eyes widened for a shocked instant and then narrowed speculatively. Damn, damn, damn. Please let that be him planning how to scare her in his helicopter. Please let that not be him picking up on what she’d almost given away.
“In you go,” he instructed. He was holding the passenger door for her, and damned if he still didn’t have that thoughtful look on his face. Swearing silently, she climbed awkwardly into the seat. A dizzying array of dials and knobs covered the dashboard in front of her. But then she spied the viewfinder for her camera. Familiar turf. Mounted on a swivel, she pulled the wide metal tube in front of her face and rested her forehead on the rubber face-piece. She felt a little faint.
“Slow down, darlin’. Gotta buckle you in first.”
She jerked her face away from the view box as hands touched both of her shoulders and knuckles skimmed down over her breasts. She lurched in shock at the intimate contact. What the...
Oh. He was feeding the shoulder harnesses down her body. Through her thin T-shirt and thinner bra, her nipples leaped to attention. Of course, his gaze went straight to them and heated up a few hundred degrees more. Did he have to look like a volcano about to blow? Although, in fairness to him, the way her own face heated up as his avid gaze took in her breasts was pretty volcanic, too.
She watched him, practically panting as he reached across her and ran his hands around her hips. They ended up at the juncture of her thighs and commenced fumbling around there. “What are you doing?” she squeaked.
“Seat belt,” he explained smoothly. A metallic click punctuated the word. He yanked at the loose ends of the nylon web strapping, tightening the restraints. Looking straight at her chest, he muttered, “Is that too tight?”
Her chest did feel mashed by the shoulder straps, but she wasn’t about to say so. And wasn’t snug supposed to be good...when it came to seat belts? “It’s fine,” she managed to croak.
He reached over her head to a hook and put a pair of clamshell headphones over her ears. She felt about six years old, the way he was treating her. He even pivoted the microphone down in front of her mouth.
“All set?” he murmured.
“I guess so.” It was considerate of him to hook her in like this and make sure she was secure. But it was deeply unsettling having a man’s hands all over her like that. Her brain said it was bad unsettling, but her lady parts declared it definitely good unsettling. She pressed her knees tightly together and tried to ignore the sudden throbbing in said traitorous lady parts.
He slipped into the left seat and strapped himself in quickly. His hands flew across the dials and switches as he read aloud from the checklist Velcroed to his left thigh. His strong fingers were mesmerizing as they pressed and flicked and twisted the controls.
There was something almost unbearably intimate about having his voice piped directly into her ears as he announced, “Radio check. One, two, three, four, five. How do you copy?” He looked over at her expectantly.
“Uh, was that for me?” she mumbled.
“I hear you five by five. How about me?” he repeated a little impatiently.
“Well, obviously I hear you because I’m answering you,” she replied testily.
He grinned and, on cue, her stomach did a picture-perfect, double-twisting layout. He responded drily, “The usual response is ‘Loud and clear,’ or a numerical description of volume and clarity, each rated on a scale from one to five.”
“Um, okay. You’re five plus five.”
His grin widened. Swear to God, the guy looked like a male fashion model as he replied, “Roger.”
“I’m not Roger. My name’s Marley.” She knew what roger meant, but she couldn’t resist making him smile again. He gifted her with a big, beautiful one that made her insides melt a little more.
“Hi, Marley, I’m Archer.”
“Archer what?”
“Just Archer. And you’re not supposed to interrupt the pilot in the middle of a checklist. I might miss something important.”
“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to—I’ll be quiet now.”
That million-dollar grin flashed again as he reached up to push and hold a fat button. The big rotor overhead started to turn slowly, and the sound of a jet engine revving up grew louder and louder. Her heart pounded as he completed the engine-start checklist and ran something he called a before-takeoff checklist. He radioed for clearance to lift off. A voice answered, clearing them to proceed on their filed flight plan.
“Sure you want to do this?” he asked grimly.
What was she missing? He was conveying something significant with that dark tone of voice. Something unspoken. A question, maybe. But she had no idea what it was. Confused, she nodded, and then belatedly remembered he might not be looking at her. “Um, roger wilco.”
“Wilco means you will comply. I haven’t given you an instruction to comply with.” A pause. “Yet.” He pushed forward on the throttles with one hand and eased back on the stick thing between his knees with the other.
And just like that, the ground fell away from her feet and they were rising straight up into the air. It was exhilarating. She’d never flown in a nearly all-clear helicopter before. It was like flying inside a bubble. A very thin, fragile bubble. But the visibility was incredible. It was easy to forget she was inside an aircraft at all. She felt as if she was levitating above the earth. Guess she could check that off her bucket list. Not that it had ever been on her bucket list.
The helicopter’s nose dipped slightly and it eased forward, picking up speed, slanting into a turn that took her breath away.
“What’s your last name, Marley?” her pilot—Archer—asked.
“Stringer. Marley Stringer.”
“Nice to meet you. I’d shake your hand, but mine are full at the moment.”
She looked down at his hands, so comfortable and capable on the controls. The kind of hands a girl could put herself into and trust him to know what to do...
Dang, she was getting horny in her spinsterish old age.
“Is Archer your first or last name?”
“Both.”
O-kay. Was he some kind of aviation rock star who only needed one name? “Your parents named you Archer Archer? Did they hate you or something?”
“Something like that.” His eyes went dark and turbulent, and her photographer’s keen eye detected sadness. Regret. Rough childhood, huh?
Trees were streaking by below their feet now, fast enough to make her nervous. She blurted, “Did your folks give you some horrible first name like, I don’t know, Eugene?”
He laughed, a little reluctantly if she wasn’t mistaken. But interestingly enough, he didn’t elaborate on his actual name. Ooh, a mystery. She never could resist those. Somebody in the payroll department for the movie would know his full name. She could stroll
