I glanced over my shoulder, about to snap at him, only to catch him glaring at my ass. There was an angry heat in that stare, heat he hadn’t looked at me with before. The kind of heat a guy usually had in his eyes when he wanted to find the nearest bed and throw me on it.
Suddenly, the image of him looming over me, his body pressed between my legs, flashed through me in a surge of fire that shocked and pissed me off in equal measure.
Huh.
I snapped my head back around, not going there. “Would you move?” I bit out.
His knees suddenly pulled back and I stumbled out of his space and tumbled into my seat with less grace than I’d have liked.
Feeling his gaze on me, I shot him what had to be the hundredth filthy look of the day. “What?”
Instead of answering, he turned, bent down toward the aisle, and came back up with my jacket in his hand. I hadn’t even realized I’d dropped it. He shoved it at me and I snatched it out of his hold.
“What? No thank you?” he mocked.
“I’m not going to thank you for not getting out of your seat to let me into mine like someone with good manners would have done.”
He grunted and turned back to his laptop.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re now approaching Chicago O’Hare,” the head flight attendant announced over the cabin PA. “Please put any larger devices like laptops safely in the overhead bins, stow tray tables, and return your seats to their upright positions for landing …” Her words faded out for me as my gaze unwittingly moved to watch the Scot put away his laptop. He stowed his table and got up out of his seat, stretching to his full height. He easily reached the overhead bins, putting his laptop away in its bag. I let my eyes wander down his long body, wishing that people with ugly insides could have some kind of monstrous appearance on the outside. In fact, if I was wishing for things I’d wish that my body wasn’t as fickle as it was, that it had somehow evolved past cavewoman mentality, that it didn’t lust for this kind of masculine virility I didn’t even know still existed.
Need gripped my lower body, a clench of desire followed by a tingling I couldn’t deny. Flushing, I wrenched my gaze away from him and began to shrug back into my jacket.
God, I hated him.
Our seats jolted a little when he threw himself back into his. He immediately clipped his seat belt on and I side-eyed him. His fingers were curled tight again over the ends of the arms of the divider between us.
Okay, if I was really wishing for things, I would wish I wasn’t so softhearted, because I still felt a little sorry for him. Although I truly did not like this man, I also disliked the idea of someone who could clearly take care of himself being held captive by fear. I had a feeling that would bother this guy more than it would most people.
We sat in tense silence as the plane gradually descended, closing in on landing.
“I can feel you stewing over there.”
I shouldn’t have engaged with him, but I, unlike him, did not lack a heart and I knew that the only reason he was talking right now was because he needed the distraction. He was just too much of a baby to admit he needed me to distract him. So I answered, infusing the annoyance he wanted from me in my answer. “I’m not stewing.”
“You’re stewing.”
“You don’t know me well enough to know if I’m stewing.”
He sighed. “Babe, no one would need tae know you tae know you’re stewing. Everything you’re feeling you wear on your face.”
“Not true. I bet you don’t know what I’m feeling right now.”
“You’re feeling murderous with a hint of sympathy.”
My lips parted in amazement at his intuitiveness.
He rolled his eyes. “Murderous, fine. But to hell with your sympathy.”
“You’re awful. You know that, right? Like, truly awful. Is there anyone in this world who doesn’t think that?”
“My entire family. Colleagues. Friends. The women I’ve had sex with.”
Heat bloomed in my cheeks at his bluntness and the imagery it brought to mind. “I think you’re probably delusional about the last one.”
“I dinnae think so.” His cold gaze drifted over me again, and then he abruptly looked away. “Uptight princesses just dinnae understand. They choose the wrong men who dinnae know how tae pleasure them and write sex off, thinking women who enjoy it are lying.”
That’s what he thought. “I’ve had good sex. Great sex.” It had been years ago and it was followed by heart-wrenching betrayal, but it had been great sex.
He stared at me, I think trying to discern if I was being sincere. “That’s surprising.”
Uncomfortable with the way his eyes bore through me, I decided it was definitely time for a subject change. “So this family of yours … do they know you’re obnoxiously rude?”
“Why would they? I’m nice tae them.”
“Oh, so you admit that you’re mean to me?”
“Maybe I am. Maybe I need tae be.”
That enigmatic answer infuriated me almost more than anything else he’d said. “What does that mean?”
The freeze in his eyes suddenly warmed. “It means”—his deep voice juddered a little as the plane bounced onto the runway—“I need you tae hate me.”
I screwed up my face. “What kind of bullcrap is that?”
His lips twitched as he studied me. “The kind that means you won’t be amenable tae sleeping with me.”
Genuine surprise locked me in place. “Excuse me?”
“You don’t want tae sleep with me, do you?”
“No,” I answered emphatically, because as much as I was unwillingly attracted to him, I really didn’t like him. More than that, I didn’t respect him.
I thought I saw a flicker of displeasure in his expression at my sincere reply. “Good,” he bit out, and looked away. I knew the moment he realized we’d landed because he turned back to me. His countenance softened just a little. It was a look that said the words he was apparently incapable of saying out loud.
I thought I might have imagined the silent thank you until he gave me a curt nod.
I nodded back.
Quite abruptly he snapped off his seat belt and got up as everyone else did. Maybe it was his appearance, but the other passengers seemed to move out of his way after he grabbed his laptop bag out of the overhead. He strode past them down the aisle to wait in the galley to be let off the plane first.
Without another word.
Without even looking back at me.
“So rude.”
Five
For the life of me, I couldn’t remember the last time a shower had felt so good. The water pounded down on my shoulders, easing the tension, and they automatically dropped from where they’d been hunched up around my neck. As much as I wanted to be back in Boston, I was happy to be out of Arizona. I usually found O’Hare intimidating because of its size and how busy it was, but right then I didn’t care. All I cared about was that I had made it to a hotel room, that the concierge had arranged to dry-clean a few of my outfits so I’d have something to wear down to dinner that evening, and that I’d finally sleep well miles away from my hometown.
Rather than get on a shuttle to some other hotel farther from the airport, I decided to stay at the hotel with an indoor walkway between it and the domestic terminals. The rooms boasted sound-resistant windows, I had a great view of the runway from the floor-to-ceiling window in the separate living room, and it meant I could sleep in a little longer before my flight in the morning.