Well now. Worth it.
Maybe we do have something special here.
Am I going soft, like I vowed I never would?
I narrow my eyes at her. “Elise.” My voice is sharp like a well-aimed slap.
Her eyes come back to me, those long lashes of hers fluttering. “Yes.”
“Hang up the phone and come here.”
There’s the briefest second of hesitation and I wonder if she’s processing my request, but the next moment she speaks into the phone. “Gotta go. Call you right back. God, I know, right?” She verbally rolls her eyes, but I let that one slide.
When she hangs up her call she slides the phone onto her tray and walks over to me on wobbly legs. We’re flying steadily but she doesn’t walk too well when we’re in the air.
“Yes, sir?” she asks in that singsong voice of hers that’s totally gonna get her spanked.
I snap my fingers and point to the floor. I watch as she hastens to obey. Fuck.
“You said I was getting the best damn blow job for that,” I say, my voice hoarse and affected.
“I did,” she says, her eyes shining and cheeks a little flushed. Somehow, by some miracle, I landed a woman who likes giving the damn things. She licks her lips. “Right now?”
I stroke my thick cock through the silky fabric of my pants and groan. No. Not now. We’re landing in minutes and any second, the flight attendant will come back and tell us to prepare for landing. Still, I grab her hair and fist it, dragging her mouth between my legs. “Not now, baby,” I say, even though it kills me to tell her no. “But tonight. Later. When we’re alone, me and you. Got it?”
“Mmm. Yes,” she says, before she bends her mouth and kisses the fat bulge in my pants. “Your wish is my command.”
I stifle another groan. Fucking perfect.
“Later,” I grate out, when her eyes fall to the open email on my phone. A visible look of surprise crosses her face she quickly conceals, but not before I note it.
“You see something there?”
I expect her to lie, to pretend that she didn’t see anything at all, but she doesn’t. Her brows knit in concentration. She rests her forearms on my knees. “May I please see what you’re looking at?”
It belonged to her father. Honestly, I’m not sure why I didn’t show it to her before.
“You recognize these?”
“Of course,” she says, cradling my phone in her hand. “I’m a shopper. I was the one who picked out the merchandise my father sold here.” There’s a note of nostalgia in her voice.
“Seriously? I’m surprised a man like your father allowed you anywhere near it.”
She shrugs. “Oh, he didn’t know about it. But I befriended the manager in charge of inventory, and she let me pick out whatever I thought would sell. Strange, I thought these burned down in a fire.”
There was never a fire anywhere near the place. “Why’d you think that? No fire that I know of. Everything’s in good shape, just abandoned.”
Her frown deepens. “It’s what my father told me.” She shakes her head. “Huh. It’s where Piero—”
She stops short and covers her mouth with her hand. What the hell? But before she can speak again, we hit a pocket of turbulence. Her face smashes into my knee and she gives a cry. Jesus.
I quickly pick her up and tug her onto my lap. “You alright?” But I can’t answer because my voice is swallowed in her scream. The plane nosedives. I throw my arms around her to keep her from hurtling about the plane. Another dip and the plane shakes with the effort of staying upright. The pilot’s voice comes over a speaker.
“Nothing to worry about, sir. We hit an unexpected pocket of turbulence. I’ll have us right back on course in no time.”
Back on course? How far have we drifted?
“Oh God, oh God,” Elise says, tears squeezing from beneath her eyelids.
“You’ll be okay,” I tell her, but when we hit another rough patch, she screams and flails like she’s possessed.
“Elise. Stop.” But it’s no use, she’s terrified and can’t stop herself from hyperventilating. Gasping for air, she claws at her throat.
I give her a hard smack to the side of her leg. She gasps for breath, her chest heaving.
“Stop,” I order. “We’ll be fine. Breathe, baby.” I grasp her cheeks hard between my fingers. She winces but looks a little more pink.
“Alright, babe. We’re okay now. You okay?”
I slide her into the seat next to me. My heart breaks for her when she puts her head back, still crying. Her lower lip wobbles like a small child on the verge of a breakdown.
“Shh, baby,” I whisper, gripping her knee. “We’re alright. You’re okay. I won’t take you on another plane anytime soon, okay?”
“Maybe,” she pants. Little beads of perspiration dot her forehead. “Maybe just, like, drug me or something. I do love Tuscany and would rather be there than America anyway, it’s just the to and fro that kill me.”
She’s so damn adorable. “I can easily drug you or something. Not a problem.”
“Of course,” she says with a little laugh. “Probably keep a little vial of sedative on your person or something, eh?”
Not quite, but I’m glad she can make light of it. I do have methods of sedation.
“Okay, alright.” She’s still panting, her eyes still closed.
I take her hand in mine as the Boston skyline comes into view through the window. “I’m guessing you don’t want to open your eyes, so I’ll just tell you. The Boston skyline’s magic tonight.”
“Oh yeah?” she whispers. She takes in another shuddering breath.
“Yeah,” I reply. “All twinkling lights like dots of fairy dust.”
“That sounds like something I’d say.”
“Perhaps.” I smile to myself. Maybe she’s affected me.
“So no budget on the dress?”
“Are you changing the subject?”
“I so fucking am.”
“I seriously do not care how much you spend on the dress. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event. My mother’s already spent thirty thousand dollars just on the goddamn chairs we sit our asses in.”
“Does she have money to burn or what?”
She absolutely does, probably my father’s investments she doesn’t want to touch.
“Elise,” I say in a bored tone, reading through the notes from Santo. I want all this bullshit behind us.
“Mmm?”
She’s flipping through a bridal magazine when we hit another pocket of turbulence. Her audible gasp concerns me.
“I—I hate flying,” she says, squeezing her eyes shut.
“Wish I knew that before we decided to take a few flights to Tuscany. This week, before the wedding, you’ll answer anything and everything I ask. Got it?”
“Sure, but will the same apply to you?”
“It will.”
She nods. “Good. Who starts?”
“Me.”
“Why does that not surprise me?”
I flip through the pictures and make a mental note to have Santo talk with Elise under my supervision. It’s not that I don’t trust her. He’s the one I don’t trust.