His Final Seduction

by Lori Wilde

  “Spyder, I want a Spyder.”

  “You decide to buy a Spyder,” Jorgie played along, “and suddenly everywhere you look the place is crawling with Spyders.”

  “Pun intended?”

  “You know me. I can’t resist wordplay.”

  “You can’t resist anything brainiacish.”

  “Anyway…” Jorgie ignored that comment. “If we hadn’t been talking about Quint, then I probably would never have noticed him. He would have walked right on by. Just like if you weren’t dying to own a Spyder, you wouldn’t notice every single one of them that drove past.”

  “Except that he didn’t walk right on by, he ran smack-dab into you.”

  “You saw that?”

  “The whole airport saw it.”

  Jorgie winced. She hated being the center of attention and nothing embarrassed her more than public humiliation. Unlike Avery, who courted the spotlight with glee.

  “Don’t obsess about it,” Avery said, accurately reading her. “No one cares that your skirt was practically up around your waist.”

  Jorgie groaned.

  “Look at the bright side. At least you don’t wear thongs. Come on. Let’s get through security before the line gets any longer. Our plane starts boarding in fifteen minutes.”

  Avery was right. No point obsessing over something she couldn’t change. She needed to live in the moment. Get fired up about her trip. She was going to Venice. What more could a woman ask for?

  By the time they were through the checkpoint and found their gate at Eros Air, boarding was already in progress.

  “Hey,” Avery said, nudging Jorgie in the side. “Isn’t that your guy?”

  “What guy?”

  “Mr. Handsome over there by the gate attendant.”

  Jorgie focused on the jetway. Sure enough, it was Quint Mason getting on the plane. Her plane. To Venice. What was he doing on her plane? Quint had said he was late for work. Did he work for Eros? Was he a pilot, or a navigator, or a flight attendant? But he wasn’t in uniform.

  Jorgie frowned and looked at her ticket. “Are we at the right gate?”

  “E37. That’s you.”

  She focused back on Avery. “What do you mean, that’s me?”

  “This is your gate.”

  “My gate?” She raised an eyebrow.

  Avery shifted her weight. “My gate’s at E34.”

  “Your gate?” She sounded like a parrot.

  “I decided at the last minute I’d rather go on the Make Love Like A Movie Star tour. I’m going to Hollywood.”

  Avery’s statement shocked her so much Jorgie didn’t immediately register what she’d said. “Huh?”

  “I’m going to Hollywood,” she repeated.

  “That’s what you were doing at the ticket counter? Changing your destination?”

  Avery had the good grace to look ashamed. “Yes.”

  “And they just let you switch like that?”

  “I had to pay a fee, but, yeah.”

  Jorgie felt as if she’d been slapped across the face. “What’s going on? Why didn’t you tell me? I would be just as happy going on the movie star tour. Let’s go back and swap my ticket over.”

  “Um, I kinda, sorta, wanted to go alone.”

  Dismay sucked all the anticipation out of her. “But…but…” Jorgie sputtered. “This whole Eros vacation was your idea. You told me to spread my wings, to claim my sexuality and show Brian that I could be as unconventional as…as…”

  Avery placed a hand on Jorgie’s shoulder. “And that’s what you’re going to do.”

  “Not without you I’m not.”

  “Jorg, we’ve gotta cut the cord sometime. I can’t keep being your id. You gotta learn how to develop your own sense of fun.”

  “Well, that sounds all great and everything,” Jorgie said, still stunned by the turn of events. She’d never expected Avery to pull something like this. Sure, her friend was spontaneous and free-spirited and, okay, she could be irresponsible at times, but she’d never betrayed Jorgie before. “But who’s going to be your brake?”

  “That’s just it. This time, I wanna freefall. No brakes, no parachutes, nothing to hold me back.”

  Jorgie gaped openmouthed. “I…I…never knew you felt this way. I thought we balanced each other out. I thought that was why our friendship worked so well.”

  “Listen, it’s not the end of the world,” Avery said in a perky voice as if she wasn’t about to cut the cord with a pair of giant metaphorical scissors. “We’re simply taking separate vacations.”

  “I would never have agreed to the trip if I’d known you were going to bail on me.” Jorgie fisted her hands.

  “I know.” Avery smiled. “It’s the reason I had to pull a stunt like this. I hope you’ll forgive me for the subterfuge.”

  Betrayal had an ugly taste, bitter and hard. “Don’t do this. You can switch your ticket back. I’ll pay for the fee. Please.”

  “Time to pull up your big-girl panties, Jorgie.” Avery hoisted her knapsack onto her shoulder. “Ciao.”

  “You can’t…You’re not…Avery, don’t leave me.”

  “You’re too dependent on me, kiddo.”

  Her friend was right. She sounded so desperate. She felt desperate, too. Her life had been unraveling ever since Brian left her and now Avery was leaving her, too. “Please…”

  “You can do this. I have faith. We’ll call each other every day and share our experiences.”

  “Ave…” Jorgie was finding it hard to breathe. A tumult of emotions clogged her lungs. She felt scared and betrayed and angry and, strangely enough, just a little bit excited. She’d never done anything on her own. She and Avery had roomed together in college, and then afterward she’d met Brian and they’d moved in together. Then after Brian had left, Avery rented Jorgie’s spare bedroom. She’d never lived alone. Never traveled alone.

  “Final boarding call for Eros Air flight 692,” said a voice over the loudspeaker.

  “Go on.” Avery gave her a gentle shove toward the jetway. “This is for your own good.”

  “I…”

  “Spread your wings, Jorgie. Flout convention. Fly. Go to your destiny.” Then with that parting advice, Avery turned and scurried away. Quickly, the crowd swallowed her up.

  Jorgie stood frozen, her heart pounding madly. The gate agent looked at her expectantly, hand outstretched to receive her boarding pass.

  She locked eyes with the woman and the life-changing events of the last few weeks washed over her. Getting dumped by Brian for essentially being too timid, getting passed over for a promotion at work because she wasn’t aggressive enough (a direct quote from her boss), the decision to take Avery’s advice and sign up for an erotic fantasy vacation, unexpectedly meeting Quint Mason and then discovering he was on her flight. Was it kismet? Was serendipity at work here? Had the universe converged to plant her in this spot at this time under these conditions for a reason?

  Jorgie wasn’t fanciful. She was an accountant. A cruncher of numbers. She liked things that made sense, and this romantic notion of destiny defied logic. And yet, here she was with the cosmic dominoes all lined up. Did she have the courage to knock them down?

  “Miss?” the gate agent asked. “Are you boarding?”

  It was now or never. Time to prove she could be bold and daring, or forever accept her fate as a shy, conventional woman who could never attract the attention of someone like, say…Quint Mason.

  Jorgie raised her chin and slapped her ticket into the gate agent’s hand. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I am.”

  2

  Keep your heart unfettered and your fingers nimble

  —Make Love Like Casanova

  WELL, WELL, WELL, little Jorgie Gerard had grown up quite nicely.

  From his seat in the back of the plane, Quint Mason watched her board the Eros Air Bombardier CRJ200. She moved up the aisle, her carry-on bag clutched in her hand. His gaze tripped lightly over her lush curves. She hadn’t possessed a body li
ke that thirteen years ago. He would have remembered.Spellbound, he simply stared. The front of her silky, powder-blue blouse dipped, revealing just a hint of cleavage, but it was enough to cause instant sweat to bead on the back of his neck in the confines of the expensively decorated aircraft. She stopped a few rows ahead of him and looked down to double-check her seat assignment, and then she looked up again.

  A ray of sunshine slanted through the open portal window, casting her in a bright surreal splash of yellow. For a whisper of a second, he could have sworn he heard harp music and the sound of angels singing. The woman who used to be his best friend’s shy little sister was bathed in a whole new light.

  Her straight, chestnut-brown hair—swept back off her neck in a demure ponytail—glinted with red highlights. His fingers itched to reach up and pull that band from her hair and watch it tumble about her shoulders. She wore a knee-length skirt that was a darker shade of blue than her blouse and blue, matching sandals decorated with pink flowers. She looked like exactly what she was—the girl-next-door all grown up. The kind you took home to meet your parents. Marriage material. He’d do well to steer clear.

  But even as the light shifted, dimmed, Quint couldn’t take his eyes off her and he didn’t know why.

  Familiarity. She reminds you of a simpler time. That’s all. A missive from your past.

  Still, his heart skipped a beat. That was odd. Usually the only time his heart misfired was when he drove his Corvette too fast or danced the tango or made love all night long. She was pretty, hell yeah, but certainly nothing extraordinary. Nothing to make him feel like this.

  Still, there was something about the way she carried herself that clutched his gut and narrowed his focus to only her. She possessed a quality that called to something primal inside him. One thought snapped through his head hot as electricity.

  Gotta have her.

  Stupid, that impulse. It could lead nowhere but to big trouble. Quint lowered his eyelids, smiled slowly.

  She sucked in her breath. He heard it all the way down the aisle. Quickly, she turned, reached for the overhead bin. In this private jet the bins were more lavish than on commercial liners, but she struggled to get her suitcase stuffed in.

  Quint hopped from his seat. In one long-legged stride he was beside her. “Here, let me help you with that.”

  For a second, she looked as if she might argue with him, but when he reached for the handle, she let go just as his fingers touched hers. He caught a whiff of her delicate perfume. And he was jonesing for something sweet.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice soft as a caress.

  He was aware of a humming noise inside his brain, fraught with sexual energy. He stared at her lips, full and pink and shiny with gloss. His heart skipped another beat. What was the deal here? Was he developing a heart condition?

  Frowning, Quint ripped his gaze from her distracting lips and fell into the pool of her deep blue eyes. He just stood there staring, her suitcase raised over his head, the bag braced against the cargo bin and his forearms.

  Snap out of it, Mason. A woman hadn’t left him this thunderstruck since high school.

  “Is there a problem?” She lifted a hand to push back a tendril of hair from her face, the pink bracelets at her wrist jangling as they brushed against each other.

  “Um…” Do something, don’t just stand there. The aisle was clogging up behind her. Immediate, he shoved her suitcase into the overhead bin and clicked it closed.

  “Thank you,” she said, then sat down and snapped on her seat belt. She picked up the in-flight magazine and started flipping through it.

  Not knowing what else do, he mumbled, “You’re welcome,” and went back to his seat.

  Still feeling a bit off balance by the intensity of his attraction, Quint settled into his seat and mentally pried his mind off Jorgie and put it where it belonged.

  On his job.

  He was an air marshal on private security detail for the Lockhart Agency. For the last ten weeks, he and his fellow air marshals had been on assignment for Eros Airlines and Fantasy Adventure Vacations. The company’s catchphrase was Something Sexy In The Air, and they specialized in catering to a high-end clientele that didn’t mind spending money indulging their passionate sides.

  But over the course of the past several months, the airline’s owner, Taylor Milton, had gotten anonymous threatening letters at the same time someone had been sabotaging her four international resorts. She’d been reluctant to take her problems to the police and risk adverse publicity. To keep things discreet, she’d hired the Lockhart Agency to protect her interests.

  The air marshals were undercover, both on the planes and at the resorts. Quint’s cover identity was an instructor at the Venetian resort, teaching a daily course in How To Make Love Like Casanova. This was his third stint at the assignment. Quint had to admit he’d had a helluva good time, instructing men on how to be great lovers and flirting with the ladies to show off his skills. The only major drawback to the setup was the morality clause he’d been obligated to sign. No sex with the guests. For a sensualist like Quint, that was something of a challenge.

  The sabotages had been fairly minor, mere inconveniences than anything else, until a month ago when someone had planted a small bomb at the Tokyo resort. The bomb had been found, the resort vacated and the explosive neutralized with no harm done, but clearly, the situation had escalated. Taylor Milton had beefed up security at the resorts and ever since then, there’d been no new occurrences and the threatening letters had stopped. It was eerie, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  Quint noticed no one took the seat beside Jorgie, but otherwise, the plane was full. Once they were airborne, he sent a text to his coworker Jake Stewart, who was at this very moment boarding a plane to Los Angeles for Eros’s Make Love Like A Movie Star tour.

  Any lookers? he typed into his BlackBerry.

  Is that all you think about? Jake returned his text.

  Quint laughed. Pretty much.

  Casanova fits you to a T.

  Get back on the horse, man. Jake had been divorced for over a year and as far as Quint knew he hadn’t dated. He’d been bugging him to let loose and just have a fling, but Jake was one of those Dudley Do-Right types who never broke the rules.

  Two words, Jake texted back. Morality Clause.

  So, any lookers?

  Yeah.

  That took him by surprise. Quint smiled. Yeah?

  Not my type.

  All the better.

  Door’s closing. Later.

  Chuckling, Quint put his BlackBerry away. The flight attendant was distributing drinks and he heard Jorgie order a Bloody Mary. After she’d been served her drink, he took the bottle of water the attendant gave him and slipped into the seat beside her. “Rough night?”

  She looked startled to see him.

  He nodded at her drink. “A Bloody Mary is a common hangover cure.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “In fact, I rarely drink…”

  “Fear of flying?”

  “Not at all.”

  “The mystery deepens. You don’t seem the type to drink alcohol at nine in the morning.”

  “Precisely.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “I’m doing things I wouldn’t normally do.”

  “Ah.” He nodded. “Bad breakup.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “You’re traveling alone and drinking Bloody Marys and headed to an Eros resort. Common cure for a bad breakup.”

  “So you’re saying I’m a cliché?”

  He shrugged, grinned.

  “I wasn’t meant to be traveling alone. Actually my friend Avery was supposed to come with me, but at the last minute she changed her ticket, hopped on a plane to another Eros resort, leaving me holding the bag. I think I’m due for a Bloody Mary, don’t you?”

  “Drink up. I’ll order you another.”

  She looked at the water bottle in his hand. “You’re not drinking?
”

  “Not in the mood.” He kept grinning. “But you go right ahead.”

  “That grin gets you laid a lot, doesn’t it?”

  Whoa, he hadn’t expected that from the girl next door. His admiration shot up a notch. “I do all right.”

  “You haven’t changed a bit since high school.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a compliment the way you say it.”

  “What’s not complimentary about being a twenty-nine-old man with a high school mentality?”

  “Ouch, kitten. Withdraw the claws. I’m not the guy who done you wrong.”

  “No, but you’re the one who decided to sit here. Better be prepared to take a little mortar fire or head back to where you came from.”

  This was getting really interesting. Quint leaned back in his seat, buckled up his seat belt. He could do his job just as easily sitting here as in the last row. “It’s a long flight and I’m all ears.”

  “You ever been engaged, Quint?” A disgruntled expression crossed her face and he found himself wishing he could hunt down the ex-boyfriend who’d dumped her and punch him out.

  “Nope.”

  “Ever come close?”

  “Nope.”

  “Ever want to get married?”

  “Never crossed my mind.”

  She took a sip of her Bloody Mary, pointed a finger at him. “Smart man.”

  “So,” he said, quickly changing the subject. “How’s Keith? I saw him at our ten-year high school reunion and we had a few drinks. Shot the breeze, but we haven’t kept in touch since then.”

  “Keith just got married, and he and his wife are expecting a baby girl in the fall.”

  “No kidding. But he’s only…”

  “Twenty-nine, same age as you.”

  “Seems too young to be tied down.”

  “He’s really happy.”

  “Good for Keith.” A wistfulness swept over him. It seemed all his buddies were getting married, settling down. He didn’t get it. There was so much living to be done. You could get married and grow old anytime. But you were only young once.

  “How’s your parents?”

  “They decided to follow their bliss and moved to Santa Fe. Mom runs an art gallery. Dad takes tourists on guided deer hunts.”