But you’d be more fine if you were over here.” I patted my lap.
Destiny glanced around, I assumed looking for Rachel, the flight attendant who was catering to our needs while we were on board. She’d just taken the cups and plates from the dinner that’d we’d been served not long after takeoff. I had made sure to have dinner on the flight since I knew Destiny hadn’t eaten before we left.
No longer accepting the distance between us, although she sat less than three feet away from me, I undid my seatbelt, folded up the table that sat between us, and moved to undo Destiny’s seatbelt. She gave little resistance when I picked her up, so that her legs wrapped around my waist, and then sat down so that she was now sitting atop my lap, facing me.
“That’s better,” I growled, my face nuzzling her neck. I inhaled some type of floral scent mixed with her own natural essence, and I couldn’t get enough of it as her arms closed in around my shoulders.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
I pulled back and stared up at her as she bit her bottom lip.
“I always know what I’m doing. Even when I don’t.”
“You better,” she responded, just above a whisper.
I pressed my back against the leather seat of the plane, bringing her upper body closer to me. Her head lowered until our foreheads touched.
“Talk to me,” I encouraged.
“I haven’t seen him in months … years before that,” she began.
My jaw tightened ever so slightly, knowing she was talking about her ex-husband. A man I hated for the simple fact that at one point in time in her life, he’d had her heart.
“We met my freshman year at UCLA. He was a sophomore. It was … typical. I was a cheerleader, he was the star of the basketball team. We didn’t have practices together or anything, so the first time we actually met was at a home game. He crashed into me, literally. We were sitting on the sidelines, waiting for our turn to perform at halftime, and he got fouled really hard. He tripped and came barreling down on top of me …” She paused, shaking her head. “After that, he pursued me, relentlessly. But I tried to keep my distance. I just knew he’d break my heart.”
She sighed before continuing.
“Eventually, he wore me down and before spring of my freshman year we were known around campus as the ‘it’ couple. At the end of my junior year, he made the decision to sign up for the draft. And the night before, he proposed. I said yes. And by the time he played his first NBA game, we were married.
