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The spark from our previous touch returned in force and ran up my arm. His grip was warm and strong, reminding me of the ease with which he’d hauled me out of the pool last night. I was no featherweight, but he’d lifted me like I was nothing.
The jet lurched slightly as we started to move back from the gate.
I pulled my hand away and forced myself to look forward, lest I be paralyzed by the strength of his gaze. His eyes had peered deep into me, almost hypnotic in their pull. From a distance on the beach, I’d taken in the breadth of his shoulders, his washboard abs, and those massive arms. I hadn’t been close enough to notice the eyes, or the slight scar on his chin that only made his face more interesting.
The overhead speakers began the safety announcements, but the whir of the engines soon made the words hard to understand.
“And the lavatories for the main cabin are located at the rear of the plane,” she said at the end—a reminder that we’d have the pleasure of people hovering in the aisle waiting to use the facilities later in the flight. Ah, the joys of sitting in the last row of the airplane.
The aisle-seat lady tapped my shoulder. “Would you like some Cheetos?” She offered an open bag.
“No, but thank you.”
She pulled out a few with orange-crusted fingers and popped them in her mouth, mumbling something about them being better than Twinkies.
Josh leaned over. “Granny has an endless supply of those things.”
Every time I looked out the window as we taxied, I caught sight of his chin, and that profile. The man up close was even better than from afar.
“How are people supposed to fit in this space?” he asked after a moment. “I’ve never been in a seat this small.” His knees banged against the seatback in front of him. But these seats were just like every other airline: crappy.
“First time back here?” He looked like a first-class-only guy.
“Only my second airline flight. How’d you guess?”
So, not first-class, but novice flyer.
“After a while, you get used to being treated like crap instead of a paying customer.”
“I guess. But I don’t know how I’d ever get used to this.” He opened his iPad with a huff and started scrolling, just as he had at the beach each day I’d seen him—okay, more like watched him, or spied on him. A shiver shot through me as I realized that was akin to being a stalker.
He finger-swiped to the next page, and I looked over again.
Bad girl.
I took his concentration on his tablet as a signal that he didn’t want to talk—so much for the friendly guy who’d wanted to have dessert last night. I checked the movie selections on the screen in front of me. In the end, though, I left the screen set on the map of our progress. I pulled out the romance paperback I’d finished on the beach. The story was still a good one, even if I knew the ending, and worth reading again—anything to make this trip go by faster.
The turbulence as we climbed through the clouds was probably only moderate for a seasoned flier, but it rated as severe on my anxiety scale. I closed my book in my lap. The bumps kept forcing me up against Josh’s solid arm. The warm contact provided an oddly calming effect.
He kept reading, ignoring the bumps that forced the tablet back and forth enough that it would have had me airsick.
At altitude, the ride smoothed out, and the seatbelt sign went off.
Josh stowed his iPad and leaned forward to reach something at his feet. “Excuse me.”
“Sure,” I said, pulling my book out of the way.
With the seatbacks in our faces, and as tall as he was, he had to contort himself over toward my lap to reach, which only gave me a view of rippling back muscles straining against his shirt. He came up with two bags, the first a plastic bag labeledPapa’s Pastaria.
“You brought dinner?”
“Sure.” He showed me the second bag, from Dunkin’ Donuts. “Sorry. They didn’t have any tiramisu.”
I laughed. “So when you said another time, you meant on this flight?”
He shook his head. “No. I got called back to work early. My stay was supposed to last another four days.”
“That sucks. It’s terrible that your boss would do that to you.”
