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I didn’t know what to say or do. My body couldn’t take it. I rolled my head back and muttered gibberish as he fucked me raw, until my body exploded in a powerful climax, my legs shaking and shuddering while my contractions closed around his hot, wet dick. He came for me, filling me with his light, his peace until I felt his come dripping down my legs, and we lay, naked and silent together, and darkness overtook me with sweet, sweet sleep.
Thefollowingmorning,Iwoke up. Jake was nowhere in sight. I checked the time on my alarm. I was late!
I brushed my teeth, showered, and tried to sort my hair until it no longer resembled the bed-ruffled mess I’d woken up with. I got myself to the airport just in time, wearing my uniform. I packed my case onto the plane, where Jake was waiting along with the pilot, Jim Jennings.
“Everything all right, Miss Matlock?” said Jim.
“Just fine, thank you, Jim. Sorry, I’m late,” I said to Jake.
He said nothing, just shrugged. “Sit down,” he said. “No need to stand on ceremony for the flight back. “
It was a tense and awkward flight. I kept looking at Jake, but he didn’t even respond to me at all. It began to irritate me after a while. Had last night even happened? It wasn’t like we could safely keep our conversation private—after all, Jim had a direct line to the cabin if he needed one, and the intercom worked both ways. But it wasn’t like we couldn’t say anything to each other, either. I got the awful feeling that Jake was beginning to ignore me.
After takeoff, Jake got out his laptop and began to work. Seriously? It felt like he was intentionally ignoring me. The strong, confident, powerful Jake Ryder—and now he didn’t know how to deal with the consequences of what we’d done? It felt cold at best. At worst, it seemed seriously immature.
Eventually, I stared straight at him, fixing him with a cold gaze. I wanted to wait until he looked up. But he didn’t.
After he’d finished with the computer, Jake took out some book about airline safety and mechanics. It looked as dry as anything. He began to thumb through the pages of the book. Something about the way he did it made me angry.
It was clear that, whatever had happened between us last night, he was trying to forget about it, to pretend it never happened. I couldn’t blame him. After all, I was the younger sister of his best friend. Not only were there five years separating us in age—Jake was 37, and I was 32—but our lives were different. I was confused, though. Had he assigned me to be his personal flight attendant just to bang me and then ice me out?
I didn’t know. Surely not. Jake was a kind man—a good man. I looked into his eyes, into his handsome, emotionless face, and saw a monster there—a man who’d sweet-talked me into bed and was now doing his best to pretend I wasn’t in the room.
“Are we … even going to talk?” I said quietly. I didn’t care if Jim could hear from the cockpit. Jake looked up and stared at me, his expression still blank.
Aweeklater,onanother one of Jake’s private planes down to L.A., I stopped by Jim Jennings’ office at CAA. Jim flew the occasional flight for Jake, but it turned out his main job was supervising personnel on the planes, with special attention to Jake’s private jet and the charter service. I didn’t have much of an idea about what I was going to say to him, but I knew what I wanted.
“Sit down, Alicia,” said Jim, as I entered the office. He was still wearing that old leather flight jacket he’d had on the first morning we met, back in Chicago.
I did as he said, gratefully taking a seat in front of Jim’s desk. I was exhausted. I’d been working back-to-back trips each day, to L.A., Toronto, and Florida, where I’d met and hosted Jake’s investors, executives, and friends aboard the HondaJet. It was fine—easy work, especially considering what Jake was paying me. But I was becoming extremely exhausted by the tension between me and Jake that was rapidly developing during our trips.
It started with him niggling me about little things—things I couldn’t possibly be expected to take responsibility for. “This passenger log hasn’t been filled in accurately,” he’d said, brandishing a clipboard that was hidden under his seat.
“I didn’t know,” I’d responded, coldly. “I’ll get right to it.”
“You should have known,” he’d responded.Asshole, I thought.
Or, another time, he chastised me for serving coffee before juice at a breakfast meeting aboard the plane. “It’s better to serve the juice first,” he said. “It should go in that order.”
“Why?” I asked. “The coffee gets cold unless you serve it first.”
“It’s how I prefer it,” he’d responded, and I’d just had to roll my eyes and say, politely, “Yes, Mr. Ryder.”
We were no longer even slightly on a first-name basis. All signs of friendship and camaraderie had disappeared. The relationship between us was strictly professional now, no matter how much I hated it that way. No matter how much I wished …
“The thing is, Jim,” I said, “I enjoy working aboard the HondaJet. But the truth is, I’d prefer to be on a normal passenger plane if I’m going to carry on with CAA. It’s been fun, it really has. But I’m not cut out for all that intense VIP stuff. I’d prefer to be making CAA’s everyday customers happy.”
“Well, it’s not like we can afford to lose you,” replied Jim. “But are you sure? You make the clients pretty happy. You make Mr. Ryder even happier,” he added, hopefully.
I rolled my eyes. I really doubted that Mr. Ryder would do anything but breathe a sigh of relief when he found out that his former conquest had moved to work passenger planes.
“I’m 100% sure, Jim. Tell me, how soon can you arrange a transfer? I’ve gotta fly back to Chicago later. I’ll see you then.”
I thought that I’d never see Jake again, and if I did, it would probably only be the shortest, most brief of meetings. I was giving up my privileged position as his personal flight attendant and going back to what I knew best.
I couldn’t realize just how wrong I was.
Chapter 6
