This wasn’t a big deal. Victoria was in the attendant station behind the partition. Plus, my hand was beneath the blanket and the fold-out tray table. Even I couldn’t see what I was doing to her.
“Showing you,” I said simply.
This action was intended to be a bluff, but it became real when Kara shuddered. Not in fear, but withpleasure.
My heart beat faster, excited. I pressed the pads of my fingers to the center seam of her jeans, rubbing back and forth.
Her eyes warmed with unexpected desire, and she barely breathed the word. “Shawn.”
I fucking loved it when she said my name. She made no effort to stop me. In fact, my name on her lips rang out as a plea for more. The rise and fall of her chest was almost as rapid as hergaze that darted around, checking to make sure Victoria wasn’t watching.
But we were alone.
“Don’t,” she whispered, but in direct conflict, she shifted beneath the blanket, parting her knees and making it easier for me to continue. “Stop.”
“Don’t . . . stop?” I repeated, confused.
Her only answer was to sink her teeth into her bottom lip and whimper with pleasure.
“You and your mixed signals,”I groaned in German, knowing she didn’t understand. “Tell me,” I said in English, “that I can come home with you.”
“I don’t,” she struggled to catch her breath, “want that.”
Oh, she didn’t? I ground my fingers faster between her legs and grinned as her eyes hazed. “Liar.”
She sat back in her seat, one hand on my wrist and the other gripping the edge of the tray table, as if she needed to hold on while enduring the pleasurable sensations I created. Her lips were parted so she could gulp down air as I continued to touch her, and she stared at me with an expression that was a perfect mix of shock and lust.
“You’re so fucking sexy,”I told her in German.
I kissed her roughly then, silencing her impending demand that I repeat whatever I’d said in a language she could understand. Wasn’t that unnecessary? My dominating kiss should make my meaning crystal clear. Through the blanket, her fingernails dug painlessly into my wrist, but not to stop me. Only to strengthen her hold as I touched and stroked and caressed.
Her mouth was resistant to my kiss for a moment. Perhaps she worried she was surrendering too easily, but then her lips softened beneath mine. The tiniest sliver of a moan came from her, but it rumbled as loud as thunder in my ears and struck me much harder than it should have. I had to break the kiss, toget hold of myself and push my raging desire to the back of my mind.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she whispered. Her eyes pleaded with me to stop yet begged for me to keep going.
“Tell me I can come home with you,” I said it before I could consider if it were wise, “and I’ll stop.”
A war waged inside her. Kara wanted to stand her ground and not give up any control. But if she let me continue, it would give me a different kind of power.
Her expression hardened, and it looked like the modest side of her won the battle. Her tone was begrudging. “Fine.”
Guilt flickered through me, and I stopped moving but left my hand where it was, nestled between her thighs. For insurance, I told myself. Not because I couldn’t pull it away.
“Only to see that I get in safe,” she added, her hurried breathing slowing. “And nothing else.”
“All right.” I was fine with letting her believe that for now.
But this thing between us was going to come to a boiling point. Of that, I was damn sure.
8
KARA
Twenty minutesafter Shawn put his hands on me and coerced my agreement, he tilted his seat back and fell asleep facing me with his hand still on my leg. Possessive. I was tempted to slip away when his guard was down and move to another seat but didn’t.
We looked like lovers. How soon would it be before that was true? There was no escaping him.You might as well enjoy the ride down to hell. But don't make it too easy on him.
It was mid-afternoon outside, but Victoria had pulled the shades, and the interior of the plane was dark. In the dim light, I studied his face. He looked younger asleep and less dangerous, and I found this version of him interesting. The hunter not on the prowl.
