by Maren Smith
“It’s okay,” I said instead.
She flinched when I touched her arm, and almost immediately tried to brush it off with a faltering laugh. “I hate heights. I don’t know why I thought I could do this. If I’m more than two rungs up on a ladder I freak out. How far off the ground do you think we are right now? Would you look for me? I don’t think I can look right now.”
Her right knee was jiggling wildly up and down. A vaguely greenish tint was starting to creep in under the pasty white color of her face.
Reaching past her, I closed the window so neither of us could see out.
“Too late,” she moaned. “I already know we’re off the ground.”
“We’re fine,” I told her. “Everything is just fine. They don’t let people who don’t know what they’re doing fly important people in royal jets back and forth across the ocean.”
“I’m not an important person,” she said, her grip on her duffel bag tightening.
I opened my mouth to commiserate—I might be the son of a king, but that didn’t exactly make me important either, and especially not when few if anyone had ever heard of Osei and I wasn’t planning to stay long enough to be anyone’s prince—but she erupted out of her chair.
“I’m going to be sick,” she said, still hugging that bag as she rushed past me for the bathroom.
Poor kid. That iced tea had not been a good idea. If I’d known about the fear of heights, I... I caught myself. I, what? Wouldn’t have let her have it? She might dress like a little girl, but she wasn’t my ‘little girl’ and I had absolutely zero business getting all macho protective over someone I’d only just met. Even if she was right now in the bathroom throwing up five different liquors at our cruising altitude of forty-two-thousand feet.
I got up and walked through the plane, closing all the windows. I put my beer and her empty glass both away, and dug through the mini fridge in search of waters instead. I also found two ready-made plates of appetizers—sliced meat and cheese, a variety of crackers, carrots, cucumbers and olives, with slices of apples, pears, melon, and mango to go with it. I brought those out too. Once she’d purged the alcohol, having something solid in her stomach might actually help settle it so she wouldn’t have to spend the whole flight hugging the aircraft toilet.
Leaned up against the bar to keep an eye on the bathroom, I checked my watch. Ten minutes later, I checked my watch again. She was taking an awfully long time, and being awfully quiet in there. Was she done throwing up, or was she still fighting back the queasiness? Or was she sitting in there, hiding because she was too embarrassed to come back out again?
Pushing off the bar, not sure if I had any right to be as concerned as I was, I approached in on the closed bathroom door with a cold bottled water in my hand. I didn’t want to invade her privacy, but needing some assurance that she was okay, I listened closely for any telling sound. Finally, I heard it. A watery sniffle. She wasn’t throwing up anymore. She was crying.
I tapped lightly at the door. “Are you okay?” I called.
The inside of the bathroom fell silent again.
I tapped again, gentle proof that I was not going to just go away and, I hoped, reassurance that she didn’t need to hide. She had nothing to be embarrassed about. Not with me. “Norah?”
She sniffled again. “I’m fine,” she called out, her voice both warbling and slurring. I don’t know if she threw up or not, but the alcohol was starting to affect her.
“I brought you a water,” I coaxed, and it worked. Sort of. After a brief silence, I heard rustling and movement inside, then the lock clicked and the pocket door slid open, but only far enough for her to squeeze her hand through it.
“Thank you,” she said, waiting for me to pass her the water.
Admittedly, I couldn’t see much of her through that slightly cracked door. She had cozied up to the door, using her body to block my view of the interior, everywhere but the white marble floor around her feet. That was a mess. I don’t know why or how it had happened, but whatever the reason, her bag had been upended and the contents spilled all over the floor. Crayons were rolling loose, dozens of them, plus keys, her cellphone, a change of tights and underwear, makeup and hair ties, a bathing suit, at least two coloring books and, just barely glimpsed via the wall mirror directly behind her, a giant cloth bunny that she held clutched by its arm behind her back.
Gone was the porno eroticism that I had experienced back at the strip club the first time I’d seen her. In its place reared an unexpected need to comfort. To get her to open that door the rest of the way, to come out so I could see the situation in its unobstructed and raw entirety. Putting to rest that niggling voice of reason that was even now whispering in the back of my head, No way is that really a doll she’s holding behind her back. No way are those coloring books and crayons rolling around the floor at her feet. You are not seeing what you think you’re seeing, Mazi.
Because if I was, then that meant Norah was more than just a woman provocatively dressed in a style of clothing better suited for cosplayers, porn stars, and kink clubs. It meant the little side of her went deeper than just what she wore and what she allowed the people around her to see. This was the hidden part. The part that flush on her cheeks said she wasn’t ready for me or anyone else to see.
Norah was a grown-up little girl having a very real meltdown in the bathroom of my father’s private jet because she was scared. And she wanted comfort, when no one and nothing was available to give it. And now, she was a little bit tipsy too. And she was hitting every single hidden Daddy fetish button I owned. She could not have hit them harder had she used a sledgehammer.
“Come on out,” I coaxed, putting the water in her hand, but not letting go. “I’m pretty sure you’re camping out in the only bathroom. It’s going to be a very long trip if no one else gets to use it.”
A frown tugged at her mouth, just like she tugged at the water bottle. If I let go, I had no doubt she’d have retreated all the way into the bathroom and closed the door again. Not only did I not let go, but I took hold of the pocket door and slowly, gently, giving her plenty of time to object if she really wanted to, forced it open.
When she backed up, I stepped inside, but I left the door wide open. I didn’t want to scare her, and I certainly didn’t want her to feel trapped in here with me.
I’ve always heard airplane bathrooms were cramped, narrow spaces, but this was anything but. In fact, it was bigger than my bathroom back home, with a comfortable commode, dual marble sinks, and a shower with shiny gold fixtures that offset the sheer opulence of the dark wood panel walls and white marble floor.
“Looks like we made a mess,” I said without judgment, looking at her upturned bag and the scattering of all these crayons on the floor between us.
She looked at me for a long time before, obligingly, she looked down at the messy floor. Both water bottle and bunny were held forgotten in opposite hands.
The plane shuddered, a bumpy bit of air turbulence, and she threw out both arms, smacking her bunny against one wall and dropping the water to grab my arm with the other. The way she looked around the bathroom said clearly she had every expectation of not surviving this flight.
Catching her arm back, holding her steady, I helped her to the closed toilet. “Sit.”
She did, immediately pulling her bunny into her lap and watching with big eyes as I dropped to one knee beside her. I tried to flip over her bag without losing anything else out of it, but only made a bigger mess. One that seemed to panic Norah. She all but fell off the toilet in her scramble to stuff everything back into her duffel, apparently before I could.
“I’m sorry,” she slurred, practically diving under me to snatch up hair ties and crayons, and cracked the top of her head against my chin. She had a hard head. I almost saw stars. “I’m sorry!” she wailed, grabbing the top of her head now as she sat back on her knees. “I didn’t mean to!”
The fact that she looked close to tears was the only reason I wasn’t laug
hing.
“Shh, shh,” I soothed, catching her by her head now too, not just to keep her from knocking into me again, but so I could rub the tender spot. “It’s okay. Just sit there.”
“My balance sucks,” she sniffled.
“You’re a little drunk,” I said, chuckling. “Here, hold this open for me.”
Passing her the duffel bag, it was my hope that giving her a job would keep her sitting still while I cleaned up the floor. Makeup went back into the pink makeup bag. Crayons went back into their box. Both went back into the duffel bag, held open between her hands and between her knees. Everything else went back in as neat as I could manage it, considering it was all loose anyway. Soon, the only thing not in the bag was the bunny tucked up against her side.
“Don’t make fun of me,” she warned, noticing the direction my gaze had wandered and completely mistaking my intentions. “I’m all done being made fun of.”
I refused to let myself look at that barely discernable bruise around her eye. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite manage that same control over my mouth. “Is that what he did?” I asked.
She hiked her chin, her beautiful eyes narrowing slightly as if looking for the mockery that surely must underlie my words and not trusting herself when she couldn’t find it. “Among other things.” Her chin hiked a notch higher still. “I got rid of him for it too.”
“Good for you.” Good for me too. No more black eyes for her meant I wouldn’t have to go to jail for hunting the bastard down and explaining in painful detail exactly why he was never going to raise his fist to another woman again.
The floor picked up once more, I zipped her duffel bag closed. “All done.”
She looked down at her bag, then around the tidy bathroom once more.
“How’s your stomach?” I asked. “Are you ready to get out of here?”
When she nodded, I stood up. Shouldering her bag for her, I held out my hand. “Don’t forget your friend.”
“Her name is Ms. Beatrix,” Norah said primly, even as she clapped her hand into mine and tried to stand. “She’s—whoop!” With my help, she found her feet, but not her balance. I caught her when she fell into me. Her shock melted into amusement and for the first time, Norah laughed. She patted my chest. “I think I’m a little bit tipsy.”
“Yeah.” I smiled, shaking my head. “Certain drinks will do that. Come on, now.” On a plane as snazzy as this one, I was almost sure there had to be a bed somewhere. “One foot in front of the other. Let’s find you someplace to lie down.”
Chapter Four
Norah
“I don’t want a nap,” I whined, stumbling along beside him as Mazi half-carried me from the bathroom into the bedroom at the very rear of the plane. I was more than a little buzzed. As nervous as I had been about flying, I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. My capacities were more than a little diminished, but even so, I knew three things with utmost certainty.
First, I liked Mazi, and I wasn’t about to overlook everything he’d so far done for me. Not just in the bathroom, either, but before that. He was a stranger, a stripper who’d been shaking his moneymaker the very day I had received my confirmation letter for this job in Osei, on the very night I finally found the strength to extricate myself out of a bad situation and horrible relationship. And now, he was here on the very same plane I was, headed for the same destination, both of us guests to the king of a distant country—coincidence? I think not. Fate had crossed our paths for a reason, and I was a big believer in fate.
Second, there was something mysterious going on here. It was hard to ignore how Jax had stumbled through his introductions back when Mazi first got on the plane. It was even harder to ignore the silent conversation the two of them had shot one another with their eyes. The reporter in me was a curious girl, and even intoxicated, I just kept wondering how a lifelong resident of New York had come to be a special guest to the King of Osei. I mean, I knew how I had come to be on this plane. What was Mazi the Stripper’s story? You could bet I’d get to the bottom of it as soon as possible. But not today. Today, I had a different agenda.
Which led straight to certainty number three: I liked cozying up to Mazi. I’d liked it when he’d touched my head to soothe my hurt, and how he’d helped pick up my mess, and how he didn’t make fun of me or Beatrix. I really liked feeling his arm wrap around me, holding me tight as we stumbled together down the short hall, through another narrow pocket door, and into the lavish stateroom with its blindingly white and shiny gold-gilded décor. White carpet, white walls, and thick white bedspread on a king-sized bed with a headboard that was bolted to the wall and two gold poles that sprouted up from the bottom corner posts all the way to the ceiling.
The bed came with stripper poles.
“They knew you were coming,” I laughed, grabbing onto one when he tried to sit me on the mattress. I threw myself into my best fumbling attempt at being an exotic dancer, but my top half and my bottom half just were not communicating. I swung, but my feet didn’t move and my hands slid straight down the pole, and I landed flat on my back on the floor at the foot of the bed.
I burst into laughter. He was fighting hard not to do the same as he leaned over to look at me.
“You,” he said, grinning, “are a goof.”
“You,” I said back, “are way too attractive for my own good.”
He was too. How was it possible for any man to look this good? If anything, he was ten times sexier now with all his clothes on, than he had been dancing on the stage in his briefs.
His blue eyes laughed at me. “Thank you.”
God, I wanted to be his. Right now. Right this very minute. If only just for an hour; I didn’t care so long as it happened. Forgetting I was lying on the floor, I tried to beckon him down to my level. “C’mere.”
His eyes were still dancing, his mouth still smiling, but something in his expression changed. It was silken, and subtle, and it sent shivery tingles down my back and up my thighs. Between my thighs. It had been a while since last I’d felt arousal quite this raw and needy.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he demurred.
I thought it was a great idea. Maybe it was the mixture of alcohol and lack of food. Maybe it was the luxury of the aircraft, or the sense of adventure that came with traveling to another country, or this overwhelming sense of power I had because I was starting a new life. A new life; a new me. One in which I could be whoever and whatever I wanted—starting right now, this very instant.
“C’mere, Daddy,” I purred, reaching for him.
Hunger and delight darkened his eyes, but just as quickly as I glimpsed the look, it was gone again. He chuckled, low and slow, shaking his head once. “Say that to me again, but do it when you’re sober.”
He reached for me and I took his hands, letting him pull me back up off the floor. The whole room spun and I probably would have fallen again if he hadn’t caught me in his arms. I caught him too, wrapping mine around his shoulders and neck.
“C’mere, Daddy,” I slurred in my sultry best.
“When you’re sober,” he reminded me, scooping me up in his arms and carrying me the short distance around the foot of the bed to the headboard.
“I’m sober enough,” I complained as he lay me down.
“Not so I won’t hate myself in the morning.” He took off my shoes, dropping them on the floor by the bed.
“I’ll ride you again in the morning,” I promised, my head so fuzzy that my eyes kept wanting to close, but my heart was beating like a jackhammer and my naughty bits were pulsing with need. I reached for his belt, but he caught my hand.
“This Daddy spanks,” he warned.
I pouted, only just resisting the urge to stomp my foot. For all the good it would do me, lying here in bed with this weird heaviness creeping up over me. Gravity was pushing my head down deep into the mattress. I couldn’t have raised it if I tried. “That could be fun too,” I sulked. At least I would have the last word.
&nbs
p; “Not the way I do it,” he promised. Retrieving Beatrix from where I’d dropped her on the floor, he gave her to me to hug before wrapping an edge of the comforter I was lying on up over the top of me.
“You’re mean.” I tried to pout cute, but it didn’t work. Sadly, alcohol and exhaustion were the only things inclined to have their wicked way with me. If he replied to that sulky comment, I never heard it. I was already asleep.
* * *
I had no idea where the plane stopped to refuel before continuing the rest of the way on to Osei. I only knew that we did because the pilot hit a pothole in the runway on takeoff. Or, if he didn’t, that’s what it felt like, and it startled me bolt upright in a strange bed, in an unfamiliar room, with Mazi’s low voice rumbling out a soothing, “It’s okay,” from the chair by the only open window cracked open to allow enough light in by which he was reading.
He turned the page in his book.
I stared blearily around the room, trying to remember where I was and how I’d come to be there. Sadly, I remembered everything, but as we lifted up into the air a second time to continue our flight to the island of Osei, I found I was still too sleepy to care.
Flopping over onto my stomach, I burritoed myself in the white comforter and went right back to sleep. No sooner had I closed my eyes, it seemed, then did we touch down at Osei’s private airport and there was Mazi, shaking me awake.
“Up and at them, Sleeping Beauty,” he said cheerfully. “We’re here.”
My mouth tasted like someone had worn it as their only sock for three days straight.
“You still want to take that ride?” Mazi asked, arching his eyebrows suggestively.
“Timing, dude,” I told him, feeling about as far from sexy as someone with sock-mouth could.
Laughing, he handed me a water bottle and walked out of the room, leaving me to grudgingly pull myself together enough to wonder what had happened to my shoes. It had been the middle of the afternoon when we’d left New York, not to mention the middle of summer, but it was three a.m. and a brisk forty degrees when I stepped out of the king’s private jet onto a runway lit only by strip lights, the jet itself, and the headlights of the stretch limousine waiting to pick us up. Thank goodness I had my sweater, but even so, the early morning breeze had a bite to it and I was shivering long before Jax organized the flight attendants to retrieve our luggage and then led the way to the back of the car.
