“Ohmigod.”
“Keep your eyes on the horizon. And here.” He tapped the altimeter. “Keep that steady. Call me if anything moves.”
She had a death grip on the yoke and didn’t take her eyes off the horizon. “Hurry,” she whispered.
Yeah. Excellent idea. He rushed to the back of the plane, pushing aside the blanket, the duffle bags. He opened the hatch, lowered himself to his belly, and stretched for the hand crank.
The plane jerked, flinging him hard against the hatch door.
“Noah!” she yelled from the pilot’s seat.
“Just an air pocket.” He hoped. “Hold her as steady as you can!” He swiped the lip he’d just bitten. His fingers came away bloody.
Not as bloody as you’ll be if you don’t get the landing gear down, came his macabre thought.
It took everything he had to reach the crank with the plane being tossed around, but he did reach it and, with sheer force of will, managed to manually lower the landing gear. Brand, spanking new, and it had stuck, which he’d raise holy hell about later, when his toes were on the ground. “You okay?” he yelled, pushing to his feet, rushing back to the front.
“Peachy,” she snapped.
A reluctant smile crossed his face. She had guts, he’d give her that.
The plane dipped violently, and she let out a squeak. “Noah!”
“Right here.” At her side now, he nudged her stiff form. “Lean forward.”
When she did, he slid in behind her. His legs stretched along the outside of hers, and so did his arms.
Turning her head, she met his gaze, and looking into her baby blues felt like a one-two punch. It literally took his breath. For a moment he couldn’t even think.
“Did you get it?” she whispered.
A boner? Yeah.
“The landing gear. Did you get it?”
Right. The landing gear. “Yes,” he said, his voice a little thick and unintentionally husky. “Got it. We don’t have to land on our belly. You’re off pilot duty now.”
But she was looking at him with those dreamy eyes, and with a soft sound of sympathy, she touched his lip.
He’d nearly forgotten. “It’s nothing.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered in a voice that for some reason nearly undid him. Then she shifted, meaning she once again pressed that honey of an ass into his crotch, and then she finally, finally, went still. Stared up at him.
Yeah, babe, that’s exactly what you think it is.
“I, um-” She scrambled to get off his lap. “You-”
Uh huh. He was.
While she turned away, he busied himself with the controls, a little unsettled that he could possibly be turned on by her, here, now.
Another air pocket pitched them a few hundred feet, and with a gasp, she fell back into the copilot’s seat.
He wanted not to care. Instead, that caring barreled through him with shocking strength. “Stay down,” he said. “Buckle in.”
“You aren’t going to turn me in when we get down, right?”
“Let’s just land.”
“Noah. Please.” Her voice was low, sweet. Desperate. “I don’t have anyone else.”
Under entirely different circumstances, he’d have enjoyed her begging him in exactly that voice, the circumstances being her naked beneath him, but then she covered her face with her hands and sagged back in utter destitution.
And he felt like a jerk. He, the hijacked one. “Prepare for landing.”
She lifted her face. “And then what?”
“I’ll let you know.”
Chapter 5
Ignoring Bailey and her palatable desperation, Noah went into landing mode, maneuvering the plane in the fading daylight, talking to ground control as they came into view of the small, private Mammoth airstrip where he always landed.
As the sun sank below the mountain line, he touched down and taxied them in, while Bailey sat still, white- knuckled, white-faced.
Finally he shut down the engine.
She didn’t move.
He stood, then crouched at her side. “We’ve landed.”
She nodded, but didn’t look at him until he slid his hand along her jaw and tilted her head down toward him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her hair falling over his hand, her skin creamy soft beneath his fingers.
Sorry for coming along, he wondered, or for running out on him, which she’d most likely do while he arranged for the plane’s tie-down and complete recheck of the landing gear.
“I didn’t mean to ruin your night,” she said. “I didn’t know it was your plane I was getting on.”
“Whose plane did you mean to get on?”
“It was going to Mammoth. That’s all that mattered.”
Their faces were level. He was close enough to see that her baby blues were outlined in a ring of midnight blue, and that she had a light smattering of freckles high across her perfect nose. Close enough to see the pulse beating faster than a hummingbird’s at her throat. Without conscious thought, he stroked a thumb over that beat.
Her gaze caught his, and held.
Their mouths were nothing but a whisper apart. He knew it was crazy, but he wanted to close the gap, wanted to put his mouth on hers as he’d so pathetically fantasized about on more than one dark, sweaty, sleepless night. The only thing that stopped him now was the knowledge that she didn’t want anything but her freedom.
But her gaze lowered to his mouth, too, and her tongue darted out to moisten her lower lip.
He nearly moaned. Instead, his hand slid from her jaw to the back of her neck, his fingers slipping into her silky hair, which was now teasing his forearm.
She said his name again, just a whisper of a sound this time, and her eyes fluttered closed, which sent a ridiculous surge of lust coursing through him.
She wanted him, too.
This was crazy, crazy, and yet he leaned in.
So did she.
He’d never be sure which of them closed that last inch between them, but it didn’t matter because suddenly her mouth was soft and warm on his. He had one last blinding thought before he went under-one kiss would never be enough, not with her, his walking/talking/breathing wet dream.
Then she let out this breathless little sound, and her tongue was so hot and sweet he could have sustained himself on that alone. She slid her fingers up over the back of his head to keep him where he was.
As if he’d move.
Fat chance. He was kissing Bailey Sinclair; he wasn’t going anywhere. He glided his hand up her side, over the curve of her waist, just barely skimming the bottom curve of one soft breast.
She seemed to hold her breath for more. Instead, he slid his hand over her shoulder, closing his fingers in her soft, wildly tousled hair at the back of her neck, gently drawing her head farther back, which rocked her body into his.
In sweet, undeniable, erotic response, she arched into him, pressing her breasts into his chest, then tilted her head in a way that more fully sealed their mouths together and caused him to pretty much lose all ability to think
