Unexpected.
Deadly.
Then he lowers my hand to his chest and keeps it there.
The beat of his heart is hard and fast beneath my palm.
There.
Proof.
Not that I needed it.
But there it is anyway.
He wants this just as badly.
He is just better at surviving it.
For now.
“Sit back down,” he murmurs.
“Make me.”
That earns me a look.
One that starts at my face and ends somewhere lower and returns slow enough that my breath catches.
“Don’t tempt me with promises I’m trying to keep.”
My whole body softens at that in a way I deeply resent.
Because beneath all the heat, all the friction, all the dangerous almosts, there it is again—care.
He is restraining himself because he wants the surprise. Because he wants this memory to hold. Because he is not taking the easy version of us anymore.
That should make me calmer.
It doesn’t.
However, it does make me slide reluctantly off his lap and back into my own seat before I do something unwise in front of a woman who definitely deserves hazard pay.
Tristan reaches over, fastens my seatbelt for me, and kisses me once more—quick this time, just enough to leave me dazed and annoyed and wanting.
“Good girl,” he says quietly.
I turn my face toward the window so he can’t see how hard that lands.
He definitely sees anyway.
The sky outside is impossibly blue, the clouds bright enough to hurt.
d I’m on a private plane with Tristan Vale, lips swollen from kissing him, body still humming from the pressure of his hands, and no idea where he’s taking me.
I glance sideways at him.
He’s watching me closely.
