Then he says, “Probably.”
But he doesn’t move, and neither do I.
He glances once more at the boarding pass, then reaches into the inside pocket of his coat for his phone. “Excuse me,” he says. His voice is low enough that I feel it more than hear it.
He dials without looking away from me. When the call connects, he says, “Where are you?”
A pause.
Then, with the faintest change in his expression, “Turn around.”
My stomach flips.
He listens for a second, then his mouth curves. “No. The woman whose boarding pass you stole is with me.”
I blink.
Stole?
The man on the other end must say something indignant, because the stranger’s smile deepens just a little. “Accidentally,” he says, in the tone of a man who doesn’t believe in accidents at all. “Yes, Yuri. I’m sure.”
The stranger glances down the aisle behind him, then back at me. “Stay where you are for now.”
Another pause.
“No, you’re not coming back up here. Sit down and be useful for once.”
I have to bite the inside of my cheek not to smile.
He ends the call and slides the phone away, all smooth efficiency, as if he’s used to giving orders and being obeyed immediately.
Of course he is.
“He has your boarding pass,” he says. “And now, unfortunately for him, your seat.”
I chew the inside of my cheek. What am I even doing here? Why don’t I want to leave? I never thought I was someone who would be attracted to someone so much older than me. I don’t have daddy issues.
He studies the layout beside me for a moment, then nods toward the seat by the window. “Shift over.”
The words should sound rude. They don’t. Not from him. From him they sound inevitable, like there was never any real possibility I would do anything else.
I move across, my body brushing the leather, suddenly too aware of the small private shell of the seat and the fact that he’s about to occupy the space beside me.
“I can go back to economy,” I say. “Really.”
He takes the aisle seat, settling into it with a lazy kind of grace that makes the whole cabin seem smaller. “You can.”
I wait.
He unbuttons his coat and folds it aside with careful hands. “But you’re not going to.”
My breath catches.
He says it calmly, without arrogance, without pushing, and somehow that makes it worse. Better. More dangerous.
He turns his head and looks at me fully.
This close, he is devastating. The broad line of his shoulders under expensive fabric. He smells clean and masculine and expensive, something dark underneath the cologne, warm skin and restraint. He should make me nervous enough to want distance. Instead I feel heat unfurl low in my belly.
