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It made no sense—she’d faced death countless times in the last few days, and flying in a well-maintained jet in calm weather should have been the least of her worries.
But he’d already figured out that Summer Hawthorne wasn’t the most logical creature. She’d watched her world shatter around her, he’d invaded her soul and her body, and he’d seen the look in her eyes as he’d walked away from her.
Crazy woman.
She was getting confused as to who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. No wonder. Sometimes he wasn’t sure there was any difference at all. He might be keeping her alive, but apart from that he was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. And the only thing he could do was move straight ahead with the mission with single-minded purpose, bringing it to a safe conclusion. He’d do his best to make sure she survived along the way—he’d reluctantly accepted that much.
He strapped in beside her, trying to ignore her, trying to shut her out of his mind. He glanced over at her as they began taxiing down the runway, and found her eyes shut, her face pale, her hands were clenched tightly in her lap as she endured her fear. She was good at that. No matter what he or life threw at her, she endured.
Taka reached over and put his hand on hers as the plane began to climb. She didn’t look his way, didn’t open her eyes, but her hand turned beneath his and caught his fingers, entwining them with hers. Until they were high in the sky over the Pacific and she fell asleep and her hand loosened in his.
And still he held it. Until he, too, fell asleep, for the first time in seventy-two hours.
The darkness was like a velvet shroud, pressing down around her. Summer woke with a start, blinking to try and orient herself. She felt strange, disconnected, floating, and then she realized to her hor
ror that she literally was floating. She was trapped in a jet plane somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.
She couldn’t breathe. A demon was sitting on her chest, pressing the air out of her lungs, and there were shadows all around. She could barely make out shapes in the dim light. Even the perky flight attendants seemed to have disappeared, and all around her people were sleeping like corpses, including Taka. And she still couldn’t breathe.
Summer unfastened her seat belt, trying to be silent, but her hands were shaking so hard she rattled the buckle anyway. Taka stirred beside her, stretched out in his reclining chair, but then slept on as she scrambled from her own skyborne prison.
There was a bathroom directly behind their seats, unoccupied, and she fled toward it, trying to catch her breath. She shoved the door closed and held on to the sink, staring at the crazy woman in the mirror, the one who couldn’t breathe.
No, she had to be breathing—she could hear the sound of her tight, rapid gasps as she struggled. She splashed water on her face from the tiny sink, but it changed nothing. She could feel the walls closing in, and knew she was going to either pass out or start screaming, and didn’t know what was worse. Or whether she’d have any say in the matter.
No screaming. Screaming would bring Taka, and would endanger both of them. She shoved her fist in her mouth, trying to silence her struggles for air, but that only made things worse. She could hear the tiny whimpers that were beginning to escape from her mouth.
Usually she could control her panic attacks. She’d spent a great deal of time and money working on curing her phobia, and she knew how to go to her peaceful place in her head, to breathe in the serenity around her. But her peaceful place had disappeared in an explosion hours ago.
She had no idea what time it was, and she was past caring. If she could just breathe she’d be all right, but her throat had closed up and the panic was clawing at her.
And someone was pushing at the door, trying to get in.
Her brain wasn’t working any better than her lungs. “Occupado,” she said, using the first language she could come up with. She’d latched the door, hadn’t she? She didn’t want anyone seeing her like this—she was barely keeping it together, and in another moment she was going to start screaming…
She’d forgotten that locked doors were nothing to her companion. The bathroom was tiny, though compared to the usual cubicles in coach class it was practically palatial, and he pushed his way in, locking the door behind him and putting his hands on her.
“I can’t…” she gasped, hiccupping. “I can’t breathe….”
He pulled her into his arms, slapping his hand over her mouth, and she wanted to tell him that wasn’t helping matters, but couldn’t manage to do so. She could feel the scream of panic bubbling up in her throat. They were going to crash, and the two of them would be locked together in this tiny little space, incinerated, the fire eating her lungs and—
Without a word he picked her up and set her on the shallow edge of the sink, shocking her into silence. With one hand he yanked off her pants and underwear, and she heard the rasp of his zipper, and then he was inside her, pushing against her so hard that her back slammed up against the mirror.
He looked almost brutal in the dim light, and when he took his hand from her mouth, he kissed her, breathing into her. Moving, pushing deep inside her, and her response shocking, immediate.
Instinctively, she grasped the edge of the tiny sink to brace herself when he pulled her legs up around his hips. But then she let go, holding on to him instead, letting him fuck her, not caring, taking in deep, sweet gasps of air as her lungs opened and the hammering of her heart beat in time with the hammering of his cock.
He pulled almost all the way out, and she whimpered, reaching for his hips, trying to pull him back inside her, more, now. She needed the full thrust of him, needed the oblivion, needed not to think, just to feel him, throbbing, pushing, and her legs tightened around him.
“Don’t scream,” he said in her ear, a hot, hungry whisper. He said other things, words she didn’t understand, but she only climbed higher. “Don’t make a sound.”
He lifted her off the sink, pulling her down onto him, and she felt her body explode, every muscle and cell expanding into fiery pleasure. She opened her mouth and made no sound at all as she came, just an endless, arching silence, until he followed, spilling inside her, and only then a faint whimper escaped from her throat.
He pulled out of her, setting her down on the tiny patch of flooring, and she trembled, feeling the dampness on her thighs. She didn’t want to look at him, but if she turned away she’d have to see herself in the mirror, and that was even worse. She leaned against the bulkhead and closed her eyes, shivering.
She expected him to leave her. She heard the zip of his pants, and expected him to step away from her, leave her alone in the bathroom to pull herself together. Instead, his hands were very gentle as he moved her out of the way, running water into the tiny sink.
And then his hands were between her legs, and he was washing her, and she was too shocked to do anything more than let him. He tossed the paper towels, then took her discarded clothes from the floor and put them on her, waiting patiently as she lifted one foot, then the other. She was trembling, weak, totally compliant, and when he finished he wet another paper towel and washed her face with it, gently, like a lover.
