“Tell me what is happening right now.”
“I am on a plane. I am breathing. I hate that I’m breathing without my boys. I hate that your men are dead. I hate that my mother’s kettle is the thing my brain keeps circling like it’s a lighthouse.”
He nods. “All true.”
“And I hate that I’m falling in love with you, because I’m scared I’m going to lose you,” I say, because panic makes me honest.
His mouth moves. Not a smile. Notnota smile. “I know how you feel. I feel it too.”
He said he would never lie to me, so I should take that at face value. But maybe when he said he’d never lie to me, he was lying. It’s easier to believe that than to believe he’s falling in love with me. No one falls in love with me. Not ever. Love like that has never been in the cards for me.
And yet…
We sit in silence for a breath. The engine hum shifts. The seat belt digs into my hip. The number sits between us like a guest who refuses to leave. Fourteen. I hear it in the cough of the air system when it changes speed. I hear it in the thin voices that float through the closed door from the cockpit.
“I can’t do this,” I say. I hate the way the words sound. “I cannot be bait. I cannot be brave. I cannot pretend this is somebody else’s life. I cannot.”
“You can.” He does not make it a speech. “But you do not have to like it.”
“I will claw my own skin off if I sit here,” I whisper. I close my eyes and see plaster dust in his hair, the hole in the wall, the sheet I smoothed over pillows, the way the air went still after the shots. “Make it stop.”
He studies my face. Then he unbuckles with a clean click and stands. He does not walk away. He closes the cabin door. The latch falls soft. He drops the second shade with a small pull. The cabin lowers into private quiet. He looks at the phone on the floor.
“I’ll make it stop.” He presses the button until the screen goes black. He sets it with his own on the credenza. He waits by my knees. His jaw flexes, a tight line. He kneels in front of me and sets his palms on the armrests. He looks up like a man asking permission to step through a door. “I am going to touch you. Tell me if you want me to stop.”
“I will.”
He frees my seat belt and slides his hands over my thighs. His palms are warm through the fabric. He waits. I nod and the nod breaks into a shiver. He kisses my knee. Then higher. Slow. Careful. Patient. I pull him up by the back of his neck and meet his mouth. Heat rolls through my chest like a switch flipped the right way.
“Here,” he murmurs, voice low and sure, and shifts us to the small couch by the window. I climb into his lap and anchormyself with my knees at his hips. The plane hums under us. He is strong under my hands and steady in every way that matters. “Take what you need.”
I hike up my dress as he lowers his trousers for me. This is what I need. No thinking. Just doing. We move together until my head empties of everything but breath and his name.
I ride him hard, mindlessly, carelessly. My first orgasm shatters me, but it’s not enough. I need obliteration, so I keep going. The next tightens every muscle in my back, and he catches me before I fall off of him. His arms lock tight around me, keeping me close. He gives me nowhere to fall but into him. When I crest and break, I breathe like a person again.
I taste the sweat on his lip, and crave more. He turns us over, laying me on my back on the sofa cushions so he’s on top of me. His strokes turn slow. Almost lazy. He peppers my lips, my jaw, my throat with stubbled kisses. One hand on my low back pulls me to him, getting him deeper and deeper. His stare is intense, and in this moment, I can’t tell where he begins and I end.
I have never felt more loved than I do right now.
When that thought hits, my climax does too, cresting higher and higher until there’s nothing left of me. He buries himself deep and comes, and I wrap myself around him, clinging to him for every pulse.
After, the cabin smells like lemon and sweat and altitude. I press my forehead to his shoulder. His hand finds the back of my neck and holds. It is the pressure I need. He never holds too tight. He never lets go too soon.
“Better?” he asks against my hair.
“Yes.” The word is breath and gratitude and something like grief.
We clean up and dress, and settle into our seats again. I drink water, not because I want to, but because I need to. He’s right—the only way we get through this is by taking care of our bodies.
“I hate that I feel better,” I admit. “It feels like I cheated. Like I should sit here and punish myself until breathing is something I earn.”
“Enjoying what you can is not cheating. It is how you honor the fallen.”
“Tell me something about the retreat. I need to think about anything else right now.”
“They planted tomatoes,” he says. “The soil is bad and they are trying anyway. There are security cameras in all directions. The people on the ground are well trained and smart. My team takes care of the people I send there. Our boys and your mother are safe.”
I breathe that in without choking on it. The captain says something about time and weather. I tuck my feet up and breathe the way Roman taught me. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four.
