Jill Shalvis - Smart And Sexy

She rectified that right quick by jerking free, but her hair was in his face, smelling like his own little corner of heaven. It was also in his mouth, stabbing into his eyes…and though he was flying a plane and still struggling with not strangling her, unbelievably he was fully aroused, desire pumping through him right along with the adrenaline, and he took a second to notice how sweet she fit against him.

Then she began to fight in earnest and managed to knee his inner thigh, uncomfortably close to his goods. “Hold still,” he ground out, tightening the arm he had around her middle.

Wriggling to free herself, she continued to grind her ass into his crotch, making him see stars, and not from pain. “Sit still,” he repeated in her ear, running his hands down her arms, grasping her hands to set them to the yoke. “Hold here.”

She looked out the windshield, saw the setting sun, the storm gathering in huge, black billowy clouds just beyond them, and gulped. “Oh, no. I can’t-”

“You held me up with a pen. You can do this.” He slid out from beneath her, but not before his legs and arms entangled with hers. Her chest pressed into his forearm, and when he pulled, her breast slid along his skin, nearly right into his palm. For a flash in time, he actually stopped breathing. By the time he managed to scrape her off his lap, his nostrils were filled with her scent, his eyes had crossed with lust, and his body was twitching.

He’d gone over six months without sex, during which time he hadn’t even thought about it.

Well, other than the rhetorical ski bunny thing…

But he’d been with Bailey Sinclair for what, an hour tops, and suddenly sex was all he could think about. Distance. He needed some serious distance.

“Noah-”

“Look, we need the landing gear.” He stood over her, guiding her hands with his on the yoke. Hers were small, and icy cold, and he refused to care. “I’ve done it the other way, without, and trust me, Princess, you don’t want to go that route.”

“Ohmigod.”

“Okay, I’m going to let go.”

“Ohmigod.”

“Keep your eyes on the horizon. And here.” He tapped the altimeter. “Keep that steady. Call me if anything moves.”

She had a death grip on the yoke and didn’t take her eyes off the horizon. “Hurry,” she whispered.

Yeah. Excellent idea. He rushed to the back of the plane, pushing aside the blanket, the duffle bags. He opened the hatch, lowered himself to his belly, and stretched for the hand crank.

The plane jerked, flinging him hard against the hatch door.

“Noah!” she yelled from the pilot’s seat.

“Just an air pocket.” He hoped. “Hold her as steady as you can!” He swiped the lip he’d just bitten. His fingers came away bloody.

Not as bloody as you’ll be if you don’t get the landing gear down, came his macabre thought.

It took everything he had to reach the crank with the plane being tossed around, but he did reach it and, with sheer force of will, managed to manually lower the landing gear. Brand, spanking new, and it had stuck, which he’d raise holy hell about later, when his toes were on the ground. “You okay?” he yelled, pushing to his feet, rushing back to the front.

“Peachy,” she snapped.

A reluctant smile crossed his face. She had guts, he’d give her that.

The plane dipped violently, and she let out a squeak. “Noah!”

“Right here.” At her side now, he nudged her stiff form. “Lean forward.”

When she did, he slid in behind her. His legs stretched along the outside of hers, and so did his arms.

Turning her head, she met his gaze, and looking into her baby blues felt like a one-two punch. It literally took his breath. For a moment he couldn’t even think.

“Did you get it?” she whispered.

A boner? Yeah.

“The landing gear. Did you get it?”

Right. The landing gear. “Yes,” he said, his voice a little thick and unintentionally husky. “Got it. We don’t have to land on our belly. You’re off pilot duty now.”

But she was looking at him with those dreamy eyes, and with a soft sound of sympathy, she touched his lip.

He’d nearly forgotten. “It’s nothing.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered in a voice that for some reason nearly undid him. Then she shifted, meaning she once again pressed that honey of an ass into his crotch, and then she finally, finally, went still. Stared up at him.

Yeah, babe, that’s exactly what you think it is.

“I, um-” She scrambled to get off his lap. “You-”

Uh huh. He was.

While she turned away, he busied himself with the controls, a little unsettled that he could possibly be turned on by her, here, now.

Another air pocket pitched them a few hundred feet, and with a gasp, she fell back into the copilot’s seat.

He wanted not to care. Instead, that caring barreled through him with shocking strength. “Stay down,” he said. “Buckle in.”

“You aren’t going to turn me in when we get down, right?”

“Let’s just land.”

“Noah. Please.” Her voice was low, sweet. Desperate. “I don’t have anyone else.”

Under entirely different circumstances, he’d have enjoyed her begging him in exactly that voice, the circumstances being her naked beneath him, but then she covered her face with her hands and sagged back in utter destitution.

And he felt like a jerk. He, the hijacked one. “Prepare for landing.”

She lifted her face. “And then what?”

“I’ll let you know.”

Ignoring Bailey and her palatable desperation, Noah went into landing mode, maneuvering the plane in the fading daylight, talking to ground control as they came into view of the small, private Mammoth airstrip where he always landed.

As the sun sank below the mountain line, he touched down and taxied them in, while Bailey sat still, white-knuckled, white-faced.

Finally he shut down the engine.

She didn’t move.

He stood, then crouched at her side. “We’ve landed.”

She nodded, but didn’t look at him until he slid his hand along her jaw and tilted her head down toward him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her hair falling over his hand, her skin creamy soft beneath his fingers.

Sorry for coming along, he wondered, or for running out on him, which she’d most likely do while he arranged for the plane’s tie-down and complete recheck of the landing gear.

“I didn’t mean to ruin your night,” she said. “I didn’t know it was your plane I was getting on.”

“Whose plane did you mean to get on?”

“It was going to Mammoth. That’s all that mattered.”

Their faces were level. He was close enough to see that her baby blues were outlined in a ring of midnight blue, and that she had a light smattering of freckles high across her perfect nose. Close enough to see the pulse beating faster than a hummingbird’s at her throat. Without conscious thought, he stroked a thumb over that beat.

Her gaze caught his, and held.

Their mouths were nothing but a whisper apart. He knew it was crazy, but he wanted to close the gap, wanted to put his mouth on hers as he’d so pathetically fantasized about on more than one dark, sweaty, sleepless night. The only thing that stopped him now was the knowledge that she didn’t want anything but her freedom.

But her gaze lowered to his mouth, too, and her tongue darted out to moisten her lower lip.

He nearly moaned. Instead, his hand slid from her jaw to the back of her neck, his fingers slipping into her silky hair, which was now teasing his forearm.

She said his name again, just a whisper of a sound this time, and her eyes fluttered closed, which sent a ridiculous surge of lust coursing through him.