Mile High (Up in the Air #2)(9)

“Well, congratulations. Was he any good? Sometimes the really good-looking ones are horrible in bed. It’s that whole, I’m so hot I don’t even have to try, mentality. Yanno?” Judith elbowed Marnie playfully in the ribs while she spoke.

I just shook my head, wide-eyed. I most certainly didn’t know anything about that. I couldn’t imagine there was a man on the planet who was better in bed. I didn’t particularly want to share that information, though.

“So he was good? Your first time was good?” Marnie pried.

I nodded, very uncomfortable. The sharing personal information thing was so not for me.

“On a scale of one to ten, what was he?”

I sighed. They were not gonna let up. “How would, ‘I want him to f**k me to death, and he just might’, rate on that scale?”

The women hooted with laughter, but their laughter died as they looked up and to my left.

I felt a familiar firm hand grip my nape. Soft lips that I was well acquainted with kissed my cheek.

“That’s a heartwarming assessment, Love,” James murmured against my skin.

CHAPTER FIVE

I felt heat suffuse my cheeks in a rush, and a perverse shiver of pure pleasure rock my body.

Typical James timing. Showing up at the most disarming moment possible.

Judith and Marnie were just staring at him, stunned speechless for a long moment.

I turned to look up at him. His hand fell from my nape and we just stared at each other. I drank in the sight of him.

He looked… wonderful. He was dressed in a bright blue polo with dark washed, fitted jeans, and navy running shoes. It was the ‘James’s supermodel take on casual’, I thought. Even his casual looked too sexy for public. I’d never seen him in jeans before. He made them look sinful. I saw just the hint of the top of his tan chest at his collar, and had to stifle my urge to check my mouth for drool. His caramel-colored hair just brushed that collar, and I clenched my hands to keep them at my sides. I wanted to touch him. But touching always led to too much, too fast, with us.

I met his vivid blue eyes. They were intense and unsmiling. His eyes dropped down to my earrings and then to the collar at my throat. His jaw clenched, then unclenched. He ran his tongue over his teeth. My whole body seemed to clench.

“Thank you for wearing those. It was…considerate of you,” he said in his most polite, if hoarse, voice.

He swallowed, shoving his hands into his pockets, then folding them across his chest. It made his upper arms bulge through his fitted shirt distractingly. His chest and arms looked bigger than I remembered, the muscles bulging as though he’d been lifting weights excessively. The material of his shirt looked so soft it made me itch to run my fingers over it. But that light touch would turn to a stroke. And then I would stroke harder to feel the resilient flesh beneath…

James’s eyes were running down my body now, not for the first time. His eyes were on my very bare legs, then my cle**age.

“Your legs are outrageous. You make that mini skirt look illegal.” He looked back at my face, finally.

“You look beautiful.” He took a deep, harsh breath, staring at me. It was gratifying. “But isn’t that outfit a bit sexy for a work function?”

I wrinkled my nose at him, then pointedly looked around the room. This was Vegas, and we were in a bar full of flight attendants. My attire was downright modest compared to some of the outfits I saw.

“Did you want me to f**k you in front of all of your co-workers? Because that’s all I can think about, when I see you in that outfit.” His voice was pitched low, but I gasped at his words.

“This was supposed to be a short, casual meeting,” I told him, a hint of accusation in my voice.

He took another deep breath, looking around the room, and away from me. I watched as he counted to ten silently.

“I missed you,” he said finally.

I had missed him too, but I couldn’t make myself tell him that. He still unsettled me too much for that kind of honesty. Instead, I said the first thing that popped into my head. “You were late.”

His jaw clenched again. “Yes. I was in my car, in the middle of the most annoying business call of my life. I think I may need to fire my manager in New York. I didn’t see you arrive, and lost track of time. I apologize. I didn’t want to miss a second of our time together, which made the phone call particularly annoying.”

“It’s okay. We got here early, for once, so I was just surprised to see that you weren’t early, for once.”

“Introduce us,” Judith said loudly.

I wasn’t surprised. The two party girls had shown a surprising amount of self-control in letting us talk quietly for as long as we had.

I turned, giving the women a rueful smile. Jessa moved closer, and we suddenly had the attention of the entire group.

I went around the group, naming all of the people that James hadn’t yet met. I touched James’s arm lightly as I finished. “Everyone, this is my friend, James,” I said, feeling awkward. I had no idea what to call him.

“Boyfriend,” James corrected, and I raised a brow at him. I didn’t know what he was, but it didn’t seem like he could call himself that. “Very serious boyfriend,” he elaborated with a smirk.

I thought I knew what he was doing. He wanted to talk to me in private, and he knew that giving himself that title would antagonize me enough to draw me into an argument. I wasn’t going to bite, though, I told myself resolutely. And he was overly possessive. He would say anything to warn other men off.