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“Yes, it is, but this isn’t—”
“Food?” he cuts her off rudely.
“It is, but—”
“Snacks?”
I want to tell him that snacks are food. However, I want the seat more than I want to argue with him, so I stay quiet and let the attendant, Ekaterina, handle it for me.
“All food and all beverages are included in business class, sir.” She looks between the two of us, confused. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
Ignoring her, he tells me, “Fine, this seat is yours.”
The big guy almost takes me out when he snatches the ticket I hold out to him, throwing his on the seat he’s vacated. I don’t waste time taking his place. The non-priority passengers are all starting to board, and I have no doubt Cassidy will be one of the first to do so.
It’s not normally my M.O. to pick-up women at the airport. In fact, I’ve never done it before, and I’ve certainly never put this much effort into hooking a girl and reeling her in. However, I’m on a roll off the back of my promotion, as well as landing myself VIP tickets to the most prestigious New Year’s gig in Europe, and something tells me that Cassidy Morgan might be my perfect third.
She’s got the kind of understated, nerdy beauty about her that puts you at ease, even when she’s wearing a perfectly pretty resting bitch face. Maybe I’m weird, but I’ve always had a thing for women who wear their attitude proudly. I like the challenge of defusing it—witnessing the moment I get under their skin. Especially when they put up resistance like she did. Truth is, I’m good at reading people and dismantling their walls, brick by brick, until they can’t resist me or whatever I’m selling.
Tugging my baseball cap from my leather backpack beneath my seat, I sit back into the leather chair and pull it low over my face. I don’t want Cassidy to see me until she reaches her seat. I want a close-up view of her reaction.
While we were finishing our drinks at the bar, I thought with our back and forth that she would eventually cave and ask me my name. Guess I underestimated her stubbornness. And if I wasn’t setting a precedent where she gives and takes as much as I do, I would’ve given it to her already. As it stands, I want her so desperate for me that she goes against her pride just to know my name.
The boarding chaos slows, making me nervous that maybe I got ahead of myself and read her boarding pass wrong. I’m checking the big guy’s ticket when Cassidy’s voice greets me again.
“You’ve got to be shitting me.” She scoffs when I glance up at her, dropping her flowery backpack onto the seat beside mine.
“You’re not kidding.”
She’s so pretty, with her fiery temper burning in her narrowed eyes. A thrill blooms in my chest with every excitable gallop of my heart while she remains standing over me, her hands on her curvy hips, and a smile desperately trying to crack through her pinched pout.
Come on, sweetheart, give it to me, I coax silently, holding Cassidy’s unmoving, chocolate stare. Her clear-framed glasses slip down the neat bridge of her nose while she obviously resists the urge to give me that gorgeous smile that makes you feel like the luckiest bastard in the world to have earned it from her. The woman is hard work, and unlike others I’ve red-flagged for that same reason, I’m here for it. That aura of unspoken hurt she has about her is my kind of drug.
“What are the chances?” Cassidy whispers.
Taking my time to really take her in from top to toe, I twist in my seat and lift her backpack so she can sit down beside me. Being close to her feels too good and too right to have her standing in the middle of the aisle, marvelling at the chances of us being on the same flight, let alone sitting on the same row.
“Must be fate,” I tell her, meeting her dark stare again.
The exaggerated roll of her eyes has my insides twisting with a deeper thrill. All these blatant actions of fake annoyance are doing nothing but making me more certain that fate did bring us together at the bar. I was heading straight for the departure lounge, ready to spend the next hour working, when Mom called to wish me a safe flight. The second I laid eyes on Cassidy, I couldn’t walk away.
She shuffles into the awkward space, sinking into her seat with a defeated sigh. “Just so you know, I don’t believe in fate. I don’t believe there’s a divine reason for the way life pans out. So, whatever you’re angling for here, Maximus, I’m not the girl for it.”
The severity of her honesty robs me of any comeback. I don’t know what’s made her think this way, but she’s just made it my number one challenge to change her mind. As stubborn and set in her ways as she might be, she has no idea how relentless I am in my pursuits.
For now, I set her backpack down behind her long legs, resisting the urge to trail my fingers down her shapely calves. I can imagine the way she would squirm at the contact. My cock appreciates the mental visual of her legs pressing together when my fingers tease the sensitive spot behind her knees. Her delicate jaw clenching because she doesn’t want me to know how good it feels, or how desperately she wants me to stroke higher.
A burning ache throbs in my clenched hands, and I place them on my lap, covering the semi my stray thoughts aroused. I sit back in my seat with my baseball cap shadowing my face from the fluorescent lights as the take-off announcements begin, and we taxi onto the runway.
Cassidy tightens her seatbelt when one of the crew walks by doing the usual checks, pulling so tightly that it might cut her circulation if she’s not careful.
“Scared of flying?”
“No,” she replies brusquely, clawing the inside of her thighs.
“You’re not a very good liar, Nova.”
“The fact you’re so well versed on what makes a bad liar only implies that you’re proficient at it.”
