He comes to a stop beside my seat and braces one hand on the armrest, leaning just enough to tilt the world in his direction. “You’re tense.”
“That tends to happen when I get dragged onto a jet with no notice.”
He studies my face, then lowers his voice. “And when you’re pretending not to think about me.”
I open my mouth.
He leans closer. “I can see it,” he says quietly. “You don’t have to keep fighting me every second.”
My stomach flips. “You are so arrogant.”
“And you’re blushing.”
That does not help.
He glances toward the front of the cabin, where the attendant has disappeared behind the partition, then back at me. “It’s private.”
The words settle over me like heat.
I glance around anyway, because apparently, I’m determined to preserve some illusion of caution. The cabin is sealed in soft light and engine noise, the windows turned into black mirrors now that we’re high enough to leave the city behind.
Private.The way he says it makes the air feel different.
He crouches slightly so we’re eye level, one hand resting on my knee. Not moving. Just there, warm and heavy.
“You don’t have to be apprehensive with me,” he says.
I laugh once, low and shaky. “That is a wild thing to say after everything.”
His thumb strokes once over my knee. “Fair.” The honesty of that nearly undoes me more than the touch.
I look at him. He’s calmer up here. Or maybe just more certain. The hard edges are still there, but something about the cabin, the isolation, the fact that there’s nowhere to go, seems to suit him.
Or maybe it just suits us.
He brushes my hair back from my face, fingertips grazing my cheek. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”
The same line again. The same impossible choice.
I should say yes. I should ask for space, for sleep, for a normal conversation where no one is half-undressed or looming or giving me that look. Instead, I shake my head once.
His eyes darken immediately. Then he kisses me. Slowly this time.
No rush. No frenzy. Just his mouth moving over mine with a patience that somehow feels more dangerous than hunger. I melt into it despite myself, my hand fisting in the front of his shirt as he deepens the kiss a fraction at a time until I’m breathing him in, kissing him back, forgetting the arguments I had prepared.
He shifts, guiding my legs apart just enough to step between them. The cabin seat suddenly feels much too small and muchtoo intimate. His hand slides from my knee higher, over my thigh, not teasing now, not pretending.
I make a small sound into his mouth.
He swallows it with a quiet groan. “Still tense?” he murmurs against my lips.
“Yes.”
“Liar.” His hand slips under my skirt.
I gasp.
He keeps kissing me while his fingers move over the inside of my thigh, higher, higher, until he finds the edge of my panties. I grip his shoulders, pulse skidding, one part of me still stunned that this is happening on a private jet and the rest too turned on to care.
