“If it’s a castle, I’m going to throw up.”
“Not a castle. It’s a nineteenth century neo-renaissance chateau-style manor house.” All of those overwhelming words just fell right out of his mouth in a jumble, and I could only stare at him and blink.
“I know. I heard exactly how it sounded when I said it.” His head dropped, and I couldn’t help but laugh at him.
“Oh, poor baby.” I looped an arm around his back and leaned against his arm. “Listen, you’ve seen how much clothing I own. You know I can adjust to extravagant living.” He chuckled as I continued, “How about this? After you get over this pesky cancer thing, you come with me to meet my family in Calumet. That way, you’ll experience the same culture shock that I’m experiencing now, and we’ll be even.”
He raised his head and held out his hand. “Done.”
“Great. Now, tell me what to expect. I thought we’d be wearing comfy sit-around clothes the whole time we’re there. I mean, you’re going to be doing the chemo thing. So, what gives with the fancy duds?” I reached behind me for the silk dress. “What am I going to need this for?”
“Well, we’ll have to celebrate New Year’s Eve, won’t we?” he asked, slapping his hands on his thighs before he stood and returned to the hanger-laden pipe that served as my closet. “And besides, we’ll have plenty of room for all of your things. I’ve already asked the household staff in London to empty Eli—” he stopped himself quickly and corrected, “a closet for you.”
I chose to ignore the near mention of his ex-wife. “Is it as nice as your closet in New York?”
“Oh, nicer.” He frowned at my dresses. “Why am I doing this part? Why can’t I be doing the frilly underthings?”
I giggled and grabbed a handful of lace. I don’t know why I had to discriminate; I could take all my underwear, if I wanted to. When I looked up, he was gazing at me as though I were some astoundingly beautiful object he’d never seen before, and he’d frozen at the sight of me. Warmth blossomed under my ribs and suffused my entire body with a comforting, giddy pulse.
“We’re doing this.” I couldn’t disguise the awe in my voice. I really didn’t want to. “We’re going to live together.”
“We are.” When he smiled, his whole face lit up, and every bit of doubt that still remained from that awful night at the hospital evaporated completely. I met him halfway as we crossed the room to each other, and he pulled me into his arms for a long, slow kiss.
Everything in my life was in utter turmoil. I was leaving for another country. I was moving in with my boyfriend of just slightly over two months. I should have been incoherent with terror. But I couldn’t wait to go into this new part of my life with him.
There was some guilt there, too. The more I wanted to rush into living with him, the more I was reminded that it was happening only because he’d been plunged into a medical crisis. In what I’d read about the treatment, the drugs used to kill his cancer didn’t differentiate much between healthy cells and sick ones. The art of chemotherapy seemed to be in keeping a patient alive while slowly poisoning him. The side effects sounded scary, the risks even worse.
But he was fine now, his body as sturdy and familiar as before, his arms as strong around me. I clung to him, breathing in his cologne, letting him kiss me breathless, letting the reality of his condition remain some far off future. It was the only way I would stop myself from going crazy with worry.
* * * *
Two days later, we ate our last dinner in New York and rode to the airport in the Maybach, my ridiculous amount of luggage crammed into a hired van behind us.
I looked out the window as we pulled onto the runway. We weren’t even going to have to go through the terminal. That boggled my mind; I’d still packed my carry-on luggage with one-ounce containers of everything.
I whistled as we pulled up to the jet. It was a G5, slender and gleaming white. A long flight of stairs reached up to the open cabin door, and warm light showed from the windows.
Neil reached across the seat and took my hand. “Are you all right? You look a bit pale.”
“I don’t like flying,” I confessed, perhaps just slightly too late. “I know you don’t, either.”
He jiggled the lapel of his coat, and from an inside pocket I heard the rattle of a prescription bottle.
“But I’m excited,” I assured him, because when someone is taking you for a trip on a plane he owns, you don’t want to appear ungrateful. “I’ve never been on a private jet before.”
“You’ll never want to fly commercial again, I can tell you that for nothing. Every time I’ve had to has been a bloody nightmare.” He paused, a slight smile tilting his mouth. “Well, almost every time.”
Tony opened my door, and I slid out, clutching my carry-on bag. “Do we get our luggage, or—”
“No, they’ll stow that for us.” The corner of Neil’s mouth twitched, and I knew he thought it was adorable that I’d offered to carry my own stuff. I stuck my tongue out at him as we walked to the plane.
I was glad I’d worn ballet flats and not heels as I took the steep stairs up. Flats or no, I’d still dressed for a private jet, in a white t-shirt with opaque white sequin detail across the chest, and a short-waisted creme tweed jacket over dark blue jeans. The misty drizzle in the unseasonably warm December air was sure to frizz my carefully straightened hair, so I got up the steps and into the plane as quickly as I could.
Once inside, I was absolutely staggered. The immediate claustrophobia generally wrought by too many seats in such a small space never arrived. There were only twelve seats, three rows of two on each side of a center aisle, and the seats themselves were far larger and more comfy looking than anything I’d ever seen on an airplane. Beyond that was a partition, beside which was a small area with a microwave and complicated-looking coffee pot. There were two flat screen monitors on the walls, one of which was powered on and displaying projected weather conditions for our flight.
“Oh, wow.” I dropped my bag and turned to face Neil as he came through the door behind me. “This is...”
“Impressive enough for a blow job?” he asked, raising his eyebrows hopefully.
I gave him a little push, only partially feigning my outrage. “Shut up. This is amazing, though. Can I have one?”
That made him laugh, and he put his arms around me. “You just argued with me about paying for dinner, but you’re asking me for a plane?”
“Not seriously.” I leaned up for a kiss, and when he lifted his mouth from mine I asked, “Can I drive it?”
“No!” He was still laughing when a crewmember stepped into the cabin. She was a young woman with dark hair pulled into a neat bun, and she wore a black pantsuit.
She smiled brightly at us. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Elwood, Ms. Scaife. I’m Jackie, I’ll be servicing the cabin tonight.”
“I’d like the berth set up as soon as we’re in the air. We’re planning to sleep through most of this flight.” Neil told her, handing off his coat. She waited for mine, as well, and took them to stow somewhere. She also took our luggage to the next part of the cabin.
Neil looked so good tonight, it was impossible to believe he was sick. Dressed in jeans and an untucked white button-down over a black t-shirt, he should have been going to a rock concert, not flying somewhere on his private plane. He kicked off his square-toed Italian loafers and wiggled his bare toes on the carpet. “Make yourself at home, Sophie. No reason to be uncomfortable for the next eight hours.”
Eight hours. Yeesh. I knew the flight was going to be a long one— we’d be leaving at nine pm and arriving at around nine thirty am in England— but that was why we’d planned to sleep the entire flight, anyway. Now that I was here, though, I knew I was going to be too excited to close my eyes.
“The bathroom is back there, and the bed, but we’ll need to sit in here during take-off,” Neil told me, moving toward the front of the cabin. “I’m going to go meet the flight crew.”
“I’m going to go
snooping,” I said, and, still awe-struck, set off to poke around.
It’s a weird feeling to be walking around a private plane. Years of flying commercial had made me paranoid enough that I was pretty sure I’d get kicked off Neil’s jet for being a terrorist if I touched the wrong switch or sat in the wrong place.
I trailed my fingers over the back of one of the comfy-looking chairs. The seats were covered in soft tan leather that went well with the warm light and the dark wood accents. I went through the open door Jackie had gone through, and found her stowing our carry-on luggage in drawers beneath what looked like a full-sized bed.
“Can I help you with something, Ms. Scaife?” Jackie asked, straightening.
I shook my head. “Nope, snooping. I’ve never been on a private plane before.”
“Oh?” She looked surprised at that.
“I suppose you don’t get many first timers, huh?” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I thought of Neil flying other romantic partners around the world. I decided I didn’t want to know. “Don’t answer that.”
She smiled. “Well, if you do need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”
When she left, I sat on the edge of the bed. It was a little firm.
“Those are seats during the day.”
I looked up at Neil standing in the doorway. I tilted my head and pursed my lips. “If you have a plane, what were you doing in the airport six years ago?”
“I don’t keep the plane staffed full-time, it’s far more practical to hire flight crews from private companies,” he explained. “I got the interview with the heads at Daihatsu and had to leave before I could make arrangements for a crew.”
I quirked my lips to the side. “You know, if you had been able to hire a crew, we would have never met.”
He paused, a strange expression passing over his face. “I... Don’t want to think about that. Now that you’re here, I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”
It was a grim thing to contemplate. If we hadn’t met in that airport, I would have gone to Japan. I wouldn’t have been working at Porteras when Neil bought it. The thought of missing the past two months— the good and the bad— deeply troubled me.
“Good plan. No sad thoughts.” I rose and went with him to the seating area, where we buckled up and waited.
I squeezed Neil’s hand hard during takeoff, but once we were in the air it was smooth sailing. I worked my jaw to pop my ears, and Neil offered me a piece of gum. I took it and chewed gratefully. “At least this plane isn’t as loud as a seven-forty-seven. It’s the worst when your ears are clogged and there’s all that ambient noise. You can’t hear anything and you feel like you have a bag over your head.”
“No, the worst are takeoffs and landings.” He looked a little pale as he smoothed both hands over his face and into his hair.
“You took it really well.” Or maybe I just hadn’t noticed because I’d been so nervous, myself.
“I was suppressing my fear, because you were frightened.” He gave an embarrassed laugh, and in an exaggerated and terrible southern accent he quipped, “Gotta be strong for my woman.”
I pretended to swoon, leaning my head on his arm. “My hero.”
After we got the all clear to unbuckle, I went to the bathroom— teensy, but still not as cramped as commercial airline bathrooms, for sure— to brush my teeth and get changed into my nightgown. I still couldn’t bring myself to do the faded flannel pjs thing in front of him willingly, so I’d brought a short, silky black chemise to sleep in during the flight. I hated the fact that I was still bleeding as if I was having the world’s longest period, but the literature from the doctor’s office had said it could last up to two weeks. It would have been nice to join the Mile High Club.
A part of me felt irrationally guilty for wanting to have sex again, so soon after having an abortion. Maybe it was my Catholic upbringing, or just misogynist cultural conditioning in general, but I felt like I had done something bad, and that I should go on punishing myself and denying my dirty, dirty sexual urges.
But how was I supposed to feel repentant and dirty— in the bad way— when someone looked at me the way Neil did when I stepped through the door?
He swallowed and murmured, “Good lord, Sophie.”
I smoothed the black silk down, over my still-bloated tummy that a moment ago had made me feel super self-conscious. I know I should be comfortable in my own skin all the time, and not just when some man found me attractive, but it was nice to have that reassurance every now and then.
Hey, I’m a product of the culture I live in.
“Well, you’ve seen enough of yoga pants and baggy t-shirts lately. I thought I should step up my game.” I went to his side and slid my arms around him. He’d already stripped down to his boxers for bed, and his skin was warm and soft under my cheek as I leaned my head on his chest.
His hands glided over the silk to cup my backside. He bunched it in his fingers, and I rose up on my toes, trying to keep him from feeling the sanitary pad in my panties. Something about that just didn’t scream “romance!” to me.
“Why are you so jumpy?” he asked, frowning down at me.
“You know.” I stepped back and gestured down. “Two weeks.”
“I wasn’t intending to ravish you.” He paused, his gaze darting upward as he reconsidered his word choice. “Well, I was. But I was just intending to get you off. No full intercourse.”
“Yeah, not in any way, until I’m done reading Crimson Tide, if you catch my drift.” I sighed unhappily.
He nodded thoughtfully. “You know, if you’re truly uncomfortable with the idea, or you need more time emotionally, I completely understand. But if you’re afraid that I’m going to be disgusted to touch you, let me assure you that is not the case.”
“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” I protested. “I’m dying for you to touch me. I just don’t want to turn you off or ruin something between us because I’m... gross.”
“Sophie, you are never gross.” He sat on the bed and patted the spot beside him.
“Yeah, well, you’ve never seen me eat Thai food with a sinus infection.” I sat next to him. Made up with crisp sheets and a thin woven cotton blanket in a crème color, the bed matched the color scheme in the rest of the plane.
“I just don’t think I can let you put your hands down there. Prepare yourself for five sexless days a month.”
“Gladly. After what we’ve just been through, I’ll hold a celebratory parade in honor of your menses if you asked me to. But for future reference, your period will not turn me off.” He scooted himself back and pulled down the blankets, swinging his legs under them. “Do you mind if I take the inside?”
“Not a bit.” I slipped in beside him and snuggled up, looping one leg over his. I sighed contentedly and walked my fingers over his chest. “This is awesome. Thank you.”
“For what? I can’t take credit for any spontaneous romantic gesture here. I already owned the plane.” He kissed my forehead and gave me a squeeze with the arm around my shoulders. “But I am so glad you’re here.”
“I am, too. Maybe not in a plane in the air. I mean, trapped in an elevator, that’s probably only slightly worse on the list of places I don’t want to be—”
“Me as well,” he reminded me. The first time we’d met, we’d discussed our mutual hatred of elevators.
We lay in silence for a moment. His hand caught mine and he threaded and unthreaded our fingers playfully. So when he said, “I’m frightened, Sophie,” it blindsided me.
I knew without a doubt that he wasn’t talking about the flight. “I think you would be very naive if you weren’t.”
He made a thoughtful, “Mm,” noise, but he didn’t respond further, still playing our hands together over his chest.
“You can be afraid, you know,” I said gently. “You don’t have control right now, that’s what you’re afraid of. It’s why you’re afraid of flying, and elevators. You’re not in control of what might happen to
you.”
“This is an interesting theory,” he teased. “What on earth would make you think I was a controlling person?”
I snorted. “Let’s see, you’re locked in a battle of wills with your adult daughter over the man she’s dating. You have a housekeeper but you cook most our meals by yourself—”
“I cook when you’re over, because I think it’s romantic,” he protested.
“You’re incredibly bossy in bed.” I wiggled a little closer to him.
“If that’s proof of my enjoying control, then by that token you should love planes and elevators, because you love being controlled in bed.” He slipped a finger beneath my chin and tilted my head up. “And I like controlling you because I like watching you lose control.”
A shiver went straight down my body, to the already achy place between my legs. God, I wanted to come. My body was used to daily orgasms, and she wasn’t listening to reason. If I couldn’t have sex with Neil now, I had to do the next best thing.
“Hey,” I whispered in the dim light of the cabin’s interior. “The flight attendant won’t just come busting in here, right?”
“No, she’ll be in the forward compartment, where we can call should we need her. Why?” There was a note of suspicion in his voice.
I sat up and cast my gaze around us. Neil’s belt was still threaded through the loops on his jeans, and I got out of bed to retrieve it.
“What are you doing?” he asked, leaning up on an elbow.
“I want to try something.” I came back to the bed and straddled his waist, holding out the belt. “Give me your hands.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Sophie, you do remember what I told you about my experience before?”
“I do.” Neil had subbed once for a man who’d been a terrible Dom. I didn’t know the graphic details, only that it hadn’t gone well and Neil had hurt himself when he’d panicked while bound.
I took one of his hands, and to his credit, he let me push it above his head. But I could tell he was still nervous. Leaning down, I said, low beside his ear, “Remember the first time you fucked me?”
The Girlfriend (The Boss) Page 7
