She grinned and shook her head. “You stop traffic in that uniform,Captain.” She looked at Beni. “How do you say Captain in Italian?Capitano?”
“Sì.” Beni gave me a cheeky fucking grin though he had answered her.
“Let me rephrase then,” she said. “You stop traffic in that uniform,Capitano.”
Her voice was breathy when she called meCapitano, and she had a mischievous glint in her shimmering blues. She was being flirty, but all it did was poke at my self-restraint. My body was drawn to hers, like blood is drawn to a heart, and if I lost the battle to stay away from her, I was going to ruin her for anyone else.
I was going to steal her heart and charm it into beating for only me.
There was a desire inside of me burning like a flame to extinguish any other man’s touch on her skin. I would fucking run them out of her memory, and the only name she would ever remember was mine.
“You like to be calledCaptain, don’t you?” Her body was in the airport, but her voice was in the bedroom—with me.
I nodded ahead and put my hand on her lower back. “Keep walking.”
She saluted me. “Sì,Capitano!”
Beni snorted and I narrowed my eyes at him.
He saluted me and said,“Sì, Capitano!”
I would need the strength of an army to get through this.
A stewardess waited on the steps of the plane as we boarded. She was in the traditional uniform of my company, sky-blue blazer with the profile of gold lions on the shoulders, white silk dress shirt underneath, tucked into a blue pencil skirt. She wore heels and a matching cap. The jewelry on her wrists, gold and diamond bracelets with lion pendants, matched the ones in her ears, except those incorporated the colors of the Italian flag.
The idea was to take flying back to what it used to be.
An event.
She welcomed us in Italian, and her eyes lingered on me in a soft way. A way I knew meant she wanted me to take her to the bedroom of the plane and add mile-high points to her club membership.
I did not touch crew members. Everyone knew this, but it never stopped the looks from female workers.
Ava looked between us and ticked her mouth. “Don’t you know you should never give a woman jewelry unless you’re claiming her? Molly told me that. I think her generation had a better grasp on that than we do, but…it sends the wrong message if you’re not fully in it.”
“It is not for them to keep,” I said. “The jewelry is part of the uniform.”
“Did you tell her that? She must have been sick the day the company memo went out. Because she has ‘he’s mine’written all over her face.”
Before we came to the crux of the attraction between us, we had both been quiet. If she was the same as me, we were both trying to understand it, figure out a way to get closer to it, but we both seemed to decide on that boat. It would go no further than the attraction we could not control. It was going to turn us into ashes before this was over. And it seemed like her filter was the first to be consumed.
She had none.
I led Ava to her seat, and she made an exaggerated noise when she took it. But I could tell she was impressed by the plane.
“My clothes?” she asked. “Are they coming soon? I feel so underdressed for this fancy ride.”
“They have been delivered already and loaded onto the plane. You are welcome to the bedroom and bathroom after we are in the air.” I leaned down and set my hands on either side of her, on the seat rests. “Are you afraid to fly, SignorinaGirardi?”
“Not at all. I am, however, afraid to crash.”
“Welcome aboard then,Signorina.”My grin came slow.“You are in capable hands.”
“We’ll seehowcapable.”
If I was going to spend time with her, I had to feed the attraction between us some, or I would break completely. My eyes lowered to her lips. My tongue darted out, just the tip, then my eyes moved slowly back up to hers. They had softened, but she crossed her arms, almost fidgeting in her seat.
“Be sure to include the details of my plane in your article.” I winked at her as I stood, about to leave her to her own devices as I claimed the captain’s seat in the cockpit.
