Like having Chloe naked at thirty thousand feet.
CHAPTER 15
Lolling on the glove-soft leather of the Rolls’s backseat, Chloe was caught up in daydreams of Nathan stripping off first her cream V-neck sweater, then her pleated lavender sateen skirt, and finally the sheer peach lace bra and panties she’d sneaked away from Grandmillie to buy at the mall. When the big car made a sweeping turn and came to a stop, she peered out the window to discover they’d driven directly onto the tarmac of an airport. Ten feet from the car, a sleek black-and-silver jet crouched with its door open and its steps let down.
As she squinted at the writing on the side of the plane, Oskar came around to open her door. “Mr. Trainor is already on the plane,” he said, holding out his hand to help her up from the depths of the car. The deep hum of the jet’s idling engines surrounded her as their draft flattened her clothes against her body. She hugged her gray silk bomber jacket around her.
Now she could make out the logo of Trainor Electronics on the jet’s fuselage. “Why stop at a helicopter?” she muttered.
He was pulling out all the stops, and that should have flattered her. Instead it reminded her of the vast gulf between her and her boss. She grimaced as she realized she’d just thought of him as her employer. For the blissful hours between their phone call and this moment, she’d considered him as just a man—a very sexy, smart, fascinating man—but someone she could face as an equal.
She stopped to take in the massive Rolls-Royce with Oskar standing beside it and the elegant power of the company jet, and felt a clot of tears in her throat.
She’d better make the best of this date, because she wouldn’t be able to hold the interest of a man who commanded these resources for very long.
Nathan watched Chloe come to a halt on the tarmac, her gaze directed toward the jet. He should have told her they were flying to Maine to get the freshest lobster in the world.
He jogged from his seat to the plane’s door, running lightly down the steps to meet her. He did the one thing he knew would overcome whatever barriers she was building in her mind. He kissed her, pulling her body against him and tasting the delicious softness of her lips. The hell with the lobster. This was the feast he was interested in.
For a moment she felt stiff in his arms, and then she melted against him so he had the sense that they fit together perfectly. He wanted to stay like this, not changing a single angle or atom of how their bodies touched.
Until she wound her fingers into his hair and slid her mouth along his jawline, where she blew a warm breath against the side of his neck just under his ear. Heat slammed into him like a missile.
“On the plane,” he said, turning her in his arms and half carrying her up the steps. He needed privacy.
He escorted her to a seat beside a window before he opened the door to the cockpit and gave the pilot the go-ahead. As he turned back around, the sight of Chloe sitting on this plane that he had flown on a hundred times hit him with a shot of pure joy. She had been craning her neck to look out the window, but now she caught his gaze and smiled.
There was no way they’d make it all the way to Maine without making love.
The look in Nathan’s eyes sent a pulse of arousal through Chloe. On top of his welcome kiss, she was pretty well seething with need.
It didn’t help that he was wearing silver-gray trousers that made his legs look long and lean, and a burgundy shirt in a fabric that draped over the muscles of his shoulders and arms in a way that emphasized their power.
Three fluid strides brought him to the leather seat beside hers. He dropped into it, fastened his seat belt, and reached across the six inches between them to lace his fingers with hers. “Once we’re at cruising altitude, you can sit on my lap.” His look was heavy lidded, and she knew exactly what he was thinking about doing to her.
“But the pilots . . .” Chloe cast a look at the young woman locking the jet’s door closed.
“As soon as she goes back in the cockpit, I press a button.” He flipped up the top of his chair’s arm to reveal a control panel. “A privacy light goes on, and no one comes back here unless there’s an emergency.”
“Oh.” It shouldn’t have surprised her that he’d had sex in the airplane before. He was a red-blooded male whom most women would fall over themselves to be seduced by.
“I use it for business negotiations of a confidential nature.”
“Exactly what I was thinking.”
“You’re a terrible liar.” He lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles one by one, sending shivers up her arm. “One of the many things I like about you.”
Chloe wanted to ask him about some of the others, but she refused to fish. Instead she looked around the airplane as the engines revved and it began to taxi forward. The cabin looked like someone’s designer living room, with its cushy tan leather chairs and polished wood-and-aluminum tables and cabinets. You could tell it was a plane only by the seat belts and the fact that the furniture was attached to the floor. “This is a lot nicer than economy class.”
“I should have offered you a drink, but I was in a hurry to get us into the air. My apologies.” His smile spoke of wickedly hot intentions.
The engine sound rose to a roar, and the jet hurtled down the runway before tilting upward in a swift ascent. She found her grip on Nathan’s hand tightening involuntarily as the nimble Learjet turned on a wingtip.
“Do you dislike flying?” Nathan’s frown of concern made her want him more.
“I’m not used to how fast a smaller plane turns.” She eased her hold on him. “By the way, where are we going?”
“Kennebunkport, Maine, to a restaurant where they take the lobsters off the boat and cook them right then and there.”
“I’m pretty sure they have good lobster in New York City.”
“You’re a tough woman to impress.”
Chloe shook her head. “I’m already impressed. All this”—she swept her hand around the luxurious cabin—“just makes me nervous.”
First Nathan scowled. Then he shook his head with a sharp laugh. “That shoots Miller’s theory all to hell.” The “Fasten Seat Belts” light winked out, and he unbuckled his so he could turn to face her. “Why would it make you nervous?”
“Because it proves how different we are.”
“All it proves is that I got lucky with something I designed for my own use.”
“Please.” She tossed him a skeptical look. “Your apartment could hold four of my house. Just one of your terraces is bigger than my backyard. If you want lobster for dinner, you hop on your jet and fly to Maine.”
“Trappings, Chloe, toys. That’s all.”
“This level of trappings changes people.”
Nathan looked away. “Not as much as you would hope.”
That caught her attention. So he had wanted his wealth and success to change something in his life. She wondered if it had to do with his father. She longed to ask but her nerve failed her.
He reached over and flicked open her seat-belt buckle, letting his fingertips drift over her thigh. “Will you sit on my lap?” he asked, his voice pitched low.
Her breath caught in her throat as she met his gray eyes. They burned.
“Y-yes.” Without breaking eye contact, she pushed herself up from her seat and moved to stand in front of him, looking down.
His head was tilted back slightly so she could see the strong line of his neck and the hollow at the base of his throat. She braced her hands on the armrests and bent down to touch it with her tongue.
Then his hands were on her, lifting her so she landed with her knees on either side of his thighs. He pushed his fingers into her hair to hold her for a long kiss that made her forget they were on a plane. All thought and feeling were concentrated on the way he felt under her and against her. She sank down so his erection rubbed directly against the ache between her legs. She pulled away from his mouth to increase the pressure by arching her back.
He found the hem of her
skirt and worked his hands up under it, skimming along her bare thighs. Despite the coolness of the evening, she’d decided to dispense with stockings since she suspected dinner might lead to something more intense. The heat of his palms made her push down harder, and he muttered her name on a groan as his fingers worked under the lace crotch of her panties.
“They untie,” Chloe breathed. “At the sides.”
“Even better than Velcro,” he said with a ghost of a laugh.
She felt a yank at each hip and the falling away of the lace. Nathan bunched her skirt in one fist and shoved it up to her waist. “I want to see my hand on you.”
As he cupped her, she reveled in the way his arousal made the strong angles of his face even sharper. She made him feel like this. A sense of power spiked through her, and she began yanking open the buttons of his shirt. Leaning down, she licked one of his nipples as she rocked her hips hard.
He retaliated by thrusting his finger inside her. She was so wet already that there was no resistance, and she pushed against him again, wanting more. He slid two fingers inside her and flexed them while he worked his thumb on her clitoris, sending waves of pleasure surging through her. She braced her palms on his bare chest, savoring the satin of his skin over the wall of his muscle.
“Are we a mile high yet?”
In answer, he released her skirt to pull a condom out of his trouser pocket. As he ripped the envelope, she jerked his belt open and unzipped his fly. Before she could touch him, he had the condom on and his hands were wrapped around her hips. “Hold your skirt up,” he commanded. “Now let me guide you.”
She gathered her skirt up and held it at her waist. His fingers tightened on her as he shifted her into position over him. She felt the head of his cock brush against her and gasped at the electric zing it sent through her. Then he was slowly lowering her, impaling her on him with exquisite deliberation. The sense of being filled and stretched made her sigh in sheer bliss. He brought her down so she was spread open over his lap, the insides of her thighs brushing against the fine fabric of his trousers. He held her there, neither of them moving as they let the intimacy of being joined sink deep inside them.
She wanted more. She tightened her internal muscles around him, making both of them moan. “Do that again,” he ground out. “Yes.” He hissed out the s as she obeyed. She contracted a third time and his self-control broke. He raised her just enough so he could withdraw and thrust back into her, going faster and deeper with each stroke.
Pinning her skirt against her waist with her elbows, she grabbed his wrists and held on while he drove her to a climax that convulsed muscles she didn’t know she had. When the shocks began to fade, he seated himself hard and fast and used his thumb on her to trigger another searing orgasm as he reached his release inside her.
She let go of his wrists and fell forward in a boneless heap on top of him, her forehead resting against his shoulder while she gulped in chest-heaving breaths. His arms went around her, and he turned his head to kiss her temple. “I’ve been thinking about doing that ever since you called,” he said.
“That’s a good use of your brilliance.”
“I’ve heard the mind is an erogenous zone.”
“Anywhere you touch me is an erogenous zone.” Chloe felt him slip out of her, setting off both a ripple of lingering pleasure and a yearning at the loss. She shifted so he could dispose of the condom and then turned sideways to snuggle down against him. “Lobster is going to be an anticlimax.”
“We’ll have oysters too.”
Chloe chuckled. “Because you need an aphrodisiac? I don’t think so.”
“They were for you. I don’t need any aphrodisiac except this.” He ran his hand along the curve of her hip before he turned her face up and pressed his lips to hers.
She had to remind herself that this wasn’t a fairy tale where the handsome prince was going to marry her and carry her off in his Learjet to his penthouse. She needed to keep a proper perspective on what was merely mind-blowing sex. Burying her face against his chest, she allowed herself a grim smile. Merely mind-blowing sex was an oxymoron.
She felt him settle more comfortably in the seat and let her eyelids drift closed. She focused on the smell of his skin, a slight spice of spent sex underpinning the clean, warm aroma that was Nathan’s. His breath tickled past her ear, and his heartbeat sounded a quiet rhythm against her cheek. She tucked her arm around his rib cage, appreciating the texture of muscle and bone. “How many hours can the plane keep flying before it runs out of fuel?”
“I’ll have Kurt circle the airport until the gauge hits empty.” His voice sounded drowsy too. “There’s always a little in reserve for landing.”
The hum of the jet engines and the hiss of the air circulating in the cabin spun a cocoon of suspended time around them. Chloe had no idea whether it had been minutes or hours when Nathan stirred and murmured by her ear, “The ‘Fasten Seat Belts’ sign just came on.”
“Can’t you just fasten your seat belt over both of us?”
“I could, but Kurt and Sarah would get an eyeful when they came out of the cabin after we landed.”
She moved her hand to his chest to push herself upright. As she shifted her position, her thigh brushed against Nathan’s cock and she realized he was hard again. “Oops, not much we can do about that right now.”
“There’s always the limo ride to the restaurant.”
Chloe choked as she shook her skirt down and smoothed the crumpled sateen while he straightened his own clothing. The plane banked and she practically fell into her seat, hastily buckling the seat belt.
Then they were on the ground and Nathan was escorting her to a black limousine parked on the edge of the tarmac. She caught a brief whiff of the sea as he handed her into the car.
She slid across the seat to let him in beside her, shivering a little when the car’s heater chased away the chill of the northern wind. As he sat and stretched his long legs out, he said, “I was joking about the limo ride.”
Chloe relaxed. She was still dubious about that thin partition between the driver and the backseat providing any privacy. “Maybe on the way back to the airport,” she said.
He put his arm around her shoulders to pull her close as the limousine glided into motion. Dropping a kiss on the top of her head, he said, “After the oysters.”
Chloe let her hand rest on his thigh, feeling the hard muscle under her palm. She let her gaze trace down the length of his leg to the polished black loafers. A shiver of delight shook her as she felt his fingers playing in her hair where it fell over her shoulder. It was almost too much to bear, this sensual onslaught.
She forced her brain to begin to function on a less primitive level. “You said you were working on the Prometheus project. What happened?”
His fingers stilled. “I couldn’t focus on paperwork so I decided to try a change of scene.”
“Why couldn’t you focus? Are you still not feeling up to par?” She kept forgetting he’d been ill only four days before.
A pause as though he was debating what to say. When he spoke, his voice was pitched low. “I kept imagining you. On the desk. On the conference table. On the sofa. Against the wall.”
“Oh.” She felt a warm, melting sensation between her legs as she imagined the same thing, only from her point of view. She cleared her throat. “So you went down to the R and D lab?”
“Since I was already frustrated, I decided I might as well.”
She tilted her head to discover a slight smile curling his lips. That made her brave. “And what did you find out there?”
“The team is dedicated, brilliant, and young. They have some great ideas, but they missed a few key steps.”
“So you fixed Prometheus?”
He laughed. “Your faith in me is touching. I made some suggestions.”
“How did you feel about being there?”
“Feel?” Surprise colored his voice.
“Did you enjoy being back in the lab?”
She thought he wasn’t going to answer her question. Then he shifted slightly on the seat. “Yes and no.”
“That’s definitive.”
“It felt like my brain was firing on all cylinders for the first time in years. But the technology—” She could feel him shake his head. “I might have left it too long.”
“You’re not going to let a few new gizmos chase you away, are you?”
“Virtually every tool in there was four generations newer than anything I’ve used.”
“So you just need a refresher course,” she said lightly. “Geniuses can learn anything.”
She sensed another head shake. “I won’t stop you from calling me that as long as it extends into the bedroom.”
“And your office,” she said.
The limousine made a sharp turn and thudded over what sounded like a wooden bridge. Chloe leaned across Nathan’s wide chest to peer out the darkened glass of the car. “Where are we?” She could see water beside them and a rocky shoreline dotted with bare trees and a few sprawling shingled houses.
“On the causeway leading to the restaurant.”
The limo continued onward a few minutes and then stopped. As Nathan helped her out of the car, the sounds of seagulls crying and waves slapping against rocks surrounded her. The wind was even stronger here, and Nathan wrapped his arm around her shoulders as she shuddered in the cold. They stood in front of a building constructed of classic weathered New England shingles and white wood trim, but with huge arched windows that glowed with a golden light. “The Weather Vane Inn” was painted in block letters on a small wooden sign affixed to a white post.
“So you just have to know this is here,” she said.
“It functions on word of mouth,” Nathan said, leading her to the dark-blue front door. “Nothing more is necessary when the food and setting are this good.”
Chloe inhaled, closing her eyes as the scents of ocean and haute cuisine mingled deliciously in her nostrils. “Mmm. Nothing more than smelling it is necessary.”
The CEO Buys in (Wager of Hearts #1) Page 16
