by Aubrey Dark
We got into the elevator. It didn’t go down, though.
“Jake,” I said. “Where are we going?”
“I’ll tell you if you guess,” he said. I could hear the smile in his voice.
“We’re going up,” I said. “Right? What’s upstairs? I thought your apartment was at the top of the building?”
The elevator stopped and Jake tightened his grip on my arm.
“Trust me,” he said. “Just follow me.”
“I trust you,” I said. “It’s just that I’m, you know, scared of heights—”
“I know.”
We stepped out of the elevator and I could feel the cool air of the evening whipping across my face. Oh Lord. We were on top of the building.
“Jake, I don’t want to jump off the top of a building. So if this is some sort of suicide pact—”
“It’s not,” Jake said, laughing softly. He led me forward. I stepped more slowly, small steps. Careful steps. Then he made me go up a set of stairs. Stairs?
“Jake?”
“Sit down.”
I sat. My hands touched leather. Leather chairs on top of a building? Was he doing a rooftop dinner for me? Was that what this was?
“Jake?”
“Shh. Trust me.”
“I do trust you. I just—can you tell me what we’re doing? Where am I?”
“You’re with me.” Now Jake’s voice came from the other side of me. Then he was pulling something across my chest. I touched it. A strap. My heart pounded faster.
“Jake, where are we? Is this a roller coaster? I hate roller coasters.” I was trying to figure it out.
“It’s better.”
There was a loud thrum of an engine, and my heart dropped. An engine?
“Jake! What is going on?!” The noise grew louder and louder, thumping faster along with my heart.
“I’m taking you to dinner.”
Then the noise all around me coalesced, and I was able to recognize the thrum.
“In a helicopter?!”
Jake’s hands fitted headphones over my head, and I heard his voice more clearly, through the speakers.
“You guessed it.”
“Jake!”
“Want to take off the blindfold?”
I reached up and pulled away the fabric just in time to see Jake pull back on the throttle. The top of the building dropped below us as the helicopter lifted up into the sky.
I screamed.
We flew across the skyline of New York City. My initial fear didn’t disappear, but the awe I felt at seeing NYC in this new light swallowed it up. My whole body was tensed. I gripped the seat belt across my chest like it was a lifeline and I was stranded in the middle of the ocean.
“Give me your hand,” Jake said.
I let him take me by the wrist. Instead of holding my hand, as I’d expected, he put it on the steering stick.
“Want to learn how to fly?”
“What? No. No, no, no.” I tried to pull away, but his hand covered mine and I only succeeding in jerking the helicopter to one side. He pulled the stick back, his hand gripping my hand tightly.
“It’s easy,” he said. “Don’t do anything now. Just feel how the helicopter responds.”
He began to ease the stick forward, and the helicopter turned down. I could see the water underneath us. I pulled the stick back up, and we tilted back up so that the horizon was straight ahead.
“See? You’re a natural. Now move us to the left.”
Nervously, I pushed the stick to the left. We turned, but we also began to drop. I tensed.
Jake’s hand pulled back slightly on the stick.
“When the helicopter banks, it tends to head down. All planes do that,” Jake said. “Try pulling up as we bank into the curve. Steer sideways and up at the same time.”
I tried again, this time to the right. I managed to pull up enough to keep our horizon straight. The pressure of banking pushed me back into my seat. When I pulled out of the curve, I drew a deep breath. I’d been holding my breath the entire time.
“Good,” Jake said. “Now head down the coast, following the shoreline.”
We flew for a half hour before Jake took the controls back away from me.
“I was just getting the hang of it,” I joked. Secretly I was happy to let him take control again.
“You’re an excellent pilot,” Jake said. “But I don’t want you to see where we’re landing. Blindfold back on.”
“I don’t want to see the ground coming up at us anyway,” I said. I put on the blindfold, tying it tightly. My stomach lurched only slightly as we dipped down in the darkness. “You know how to land this, right?”
“Land? You don’t want to parachute down?”
“JAKE!”
I shouldn’t have been worried. We touched down so gently that I felt only a small thump as we settled down.
“Can I take the blindfold off now?” I asked. Jake unbuckled my seatbelt.
“No,” Jake said. “Not yet.”
The thrum of the engine died down. I could still hear other noises in the background that made me think we’d landed at some airport. Was he going to keep me blindfolded all the way to the restaurant for dinner? He walked me across the tarmac, going slowly as I picked my way along the rough surface. I clung to Jake’s arm as he led me up the stairs and into the terminal. The sounds of the outside world disappeared.
“Sit here,” Jake said.
Sit? I followed his order, sinking into the chair he’d guided me to. Was this a private restaurant inside of the terminal? Then I felt a vibration under my feet.
“Jake?”
“Yes?”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
The vibration was growing stronger. Maybe there was a plane taking off just outside the terminal.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked.
“It’s a trust exercise,” Jake said. “You have to trust me.” He massaged the back of my neck.
“Sure. Okay. But what—”
The ground beneath me shook. I felt it.
“Jake!”
I ripped off the blindfold and looked around. I had to blink twice before I realized where I was. This wasn’t a plane terminal. It was a plane.
“What is this? We’re in a plane!”
“Sounds like you answered your own question there,” Jake joked.
I turned to the window next to me. The tarmac was moving under the plane wing. It was a smaller plane, not one of the large jetliners. I was sitting in a large plush chair, and there was nobody else in the back of the plane except me and Jake.
“Are you trying to get me over my fear of heights tonight?” I asked. “Because if that’s that what you’re doing, I’m good. I’m fine. Really. I don’t need another plane ride.”
“That’s not it, Lacey,” Jake said. He pressed his hand over mine. “I want you to trust me. But until you do, I’m going to prove myself to you.”
“Prove yourself?”
“Over and over. For as long as it takes.”
“Why are we in a plane? We could have just stayed in the helicopter,” I mumbled. The plane’s engines began to roar. We were at the end of the runway, getting ready to take off.
“You can’t fly to Paris in a helicopter.”
I turned to Jake, my jaw dropping. The airplane began to pull down the runway. The engines roared loudly as we built up speed.
“Paris?” My voice was lost in the roar of the jet plane, but Jake watched my lips move, and he could tell what I was saying.
“Yes,” he said, squeezing my hand. We were racing down the runway.
“You’re taking me to Paris with you?” I couldn’t believe it.
“I’ll take you wherever you want to go.” Jake leaned over to me so that I could hear him over the rumbling engine. “Lacey, I’ll keep you with me as long as it takes you to trust me. Understood?”
I think I nodded yes, but at that moment the plane pulled away from t
he ground and I gripped his hand tight.
I was going to Paris. I was going to Paris with Jake.
I looked out of the window at the rapidly shrinking ground, and I smiled. Forgotten completely was my fear of heights. Forgotten was the argument we’d had. We were going to Paris.
This was going to be fun.
Thank you for reading His Ransom Part Four!
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This is PART FOUR of the HIS GIFT dark erotic romance series
Find out what happens to Lacey and Jake now!
His Ransom (A Dark Billionaire Romance Part 5)
His Ransom (A Dark Billionaire Romance Part 6)
If you missed the first trilogy, grab them here-
His Gift (A Dark Billionaire Romance Part 1)
His Gift (A Dark Billionaire Romance Part 2)
His Gift (A Dark Billionaire Romance Part 3)
For more dark romance grab a copy of my first novel, His today!
I never meant to be here: tied up in bed next to a serial killer.
When I followed him home, I was just playing Nancy Drew. Trying to find out his secret. His kiss was intoxicating, and I thought he was harmless.
I was wrong.
Nancy Drew never ended up in a basement, handcuffed to a radiator, teased to the edge of insanity, begging to be let go.
Soon, I stopped begging to be let go.
Soon, I started begging to be HIS.
Author's Note: This is a dark romance novel with mature themes that might make some readers uncomfortable.
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LICENSE NOTES
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DISCLAIMER
The characters and events portrayed in this book are a work of fiction or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
MATURE CONTENT
This story contains sexually explicit material, and is intended only for persons over the age of 18. By downloading and opening this document, you are stating that you are of legal age to access and view this work of fiction. All of the characters involved in the sexual situations in this story are intended to be 18 years of age or older, whether they are explicitly described as such or not.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Find out about the whole His Gift series!
