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Kissing her was dangerous when he had no intention of having a real relationship with her.
She still looked a little addled, but not as she’d been before.
“But I’m not sure how that particular technique could be marketed without a whole lot of backlash.”
She took a few deep breaths, but her color remained good. “You’re probably right, but I still say you should go for it.”
Which is what he’d done. Gone for it and kissed McKenzie.
“Sorry,” he said and meant it. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Are you kidding me?” Her brows veed and she waved away his apology as
if the kiss had been no big deal. “You saved me from succumbing to the panic behemoth that grips me at takeoff. Yet something else I owe you for, which I don’t like, but thank you for saving me on this, too.”
She acted as if the kiss hadn’t meant anything.
Ryder wasn’t sure if he was grateful or offended that she’d dismissed their kiss so readily.
Offended.
Definitely offended.
His insides were shattered at the electricity their kiss had sparked to life, and she was being flippant about their kiss.
Which was good as he shouldn’t have kissed a woman who was vulnerable over having just gotten out of a long-term relationship. You’d think his having mentioned Anna would have been enough to have had him keeping his mouth to himself.
“Now, can you do that for the next five hours until we land?”
Ryder blinked. He couldn’t have heard McKenzie correctly.
Before he could respond, she laughed. “I’m kidding, of course, and am mostly just rambling on to distract myself from the fact that we’re in the air. I detest flying.”
Under different circumstances, Ryder wouldn’t have minded kissing her for the next five hours. Circumstances that didn’t involve him being the rebound guy.
McKenzie might need a distraction from her fear of flying, but he needed a distraction from their kiss. He’d ponder at how well they fit together and what he was going to do about it later, when he wasn’t sitting beside her, when the sweet taste of her lips didn’t linger, when she wasn’t looking at him as if she really did want him to kiss her again.
She settled back into her seat, closed her eyes, and took several deep, measured breaths that told him she wasn’t as over her anxiety as she let on.
Either that, or his kiss had shaken her more than she’d said. His guess was on the flight being the cause, though.
“Have you always been afraid to fly, McKenzie?”
She grimaced and didn’t open her eyes as she said, “Since I was six.”
Six. That was specific, but it wasn’t so much her words as how the color had drained from her face that had him curious.
“What happened when you were six?”
* * *
Would Ryder understand if McKenzie said she didn’t want to talk about the reasons why she hated flying?
Because she never, ever, ever talked about why.
Which made her next words surprise her as much as they must have him.
“My dad died in a plane crash.”
