In Flight (Up in the Air #1)(26)

Just how many police were involved in this fiasco? I wondered, a little baffled.

I stiffened a little when I saw that Melissa was walking beside him, touching the back of his arm in an overly friendly way as she chattered away about God only knew what. I tried to ignore her.

James looked stoic and unreadable as the trio got closer to us. I noticed that he wore only his dress shirt, still with no tie or jacket.

“Did we leave his suit jacket on the plane?” I asked Stephan.

Stephan blinked. “Must have,” he said.

“I’ll go get it,” I told him, and turned briskly to do so.

The plane was deserted as I came back on, and I was relieved that another crew hadn’t yet taken it over.

I dug a pen and a piece of hotel stationary from my carryon, jotting down my name and number, and slipped the small piece of paper into James’s jacket.

I’d done a whole hell of a lot more already, so it seemed silly not to give the man my number.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Mr. Spellcaster

Both officers were absent, but James, Stephan, and Melissa were still waiting when I reemerged from the jetway. James and Melissa were speaking, but James looked up when he saw me, giving me his full, intense regard.

Stephan was writing furiously. He was filling out an incident report, I was sure.

I handed James his jacket without a word.

“Do I need to fill out my own, or can I just add to yours and sign?” I asked Stephan, referring to his paperwork.

“We can share,” he told me without looking up. “I’m almost done. I got most of it down during the flight. I just left the end blank because I wasn’t sure those boneheads wouldn’t do something else that I’d need to add.”

“K,” I said, waiting in a sort of awkward silence. Even Melissa wasn’t chattering, and James just continued to stare at me without a word, as though he expected me to do something.

Finally, after watching me in silence for long, pregnant minutes, he spoke. “Can I talk to you for a minute? I need to go soon.”

I nodded, walking away from the others in silence. I half-expected Melissa to follow us, but she didn’t, just watching us with a strange look on her face.

“I have to work until this evening, but I want to see you. I’ll send a driver to pick you up at six. Give me your number and address.”

He had his phone out, waiting. I just looked at him for a moment. This wouldn’t do at all.

“I put my number in your suit pocket,” I began. “And I’ll drive to your place. What’s your address.”

He definitely looked like he wanted to argue, but I didn’t think he wanted to push his luck, so he gave me his address stiffly.

“I’ll try to get done with my work earlier, if you want,” he told me, as I GPS’d his address into my phone.

Not bad, I thought. Only twenty minutes from my house. That was downright convenient.

“Don’t do so on my account. I’m going home to take a two hour nap, and then I have some errands to run.” I ran a hand over my watch absently. “I need to replace this old thing before I get written up for wearing an eyesore. I just realized how bad it’s looking.”

I had forgotten who I was talking to, and flushed. I felt shabby enough in his presence. I certainly didn’t need to go broadcasting how poor I was to him.

His hand snaked out, grabbing my wrist to look at my watch. His fingers circled my wrist as he studied it. “You’re so delicate,” he murmured.

I barely heard him. My eyes were on his tan collarbone, still peaking out from his crisp shirt.

“I don’t know why it is, but the sight of even the smallest amount of your skin doesn’t seem appropriate to me in public. Your throat looks so naked.” I hadn’t meant to speak the thought out loud, and immediately blushed.

He looked up at me with just his eyes, not lifting his head, a wicked grin on his face. “You only think that because the things you want me to do to you aren’t appropriate in public.”

“I want to see your body,” I told him. I couldn’t seem to stop myself. I had been thinking about it almost constantly since I’d met him.

His smile dropped, and he straightened, taking a step closer to me. “You’re going to. Tonight. And I’m going to see and touch every inch of you.”

I took a step back, trying to shake away the strange spell he seemed to cast on me. Not here. Not now.

“I’ll see you tonight,” I told him, walking back to Stephan. Anything else we needed to say, we could discuss later, when we weren’t in public and I wasn’t still in uniform.

James took my dismissal in stride, nodding at the other flight attendants and then striding away toward the terminal.

I added a small paragraph of what I’d heard to Stephan’s report and signed. We headed to the bus stop.

Melissa was still trailing us, I noticed, but none of us spoke. She seemed sullen and strange, but I frankly didn’t want to know why and didn’t care.

We dropped our paperwork off at headquarters and Stephan drove us home.

We took turns driving to work. We were almost always able to carpool, and it saved us both money we could use for other things. Like watches, I thought, sighing. I really wasn’t in the mood for a trip to the mall.

“I need to run some errands after I take a nap,” I told Stephan as he backed out.