“Have you done anything like this before?” he asks.
“Never. You?”
“No. Closest I came was signing to a new football team sight unseen.”
I laugh. “Ha! Pun intended?”
“What?”
Right. He’s not American. The joke doesn’t land, and before I can continue, we speak at the same time.
“Tell me what you look like, Americana.”
“Where are you from?”
“You first.”
“Why me?” I ask, playing coy.
He doesn’t answer. Not with words. Just lets the question hang—like he’s waiting, like he knows I’ll fold. And I do.
“What do I look like? I’m not very tall. Five four, give or take.”
He makes a sound. A moan? Approving. “Do you wear those high heels,Americana?”
“Are you really going to keep calling me that?”
More silence. More heat.
I let out a sigh. Because this isn’t my show. It’s his.
“I do wear heels,” I admit. “I work around a lot of men and—” I pause because did he justgrowl? “And they tend to take me more seriously when I’m closer to their eye level.”
“If you were mine,” he says, no hesitation, no doubt, “I’d keep you too fucked and too fed to give a damn what other men think.”
My breath catches. My thighs tighten.
He says it like a threat without my permission. Like he’s already claimed me and is just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.
Waiting for me.
And suddenly, this stupid pod feels like the only place in the world I want to be.
That—or on top of him. I can’t decide.
My brain is trying to act right, trying to be logical, but my body is already halfway to “fuck it.”
I shift in my seat, the plush cushion sticking to my thighs like evenitknows I’m hot and bothered.
“You’re really confident for someone I can’t even see,” I say, trying to regain some kind of power.
“Not confidence,” he replies. “Certainty.”
Jesus. Did I just come?
“Are you always like this?”
“Like what?”
