same probing look that her sister got before she would launch into a lecture. Ashley shifted in her seat.
“I don’t know,” she answered vaguely. The divorce had been three years and eight months ago, but she didn’t like the idea of dating again. It felt too wrong. She was a thirty-two-year-old woman, not a twentysomething college kid. She couldn’t go sit in a bar. If she signed up for a matchmaking service, she was afraid no one would pick her. And most of the blind dates she’d had had been with total losers. People had good intentions, but their judgment left a lot to be desired.
“Has it been longer than a year?”
“Maybe. But I’ve been busy,” she said, dodging the question.
He stayed silent for a second before nodding. “Understand that. I’m not one of those men who has to be married. I cook. I do my own laundry. There’s a whole group of guys who get together to watch the games in a bar. I’m independent. I like my independence.” It was the battle cry for the walking wounded. Ashley knew it well.
“Then it sounds like you’re in a good place.” She gave him the fake smile. The one that says, “whatever you say is fine.”
“I think I am. You?”
“Oh, yeah.” Abruptly, she decided to stop the charade. Here was a comrade in arms. Someone who knew exactly how it felt. Why not tell the truth? She missed cooking for two. She missed waking up on a Sunday morning and not having to plan out the day. She missed being able to come home from work and laugh about her coworkers—not all of them, but there were a few who were laugh-worthy. Ashley and Jacob had been married for seven years, and it was never the world’s greatest marriage, but still…“Sometimes it is, but sometimes it’s not. Well, you know, there are things I miss.”
“Gawd, yes.”
“At night. It’s lonely.”
“Exactly.”
“I mean, I know I can get Valerie to watch…” He shot her a shocked look and then recovered quickly, but not before she noticed. Oh, man, he thought she was talking about sex, which she wasn’t, but now, okay, her mind was going there, she was thinking the sex thoughts…No, don’t think about it, Ash. Quickly she fumbled back into the conversation. “I like watching horror movies at night and my sister is a total wimp. All we get are historical dramas. Television is something best done with another person.” Okay, Ashley, got over that one. Not too shabby.
David, however, still looked mildly shell-shocked. “Totally,” he answered in a tight voice.
“You like horror movies, too?” she asked, getting a little cocky and daring to tease.
“We should get back to the plane,” he answered, not taking the whole teasing thing well. She knew that men got a lot more wired than women about sex, but he seemed more laid-back than that. Wrong, Ashley. Quickly she changed to a safer topic.
“Get back to Junior? You’re as sadistic as Valerie.”
“Maybe he’s asleep.”
THEY HAD NO SUCH luck once they got back on board. Junior was riding a sugar high, judging by the chocolate smeared across his face and the way he kept bouncing on his seat. But at least all weapons were out of his possession.
David watched as Ashley changed shoes again, noticing how nice her feet were. Smooth, compact, lots of well-turned curves. His cock stirred and he turned away. Turned on by a foot? Weak…very, very weak. It’d been a long time since he had spent several confined hours in the company of a single woman. After the divorce, he’d thrown himself into work, mainly because he liked it, he was good at it, and if he couldn’t have a family life, at least he could build up his retirement account. Today had been like a cold dunk in a deep ocean, the familiar patterns coming back to him, the jittery nerves coming back to him, and the hard-on coming back to him as well.
It was because there wasn’t anything they could do about it. That’s what this was. Economics. Supply and demand. Decrease the availability of supply, and boom, demand shoots out from every pore, zipping in his brain. Ergo, the hard-on.
If she hadn’t mentioned sex. Well, honestly, she hadn’t mentioned sex, she just mentioned the word night and his imagination took off from there, wishing they weren’t at an airport, wondering if that skirt was as easy to slip off as it looked so he could feel her skin under his hands. Tawny skin, creamy skin, soft, touchable skin rubbing up against him…
David studiously avoided looking at her skin, his eyes moving upward, touching on her chest. Lots of well-turned curves there, too. After that, he looked away, met Junior’s knowing eyes and glared. Heading to an altitude of thirty thousand feet, it wasn’t going to get any easier, so better to concentrate on other, less arousing things. Junior launched a Lego piece in his direction.
Like survival.
TWO HOURS LATER they were still at the gate. They were waiting on either a part, or a new plane, the pilots weren’t sure which would arrive first, but they had high—ludicrously delusional—hopes for getting away tonight. In the face of such facts, Ashley had long abandoned her fear of flying. It was obvious they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Instead she was thigh-locked with David, who had very nice thighs, too. Hard. His arms were fab as well. Thirty minutes ago, he’d pushed up his sleeves, and her gaze kept stalling out on the biceps, which were bigger than most, an odd incongruity for khakis and a button-down, and she wondered why. He wasn’t bulky enough to be a weight lifter, but his arms were too big for a swimmer or a runner, and definitely too big for a tiny airplane seat. They kept brushing against hers, casually, which didn’t explain the electric shock to her system.
Not that he was making it any easier. Conversation had ceased about half an hour ago when she caught him staring at her chest, and they both looked politely away.
Damn.
She crossed her legs, uncrossed her legs, and had a hare-brained urge to ask him to join her in the bathroom. She’d pulled out Vogue and Harper’s and Lucky, but even the lure of the sloe-eyed models in their daring designs hadn’t dimmed the awareness that simmered in the air.
The bright spot in the tension was Junior, which said a lot about her feelings of desperation. Junior wrote on David’s hand with a pen, and David laughed, sounding more relieved than amused. Junior ran up and down the aisle, and Ashley counted the number of times, choosing note to fixate on the discreetly covered ridge in David’s khaki slacks.
Do not go there.
Go there, Ashley.
Oh, yeah, good of you to talk. You can’t have sex on a plane, Valerie.
People do.
Not me.
There was a momentary pause in her thoughts, because right now, given readily available options, she could so have sex on this plane.
Another thirty minutes passed, and the flight attendants were passing out drinks. Yes, alcohol, the world’s most potent aphrodisiac. When the flight attendant stopped at their row, David shook his head, Ashley shook her head, and Junior’s mother and father opted for double vodka tonics.
Outside
