Getting Off the Ground

GETTING OFF THE GROUND

… The man was way too alert to be drugged but appeared, aside from momentary displays of frustration with his game, completely relaxed and unperturbed. He must have been one of those people who didn’t get pissed off in traffic jams, either. One of those aggravatingly relaxed ones who just turned up the radio, tapped the beat into the steering wheel with his thumbs, all the while reminding himself over and over, “I’ll get there eventually, no sense getting stressed over it.” I, meanwhile, would be three cars back, white-knuckling the wheel and praying for sweet death if it meant not sitting there for another two minutes. Once our plane finally boarded and took off, this guy would probably be sound asleep for the entire flight while I drummed my fingers and tried in vain to get comfortable. His eyes flicked up and met mine, and I quickly shifted my gaze away, my cheeks burning as I wondered just how long I’d been absently staring at him. It wasn’t only his relaxed state that had drawn my attention. He was definitely easy on the eyes. The loose sleeves of his Hawaiian shirt were just short enough to hint at his well-toned biceps, and his sculpted forearms, tanned and lightly dusted with dark blond hair, didn’t belong to someone who spent all his time fucking off playing video games. His legs were similarly toned and bronzed. Chiseled jaw, prominent cheekbones, and— And I was staring again…

ALSO BY L. A. WITT Changing Plans Infinity Pools Static

GETTING OFF THE GROUND BY L. A. WITT

AMBER Q UILL PRESS, LLC http://www.AmberQuill.com

GETTING OFF THE GROUND AN AMBER QUILL PRESS BOOK This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental. Amber Quill Press, LLC http://www.AmberQuill.com All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review. Copyright © 2011 by L. A. Witt ISBN 978-1-61124-088-7 Cover Art © 2011 Trace Edward Zaber

PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To Aislinn Kerry, since this book is all your fault. I do hope you’re pleased with yourself.

GETTING OFF THE GROUND

CHAPTER 1 This is just what I need. White sand beaches. Palm trees. Two weeks, give or take a day, in paradise with gorgeous, available men wearing more suntan lotion than clothing. I put down the travel brochure and glared at the motionless aircraft just beyond the window. Not that I could see it very well; its white fuselage was nearly camouflaged behind the snow that tumbled out of the gray sky and spun and swirled in the heavy wind. A freak snowstorm when I was trying to get the hell out of here. Yeah, that was what I needed. The other passengers milled around the gate, waiting with knitted eyebrows and folded arms. Anytime one of the staff 1

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members went near the microphone to make an announcement or call for a specific passenger, everyone stiffened and craned their necks, waiting for updates. Worried phone calls were made, tense breaths were taken and released, and the floor vibrated with the faint percussion of pacing feet. A narrow aisle divided my row of stiff, faux leather chairs from a facing row. The woman sitting across from me between two bored-looking kids leaned forward. “Do you think our flight will be delayed again?” she asked. I glanced out the window once more. Though like our plane, the runway was barely visible, I hadn’t seen anything take off in at least two hours. I looked at the woman and nodded. “Probably.” She pursed her lips. “Hopefully it won’t be long, then.” She sat back, staring out the same window and folding her hands in her lap. “Guess we’ll see,” I muttered. A few seats over from her, a good-looking guy with sandy blond hair and five o’clock shadow looked up from his laptop. He glanced at her, then me, and a vague look of amusement tried to curl the corner of his mouth before he turned his attention back to the screen. I wondered how the hell he was so relaxed when everyone else walked the fine line between concern and panic. He was dressed like his vacation had already begun, not like someone stranded in Seattle during a surprise blizzard, unlike those of us who wouldn’t truly be on vacation until we landed in Honolulu. It wasn’t just the sandals, khaki shorts, and tasteful blue Hawaiian shirt with the top button undone, either. His feet were propped up on his suitcase and crossed at the ankles, the computer balanced on his knees, and he didn’t look like he gave a shit or even noticed what was going on 2

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all around him. He’d been there for the last hour or two, and he’d barely batted an eye when the first delay was announced. Nor the second. When the snow came down harder, he’d looked, but no reaction registered on his face. At first I wondered if he’d had a few drinks or maybe thrown back a Valium like my mother always did when she flew, but that theory flew out the window when I watched his hands for a moment. Judging by the way his fingers moved on the keyboard, he was playing a game. It was easy to tell, even from here: the same keystrokes, over and over, and sometimes his brow furrowed and lips tightened as those keystrokes quickened. Then he’d exhale, shake his head, and punch in some other command before resuming the repetitive motions. He was way too alert to be drugged but appeared, aside from momentary displays of frustration with his game, completely relaxed and unperturbed. He must have been one of those people who didn’t get pissed off in traffic jams, either. One of those aggravatingly relaxed ones who just turned up the radio, tapped the beat into the steering wheel with his thumbs, all the while reminding himself over and over, “I’ll get there eventually, no sense getting stressed over it.” I, meanwhile, would be three cars back, white-knuckling the wheel and praying for sweet death if it meant not sitting there for another two minutes. Once our plane finally boarded and took off, this guy would probably be sound asleep for the entire flight while I drummed my fingers and tried in vain to get comfortable. His eyes flicked up and met mine, and I quickly shifted my gaze away, my cheeks burning as I wondered just how long I’d been absently staring at him. It wasn’t only his relaxed state that had drawn my attention. He 3

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was definitely easy on the eyes. The loose sleeves of his Hawaiian shirt were just short enough to hint at his well-toned biceps, and his sculpted forearms, tanned and lightly dusted with dark blond hair, didn’t belong to someone who spent all his time fucking off playing video games. His legs were similarly toned and bronzed. Chiseled jaw, prominent cheekbones, and— And I was staring again. I cleared my throat and turned to rifle through my carry-on bag. I didn’t actually need anything out of it, but it gave me something to focus on besides Mr. Calm, Collected, and Fucking Hot. “Attention passengers waiting for flight two-zero-five bound for Honolulu International Airport, Honolulu, Hawaii,” the flight attendant’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker, giving me something else to think about. “Due to snow conditions here at Sea-Tac International Airport, this flight will be delayed another two hours.” A collective groan rippled through the crowd and drowned out her sincerest apologies for the inconvenience. The guy in the Hawaiian shirt pursed his lips and muttered something under his breath, but otherwise didn’t react. I looked at my watch. It was a little past noon. As of now, our flight wouldn’t be leaving until at least three, and that assumed the weather cleared up. If it got to be four or five in the evening, the sun—wherever the fuck it was—would be going down. Even if the snow stopped coming down, the temperature wouldn’t be rising, and that meant only one thing: ice. Glancing around the terminal, I made note of several other gates that were crowded with impatient-looking souls. It wasn’t a terribly busy travel day and it was off-peak season, so it wasn’t wall-to-wall people like it would have been in June or around Thanksgiving. Still, there were a hell of a lot of people stranded 4

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like myself and the mother who fretted and fidgeted across from me. A lot of people who weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. I pulled my laptop out of its case and powered it up. I’d promised myself this wouldn’t be another vacation full of neurotic pre-planning or doing things just to be on the safe side. This would be as close to reckless as Elliott Chandler was capable of being. Still, this was an extenuating circumstance, and I convinced myself that even my devil-may-care partner—ex-partner— wouldn’t have argued. When my computer finished starting up, I paused to look at the desktop background I’d put up last night. It was a screenshot of my to-do list on this trip. 1. Cancel a reservation at the last minute. 2. Some random guy I haven’t met yet. 3. Sex on the beach. I chuckled to myself. Only I would make a to-do list for a damned vacation, especially one that may as well have just said, stop planning and go get laid, dumbshit. And only I would consider cancelling a reservation at the last minute to be wild and reckless. Knowing me, it wouldn’t turn out to be anything riskier than canceling a dinner reservation and eating someplace else at the last second. Yeah, I was extreme. Oh, well. The very fact that I was still taking this trip was unusual by my standards, especially since I was going alone. I wasn’t supposed to be going alone, but why let both expensive honeymoon tickets go to waste? After logging into the airport’s obscenely overpriced wireless 5

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network, I did a quick search of nearby hotels. There was no sense paying for a shuttle and going home for the night; if the weather was bad enough to cancel my flight, then I didn’t relish the idea of being driven in it, either. My house was an hour away in decent weather. It would easily be three hours or more in this shit, with the added risk of a wreck because of ice or low visibility. No, thanks. A hotel was clearly the more prudent option, and a few clicks later, I had a reservation for tonight. A larger and more expensive room than I’d wanted, but it was all that was available, so I took it. While my computer shut down, I pulled out my cell phone. There were a few missed calls, which didn’t surprise me. That was exactly why my phone had been on silent since last night anyhow. They could wait a minute. I dialed the hotel. A female voice picked up on the other end. “Front desk, how may I help you?” “I just made a reservation online for tonight,” I said. “I’d like to confirm that it came through. Last name is Chandler.” “One moment, please.” Keys clicked in the background. Then, “Elliott Chandler?” “Yes, ma’am.” “I have you down for a non-smoking room with two queen beds for one night. Is that correct?” “Yes, that’s correct.” “Excellent,” she said. “Looks like you got one of the last available rooms for tonight.” “Guess I booked it just in time,” I said, forcing a laugh even though my mind reeled with what if I’d waited another ten minutes to make the call? “Yes, you did,” she said. “We’ll see you this evening, Mr. 6

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Chandler.” “Thank you.” With that out of the way, I scrolled through my missed calls. My mom again. My sister Cassie. I wasn’t sure if it should have surprised me or not that Ben, my ex as of much too recently, had called twice. Maybe it should have, maybe it shouldn’t have, but it damn sure did. The only thing I wanted to hear from him right now was, “I’ll be moved out by the time you get back.” That much could be contained in a voice mail, and he hadn’t left one. I didn’t feel like talking to my mom, and I sure as hell wasn’t calling Ben anytime soon, but Cassie was always a welcome diversion. “Hey, Ell,” she said when she answered. “How are you holding up?” “I’ll live.” “God, I hope so,” she said, a hint of a laugh in her voice. “But, I’m serious, how are—wait, where are you?” “The airport.” “The… airport?” she sputtered. “You’re not… I thought you were joking about going.” “I was,” I said. “But then I decided it was a good idea, so here I am.” “Wow.” She exhaled. “So, you’re actually taking a honeymoon by yourself?” I laughed dryly. “I don’t think it qualifies as a honeymoon anymore now that I’m going by myself.” Mr. Calm and Cool’s eyes flicked toward me for a split second. The woman across from me raised her eyebrows. I buried my gaze in my carry-on bag. “So, what are you going to do?” she asked. 7

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“Spend two weeks in Hawaii pretending I didn’t just get dumped, I guess,” I said. “We had all kinds of things planned, so— ” “Jesus, Ell,” she said. “Only you would plan every minute of your damned honeymoon.” “I didn’t plan every minute of it.” “Yes, you did.” “Okay, fine, I did.” I laughed again, but didn’t put much effort into it. “Yes, the whole trip is planned down to the last minute, but at least it’s better than moping around the house.” “True. I can’t argue with that.” She sighed. “Are you sure you’ll be okay? After what happened?” “Not like I’m the first guy to get stood up at the altar.” The squeak of movement on leather made me instinctively look up, and the mother across from me met my eyes. Her eyebrows were up, so I had no doubt she’d overheard me. I dropped my gaze again. “You’re not the first,” Cassie said. “But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. Shouldn’t you take some time to deal with it?” “I am, Cass,” I said. “That’s why I’m going. Maybe it’ll give him time to move his crap out of the house while I’m gone. I just, I need to be as far from him as I can get right now.” A sharp breath preceded more movement in front of me. I glanced up as the woman and her kids collected their things. She shot me a disgusted look just before they moved to another row of seats. I didn’t have the energy to get offended and didn’t bother rolling my eyes. I didn’t care. It had been less than twenty-four hours since the man who was supposed to love me decided to ditch me at our own wedding. Anyone who didn’t like two men getting 8

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married could shove their judgment right up their ass at this point. “You still there?” Cassie asked. “Yeah, sorry,” I said. “Just got… distracted.” “That doesn’t surprise me right now.” She blew out a breath. “Well, have fun on your trip.” “I will, assuming the plane ever gets off the ground.” “Oh, shit, yeah,” she said. “They said on the news they’re canceling flights left and right. You still going to make it out of there tonight?” “Hopefully.” She was quiet for a moment. “You sound way too okay with that. Are—oh, wait. You have a backup plan, don’t you?” I laughed. “Of course I have a backup plan.” “You would. Listen, I have to run, but try to have a good time, okay?” “Will do.” “Put it on your to-do list or something.” “Shut up.” “Bye, Ell.” Chuckling, I hung up and slid my phone back into my pocket. As I sat back, I caught Mr. Calm and Cool’s eye. A ghost of a grin gave his lips the most mouthwatering shape and added a devilish sparkle to his eyes. Those sparkling blue eyes darted toward the empty seats across from me, then the place the woman and her kids had parked themselves, then to me, and the grin broadened. “Was it something I said?” he asked. I laughed again and shrugged. “More like something I said.” He threw a dismissive gesture in her direction. “Fuck her.” “I’d rather not, thanks,” I muttered. 9

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He snickered and dropped his feet from on top of his suitcase to the floor. Laptop in one hand, leather case slung over his other shoulder, he toed his suitcase a few feet over, then set everything else in one of the seats the woman and her kids had occupied. Before he took a seat himself, he extended his hand. “Derek Windsor.” I shook his hand. “Elliott Chandler.” He dropped into the chair opposite me and leaned back, crossing his feet at the ankles and lacing his fingers behind his head. As he’d been all along, the very picture of relaxed. “So, what’s taking you to Hawaii?” I asked. “Business or pleasure?” “Actually, I’m heading home,” he said. “I was in Denver on business, stopped into Seattle for a few days to visit family, and now I’m on my way home.” “You live in Hawaii?” He nodded. “Must be nice.” He shrugged. “Oh, the novelty wears off after a while, but I do love it.” He threw a smirk toward the windows, then looked back at me. “I certainly don’t miss the snow.” “I could do without it myself,” I grumbled. “Ah, come on now, it doesn’t snow here that much.” He paused. “Or, is this just a stopover for you?” “No, no, I live here,” I said. “And I do like it. Aside from the”—I gestured at the window—“humidity.” Derek laughed. “Just wait until you get to Hawaii. That, my friend, is humidity.” “So I’ve heard.” “Never been there?” 10

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I shook my head. “Haven’t done a lot of traveling, I’m afraid.” I leaned back and slung one arm across the back of the chair beside me, trying to look a hell of a lot more relaxed than I felt. Though I had to admit, Derek’s calm-amidst-the-storm demeanor was contagious. People like that usually just served to remind me how wound up I was. Derek may as well have been kneading my shoulders and whispering in my ear right then. I wish. I stole another glance at his arms. I cleared my throat. “Any recommendations for a clueless tourist?” He smiled. “I thought I heard you saying you’d planned every minute of your trip.” He paused, then quickly added, “Not that I was trying to eavesdrop. You know how it is… ” He gestured around the crowd of passengers. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Bound to overhear a conversation or two in here. And to answer your question, I did have it all planned, but I was also planning to have someone with me. Since that plan’s changed, why not throw the rest out the window with it?” He gave a slow nod. “Point taken. Which island are you visiting?” “Oahu. Staying in Honolulu” “Hmm. Can’t say I’m familiar enough with Oahu to help you much. Now, Maui and Molokai? I know those two like the back of my hand.” Just my luck . “Sounds like I picked the wrong island, then.” “Oh, I don’t know about that.” His eyes met mine, and my heart skipped. The water surrounding Hawaii only aspired to be that blue. “There’s still plenty to do on Oahu. I just wouldn’t be much of a tour guide.” He brought his hands down, letting one rest 11

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on the handle of his suitcase while he leaned the other elbow on the chair’s armrest. “Are you the type who likes the more touristy places, or the out of the way things only the locals know about?” I chewed my lip. Which type was I? Before today, I was the type who planned everything to the last minute, never strayed off the beaten path, and took every recommended precaution. Plus a few extra precautions for good measure. I followed guidebooks like they were brain surgery manuals. Yesterday, my perfectly planned world was yanked out from under my feet. Every plan I’d made from this point forward was screwed. This morning, when I left for the airport, I’d left the guidebook beside my bed. Whether it was for spite, or because I just didn’t give a fuck anymore, I’d left it behind. All I had was a brochure with the number and address of my hotel. “Quite honestly,” I said finally, “I don’t know what type of tourist I am.” Derek tilted his head a little and regarded me silently. He absently traced his lower lip with the tip of his thumb. My own fingertips tingled, reminding me I wasn’t touching him. As if I’d forgotten. “Well,” he said, his voice quiet but reaching me with ease in spite of the voices and movement all around us, “I do have some friends on Oahu. I could give you their contact information. They know a lot of the places no one tells the tourists about.” “They wouldn’t mind a tourist joining them?” He laughed and shook his head. “Hardly. Some of the places are just restaurants, secluded beaches, the good hiking trails. Things like that. Some are”—he glanced at the mother who’d herded her children away from me, then looked at me and lowered his voice a little more—“friendlier than others, if you know what I 12

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mean.” My heart sped up. “Are there places like that on all the islands?” “There are.” Derek held my gaze. “Some more than others.” “More places than others?” I asked. “Or friendlier than others?” “Yes.” I gulped. I really was going to the wrong island.

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CHAPTER 2 The snow stopped falling around one-thirty. No additional snow was a good thing, but its cessation could have been an indication that the temperature was dropping. That was the last thing we needed. Derek and I both scowled at the scene outside. Workers scrambled around the tarmac, bundled up in bright orange jackets as they de-iced the planes, tarmacs, runways, anything that had ice on it and shouldn’t have. One plane careened down the runway and took off. Then another. Fifteen or twenty minutes later, a third took off. Several more made the slow taxi from the gate to the tarmac. Our flight was delayed again, but the weather looked promising. Sort of. “Maybe we’ll actually get out of here this side of Christmas,” 14

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Derek said. “That would be nice.” I glared at the gray outdoors. “I tend to prefer to spend my vacation time on vacation, not trying to get there.” He nodded. “Understood, believe me.” Much as I hated being stuck in an airport, at least I couldn’t complain about the company. Ever since the sneering woman and her kids had moved, making way for Derek to take their place, he and I had passed the time making conversation about this and that. I’d even led myself to believe there was some flirtation. Maybe there was. It had been so long since I’d even tried to flirt, God only knew what signals I was giving off, and any sign I picked up off Derek could have been little more than wishful thinking. A man could dream, after all. Still, it beat the hell out of staring out at the shitty weather or feeling sorry for myself. “So what do you have planned when you get to Oahu?” he asked. Oh, what didn’t I have planned? My itinerary was ridiculously detailed. Was ridiculously detailed. I’d left it folded in half inside the guidebook I’d abandoned. “Not much, really. I just figured I’d”—the very thought made me gulp—“wing it.” Amusement crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Really? You don’t strike me as the type to wing much of anything.” “What gives you that impression?” Especially since it’s right on the goddamn money. He shrugged, thumbing his chin as he eyed me. “Lucky guess?” “I’m sure.” I shifted a little under the weight of his mischievous gaze. “At this point, I’m kind of throwing my plans to the wind. 15

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Maybe I’ll check out some of the places you mentioned.” Oh, God, as if kissing my plans goodbye didn’t intimidate me enough. “Just don’t spend all your time on land,” he said. “What do you mean?” “Get in the water. You have to go snorkeling if nothing else.” “That, I actually planned to do,” I said. “I don’t know when or where, but I do plan to go snorkeling.” He smiled. “Good. It’s gorgeous there. Not something you want to miss.” “So, what do you do on Maui?” I asked. “I mean, you must get bored, spending all your time on a tropical island.” Derek chuckled. “Like I said, the novelty does wear off after a while. But, if I’m not out hiking or diving, I’m golfing.” “Golf?” I laughed. “For some reason you didn’t strike me as a golfer.” He gave a haughty sniff. “I’ll have you know I’m a damned good golfer.” “I believe you.” I put up my hands. “Not that I know the first thing about the game.” “You’ve never played?” “No. I’m afraid if I try it, I might like it.” “You’re missing out.” “Somehow I doubt that.” He laughed. “Pity you’re going to the other island. I could have taught you to play.” An image flickered through my mind of Derek standing behind me, showing me how to hold a golf club. I envisioned his hips twisting in slow motion, but then quickly shoved that thought aside, along with the fleeting temptation to check airfare for a hop from Oahu to Maui. 16

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Settle down, Chandler. He’s the first guy to give you the time of day after a breakup. Not a reason to do something impulsive and stupid. Derek sat up a little and flinched. Grimacing, he stretched and twisted a crick out of his back. I did the same, wincing at the snap, crackle, and pop that went up my spine. I realized then that neither of us had moved much in the last couple of hours. “Damn it,” I muttered. “Sat still too long.” “I hear ya.” He gingerly rubbed his lower back. “Guess I’m being lazy today.” “Probably not a smart thing to do right before a long flight, is it?” “You haven’t flown much, have you?” “Very, very little.” He smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Just move around every now and then on the plane. I try to get up and walk for a few minutes every hour or so. Keeps me from getting too stiff.” Our eyes met, and a hint of color flushed across his cheeks. “My back, I mean.” “Right, of course,” I said. “I have the same problem. With my back. If I sit still too long.” “Happens to the best of us, I guess.” He rested his elbows on his knees. “I don’t think we’re getting out of here for a while. You want to go grab something to eat?” “Where’d you have in mind?” There was a small food court close by. I couldn’t say fast food sounded all that appetizing right now, though. He gestured down the concourse. “There’s a halfway decent restaurant at the other end. Over by the rest of the gates.” “Do you really want to go that far?” Derek shrugged. “Our plane’s not going anywhere anytime 17

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soon. Trust me, we’ve got six hours of airline food ahead of us.” He stood, pausing to stretch again. “Might as well enjoy something decent before we take off, right?” The idea of being more than fifty paces from the gate unnerved me. What if I missed a gate call? A delay? Any other announcement? Something? I looked up at Derek. His eyebrows were raised, an unspoken “You coming?” creasing his forehead. Oh, fuck the gate calls. I stood and pulled my laptop case onto my shoulder. As we walked out of the seating area, the woman who’d sneered at me and stormed off earlier caught my eye. Her gaze darted back and forth between Derek and me, and she wrinkled her nose slightly. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Heaven knew what she thought we were off to do since, naturally, any man within arm’s length was my gay lover. She was probably relieved to see us go. After all, it was only a matter of time before we started making out or broke into show tunes. My own thought made me snort with laughter. “What?” Derek asked. I shook my head. “Nothing.” “Nothing?” He raised an eyebrow. Struggling to stifle a laugh, I gestured back at the seating area. “Just thinking what must be going through that lady’s mind, seeing two men leave like this.” Derek glanced over his shoulder. “Poor woman,” he deadpanned. “A brain full of dirty thoughts about what two men might do when they’re out of sight.” He clicked his tongue. “Tsk, tsk.” “Well, she might not necessarily be thinking dirty thoughts.” 18

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Out of nowhere, Derek reached down and grabbed my ass. I just barely kept myself from tripping over my own feet. I shot him a startled look. He winked. “She is now.” My heart kept pounding and we kept walking. Our suitcases rolled behind us, the wheels grumbling on the well-worn laminate floor that was as gray as the sky outside, and I just concentrated on keeping my feet under me. So much for wondering if Derek was flirting or not. Okay, so maybe he just wanted to mess with the woman’s head. It was just a playful gesture, something to screw with someone who wanted to judge us. I had a feeling it hadn’t screwed with her mind nearly as much as it had mine. When we reached the other end of the terminal, the restaurant was crowded, but there were tables available in the bar area. After we’d been seated and ordered our drinks, we both perused the leather bound menus. “See anything appetizing?” he asked. Now there’s a loaded question. I shrugged. “Can’t say I’m particularly hungry, actually.” “Yeah, neither am I.” He closed the menu, laid it on the table, and folded his hands on top of it. “Listen, I, um, I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable back there.” His eyebrows knitted together, and his smile was somewhere between sheepish and playful. “I’m, um, I sometimes forget when I’m around someone new, they aren’t used to me being quite so brazen about things.” “You’re fine,” I said with a forced laugh. “Maybe I need to spend more time around someone that brazen.” My cheeks were instantly on fire. I muffled a cough. “I mean, you know, in general… ” He laughed, softly but more genuinely than I had. “It’s okay, I 19

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know what you meant.” We both went quiet for a moment, the closest we’d come to an awkward silence since we’d started talking in the first place. I wondered just how shameless and brazen he really was, and if that meant he’d be willing to be candid about a few things. I waited until my drink had arrived, because God knew my dry mouth needed all the help it could get. Once I’d swallowed a little cold, flavorless liquid and spent a few seconds wondering why I’d ordered a Pepsi instead of something alcoholic, I jumped right in. “So, these friendly places you mentioned,” I said, ignoring the way my heart pounded. “Are you speaking from… experience?” Derek nodded. “Some, yes. Can’t say I’ve been to every one of them.” “And how friendly do you mean?” I swallowed. “For those of us who aren’t very well-traveled.” His smile was simultaneously warm and devilish. “Not that much different from Seattle, just a different location. It mostly depends on what you’re looking for, I guess. There are some clubs that are just places we can go without catching hell from narrowminded assholes.” He rolled and unrolled the edge of a napkin. “And, there are places you can find pretty much anyone or anything you’re looking for.” He paused, eyeing me for a moment. “If you don’t mind my asking, what are you looking for?” “Honestly?” I moistened my lips and shook my head. “I don’t even know yet.” I sighed. “This was supposed to be my honeymoon, so I hadn’t really given it any thought until about”—I pulled up my sleeve to check the time—“twenty-two and a half hours ago.” Derek grimaced. “Damn. So he really ditched you at the altar yesterday?” 20

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Exhaling, I nodded. “S.O.B. didn’t even show up.” “Cold feet?” “Something like that.” I stabbed an ice cube with my straw. Again when it had the nerve to resurface. “You’d think he might’ve said something before we shelled out the money and had family come in from out of town.” “That would have been the polite thing to do.” “Polite. Yeah.” I rolled my eyes. “I think now I understand the case against shacking up before tying the knot.” “Is that right?” He cocked his head. “I always figured it didn’t make sense to get married until you had lived together.” “Yeah, me, too.” I scowled. “Until my groom stood me up and I realized we both had to be back under the same roof at some point.” “Oh, ouch,” he said. “Yeah, that would be awkward.” “It was.” “So how did that go?” he asked. “If I’m not prying too much, of course. Just curious.” “No, it’s fine. And we didn’t spend very long in the same house afterward, thank God. I came home, then he did, then he left.” “Didn’t talk?” “No more than we had to.” Even that had been too much. I’d looked at Ben across the cavernous expanse of our tiny kitchen, weighing the option of flipping out and letting him have it versus how likely I was to just break down and beg him not to go. Humiliated didn’t even begin to describe it. Heartbroken. Lost. Confused. Angry. I didn’t want to lose him. I didn’t want to see his face again. Eventually, I’d managed a pathetic, “So that’s it, then?” Ben had shifted his weight. Avoided my eyes. Every telltale 21

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sign of nerves, discomfort, and—I hoped—a guilty conscience. “Yeah.” “What now?” The ball was in his court, after all. “It’s up to you.” Chickenshit. “I assume this is over.” I gestured around the kitchen, as if it somehow represented the life we’d built together. “It doesn’t have to be,” he said quickly. “I just, we … ” He chewed his lip and avoided my eyes. “Today, that was too much.” “What?” I snapped. “This was your idea. It’s what you wanted.” “And it was more than I’d bargained for, okay?” I balked, staring at him with wide eyes. “More than you… what are you talking about?” “Making that kind of commitment,” he said. “I don’t know… I don’t… I just don’t know if I can.” Back and forth, around and around. Excuses, rationalizations, explanations. Finally I put up a hand and shook my head. “Ben, if you’re not ready after this long, and it took you until the last fucking second to figure it out, then I’m not interested in wasting any more of my time on it.” He swallowed hard. “So, what do you suggest?” “How about you move out and I do something with these?” I held up the tickets to Hawaii, which had been sitting on the kitchen table awaiting our departure for the airport. “You’re not throwing them away, are you?” “No. I was going to use them. Well, one of them.” For emphasis, I tossed one set of tickets on the table and slid the other set into my pocket. “You’re going… alone?” Truthfully, I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I’d just snatched up 22

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the tickets because they were in reach and I’d made the decision without thought, without planning, without a backup plan or anything else to settle my neuroses. Hiding my nerves, I’d looked him in the eye. “Got any better ideas?” And that was the end of the conversation. He left. I stayed. Where he went, I didn’t know. I didn’t ask. I didn’t care. This morning, I left, and now here I was. I cleared my throat and looked across the table at Derek. “Yeah. Anyway. Not the most comfortable conversation I’ve ever had.” “I can only imagine,” he said. “How long were you together?” “Six years.” Something in my gut sank. We’d invested six years of our lives into each other. We’d been as good as married for most of that time. Yesterday’s ceremony was more or less a formality. A public acknowledgment of what we both already knew. What we thought, anyway. What I’d thought. It wasn’t even legal, though we had a short trip to Canada planned next month to make it as close to legal as we could. Ben was welcome to use that reservation. “Six years.” Derek pursed his lips, furrowing his brow slightly, as if rolling the two words around in his mind. “Wow.” “What?” “I just can’t imagine, I guess.” He met my eyes. “I’ve never been in a relationship that long. Nowhere near it, actually.” “Really?” I folded my arms and rested them on the table. “Never clicked with anyone enough for a long-term relationship?” “I haven’t pursued one, to be honest.” He ran the tip of his thumb up and down the side of his glass. “If anything, I’ve avoided it.” 23

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“Why’s that?” I forced a playful grin. “You one of those people who don’t believe in love?” “Oh, I believe in it.” He looked at me through his lashes. “I just think it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Romantic love, anyway.” “Are you serious?” He nodded. “I love my family, I love my friends, but I’m quite happy on my own, and I haven’t had much difficulty finding the physical intimacy I need.” He shrugged. “So why hassle with something that causes everyone else so much headache?” I took a drink and rolled it around in my mouth for a long moment before I swallowed it. He went on. “When I was younger, I figured I’d get around to it eventually, but at the time, it just didn’t seem like a big deal. Or, rather, it was too big of a deal and would get in the way of career plans, traveling, not spending my time stressing over breaking up and making up.” I laughed bitterly. “You know, before yesterday, I’d have tried to change your mind about that. Today, I’m inclined to think you’re onto something.” “After watching people go through divorces and splits of every kind imaginable,” he said. “I’m pretty sure I am.” I managed another quiet laugh. Then I looked at him, my head tilted slightly. “Do you ever regret it?” “Staying single?” “Yeah.” He shrugged again. “Not really, no.” “You don’t get… lonely?” “Sure, sometimes.” He sat up, mirroring me and folding his arms on the table, a motion that brought us almost too close together. I resisted the urge to draw back. He took a breath. “I get 24

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as lonely as the next person, but so do people in relationships. I mean, take my sister as an example. She’s deliriously happily married. Has been for fifteen years. But he’s a military man. He works long hours, he gets deployed.” He picked up his glass. “And she gets lonely.” “That’s the military, though,” I said. “Part of the package, isn’t it?” “Sure. Still, she’s just as prone to periods of loneliness as I am, if not more so. If I feel that way, I can take steps to alleviate it. She has to wait until he comes home. And even without the military, every couple spends time apart. They fight. Get tired of each other. People go on business trips. They work long hours. Hell, haven’t you ever heard wives complain about their husbands spending unholy amounts of time watching pro sports? Things like that.” “Hmm, good point.” I folded my hands. “So, you get lonely, you just go get laid?” “Put it like that, it sounds so crass.” He grinned. “But for all intents and purposes, yes.” He paused. “I’ve tried to pursue relationships from time to time.” “And?” “I usually get a few weeks or months in and remember why I avoided them to begin with. Sex is just so much… simpler.” “You have a very interesting perspective when it comes to relationships,” I said. “I honestly never thought of any of this.” “Might just be my ever-present cynicism,” he said. “Plenty of people are happy in relationships.” “Cynical or not, I still think you’re onto something,” I said. “After everything I’ve dealt with since yesterday, falling in love is about the lowest thing on my priority list right now.” “And just your luck,” he said with a devilish grin, “you’ll 25

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probably drop into one of those friendly establishments and find the man of your dreams.” “Hey, come on.” I laughed. “Don’t jinx me. I haven’t been out on the prowl in years. I want to enjoy it for a little while, damn it.” He chuckled and raised his glass. “Well, here’s to having all the fun with none of the strings.” “Hell yeah.” I raised my glass and clinked it against his. Instantly, goose bumps ran up my arm, my skin tingling as if, instead of simply making glass-to-glass contact, his fingers had brushed the back of my hand. As he sipped his drink and watched me over the glass, I wondered if it had had the same effect. If it had, it hadn’t caught him off guard like it did me. Not with the self-assured and slightly amused narrowness of his eyes. “Well,” he said, “if it’s no-strings fun you’re after, I can definitely hook you up with a few spots on Oahu. Like I said, there’s a few numbers I can give you.” I can think of at least one number I wouldn’t mind having. Before my cheeks turned an incriminating shade of red, I said, “At the risk of sounding like a completely naïve idiot, I don’t even have the faintest idea how these… places operate.” He tilted his head slightly. “Really?” I nodded. “It’s just like any club, to be honest,” he said. “Collectively lower inhibitions at some of them, but otherwise… ” He trailed off. “That’s just it.” My cheeks burned. “I’ve never even known how to interact with people in clubs. They’re fucking alien to me.” “Not your scene?” “Maybe not. I haven’t spent enough time in any of them to know if they are or not.” 26

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“Looking to change that?” “Maybe.” Derek shrugged. “There’s not much to it, really. See a guy that piques your interest, strike up a conver—” “And there’s where you lose me,” I said with a self-conscious laugh. “Come on, really?” He shot me a playful grin. “You haven’t had any trouble chatting with me.” You think. I picked up my drink. “You started talking to me, remember?” “Okay, true,” he said. “But, how did you meet your ex?” “A friend introduced us,” I muttered into my glass. “Damn. With friends like that, who needs enemies?” I just barely swallowed my drink in time to keep from choking. Staring at him in disbelief, I coughed a couple of times just for good measure. He looked back at me, lips pressed together and eyebrows up as if he wasn’t sure if he’d crossed a line. Finally, I snickered. “Yeah, I think I’m going to have to scratch her off my Christmas card list.” “I would.” He raised his drink in a mock toast. Clicking his tongue, he shook his head. “The nerve of some people.” “No shit.” With my ex back at the forefront of my mind, my mood threatened to slide back into its earlier down and depressed state. “So, clubs. What happens in these places?” “Oh, the stories I could tell.” “I’d love to hear some of them.” “You sure?” He chuckled. “I don’t want to bore you with tales of my sexual prowess.” My mouth went dry, and I muffled another cough. “Try me. I’m… curious.” 27

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He grinned. “About my experiences with these clubs, or my sexual prowess?” “Guess it depends on how much you’re willing to share.” I almost choked on my own breath, and if the upward flick of his eyebrow was any indication, he was just as startled by my brazenness. I cleared my throat. “About the clubs, I mean.” “Right. Oh, man. Where to start?” He sat back, his eyes taking on a distant, unfocused look and his lips pulling into a nostalgic smile. “Well, couple of years ago, I was in a place in Honolulu and saw this guy from across the room.” He blew out a breath and shook his head. “Never forget that. He was… ” He paused, eyes losing focus again. “That kid was fucking gorgeous.” “Kid?” I teased. He grinned. “I had about ten years on him, let’s put it that way.” Inclining his head slightly, he added, “And yes, he was legal.” “I should hope so.” “Hey, now, I may be a shameless slut at times, but I do have standards.” I laughed. “Okay, so you saw this gorgeous kid from across the room… ” I raised my eyebrows, bidding him to continue. “Oh, right, right.” He sat up a little and took a breath. As he told me the story, goose bumps prickled my arms at the thought of him picking me out of a crowd in a club like that. Sure, he’d found me in the terminal and made that connection, but we’d only been a few seats apart in broad daylight. What I wouldn’t have given to have been in that kid’s shoes. I could only imagine that feeling, that sudden certainty someone was watching me, and looking up to meet Derek’s eyes from a few dozen people away. I tried to tell myself I’d have done the very same thing, too: held eye 28

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contact while I sipped from a longneck bottle and made sure Derek saw me flick the tip of my tongue across the mouth of it before I winked. Broken eye contact, refusing to look at him again because I’d have been cocky enough to know Derek would come to me. I tried to tell myself that. “Places like that are loud as fuck,” Derek went on. “Can’t even hear yourself think most of the time. But that can make things fun, too.” “How so?” He sat up again, folding his arms on the table, and he spoke so softly I could barely hear him. “Because when someone wants to hear what you have to say, but they can’t, they move closer to you.” He gave me a knowing grin. “Don’t they?” It was then that I realized I’d done exactly that. In order to catch what he was saying, I’d leaned in closer. Way closer. Far beyond my own comfort zone in the name of hearing him. He slid his arms forward, no more than half an inch or so, but more than enough to make my pulse jump. Still speaking in little more than a whisper, he said, “And the louder it is, the closer you have to get.” I swallowed. He brought his voice down a little more. “So you can imagine, in a place like that, how close you have to be to someone to hear them.” “Pretty… close. I’m guessing.” “Oh, yeah.” I imagined him standing close enough for his introduction to vibrate against my skin and his breath to whisper across the fine hairs on the side of my neck. It wouldn’t have mattered what he said. An offer to buy a drink, an introduction, a proposition to just 29

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skip the small talk and go someplace quiet, it all would have turned my knees to liquid and made me his slave for the night. Jesus, Chandler. Calm down . Abruptly, Derek drew back, one corner of his mouth rising like he saw right through me and knew exactly the effect he’d had on me. Like he’d intended it that way. “So this kid,” he said. “I only meant to offer to buy him a drink, but I caught a whiff of his cologne, and… ” He met my eyes. “Well, that’s all she wrote.” “What kind of cologne was he wearing?” I asked, pretending I wasn’t dying to know what Derek’s skin smelled like—tasted like—especially right where his neck met his shoulder. “Liquid man-attractor?” “Something like that,” he said. “I never did find out what it was.” Picking up his glass again, he added, “Had too many other things on my mind to bother asking.” I shivered. God, I could only imagine. “So do you ever leave these places empty-handed?” “Oh, Christ, yes. All the time.” He made a dismissive gesture. “Sometimes I buy one drink, and we’re gone in twenty minutes. Sometimes, I can’t connect with any man in the room.” “Are you always the one who buys the drinks?” He smiled. “Not always, but I do tend to be, shall we say”—he let the tip of his tongue sweep across the inside of his lower lip— “more aggressive than others.” “You don’t say.” His eyes narrowed just enough to add a devilish quality to his smile. Then he added, “Usually, once I kiss them, I’m home free.” “What do you mean?” “This is where I catch myself feeling like I’m bragging about 30

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my sexual prowess,” he said, laughing softly with something that almost resembled bashfulness. “But, I guess guys like the way I kiss.” I swallowed hard. “Is that right?” He nodded, a hint of color blooming across his pronounced cheekbones. “I don’t know. All I know is, once we get past that step, if anyone decides to bail, it’s almost always me. Up until that point? Anyone’s guess. Afterward? He’s usually mine to lose.” “You must be a good kisser, then,” I said. “I like to think so.” He smirked, but the faint pink lingering on his cheeks kept just enough shyness in his expression to preclude him coming across as arrogant. “I haven’t had any complaints, anyway.” I caught myself wondering if he was throwing it out there not to make himself sound like God’s gift to men, but to tease me. To pique my interest. It was working. Jesus, it was working. “There are worse things in the world to be good at,” I said with a quiet laugh. “And there isn’t much worse than a bad kisser.” “No, there most certainly is not.” He grimaced. “I’m not as picky as some, but I draw the line at bad kissers.” “As do I.” Christ, if he looked at me like that again, with eyes that said he was thinking something, I’d never be able to walk through this airport without letting him and everyone else know I was thinking the same damned thing. At least, I thought I was. The narrowness of his eyes, that ghost of a smirk on his lips, it all could have added up to anything. I never was good at reading people. In the past, I’d misread flirting as benign conversation, benign conversation as flirting, and I’d read more into a look than there really was. But damn if I didn’t see something in Derek’s eyes. 31

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He broke eye contact first, turning his attention to his watch. “Think we should meander back toward the gate?” Disappointment tugged at my gut. I wouldn’t have minded staying here longer, but the place was getting even more crowded, so there was no sense taking up a table while people were waiting. “Yeah, I suppose.” “Not that we’ll be going anywhere anytime soon,” he said. “They’re probably still scraping ice off of everything, but maybe we can find out how much longer we’re stuck here.” Stuck. In Seattle. In the airport. With Derek. The plane probably wasn’t leaving for a while, but I couldn’t say I felt anywhere near stuck.

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CHAPTER 3 When we stepped out of the restaurant and back into the sprawling concourse, we stopped at one of the windows overlooking the tarmac, which was alarmingly devoid of aircraft. Every plane I could see was up against a gate, and there was no one out and about with a set of glowing orange batons to direct any pilots toward the runway. It wasn’t snowing, it wasn’t raining, but nothing about the scene in front of us looked promising. The heavily-tinted windows made the sky look even more ominous and grim than before, deepening the gray to something stormier than it likely was. Thick snowdrifts covered more ground than not. They lacked that muddy, dark quality around the edges that implied the transition to slush, and when a worker kicked one, 33

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aside from a thin spray of loosened powder, the snow didn’t budge. Workers walked with arms out for balance, stepping gingerly on the slippery ground. “That doesn’t look good,” I said. “No, it doesn’t.” Derek frowned. “Something tells me we’re not flying out of here tonight.” “Great,” I muttered. We watched the scene in silence until the low vibration of my cell phone drew my attention away. When I pulled it out, Ben’s name on the caller ID set my teeth on edge. He might have been calling to check on me because of the weather, or he might have wanted to “talk.” Either way, I had no desire to talk to him, so I kicked the call over to voice mail and shoved the phone back in my pocket. “Not someone you want to talk to?” Derek asked. “That’s about the last person I want to talk to,” I muttered. “Ex-fiancé?” “The one and only.” I cursed under my breath. “Gotta love breakups. They’re definitely the worst part of a relationship.” “Well, I would certainly hope so.” “What do you mean?” “Come on, if breakups were one of the high points,” he said with a grin, “I doubt I’d be the only one with an allergy to relationships.” I laughed. “Point taken. Though I have had a few where the breakup was one of the better parts.” “Seriously?” Nodding, I said, “It’s kind of like getting rid of a crap car. You spend all kinds of time and energy keeping the damned thing running, then when you give up and get rid of it, you wonder why 34

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the hell you didn’t do it sooner.” “I’ll pass on that,” he said. “Can’t say I’ve ever exactly volunteered for it,” I said. “True. I suppose it’s happened to a lesser degree in some of the casual relationships I’ve had. You know, when the novelty’s worn off, the chemistry is starting to get meh, and no one wants to be the one to call it off.” “That must be… awkward.” “It can be. Usually someone just stops calling, and the other gets the message pretty quickly. Or sometimes, one or the other will just come out and say, ‘hey, I need to stop doing this’ for whatever reason.” “How long do these, um, relationships last?” “Sometimes they’re over before the sun comes up,” he said, chuckling. “I did have one that lasted a long time, though. We knew we’d never work as a couple, and we lived a few thousand miles apart anyway, but the sex?” He whistled and shook his head. “The sex was unbelievable. So, whenever one of us was in the other’s town, we’d hook up. We both still dated, we weren’t committed to each other in any way. It was just sex and friendship. Went on like that for years.” “So what happened?” “He fell in love.” I turned toward him. “With you?” “No, no, not me. He met a guy a couple of years ago, and… ” He finished the thought with a shrug. “You still in touch with him?” “Oh, yeah, definitely.” He smiled. “We still hang out when we’re in the same town, we just don’t sleep together.” “And is he happy in his relationship?” 35

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For a long moment, Derek said nothing. Then, staring out at the tarmac with unfocused eyes, he said, “Most of the time.” After another silence, he shook himself back to life and glanced at me. “Like I said, we never would have worked out together. And I do miss our casual thing, but… ” He took a breath. “I just sometimes wonder if he’s truly happy in his relationship, or if he’s just in love with being in love.” That hit me in the gut. In love with being in love? It was my turn to look out at the deserted tarmac, but nothing in the here and now held my gaze. My mind’s eye wandered through a slideshow of the last six years of my life, and I wondered. “I can relate to that,” I said after a while, my voice flat. “Which part?” “Being in love with being in love.” “Really?” I sighed. “Maybe my ex was right to skip out on me. He could have gone about it differently, but… ” Derek turned toward me, cocking his head slightly. “What?” I chewed the inside of my cheek. My unexpected breakup had weighed me down for the last twenty-four hours, but now, for the first time, I wondered if Ben and I had dodged a bullet. “Elliott?” I moistened my lips. “I’m just wondering if maybe that’s why my ex and I stayed together this long. I loved him, I always will, but we’ve done more arguing than not in the last couple of years, and… ” I pursed my lips. “Maybe we both just liked the idea of being together, even if we were getting to the point we didn’t really like each other.” I let my own words hang in the air. Then I shook my head and sighed. “It sounds ridiculous, but there it is.” “Nah, it doesn’t sound ridiculous,” he said. “No more than 36

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anything else that goes into that sort of thing. I don’t think any of that shit is supposed to make sense.” “Good, because if it is, I sure as hell never got the memo.” We caught each other’s eye and both laughed. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said after a moment. “It’s not like I don’t get why people get into relationships or seek them out. I just… ” He trailed off, releasing a long breath. “You know that feeling when you first meet someone, the sparks are flying, and you can’t think of anything except how much you want to touch them?” His eyes shifted toward me, and I rested my hip against the windowsill so he wouldn’t see how badly my knees shook. “Yeah.” I moistened my lips. “I know that feeling.” And I’d forgotten what it felt like until today. “Sooner or later,” he said, “that dulls. It always does eventually. The lust loses its luster, I guess you could say. So, why kill it, you know?” “I hadn’t thought of it that way.” Derek said nothing. He shifted his weight and stared out at the ghost town of a tarmac. His face was only visible in profile and a semi-transparent reflection on the tinted glass, but he couldn’t hide the vertical lines between his eyebrows. In the very short time I’d known him, I’d figured out he was one of those people who was simultaneously easy and impossible to read. It was easy to see when something crossed his mind, when a thought held his attention or he was engaging in some sort of internal debate. The impossible part was figuring out what that something was. Then he turned around. He leaned against the window, resting his hands on the metal sill and cocking his hips in a half-hearted 37

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attempt to look casual and relaxed. He scanned the interior of the terminal like I’d surveyed the not-so-promising scene outside. “You all right?” I asked. His eyes flicked toward me, but he quickly dropped his gaze. A flush of pink appeared on his cheeks. “I was just thinking about how this place is laid out.” He gestured out at the bustling concourse. I looked in the direction he’d indicated, then back at him with a furrowed brow. “What about it?” “Well, you figure it’s fucking huge,” he said. “Plenty of room for people to spread out. Get comfortable. Talk on the phone without anyone overhearing.” He paused, alternately looking at the floor and some distant point out in the too-big terminal. “But damn if it’s possible to go anywhere and be alone.” My heart beat a little faster. I threw another gaze out at the concourse. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.” “Everywhere you go, someone can see you,” he said, almost whispering. “I’ve been flying for years and never really thought about it, but now it’s bugging the hell out of me.” I raised an eyebrow. “Why’s that?” He pursed his lips. Finally, he met my eyes, and for the first time, there was a hint of shyness in his expression. “Because I really want to kiss you right now.” My throat closed around my breath. I managed a gulp, and finally said, “Too bad we’re out in the open, then.” “Yeah,” he said. “Too bad.” We both quickly looked away. In avoiding his eyes, I caught myself looking around the terminal, mentally sizing up every potential nook or cranny. Of course it was foolish to even entertain the thought. There was nowhere we could go that didn’t put us at risk of discovery by security, homophobes, 38

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or—worse—someone’s kids. I supposed the men’s room offered some privacy, but I wasn’t that desperate. Yet. Derek shifted his weight. “Sorry, I… have been known to be a bit, um, direct.” “So I’ve noticed.” I met his eyes and gave a quiet laugh. “Better than being too afraid to say anything at all, right?” “Sometimes. It’s also a good way to scare someone off in a hurry.” I swallowed. “I’m still here.” “True,” he said softly, looking at the laminate at our feet. I’d never seen someone switch back and forth so quickly between shameless and shy; I wondered if that was just the way he was, or if it meant this whole situation had him as off-balance as it did me. In the back of my mind, I wondered if his comment about wanting to kiss me was easy in a situation where he couldn’t actually do it. If he could, if we were alone in a crowd under shadows and disco lights, would he still say it? Would he want to? Or was it just easy to say when he didn’t have to—and couldn’t— put his money where his mouth was? “Attention passengers waiting for flight two-zero-five bound for Honolulu International Airport, Honolulu, Hawaii,” the flight attendant’s voice came over the loudspeaker for the twelfth time today and turned our heads. “Due to worsening weather conditions here at Sea-Tac International Airport, this flight will be delayed until ten o’clock tomorrow morning.” And for the twelfth time today, a collective groan rippled through the waiting area. Moments later, from somewhere else on the concourse, another crackly voice issued similar news to another group of gathered passengers with a similar reaction. “They’re shutting the whole place down,” Derek grumbled. 39

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“Looks like it’s going to be a long night in the terminal.” I grinned. “And this is where being obsessive about contingency plans comes in handy.” “Oh?” “I made a reservation at one of the hotels up the street on the off chance this happened.” Derek laughed dryly. “Smart move.” I hesitated, my stomach fluttering as I considered turning my contingency plan into something a bit more reckless. “Do you, um… ” I cleared my throat. “Do you want to stay with me?” Our eyes met. “Are you… are you serious?” “Yeah. Better than, you know, sleeping here.” I made a sweeping gesture around the terminal, wondering if he was any more convinced than I was. The whisper of a grin on his lips told me he wasn’t. “You’re sure you don’t mind?” “Not at all.”

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CHAPTER 4 For someone dressed for the Hawaiian sun, Derek didn’t seem to notice the biting chill as we waited outside for an available cab. I, on the other hand, shivered in my “prepared for any kind of weather” jacket. It may not have been the cold, though. After all, the interior of the airport was a comfortable temperature, and I could have sworn the shivering started around the time I’d extended the overnight invitation to Derek. The competition for a cab was fierce. Though there were no passengers from incoming flights, Derek and I weren’t the only ones who’d decided against spending the night in the terminal. Eventually, we snagged a taxi, dropped our suitcases in the trunk, and climbed into the backseat to escape the bitter cold. We both kept our laptop cases with us; apparently even Mr. Calm and 41

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Cool didn’t like letting his computer out of his sight. We didn’t touch in the cab. I supposed we could have managed some surreptitious contact under the cover of darkness, and holy fuck, I wanted to, but I kept my fingers laced together in my lap. Derek’s tapped rapidly on his laptop case. It was probably just as well. He had to be thinking along the same lines. After all, he may have been willing to grab my ass in broad daylight, but he probably knew that at this point, the instant we touched, all bets— and clothes—would be off. The ride to the hotel was maybe fifteen minutes, but it felt like forever. I hadn’t been this nervous in the hours leading up to my ill-fated wedding, and I hadn’t been this turned on in… hell, I didn’t think I’d ever been this turned on. The cab pulled up in front of the hotel. We got out, collected our things, and tried not to slip on the ice on our way inside. The hotel lobby was a zoo, and my heart sank when I realized just how many frantic, stranded travelers were lined up in front of the check-in desk. Thank God we had a reservation, unlike the flustered, animated traveler shouting at one of the clerks. Reservation or no, this was going to take forever. Suppressing a frustrated groan, I glanced at Derek. He gave a resigned shrug, one that said nothing if not, “What can we do?” You really are the type to turn up the radio and relax in traffic, aren’t you? We did the only thing we could do: we got in line and waited. Derek stood behind me, out of sight but well within the range of all my other senses. His presence tingled just above my nerve endings. Whenever he moved, the slightest rustle of his clothing or the soft creak of his leather laptop case registered above the echoing footsteps and rumbling suitcase wheels, reducing the cacophony of 42

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voices around us to a collective whisper in the background. Keeping his voice low, which drew me nearer to him like an unseen arm around my waist, he said, “I wonder how many of these people are in the same boat we are.” “Probably most,” I said. “Everyone in the terminal is stranded.” He laughed softly, and his breath whispered across the back of my neck. “That’s not what I meant.” Lower still, he dropped his voice. “I mean, do you think any of these people didn’t know each other this morning?” It was hard to believe we were only a few hours removed from being strangers, and now… I gulped. “The airport’s kind of an unusual place to meet someone, isn’t it?” Another quiet laugh. “Maybe. I guess you just never know where you’ll make a connection.” The vibration of his voice and the warmth of his breath were so close, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, searching for the touch of his lips. Though public affection made me nervous because of the way other people sometimes reacted, I hoped he would. I wanted him to. I silently begged him to. But he didn’t. Instead, he spoke again. “Look around. Thousands of people move through that airport, and plenty of us have been stranded for hours. Odds are, we’re not the only ones who found a thing or two in common.” I looked around. The more I took in my surroundings, the more I wondered if he was right. In the next line, one couple stood close enough to imply familiarity, but they didn’t speak. They didn’t look at each other. It could have been fatigue from traveling, frustration from not 43

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traveling, anything, but they certainly didn’t appear overly thrilled with each other’s company. They both looked anywhere but at each other. What distance there was between them was chilly. Whatever their relationship, they weren’t here for a “what the hell? We’re stuck here, so why not?” rendezvous. Behind that happy couple, another pair stood much closer together. His arms were around her waist the way I wished Derek’s were around mine, and whenever he spoke to her, he let his lips get closer to her neck than Derek probably dared get to mine out here. They had that extra spark in their smiles, in the looks they exchanged, the excitement and freshness of newly established flirting. Funny, I could always tell when people flirted with each other, but never with me. Fortunately, the guy who’d found me today was bold and ballsy enough to cover the ground across which shyness and cluelessness made me retreat, and now here we were, probably for the same reason as that affectionate, cuddly couple. The man rested his chin on her shoulder and murmured something in her ear. When she shivered, so did I. I glanced back at Derek, and his grin told me not to worry, we’d get to that, and we’d make up for lost time. I tried not to watch that other couple. Tried not to hear her occasional soft laugh or his low voice whenever he spoke to her. They were like a projection of what I wished we could be doing right then. Hands over hands. Arms around each other. Lips on skin. The occasional kiss that nudged the limits of what was acceptable in public. To say I envied them was an understatement. More than ever, I was acutely aware of Derek. Where he was. How close he was. How close he wasn’t. Every move he made, 44

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every breath he drew. The dull tap of his sandals on the fake marble floor when the line crept forward. The occasional impatient sigh. Conversation would have passed the time faster than this crackling silence, but every time we so much as looked at each other, lust chipped away at discretion. So, we didn’t say much while we waited in line, and after what felt like three consecutive eternities, we finally got to the damned front desk and checked in. “What floor?” he asked as we made our way to the elevators. “Fifth.” “Damn,” he muttered. “If it was the second or third, I’d say to hell with it and just take the stairs.” At the elevator, he rocked back and forth from his heels to the balls of his feet, staring intently at the numbers above the doors. I watched them, too, and they took an absolute age to go from one floor to the next. My heart beat faster. A slow elevator. Five floors between here and our room. I looked at Derek. You thinking what I’m thinking? That grin again. What do you think? Forcing myself to breathe slowly and evenly, I turned my attention back to the numbers above the doors. Six. Five. A family joined us, the parents talking while the kids chattered amongst themselves. They might get off before us. We can’t all be on the same floor. Four. Three. Another couple. Two. A guy on a cell phone. 45

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One. The doors opened, and everyone stood aside to let a half dozen or so passengers out. Once the elevator was empty, we all squeezed in. Derek pushed the button for the fifth floor. Someone pressed the second. Another, the third. No one went for the sixth or seventh. With a little luck, we’d get the transition between the last couple of floors to ourselves, because if we didn’t get a moment or two to ourselves for that long overdue kiss, we were going to set off the fire alarms. Between bodies and baggage, Derek and I ended up against the back wall, shoved shoulder to shoulder while everyone squeezed in. I took a deep breath, and it wasn’t because of that vague hint of claustrophobia tingling in the pit of my stomach. It was the heat of Derek’s arm against mine, nothing but a jacket sleeve separating our skin. Machinery groaned above us, and the doors took their sweet time closing. The elevator lurched into a lazy upward motion. The tiny, crowded box was silent except clothing brushing clothing and the one passenger who hadn’t yet figured out that cell phone signals were crap in places like this. “I should be there—wait, I can’t hear you, you’re breaking up a bit,” he said, his voice getting progressively louder since that was always the solution to shitty reception. “Listen, I’ll be in my room in a minute, can I—what?” I glanced at Derek, whose gaze was fixed on the inconsiderate asshole. Apparently even he had his limits and pet peeves, because if looks could kill… I nudged him gently with my elbow, and when he looked at me, his expression softened. Then he chuckled and rolled his eyes. The elevator jerked to a stop. The cell phone asshole stepped 46

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out, as did the other couple. With only the two of us, the other family, and our collective luggage, there was more room as the doors again sealed us in, but Derek and I didn’t make any move to put more space between us. As the elevator inched its way to the third floor, Derek’s fingers flexed just enough to brush the backs of mine and send my pulse soaring. A second later, he did it again, and my heart rate jumped a little more. I flexed my own fingers, and the contact lingered. I was sure everyone in the elevator could hear my thundering heart over the chattering kids and rumbling machinery. We didn’t look at each other. We didn’t move to make longer, more deliberate contact. We didn’t dare. When we reached the third floor, I held my breath, my heart pounding out a countdown between now and when the doors would open, release these other passengers, and give us a moment alone so I could finally, finally, finally taste his kiss. Stop. Ding. Open. You’re fucking kidding me . As the family exited, another couple waited to get on. “Oh, is this one going up?” the woman asked, getting on anyway. “Don’t worry about it,” the guy said. “Just a couple of floors up, then we’ll ride it back down.” He punched the button for the ground floor. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I heard a low, frustrated growl escape Derek’s throat. His hand pulled away from mine, and we drew apart just enough to keep from touching, if only so we didn’t 47

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drive each other past the point of madness and well beyond caring what anyone saw or heard or thought. We were almost there. We could do this. We’d make it. As we approached the fourth floor, I debated stopping and getting out. We could take the stairs from there and avoid any more delays. Just one more floor, though. We’d make it. Ding. Fifth floor. The doors had barely opened before we were out of the fucking elevator and in the hallway. “Finally,” he growled. “No kidding,” A placard on the wall told us which way to go to get to our room. “What’s the room number again?” he asked. “Five forty-one.” I scowled at the placard before we started down the hall. Of course, our room was all the way at the opposite end of the damned hall. It probably couldn’t have been farther from the elevators if they’d put it in another fucking building altogether. Suitcases rumbling softly behind us, we walked past door after door, the smaller placards on each room counting us up at an infuriatingly slow pace. Five nineteen. Five twenty-one. Five twenty-three. Just my luck, they’d probably start counting backward soon. About the time we’d passed room five twenty-seven, Derek broke the silence. “Would it bother you if anyone in the hotel knew what we were doing here?” The blatant acknowledgment that we weren’t just here to 48

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escape a long night in the terminal sent a shiver right through me. I took a breath. “We’re not the first couple of guys to get a room, we won’t be the last, and no one in this place knows me anyway.” I glanced at him. “Why?” “No reason.” Without warning, his arm went around my waist, his other hand grabbed the front of my shirt, and a split second later, his lips were against mine. Right there in the hallway, laptop bags still hanging from our shoulders and suitcases beside us, he kissed me. Surprise sent my hands up in a startled, defensive stance, and for a few seconds, my fingers twitched uselessly in midair. As Derek’s tongue parted my lips, I wrapped my arms around him. Relaxed. Pulled him closer. Let him pull me closer. My knees shook, and when he groaned softly into the kiss, I was sure that subtle vibration would rattle my spine to pieces. He touched his forehead to mine and panted against my lips. “I’ve been wanting to do that all damned day.” “So you said.” My voice shook even more than my knees. “I can see why… ” I paused, swallowing hard. “Why you don’t have much trouble keeping a guy’s attention after you’ve kissed him.” A soft breath of laughter warmed my lips. “I suspect you wouldn’t have any trouble in that department, either.” And he kissed me again, more passionately this time, but when his cock brushed over mine, a violent shiver separated us. “You okay?” he whispered. I nodded. “But maybe… ” I gestured down the hall. “We should get to our room. Like, now.” “Good idea.” We broke our trembling embrace, grabbed our suitcases, and 49

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walked just a little faster.

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CHAPTER 5 It took me three tries to get the card key into the reader, but the little green light finally came on, the lock clicked open, and we stumbled into our room. Suitcases were abandoned, laptop cases were set down with as much care as we could muster just then, and we were in each other’s arms again. Grasping his shirt, I pulled him against me and stumbled back against the door. Derek caught himself with one arm, bracing himself as our mouths met in a frantic kiss. His erection pressed against mine, letting me know how turned on he was. How turned on I was. We were both panting when we broke the kiss. Our foreheads touched and Derek’s breath was hot against my lips. I raised my chin to meet him for another kiss, but he went for my neck instead. 51

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I let my head fall back against the door, baring more of my throat for his lips to explore. “Oh, my God… ” “I could fuck you right here,” Derek growled against my neck. Yes, yes, please, fuck— I froze. Holy shit. Derek pulled back, cocking his head slightly. What am I doing? “What’s wrong?” he asked. Icy panic washed over me along with embarrassment and every emotion that could possibly throw cold water on lust this hot. Derek stepped back enough to let me exhale. “You okay?” Screwing my eyes shut, I let my head fall back against the door again, this time with a frustrated sigh. “Fuck. I don’t know… I don’t know if I can do this.” “We don’t have to do anything.” I opened my eyes, and in his, found nothing but sincerity. What response I expected, I couldn’t say, but it wasn’t that. Backing off a little more, he said, “Elliott, just because we’re in a hotel room doesn’t mean either of us has to do anything.” I halfexpected him to put a hand on my shoulder, or my arm, or my hip. We’d already crossed into the realms of physical contact, after all. He stayed a comfortable arm’s length away, though, which added credibility to his words. It was easier to accept I didn’t have to take this further when he backed it up with some breathing room. And I definitely needed some breathing room. God, what was I doing? Having sex with some guy I’d just met sounded hot. It sounded fucking incredible. It looked great on my ridiculous to-do list, and it was tempting as all hell now that I had Derek and a hotel room for the rest of the night. But here, now, with the man and the 52

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beds and the lock on the door, I choked. With his kiss still tingling on my lips and tongue, with plenty of condoms in the suitcase at my feet, it was a bit too real. Reckless. Intimidating. “I’m serious,” he said, his eyebrows lifting slightly. “If you don’t want to… ” I do. My God, I do. But… “It’s not… ” I dropped my gaze. “I’m… this is… new.” “There’s two beds in here,” he said quietly. “It’s not like we have to share one.” “You want to, though, don’t you?” With a note of cautious humor in his voice, he said, “I think I’ve made my stance pretty clear.” I laughed softly, but couldn’t bring myself to look at him. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s at least put our stuff down.” He picked up his laptop case and suitcase. After a moment’s hesitation, I pushed myself off the door and picked up my own bags. He left his on the table by the curtain-shrouded window. I put mine by the dresser under the dark, silent television. I sat on one of the beds. Derek sat on the other, facing me across the narrow divide like he’d faced me from the opposite row of chairs in the terminal hours ago. “I’ve never done anything like this before,” I said. Oh, yeah, that’s gotta be news to him. “I didn’t figure you had.” There was no judgment in his voice. Not even a playful jab or hint of teasing. Empathy, if anything, and that only made my stomach twist tighter with guilt and embarrassment. “I’m sorry about this,” I said, laughing in spite of the flush of heat in my cheeks. “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he said. “Jesus, you’re just 53

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now on the rebound. I don’t envy you at all.” “Yeah, but I’m not looking to tease you or jerk you around.” “You’re not.” He paused. “Look, I haven’t been there myself, but I’ve been this guy a few times.” He gestured at himself. “This guy?” “You know, the one someone jumps into bed with after everything in his love life goes to shit?” He smiled. “So, I’ve seen a few guys going through what you are.” I laughed self-consciously. “You don’t mind being that guy?” “Not at all.” He grinned, and some of his earlier playfulness returned. “I get what I want, and whoever I’m with gets what he needs. What’s not to like?” The playfulness faded, and his expression turned more serious. “Look, maybe it’s a short-term solution, or not even a solution at all. But, at least for a few hours, no one has to give a fuck about what’s going on elsewhere, so… ” He shrugged with one shoulder. “Seems like a win-win situation to me.” “Yet again, an interesting perspective on things.” “Maybe it’s not what you want or need,” he said softly. “If it isn’t, you’re not obligated to do a damned thing. If it is… ” He held out his hands, palms upturned. “Just say the word.” Neither of us spoke. I wanted him so bad it hurt, but something still held me back. One last nerve I needed to appease before we went on. “You’d really be okay staying here tonight if… ” I paused. “If this didn’t go any further?” “Well, I won’t pretend I wouldn’t be turned on as hell the whole time,” he said with a grin. “But I wouldn’t hold it against you.” He rested his elbows on his knees, leaning a little closer to me across the strip of carpet that divided us. “I’d rather go to sleep 54

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frustrated than try to sleep knowing I’d pushed you into something you weren’t ready for.” That was all I needed. Moving slowly—as much from caution as the trembling in my knees—I got up and moved to the other bed. He watched me, but didn’t make a move. Didn’t reach for me as I came closer, didn’t put an arm around me as I sat beside him. Heart pounding, I rested one hand on the bed behind him, and only then did he slip his arm around my waist. Slowly, cautiously, we neared each other. He moved no faster, gained no more ground, than I did. He let me set the pace, and his eyes darted from mine to my lips and back again, just as mine did his. When we were close enough, his lip brushed mine, only briefly, and his voice vibrated against my skin when he said, “Are you sure about this?” “No.” I slid my hand around to the back of his neck. “No, I’m not.” I pulled him to me and kissed him. Derek moved a little closer. So did I. Our earlier desperation still simmered beneath the surface, coursing through my veins with the force of my thundering heartbeat, but this kiss was gentle and slow. One of us needed only give the word or make the move, and we’d turn it loose again. God, I wanted to, but this kiss was too good to rush. Too good to stop. We both breathed deeper. Hands—in hair, on skin, on clothes—became more insistent, but our mouths continued this steady, glacial kiss like we had all night and then some. I put my hand on his knee, and gasped at the soft heat that met my palm. I’d forgotten he was wearing shorts, and had expected fabric, not skin. He must have taken my sharp inhalation as one of 55

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arousal, a desire to deepen the kiss, because he pulled me closer and did just that, and I melted against him. He leaned back and drew me with him, drew me down with him, and somehow I went from beside him to on top of him. His body heat made me light-headed. So did his deep, passionate kiss and the way his ragged, unsteady breathing mirrored my own. Clothes whispered and rustled between us, a reminder that I still couldn’t feel him the way I wanted to. I held myself up on my forearms and met his eyes. Running his fingers through my hair, he asked again, “You sure you want to do this?” I pressed my hard cock against him, and when he bit his lip and closed his eyes, I dipped my head to kiss his neck. “What do you think?” I murmured. “Maybe I should find out for myself.” His other hand slid between us, and the gentle pressure of his fingertips running along the length of my erection sent a shiver up my spine. A thick barrier of denim separated skin from skin, but even his filtered touch drew a moan from my lips. “Oh, fuck,” I breathed. “Like that?” “Mm-hmm.” His hand broke contact. Put it back, I wanted to protest. Please, put it back . When I raised my head, he kissed me before I could will my mouth to form the words, leaving me no choice but to surrender to him. He unbuttoned the top of my jeans, and I sucked in a breath through my nose. My abs tightened as he found the zipper pull, and I could barely exhale as he drew it down. The closer his hand got to my cock, the faster my heart beat. I had never been so turned on, 56

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never been so close to madness from anticipation alone that there was a chance the touch of his hand would end this before it even started. Derek released a breath as he wrapped his fingers around my cock. Somehow, I kept myself from losing control when his hand made a slow down-up stroke. Then another. And another. He didn’t just stroke, though. He knew just when to tighten, when to release, when to tighten again. Biting my lip, I closed my eyes, almost whimpering as my hips moved in time with his hand. “I don’t think we’ll be getting much sleep tonight,” he whispered. I looked down at him. Never in my life had I seen so much lust in one man’s eyes, and I’d certainly never been the target of it. Sleep? Who the fuck cares? I swallowed hard. “I think you’re right.” “Oh, I am.” His free hand slid around the back of my neck and he pulled me down to kiss him. “Hope you don’t mind.” “Not in the least.” Our lips met and a second later, his hand tightened around my cock. I gasped and broke the kiss. My back arched, and I let my head fall beside his. “Fuck, Derek, that’s… ” “You like that?” He did it again. I moaned something resembling an affirmative. “That’s only the beginning,” he said. “Get on your back.” I wasn’t sure if I could remember how, but between the two of us, we changed position. We were all the way on the bed now, my head resting on the pillow as Derek leaned down to kiss me again. Half on his side, half over me, Derek continued stroking my cock. I gripped his shirt, gasping for breath between kisses as his hand threatened to make me come too soon, much too soon. 57

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“I’ll bet,” he said, his lips barely breaking away from mine, “that lady in the terminal was absolutely right about us.” He paused to kiss me full-on. “I mean, where else would two gay men be going together if not someplace private… ” Another kiss, longer and deeper this time. “… so one could suck the other’s cock?” My heart skipped, and when he pushed himself up, he took all the air from my lungs. “Oh, God,” I murmured as he moved down. “And even if she wasn’t thinking about that right then,” he said, watching my eyes as he stroked me slowly, “I was.” He didn’t even give me a chance to process what he’d said before his lips were around my cock. The first sweep of his tongue just about had me levitating off the bed. Like he’d done with his hand, he knew just when and where and how to squeeze with his lips, flutter his tongue, and all the while his hand was still there, still stroking, still tightenrelease-tightening like he knew just how to light every last nerve ending ablaze. And, damn him, he also knew just how to keep my orgasm at bay. Right to the edge, pull back, to the edge once more, letting me teeter there for a few precarious seconds each time before pulling me back. I didn’t stand a chance of not coming, but it would only happen when he was damned good and ready to let it. He swirled his tongue around the head of my cock, then deepthroated me, then teased me with his tongue again. All the while, his hand slid up and down, squeezing here, releasing there, and I couldn’t. Fucking. Breathe. I propped myself up on my elbows so I could watch him, and every time he took my cock into his mouth, I fell apart a little more. With my weight on one arm, I reached for him, ran my 58

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fingers through his hair, trailed my fingernails down the back of his neck until he shivered. I couldn’t stop watching him, could barely focus on him because what he did was so intense it brought tears to my eyes. The room around me faded. Every color, light, and shadow blended into a dim, irrelevant blur, and all my senses were aware of was Derek. His lips and tongue on my cock. His head and hand moving up and down in a steady, spine-melting rhythm. The whisper of his warm breath. I closed my eyes and let my head fall back. “Oh, my God, Derek, don’t stop,” I said, and maybe it was my wavering plea, maybe it was the sound of his name, but he quickened his movements. I bit my lip, and I was sure if it got any more intense I wouldn’t be able to take it, and it did get more intense, and I could take it, I could take it, oh, God, more, more, too fucking much… With a moan that didn’t come close to doing justice to the hot and cold electricity surging through me, I shuddered and came. My back arched, my toes curled, something that might have been his name slipped off my lips, and Derek kept stroking, kept sucking, until I sank back to the bed. I released a soft whimper, draping my arm over my eyes while I tried to figure out how to breathe again. Movement caught my attention, and I looked up just in time to see Derek getting on top. He grinned, but didn’t say a word. When he came down to me again, I wrapped my arms around him, and our lips met in a kiss that was too slow, too gentle, too restrained for an encounter like this. Too calm when a vague saltiness still lingered on his tongue and the aftershocks of the same orgasm still tingled at the base of my spine. Maybe we took our time because this was our one and only chance to be together. Every touch, every orgasm, had to count. I 59

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drank in everything about him, from the way he moved to the way his hands drifted over my skin to the taste of his kiss. We only got one shot at this, and I wanted to remember everything. I grasped his shoulders, his shirt bunching in my fingers, and I shivered. One orgasm down, and we were both still mostly dressed. This was going to be one long night. He lifted his head just enough to speak. “We have all night,” he murmured against my lips. “I’ll happily sleep on the plane if I have to, but now that I’ve heard you come once, I have to hear it again before we’re done.” “I don’t think that’ll be difficult for you to do,” I slurred. He grinned, kissed me once more, then dipped his head to kiss my neck. “Even if it is, I do like a challenge.” “Maybe I should make it harder for you then.” Derek pressed his hips against mine. “Can’t get much harder than you’ve already made me.” The playful lilt in his voice couldn’t mask the unsteadiness of the words or the ragged breath he drew in a second later. And when our lips met again, he couldn’t hide the feverish desperation in his kiss. God in heaven, I had to have him. “I want to fuck you,” he breathed. “But I swear, I could just lay here and kiss you like this all night.” “Fine by me. I’m in no hurry.” I lifted my head off the pillow to seek more, and he gave me more. We both breathed harder and faster. He held on tighter and pressed his hips against me, and I groaned into his kiss. Then, and I couldn’t say who led or who followed, we both parted our lips and sank into a deeper kiss. Derek’s fingers ran through my hair at the same gentle speed as our mouths. Making out on top of the comforter, we shed clothes the same 60

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way we did everything else: slowly. One piece at a time. Hands slid under loosening clothing, and stitch by stitch, button by button, we pushed everything out of the way. The blue Hawaiian shirt fluttered forgotten to the floor. Somehow, between kissing and touching, we got my own shirt unbuttoned and off. I was on top. Then he was. Then I was. The only thing that didn’t change was this sensual slowness. Every time an article of clothing fell away, there was newly-exposed flesh to explore, and we capitalized on it. Fingertips traced grooves and contours. Warm lips brought goose bumps to life. A palm down the curve of a spine. The tip of a tongue fluttering across a nipple. Two mouths that couldn’t remember how to kiss when Derek’s cock pressed against me. His thick, rock hard cock that needed a condom and lube on it right now. “Just say the word,” he murmured between kisses and gasps for breath. “Just tell me what you want, and… ” Speech dissolved into another kiss. The longer he kissed me, the more I needed him to fuck me, but the less I wanted to stop kissing him. I couldn’t get enough of him. I wanted more. I wanted this. Fuck me. Kiss me. Fuck me. He slid his hand over the small of my back and pressed just enough to force my hips up against his cock. Goddamn it, I want you. I pushed myself up and stared down at him. We both struggled to breathe. And finally, from some previously unknown well of reckless boldness, I found the words. “Fuck me.” Derek exhaled hard and shivered. “Thought you’d never ask.” “I have condoms in my bag,” I said. “So do I.” He kissed me lightly. “Lube, too.” He got up to get everything, and for the first time, I got to drink 61

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in the sight of him with no clothing to block my view. Jesus, he was gorgeous. His golden tan had just enough unevenness to imply it was the result of being out in the sun instead of a meticulously cultivated artificial color. Something told me his physique was obtained the same way. Undoubtedly some time in the gym—no one developed abs like that by accident—but he’d said he was a hiker, and with his toned legs and butt, I doubted he was lying. “Ah, here they are,” he said, and pulled a bottle and pack from his suitcase. “They actually let you take the lube on the plane?” I asked. “In your carry-on?” He tore the condom wrapper as he came back to the bed. “Under three ounces. They look at it funny, but there’s nothing they can do about it.” I chuckled. “At least one of us had the balls to keep it handy.” “You checked yours?” Cheeks burning, I nodded. “Didn’t want to have to explain it to security.” He grinned. “Well, I have plenty, so we’ll be just fine.” Goose bumps prickled my back as he rolled on the condom. The click of the lube bottle made my stomach flutter. It wasn’t nerves now, though. Not even close. I wanted him to fuck me and I didn’t give a damn if there was any reason he shouldn’t. He looked up from putting lube on. “Hands and knees okay?” I imagined the power he could get behind his thrusts in that position, and my mouth watered. Oh, hell, yes. “Yeah. That works.” I started to turn, but he caught my arm. “What’s your hurry?” he whispered, and kissed me. “My hurry,” I said, my lips brushing his as I spoke, “is that I 62

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want you. Now.” Derek shivered. “I can’t argue with that, can I?” With one more quick, light kiss, we separated. I turned around, and when he put his hand on my hip, I held my breath. I couldn’t remember ever needing someone like I needed him then. Cool lube met my skin. Then, he pushed in, moving slowly and giving me only a little before withdrawing and pushing in again. I wanted more of him, so I rocked back to pull him deeper. Derek moaned, running his hands up and down my sides as his cock slid in, out, then in again. “You feel amazing.” His fingers twitched on my hips and his breathing was slow, uneven, ragged. “Jesus… ” His hands went from my hips to my shoulders, then down to the bed beside my own. Only his hips moved now, and with every motion, he hit every perfect place, inside and outside. I closed my eyes and bit my lip, struggling to comprehend it was possible for sex to be this deliciously intense. When I’d imagined sex with a random guy, I’d pictured getting tangled up in sheets. I’d pictured breathless, violent fucking that would have both of us bruised and satisfied by daybreak. With Derek, the only part of that image that applied was breathless. Like no one else before him, he had me out of breath. Slow, smooth strokes, letting me feel every single inch of his cock moving in and out of me. Soft lips and coarse stubble on the back of my neck, between my shoulder blades, back up again. A hot release of breath just below my hairline. We moved so slowly, the bed barely translated our motions into quiet squeaks and groans, and the only sounds we made were sharp huffs of breath. Occasionally, when his cock pressed just right and turned my vision to tear-blurred shafts of white light, a moan followed my 63

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breath off my lips. Derek exhaled hard against my neck, and his next stroke bordered on a thrust: deeper and harder than before. My arms trembled beneath us as he did it again. Again. Again, with a breath that became a low, mouthwatering groan. I picked up speed, too, matching his slightly faster and oh, God, harder thrusts. “Oh, fuck,” he breathed. He sat up and held onto my hips, thrusting deeper, thrusting harder, and the groan he released turned me on even more than having him inside me. I rocked back against him. “Like that?” I murmured. “Fuck, yes, oh God… ” His voice shook. “Jesus, Elliott, I’m gonna… oh, fuck… ” With a gasp, he slammed into me. His fingers tightened their grasp and his hips twitched against mine as if he wanted to get just a little deeper. When it finally subsided, he collapsed over me with a helpless whimper. He rested his forehead just below my neck, and for a moment, just breathed, letting his breath cool my sweaty skin. After a while, he withdrew, then dropped a gentle kiss between my shoulder blades. “I hope you’re not planning on calling it a night anytime soon.” “Not yet.” “Good.” It took another orgasm apiece before we were finally satisfied enough to get out of bed. Drenched in sweat, still shaking, we went in to grab a shower together. The lukewarm shower was typical of mid-grade hotels: half useless mist, half unnecessarily high-pressure jets that stung whatever skin they touched. I didn’t care. Beneath the half-hearted stream of water, we held onto each 64

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other and kissed lazily, languidly. The desire was sated, the tension released, and now we touched just because. No prelude, no overture, no foreplay, just long, sensuous kissing. I broke the kiss, and our eyes met. No words passed between us. Derek held my face and I held his gaze, and I couldn’t get my head around what we were doing. What we’d already done. Sex like that didn’t feel like a one-night stand. His kiss didn’t taste like a stranger’s kiss, his hands on my skin didn’t feel like hands that would never touch me again after tonight. Our circumstances were what they were. I lived here, Derek lived there. I didn’t believe in love at first sight. He didn’t really believe in love at all. This was a one-night stand, two ships passing in the night, nothing more. But, I caught myself thinking as I looked at him now, I didn’t want it to be. The sex was incredible, but I wanted to know him. Standing in his arms like this, I didn’t want to never see him again. He ran the pad of his thumb over my cheekbone, and there was something unspoken in his expression. Mr. Calm and Cool’s brow furrowed imperceptibly. His lips tightened like he was on the verge of either speaking or letting a thought go and pretending it had never crossed his mind. Then he took a breath. Paused. Whatever he wanted to say, he let it go and kissed me again. And nothing about his kiss said this was a one-night stand.

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CHAPTER 6 At six-fifteen the next morning, I hit the snooze button for the first time in my adult life. Places to go, a plane to catch, not much time. Whatever. With the screeching silenced, my senses turned to Derek. We’d moved apart during the night, but the alarm’s intrusion woke us both up enough to seek each other out. Before I could roll over and find him, though, his chest warmed my back, and when he draped his arm over me, I laced my fingers between his. “At the risk of sounding corny and cliché,” he murmured, letting his lips brush behind my ear, “last night was fucking incredible.” “Hmm.” I shivered as his stubble grazed my skin. “I don’t think there’s anything corny or cliché about incredible sex, is 66

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there?” “You’re probably right.” He kissed the back of my neck. “I mean it, too. I wouldn’t be heartbroken if our flight got delayed another night.” A twinge of obsessive-compulsive panic flickered through my consciousness, but disappeared when his lips touched my skin again. Derek shifted enough to let me roll onto my back, and as soon as my shoulder blades landed on the sheets, he was over me. I wrapped my arms around him, ran my hands all over his back and sides as he kissed me. Just one night, and already every inch of him was familiar. Deliciously familiar. Fatigue still weighed heavily on both of us. Even while we kissed and touched, we swayed back and forth between surrendering to each other and giving in to sleep. Sleep was fighting a losing battle, though. Kisses deepened. Touches became more insistent. My breath caught every time his hard-on brushed my own. I wanted him. Oh, my God, I wanted him. When the alarm went off a second time, I shut it off, but didn’t get up. We had time. Not a lot, not as much as we had last night and needed right now, but we had time. We were down to the wire, too close to the end to have any illusions of drawing it out, so as far as I was concerned, there was no choice but to make every moment we had left as intense as we could stand. There was no way I was leaving this room—even if it meant missing my flight— without having him again. I wanted him last night. I needed him now. “I want you to fuck me,” he breathed, raising goose bumps on every inch of my skin. “Please, Elliott… ” Before he’d even gotten to my name, my hand was on the nightstand, feeling around for the condoms we hadn’t used last night. 67

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“How do you want it?” I whispered, almost panting against him. “Get on top.” His voice shook. “I loved the way you fucked me when you were top.” I got the condom and lube in place in spite of my unsteady hands. Then we changed position, and my whole body trembled with the anticipation of being inside him, of feeling him come, of the way he could make me come so hard my eyes watered. Once I was on top, although I was desperate to be inside him, I couldn’t resist coming down for a long kiss. A kiss that lasted. Longer. Still longer. When our eyes met again, he held my gaze. It was surreal to think that twenty-four hours ago, I didn’t even know he existed. We were strangers yesterday. Now we… weren’t. A shiver went down my spine, drawing my attention back to that intense ache, to my need to fuck him. Neither of us spoke as I sat up and pressed against him, and I couldn’t tell which of us— maybe both—whimpered when my cock slid inside him. One long, deep stroke. We both exhaled as I withdrew, shivered when I pushed back in again, moaned as I hit my stride and found my rhythm. My hips moved without any conscious effort on my part. My body knew, even if my mind was too overwhelmed to figure it out. Closing my eyes, I tried to catch my breath, tried to hold myself up as my elbows quivered beneath me. Hands slid over my sides and up my back, gently drawing me down, and I lowered myself onto my forearms, meeting Derek’s hungry lips. Though my lungs screamed for air, more air than I could get by breathing through my nose, my need to taste Derek’s kiss was stronger. 68

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Every stroke sent lightning up my spine. Every breath he drew nudged me closer to losing my mind completely. Every time his fingers trailed down my sides, twitching now and then at the same time his breath caught, letting me know he was coming just as undone as I was, brought oblivion that much closer. As it all became too intense, too perfectly intense, I wanted to cry out, but that would’ve meant breaking the kiss, and that wasn’t going to happen. My brow furrowed and I released sharp, uneven breaths through my nose, my entire body threatening to come completely apart as sparks of white light exploded behind my eyes, but still I wouldn’t pull away. He was the one to finally break the kiss, and he did so with a gasp, his head falling back onto the pillow as his spine lifted off the bed. I stared down at him, catching my breath when his eyes closed and his lips parted. His face mesmerized me. Every twitch of the edge of his lips, every time the corners of his eyes crinkled, everything that signaled his arousal, and I fucked him faster and harder, as desperate for more of Derek’s responses as anything else. “Fuck,” he groaned, his eyes flying open as his back arched beneath us again. “Oh my God, that’s… ” The words became a groan, and the groan became a whimper. “Faster… fuck me faster, Elliott… please… ” I leaned forward on my arms, thrusting harder, my own cock twitching as I tried to keep from coming just yet. Our eyes met. Time slowed down and sped up and stopped and started all at once. Something about looking at him this way sent electric tingles under my skin and deeper than that, way deeper, and I didn’t want to come, didn’t want this to be over, not now, not today, but looking 69

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into his eyes and moving inside him like this, there was only so much holding back. Derek screwed his eyes shut. His head lifted off the pillow, his lips pulling into a grimace and his fingers digging into my arms, and I fucked him a little harder, and with a throaty groan, he fell back against the bed and came. One, two, three more thrusts, and I shuddered against him, closing my eyes as my orgasm took over. Neither of us moved. Our lips were inches apart, so close our breath mingled as we panted, but I was shaking too badly and breathing too hard and too fucking light-headed to figure out a kiss. He didn’t have that problem, though, and I pulled in a breath when his hand slid into my hair. He drew me down to him, and the kiss was long, lazy, languid, and could have lasted forever for all I cared. But, as all things did, it had to end eventually. After I’d gotten rid of the condom and we’d both cleaned up, we dropped onto the bed again to finish catching our breath. He sighed after a few minutes. “We should probably get out of here soon.” I looked at the clock. He was right. We only had about an hour to get to the airport if we wanted to get to our gate without having to sprint across the concourse. Pushing it was tempting, if I was honest with myself, but I knew we’d have to give in and go sooner or later. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” I started to sit up, but he put a hand on my arm. “Wait,” he said. I turned on my side to face him. “Hmm?” His eyebrows knitted together, and he swallowed hard. Then he 70

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moistened his lips and reached for my face. “Come to Maui with me.” I blinked. “What?” Stroking my cheek with the backs of his fingers, he said, “You heard me.” “But I… ” I took a breath. “We just met.” “And we still like each other,” he said with a playful, if cautious, grin. “Why not spend some more time together?” I gulped. Canceling a reservation at the last minute was on my to-do list, but this? Throwing all of my plans out the window to spend my vacation on a totally different island with a stranger? I hadn’t even cracked a guidebook about Maui. I didn’t know a thing about it, and didn’t know much more about Derek. “I know it’s crazy,” he whispered. “You can stay with me, or if you’re more comfortable staying in a hotel, that’s fine, too.” He ran his thumb along my jaw. “But I’m not ready for this to be over.” Avoiding his eyes, I chewed my lip. Another ticket to book. A hotel and rental car to cancel. But… Who was I kidding? I didn’t want this to be over either. I looked at him, and judging by the way his lips curled into a grin, he knew my answer before I gave it. Leaning in to kiss him, I said, “I think that sounds like a damned good idea.”

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CHAPTER 7 While Derek showered, I called and canceled my car and hotel reservations in Honolulu. It had taken more than a little convincing on my own part to even make the calls. This was so far out of character for me. There were so many things about this that were not Elliott Chandler in any way, shape, or form. It was exactly what I needed though. Even if it wasn’t, it was what I wanted, so damn it, that was good enough. Sitting cross-legged on the bed we hadn’t slept in, I stared over my laptop screen at the closed bathroom door. If there was anything left that made me nervous about this whole thing, it was where things might go—or not go—with us. I was on the rebound. Two weeks probably wasn’t enough time to fall in love with him. Two lifetimes probably wasn’t enough time for him to fall in love 72

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with anyone. But there was some kind of connection. Something that, with nothing to go off except my limited experience with sex outside of a relationship, felt anything but casual. Just stop overanalyzing it, Chandler. I shook my head and turned my attention back to the computer screen. I’d enjoy it, I’d enjoy him, and that was all that mattered. The shower turned off. He came out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist. The droplets of water clinging to his chest and abs didn’t do much to persuade me that we needed to get out of here sooner than later. “Running a background check on me?” he asked, running his fingers through his wet, disheveled hair. “Just Googling you to see if there are any naked pictures of you out there.” His eyebrows jumped. “Really? Are there any?” “I don’t know, you tell me.” “You’re the one Googling me.” I laughed. “Maybe I should Google you, then.” “Why?” He gestured at his bare torso. “You get to see it firsthand.” “Yes, indeed, I do.” I grinned. “Speaking of which, hotel and car are canceled. Looks like you’re stuck with me.” He clasped his hands over his heart and sighed. “Oh, what a pity.” “Just one more thing, and I’m done here. What airline are you flying to Maui? I just need to—” “Don’t worry about that.” He gestured dismissively. “What? Why? We renting kayaks or something?” “No, a friend of mine runs a charter airline between Oahu and 73

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Maui,” he said. “We’re riding with him.” “You have connections, do you?” He winked. “Never hurts to know people.” “True.” I closed my browser. Before I could shut the computer down, though, Derek put his hand on the bed behind me. “Wait, wait, what’s this?” He craned his neck and gestured at the screen. “Your to-do list?” My face burning, I quickly pulled it down enough to hide the list on the desktop from view. “You don’t want to see that.” “What? Why not?” He elbowed me playfully. “Come on, let me see it.” “Promise you won’t laugh?” “No.” “Ass.” I chuckled. After another moment’s hesitation, I put the screen up again. Derek looked over my shoulder at the list. 1. Cancel a reservation at the last minute. 2. Some random guy I haven’t met yet. 3. Sex on the beach. He grinned. “Two out of three, and you haven’t even gotten off the ground yet.” “Think you can help me with number three?” “Elliott, you’ll be on Maui with me for almost two weeks.” He kissed my cheek, then whispered in my ear, “I assure you, you’ll be crossing off item number three several times.” I shivered. “Guess I’d better get a shower so we can get on that plane, then.” “I could join you.” He nibbled the side of my neck. “Make sure 74

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you—” “We’ll never get out of here if you do,” I said, laughing and pushing him away before I stood. He pouted. “You’re no fun.” “Uh-huh. We’ll see if you’re saying that when we get to Maui.” He winked, and as I walked past, smacked my ass. I tried to give him a dirty look, but his innocent smile just made me laugh. I showered, dressed, and somehow we made it out of the room without undressing just one more time. Had I not taken him up on his offer to come to Maui, I suspected we would have risked a missed flight for one last fuck. But now, we had time. We had plenty of time. “You know, you could upgrade to business class,” he said on the way downstairs in the slow-as-death elevator. “Then we could actually sit together on the flight.” “Hmm. Maybe I should.” He shrugged. “Well, unless you want to be wedged into a tiny seat while I ride in comfort.” “You could always downgrade and come back to sit with me.” He snorted. “I’d pay for us both to upgrade to first class before I did that. It’s a long flight. Trust me, it’s worth it.” “To sit next to you?” I asked. “Or to sit in business class?” “Both, of course.” I rolled my eyes. “Why am I not surprised?” We stepped out of the elevator, checked out of our room, and went out to catch a cab. The weather was better. The pavement was shiny with water, not ice, and the piles of snow had receded considerably. The air was chilly, but didn’t bite the skin quite as hard as last night’s bitter cold. Derek had called the airline while I was in the shower and 75

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confirmed our flight was still scheduled for departure this morning. As we stood outside waiting for the cab, the distinctive roar of jet engines turned our heads a second before a plane appeared, ascending over the trees and continuing its upward climb to cruising altitude. A minute or so later, another followed. “Looks like we’re getting out of here today.” He shot me a grin. “So we are.” We were indeed. In fact, once we got to the airport, having underestimated the morning traffic, we barely got through security and to the gate in time for me to upgrade my seat. I’d just gotten my new ticket and sat beside Derek in the waiting area when they started calling passengers to board. Once we’d boarded, I switched seats with the passenger beside Derek. We stowed our carry-on and settled in. “You’re sure about spending a couple of weeks with me?” Derek grinned as he fastened his seatbelt. “Well,” I said, looking up from fastening my own, “I have to have someone to help me cross item three off my list.” He chuckled. “I suppose you can’t do that alone, can you?” “I could, but it wouldn’t be nearly as fun.” We both laughed. I sat back and let my gaze wander around the cabin. So here we were. We were really doing this. What was supposed to be my honeymoon was now a spur of the moment trip to another island with another man. My itinerary was reduced to nothing but a giant question mark and some sex on the beach. Letting go of my meticulous plans, my ex-fiancé, and my contingencies was unnerving, but exciting. This would be fun. Crazy, reckless, and, if last night was any indication, sexy fun. 76

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It was impossible to predict what would happen between now and when I boarded the plane back to Seattle. All I knew was I couldn’t imagine spending the next two weeks with anyone but Derek. He put his hand over mine and we exchanged smiles. In a few hours, we’d be in Maui. Two weeks, give or take a day, in paradise with a gorgeous, available man. Palm trees. White sand beaches. This is just what I need.

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L. A. WITT

L. A. Witt is an erotica writer who is said to be living in Okinawa, Japan, with her husband and two incredibly spoiled cats. There is some speculation that she is once again on the run from the Polynesian Mafia in the mountains of Bhutan, but she’s also been sighted recently in the jungles of Brazil, on a beach in Spain, and in a back alley in Detroit with some shifty-eyed toaster salesmen. Though her whereabouts are unknown, it is known that she also writes hetero erotic romance under the pseudonym Lauren Gallagher. To learn more about L. A. Witt, please visit her website at http://www.loriawitt.com.

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Don’t miss Infinity Pools by L. A. Witt, available at AmberAllure.com! It started with a snowstorm and ended with a sizzling one-nightstand, but neither man is ready for it to be over. Jilted groom Elliott Chandler doesn’t do “last minute” or “impulsive,” but at the very last minute, he impulsively changes

his flight from Oahu to Maui. What was supposed to be his honeymoon turned into two weeks with a man he just met. Derek Windsor is all about “last minute” and “impulsive,” but what he doesn’t do is fall in love. He’s a happily promiscuous bachelor and that’s final. They thought one night together wasn’t enough. Two weeks is going to be more than they bargained for…

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