And just like that, a metric ton of avocados hit Colton in the head.
“I can’t believe you get to spend your days like this,” she said, her gaze glued to the window again.
The strip of St. Pete’s Beach stretched out beneath them in a long, lean finger of white sand dotted with tiny people.
“Welcome to my happy place,” he said.
McKinley turned to study him. “Just so you know, no date will ever top this moment right here.”
“That’s what I was going for,” Colton said with a quick grin. “I’m glad you like it.”
“Like it?” she said. “I feel like I’m having a religious experience.”
“Just wait,” he promised.
“I don’t see how you can make this any better.”
“Have a little faith, Kinley.”
He flew them over her neighborhood low enough that she could pick out her apartment building. She waved, though no one could see her. “Do you think Dunes is okay?” she asked.
Colton thought about the dog who in one night had gone from homeless and hungry to sleeping in McKinley’s bed. A place he wouldn’t mind visiting if given the chance. “Yeah, I think he’s just fine.”
“I wonder if he’d like this?” she said half to herself.
“I take Walt up all the time.”
“Your dog? You fly with Walter?” she asked.
“He mostly sleeps through the flight and grumbles through the landing,” Colton told her.
“I liked the takeoff,” she said shyly.
Colton reached over and squeezed her hand where it rested on her leg. “That’s my favorite part,” he told her. “All that energy and anticipation?” That second the wheels decided to leave the ground was a holy moment, a moment that man broke his connection with the earth to visit the gods.
“It’s like you’re leaving your mortality behind and becoming a part of it all.” McKinley’s voice sounded crystal clear in his ears. Shit. This was more than a crush. More than lust. She was his takeoff.
Colton felt… free.
“Are you ready to touch some clouds?” he asked.
McKinley dragged her gaze away from the beach and line of hotels beneath them. “Are you serious?” she demanded.
“Deadly. Open your window,” he said, nodding at the glass.
She wrestled the latch up and pushed the glass out. The hot, humid air filled the cockpit instantaneously. But being closer to the sun than the ground wasn’t stifling. It was stirring. He lined up over the ocean for a grouping of stratus clouds just off the coast. “Stick your hand out the window.”
McKinley did as she was told, though not without a skeptical glance at him. He accelerated into the fluffy, white abyss and waited with bated breath.
“Oh!” The shock and wonder in her tone carried through loud and clear in his ears making his blood sing.
She leaned further out the window, her arm stretched out and fingers extended as the white vapor slipped over her skin. “I can feel them,” she said, astounded. “I’m touching freaking clouds right now!”
Colton laughed and circled around just so she could do it again.
“This is the best thing ever!” McKinley crowed.
He’d never seen her so free, so happy. Colton vowed on the spot to make McKinley smile like this for the rest of his life.
“You want to fly?” he asked, jutting his chin toward the yoke in front of her.
“Are you kidding me?” she demanded.
“Totally serious. I’ll show you how.”
Seven
McKinley
The McKinley on the ground would have politely declined. But this airborne McKinley? The one who was soaring over the beach city she loved? She was a badass thrill-seeker ready for her next adrenaline rush.
“Tell me what to do,” she said, wrapping her eager fingers around the yoke.
Colton gave her gentle instructions that she followed to a T and was delighted when she felt the plane react to her movements.
“Perfect,” Colton’s voice purred in her ear. “Now why don’t you bank to the right. Keep your eyes on the altimeter. Beautiful.”
She glanced in his direction as she executed the turn and found him recording her with his phone.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her attention returning to the horizon.
“Recording our first official date so I can play this at our wedding.”
She laughed with pure, unadulterated joy. “You’re insane.”
“And you’re flying a plane,” he pointed out.
“Thanks, Colt,” she said, softening.
He put his phone away. “I like seeing you smile like this.”
His confession, low and raspy, had her skin and blood and muscle firing up. She was flying a plane with a sexy, smart, sweet man who had respectfully pursued her for the better part of a year. Just what was she so damn afraid of?
Of failing again? Or of flying?
* * *
--
* * *
When the wheels touched the earth, smooth as butter—under Colton’s control—McKinley felt the twin pangs of disappointment and elation. She was also suddenly ravenous. And not for the tacos Colton had promised her.
“What did you think?” Colton asked after they’d both exited the plane. The sun was shining down on them. A strong breeze lifted her hair, welcoming her back to the earth. And those clouds, the ones she’d touched, billowed above them. Colton was grinning at her behind his aviators like he already knew what she thought.
She closed the distance between them and didn’t stop until she was pressed against him. His lean, hard body to her soft curves. He lost his easy grin when she planted her lips against his. McKinley was tired of careful and safe. She wanted to hang on to this feeling. Alive, electric, enamored.
She felt him tense against her, felt his muscles coil and knew he was fighting nature. Fighting to stay gentle, to not overwhelm her. Kissing her the way the sun kissed the ocean every night. Their mouths melded, and the breath she sucked in when she parted her lips was a shaky one. But there was no time for breath, not with Colton’s tongue sweeping past her lips to claim.
He pulled her in until she couldn’t tell where he ended and she began. McKinley pushed her busy fingers into his hair shoving his hat off his head. It fell to the tarmac along with the beating heart she’d wrenched from her own chest.
“McKinley,” he gasped.
But she wasn’t interested in talking. She dove back into the kiss with ferocity.
Colton’s hands skimmed her body, exploring. She loved the feel of his work-roughened palms cruising her curves, dragging through her hair. He wrapped her heavy curls around his fist and held her there.
“We need to slow down, Kinley,” he warned with a soft laugh of wonder. But neither of their bodies were interested in listening.
“No, thanks,” she said politely as she dug her fingers into the cotton of his polo, dragging him back to her.
He swore under his breath. And then they were moving. He hustled her backward. She was too busy kissing him to wonder where they were going until the hot Florida sun disappeared from her skin. She must not have moved fast enough for his liking, because Colton picked her up, wrapping her legs around his slim hips and carrying her further into the open hangar.
They made it as far as the box of an office that jutted out into the space. He pressed her back against the wall. “I’ve thought about doing this for a very long time,” he breathed, nipping at the stubborn line of her jaw.
She tilted, offering him better access.
“I want to touch you,” he murmured, brushing his lips over her hair, her face.
“Yes,” she breathed.
Colton let out the breath that sounded like a groan and dropped his forehead to hers. But still, he hesitated. McKinley grabbed the wrist of his right hand and watched his face as she slowly slipped it under the hem of her tank.
Her stomach pulled a double back flip at his tou
ch. She wanted him. Ached for him. Eight months of flirting, of playing it safe, and this had been simmering under the surface. Life. Lust. They made her heart beat faster.
“Is this okay?” he asked softly, his palm brushing over her belly button and higher over her ribs.
She grinned up at him. “It’s better than okay, Colt.”
“You’re beautiful, Kinley. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“You can say that after being up there?” she pointed toward the sky that they’d just explored together.
“Oh, yeah.” His hot fingers trailed paths over her skin, skirting the edge of her bra. “No contest.”
“Can I touch you?” McKinley asked him breathlessly.
Colton’s knees buckled momentarily and she laughed softly.
“God, yes,” he whispered.
She knew he wanted to go slow. To sample and savor. But she wanted something different, a fiery feast. A fast fall into the fire that had been burning low for so long. She slipped her hand beneath the waistband of his shorts and reveled in the way the muscles of his stomach tensed to solid rock.
She waited for the little voice to scream at her for being irresponsible. To remind her of what happened last time she’d allowed herself to get swept up. But there was nothing but her own blood pumping hotly through her system. Her fingers met his battle-ready shaft through the thin material of his underwear. And she found herself shoved hard against the wall, her leg looping over his hip while his erection grinded into her stomach.
Need pulsed, and throbbed, and shredded its way through her. If Colton were to move his hand up an inch, that rough palm grazing her nipple, she’d go off like the finale of fireworks on the 4th of July. And, right now, there wasn’t anything else she wanted more than that.
“Sorry. Sorry,” he panted. “Lost control for a second.”
Wide-eyed, she glanced down at where he pressed so intimately to her. “I liked it,” she confessed.
“God, McKinley. You are killing me. I’m trying to be a good guy here.”
He was. Colton Hayes was a good guy and he was proving it again, when it mattered most, first by not killing her in a plane crash and now by not fucking her against the wall. And nothing else could have convinced her more quickly that the man she’d spent the last months getting to know was indeed good.
She took a deep breath and gathered her last scrap of sanity. “Okay. I know. I got… carried away.”
He didn’t move back from her and she didn’t push him. They stood like that, rooted together, bodies begging for more.
“I’m gonna need more than a first date, Kinley,” Colton said finally.
“Okay.” She nodded, her head loose on a neck that seemed like it had lost its muscle. “What are you doing tomorrow?”
He kissed her again. This time softly, sweetly. Like a promise of what was to come.
“Oh, hey, Colt! Didn’t know you were work— Oh, shit. Sorry.”
Colton whirled, stepping in front of McKinley, leaving her shaking and disheveled.
Sonny was looking everywhere but at them, the tips of his ears a shade of scarlet Colton had never seen on him before. “I’m just going to…” Sonny pointed over his shoulder and walked out, tripping over a toolbox on his way. “Nice to see you, McKinley!” he called.
“You too, Sonny.”
Colton turned back to McKinley.
“Listen,” McKinley began.
“If you start saying anything that sounds like ‘that was a mistake’ you’re going to break my heart.”
Her swollen lips curved. “I’m saying this has been one hell of a first date. But maybe we should get something to eat and talk… fully clothed. Maybe with a table between us.”
“How do you feel about tacos?”
She grinned, blinding him again. “As long as you don’t complain about me eating five of them in one sitting, I feel really good about them.”
“You are the sexiest woman I’ve ever met. How do you feel about avocados?”
About the Author
Lucy Score is the author of the Wall Street Journal and #1 Amazon bestseller Pretend You’re Mine. She grew up in a literary family who insisted that the dinner table was for reading and earned a degree in journalism. She writes full-time from the Pennsylvania home she and Mr. Lucy share with their obnoxious cat, Cleo. When not spending hours crafting heartbreaker heroes and kick-ass heroines, Lucy can be found on the couch, in the kitchen, or at the gym. She hopes to someday write from a sailboat, or oceanfront condo, or tropical island with reliable Wi-Fi.
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Losing Stars
J. Sterling
Other Romance Titles by J. Sterling
In Dreams - a New Adult College Romance
Chance Encounters – a New Adult Romance
10 Years Later – a Second Chance Romance
Daniel Alexander – an Alpha Male Billionaire Romance
Dear Heart, I Hate You – a Contemporary Romance
* * *
The Game Series
Baseball Romance
The Perfect Game – Book One
The Game Changer – Book Two
The Sweetest Game – Book Three
The Other Game (Dean Carter) – Book Four
* * *
The Celebrity Series
Seeing Stars – Madison & Walker- a Rockstar Romance
Breaking Stars – Paige & Tatum- a Hollywood Celebrity Romance
* * *
The Fisher Brothers Series
No Bad Days – Nick Fisher – a New Adult College Romance
Guy Hater – Frank Fisher – a Contemporary Romance
Adios Pantalones – Ryan Fisher – a Single Mom Romance
One
Quinn
To say I was worried about my latest movie role would be the understatement of the year. For once, I was playing someone my own age—a sixteen-year-old high-school junior—and although it was the typical boy-meets-nerdy-girl romance, I loved the script and couldn’t wait to bring my character to life on the big screen. Just like any other girl, I’d always been drawn to Cinderella-type stories, no matter how many had been made before.
My lead costar, however, was Ryson Miller. We hadn’t met yet, and I found myself a little nervous about it.
While he was nice to look at, Ryson’s off-screen antics of late were another thing altogether. Rumor had it that he had a recently acquired drug problem, which wasn’t unheard of in this industry, but I’d always done my best to keep that kind of lifestyle far away from me.
Drugs had never appealed to me. Maybe it was because my parents were both schoolteachers, or maybe I simply didn’t have the “let’s get high and get fucked up” gene in my body. More than likely it was because of an upsetting experience that happened when I’d first started acting.
When I was ten years old, my director had tried to get me to do cocaine with him in his trailer. I’d stared at the powdery white substance, a jagged line of it spread across a small mirror, and was absolutely terrified. I had to glance down at myself to be sure I hadn’t peed my pants because I was convinced at the time that I had.
The director told me confidently that “everyone did it” and it would help me “stay up late” at night and get through my scenes with “lots of extra energy.” At his words, my eyes had instantly filled with tears. I might only be ten, I remembered thinking, but I’m not stupid.
Thank God an inner strength came bubbling up from somewhere, giving me the courage to tell him to go to hell as I walked out of his trailer. A ten-year-old telling a grown-up to go to hell was something
I never thought I’d have the balls to do; but by the grace of God, I grew a well-needed pair that day.
I never told my parents what happened, although I should have. I was terrified that they would make me stop acting, or that they would tell me it was somehow my fault. Thankfully, the director cut off all nonessential communication with me, and never offered me drugs again. Looking back now, I realized he was probably afraid that I would rat him out at any moment, so he wisely kept his distance from me.
After that happened, I made sure I was never alone for the remainder of the shoot, always asking a costar or the on-set teacher to accompany me anywhere I had to be. Sometimes I wondered where that conviction came from, that lion-like inner power, and I prayed I’d always have the strength to walk away when I needed to.
Sitting in my designated chair on the set, watching all the activity going on around me, I cleared my mind of old memories so I could focus on Ryson and his problem. Part of me wished that the studios would require all talent to stay clean during the duration of the shoot, but the thought of Hollywood trying to enforce that made me almost laugh out loud. If they insisted the talent remain drug-free, there’d be no one to star in any movies or TV shows. As sad as that was, it was the truth.
I dreaded being alone with Ryson, and definitely didn’t want to feel uncomfortable around him after I inevitably turned down whatever he might offer. Drugs made actors moody. Well, moodier than usual. And they messed with a person’s creative ability, although some would argue that it made them even more creative, but that was a line of bullshit. I’d seen first-hand how destructive drugs could be.
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