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  She looked at him with a furrowed brow, her expression serious. “You won’t give up on me?”

  “Never.”

  “I should be looking for an apartment. Replacing my stuff. Moving out by now.”

  He shook his head. “No. You shouldn’t. I hate when you’re not in my bed. I can’t sleep well when I can’t feel your heat and reach out and touch you.”

  “I’m not always in your bed,” She pointed out. “Sometimes I’m working.”

  “Yep, and I sleep like shit.” He kissed her again. “I’m a very patient man, baby. I’ll give you all the time in the world to realize you’re mine, but please don’t move out.”

  “Okay, but you didn’t seem so patient when you pulled the caveman routine to get me into your bed,” she teased.

  He chuckled. “Yeah, I can’t help that part. My cock was hard the moment you pulled into the driveway.”

  “Can I maybe see it to confirm?” She shot him a coy look.

  “Naughty woman.” He released her though to shove to standing and finish removing his clothes. When he was naked, he tugged her thong over her hips and tossed it aside. “Your lingerie never gets a fair chance around here.”

  “It would seem that way. How will I ever know if you even appreciate it?”

  “You’ll know based on how many seconds I let you keep it on.” He flipped her over and unfastened her bra next.

  She gasped as she squirmed against the mattress. “Neil…”

  “Did you know your breath hitches every time I flip you onto your stomach?”

  “No,” she whispered, but she also had to bite into her bottom lip to keep from wiggling.

  He palmed her butt cheeks. “I think I should take you from behind this time.”

  She whimpered, sounding beyond pleased with the idea.

  “Is that okay?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He was shaking as he lifted her onto her knees, her ass in the air, her thighs parted. He reached between her legs to stroke his fingers through her folds, finding her hot and wet.

  She moaned when he found her clit. “Yes…” she repeated.

  He thrust two fingers into her and pumped them deeply, loving the sounds she made and how fast she rushed to the edge. He knew when she was about to come because her body stiffened. That’s when he pressed against her clit and flicked the tips of his fingers over her G-spot.

  God, he loved her. So much.

  As soon as her orgasm started, he removed his fingers and replaced them with his cock, his hands on her hips.

  She moaned and bucked back into him. “Neil…”

  “So sexy, baby.” He held on as he thrust in and out of her over and over, gritting his teeth to keep from coming prematurely. But it was a losing battle. In no time at all, he was emptying his seed into her.

  Heather woke up early the next morning, so early the sun wasn’t up. She felt restless and knew she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep, so she eased from the bed.

  Neil was dead to the world, so peaceful. He had one arm above his head on the pillow, the other over his chest. She knew he would wake up soon and reach for her, but she needed coffee and some quiet time.

  She grabbed Neil’s T-shirt from the day before, pulled it over her head, and padded quietly to the kitchen. After fixing herself a cup of coffee, she curled up in the corner of the couch. It was still dark. This time of day always seemed peaceful. The calm before the storm.

  She thought about the last week and everything that had happened with her mother. After nine years of barely speaking to the woman, Heather had opened up to her a bit. Really for the first time in her life.

  She hadn’t shared every detail of her life because it left her feeling vulnerable, but she’d told her she had a boyfriend she lived with, mostly because Neil had insisted her mother feel welcome to visit them.

  Heather wondered if her mother would come someday. She had a pile of things to take care of in Ohio before she could leave, and then she intended to go south and see the ocean. It was first on her bucket list.

  Heather was glad. Her mother needed to live a little, see more of the country, spread her wings. She was fifty-five years old and had only lived in two homes—the one where her father abused her and the one where her husband abused her.

  It was going to take some work for her to find herself and get her head straight. A lot of work. But she’d seemed determined when Heather left her.

  Heather needed to return to her job too. She wasn’t working today, but she had a shift tomorrow. She was looking forward to getting back to something that at least marginally resembled a new normal.

  It felt like her world had been flipping over in a washing machine on spin cycle for over a month. Moving, losing everything, her father dying, a boyfriend who adored her to pieces, taking time off work twice to help her. It was a lot.

  She was emotionally exhausted and needed a reset. Hopefully, she could have a few weeks without drama. Work. Spend time with Neil. See the friends she hadn’t seen in forever. Buy some more clothes.

  She should probably invest the money from the insurance company if she wasn’t going to use it to replace all her belongings for a while.

  It was ironic that she’d lost everything in that fire only to return to her childhood home and pick out a few things she’d like to have. She hadn’t taken much. Most of what was in that room brought back bad memories that would give her nightmares. But she’d grabbed a few books that had been important to her when she was growing up. The stuffed teddy bear that had sat on her bed all these years. She’d even grabbed her high school planner. Maybe someday it would be fun to go back through the four-year calendar and laugh at some of the things she’d done in school.

  She needed to get a new calendar too. She’d been operating as if on auto-pilot for the last month. Anything that had been on the calendar in her apartment probably hadn’t happened. It made her wonder if she’d missed anything noteworthy. Probably not. The calendar had been mostly filled with her flight schedule and sometimes Raeann’s so she’d know when her friend was working.

  As the weeks went by, she slowly thought of things she’d lost. Sure, she had a lot of stuff in her phone, but she’d lost the written list of phone numbers she’d kept taped to the edge of her computer desk.

  Funny, she couldn’t think of who was even on that list. Who would she need to call? Had she ever really used it?

  Spending time helping her mother fill a dumpster with bad memories, had jarred Heather’s memory of a few things she’d lost. Her favorite mug. The vase Raeann had given her on her birthday. It had been filled with flowers at the time, but Heather had kept the vase afterward.

  There’d been a pair of jeans that fit her perfectly. A cozy sweater she’d worn in the evenings when she’d been chilly. She hadn’t been able to find a pair of shoes for work she’d liked as well as the pair she’d lost.

  Perhaps she would always think of little things like that. They might just pop into her head at random times. That hadn’t ever happened after she’d left Ohio though. Maybe because she’d rather never remember anything from her childhood, whereas the last year had been a time of growth. The things in that apartment hadn’t been expensive and wouldn’t have been important to anyone else, but they’d been hers. She’d worked hard for everything she’d owned.

  Sure, she had a check that probably exceeded the value of the contents of her apartment, but it didn’t feel real or tangible. It was a piece of paper she’d deposited in the bank that correlated with numbers that were frankly too big for her to grasp.

  This was the first time in her life her bank account had an amount in it that she didn’t need to check every day to make sure she could afford takeout.

  She smiled as she realized her mother had a similar boon. She’d deposited that seventeen thousand dollars, shaking the entire time. She’d been unable to stop laughing after they’d left the bank. Heather found herself glad that her mother was able to laugh.

  “
Heather?”

  She turned her head to see Neil leaning over the back of the couch. “Hey.”

  He cupped the back of her head and kissed her. “I had a moment of confusion when I woke up to find you not next to me. How long have you been out here?”

  “A while. I couldn’t sleep.” She reached for his arm and gripped it. “Sorry. I didn’t want to wake you tossing and turning. My mind was racing.”

  He rounded the couch and sat next to her. The sun was coming up now. She hadn’t noticed. “You don’t work until tomorrow, right?”

  “Yes.”

  His brow was furrowed. “I don’t like what I’m hearing about the airline. It’s making me nervous.”

  “I know. I try not to think about it. Dozens of people are working on it behind the scenes. Someone will crack the case soon.”

  “Hopefully before people get hurt. It’s not safe fucking around with the computer systems.”

  She set her coffee down on the end table and climbed up to straddle his lap and cup his face. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Not gonna lie, I hated you being in Ohio for a week without me, but at least I didn’t worry about you getting caught up in some shit at work.”

  She smiled. “I’m sure it’s just some genius with too much time on his hands whose luggage got lost. He’s so angry, he wants everyone else to suffer like he did.”

  “It’s not always luggage mix-ups, baby.”

  “I know. But it’s always innocuous.”

  “So far.”

  “Well, the way I look at it, I’ve got a long list of problems that goes on for miles, so I don’t need to invent extra ones. The airline tomfoolery isn’t on my list.”

  “I’d rather nothing else be on your list either. Tell me some of the top things. Let’s make them disappear.”

  She giggled. “That’s just it. I realized while I was sitting here in the dark trying to remember all my problems that I probably had a list of them that burned in the fire, and I’ve been too busy to sit down and recreate it.”

  He chuckled. “Well, it’s gone now. So poof. No more problems.”

  “What if I was supposed to get my hair cut or something and I missed the appointment?”

  He fingered her hair. “Then I’m glad because I like your hair just the way it is.”

  She leaned in and set her head on his shoulder. “You make everything sound so simple.”

  “Excellent. My work here is done.”

  Chapter 18

  Two months later…

  * * *

  “I’m so glad we’re working together today,” Shayla said as she stashed her bag in the overhead next to Heather’s. “Seems like it’s been forever since the last time we worked the same flight.”

  “Right?” Heather agreed. “It’s been months.”

  “It was before you moved in with Neil.” Shayla winked. “And we haven’t had a chance to even do lunch since then. Talk to me. How’s Neil?”

  “He’s great.” Heather felt herself blush. He really was great. Everything about him was great. It made her perpetually nervous. She was still struggling to believe she could have “great” in her life and not have it taken away.

  She often worried that he would lose his patience with her constant worrying. They’d fallen into a routine that included him telling her he loved her nearly every day and her never responding because she choked on the words and had convinced herself she would get hit by a car if she admitted her feelings.

  It was stupid but she couldn’t help it. And, on top of that, Neil was so damn “great” that he never flinched. He never looked frustrated with her. He should, but he never showed it. She was starting to worry that she was unintentionally sabotaging her perfect relationship for no reason.

  “And what about you? Are you great too?” Shayla joked.

  “Yep.”

  “How is your relationship with your mom going? I know we talked about it over the phone a bit, but I haven’t followed up.”

  “It’s going well. Strained, as expected, but we’re talking.”

  “Is she going to come visit?”

  “Probably in a few months. She’s seeing a counselor. It’s helping a lot. And she’s planning to go on a road trip soon. That’ll be good for her.”

  “Definitely.”

  Heather glanced at her watch. “Shouldn’t the passengers be boarding by now?”

  Shayla sighed as she rolled her eyes. “Probably can’t get the door open to the jetway. That’s been happening a lot lately. Especially first thing in the morning.”

  “I swear, it’s getting crazier by the week. Somebody is having a field day messing with the airline. We have a land rover successfully roaming around Mars taking amazing pictures, and they can’t catch some guy in his basement hacking into the airline computers.”

  Someone started shouting outside the open service door where drinks had been loaded.

  Heather spun around and stepped closer. The ground crew was arguing with a man. Suddenly, the man pulled a gun and shot the guy right in the head.

  Heather screamed as Shayla grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the open door.

  “Shh.” Shayla put a hand over Heather’s mouth for a moment.

  Heather’s heart was pounding as she crouched down out of sight of the airfield.

  When the pilot and the co-pilot stepped toward the entrance, Shayla waved them back. “Don’t let them see you,” she hissed.

  “Was that a gunshot I heard?” the pilot asked.

  Heather nodded. “Someone below just shot another man in the head.”

  The pilot leaned his head forward a few inches, trying to see around the corner.

  Heather held her breath, hoping nothing would happen to him.

  Luckily, he jerked back toward the cockpit a few seconds later. “Shit. Wish we could shut that service door.”

  “You and me both,” Heather muttered.

  Unfortunately, the lift truck suddenly started rising toward the open door.

  “Fuck,” Heather muttered.

  “This can’t be good.”

  Heather rubbed her temples. “I knew I should have listened to my intuition when it told me something bad was about to happen.”

  Shayla glanced at her. “When was that?”

  “Well, it happens all the time, to be honest. The universe hates me.”

  Shayla grabbed Heather’s hand. “Fuck the universe. She’s not going to win today.”

  “I sure hope you’re right.”

  The two of them stood and took several steps down the aisle as the lift stopped and a man—the one Heather had seen shoot the ground crew—stepped onto the plane, waving his gun around.

  He had several other weapons on him too. Some sort of automatic rifle was hanging around his shoulder. Another gun was in a holster. How the hell had this guy made it onto the airport grounds with all those weapons?

  What worried her more than the guns was the giant computer bag strapped over his shoulder. What the hell was that for? She worried it was a bomb.

  The man glanced at Heather and Shayla and then turned to face the pilots. “Ah good. We have a full crew.”

  “What do you want?” the pilot asked.

  The man cackled. “What do I want? Rich question.” He turned to pull the service door closed, shutting them in from that side. The passenger door was still open for all the good that would do. Heather wouldn’t try to escape through the passenger door of any plane these days. It was doubtful the door at the other end of the jetway would open.

  While the man had his back to them, Shayla pulled out her phone and touched the screen several times.

  Heather noticed what she was doing and did the same thing. Hopefully either Jake or Neil would pick up and the open line would alert them to the problem. After placing the call, Heather stuffed her phone back in the pocket of her blazer.

  Maybe one of them should have dialed 911 but at this point, half the airport had already called the police. What Heather and Shayla
needed was Neil’s team to catch wind of this. They were all former military. They worked well together like parts of a whole. They’d rescued more than one of their women from this very airport.

  Obviously, the men were completely jinxed, or perhaps it was the women, Heather thought, nearly laughing at the absurdity of this situation and the likelihood of something like this happening yet again to her or her friends. It was so inconceivable, she wondered if she was having a bad dream.

  But then the guy swung around and faced the women. “Good. I’ve got two pilots and two stewardesses. That will make my flight much more pleasant.”

  Heather swallowed as she stared at him. He looked eerily familiar. Dark hair. Medium build. Clean shaved. She couldn’t put her finger on it.

  “Where do you need to go?” the pilot asked.

  “None of your business,” the man said. He was eerily calm. Casually strolling around in front of the drink carts which had not yet been secured.

  He suddenly pulled down one of the flight crew seats and dropped to sitting, still swinging the gun around. He seemed drunk or just crazy. He jerked his gaze to the pilot. “Call someone and ask them to take the luggage off this plane. We don’t need the extra weight.”

  Heather swallowed. What the hell was going on here?

  The pilot and co-pilot stepped back into the cockpit and glanced at the women. Heather figured they were probably trying to decide how wise it might be to shut and lock the cockpit door.

  They didn’t take that chance, though Heather might have suggested it. If this guy intended to kill anyone, he was going to do so no matter what. Might as well make it so he couldn’t take out the pilots too.

  Heather heard the co-pilot’s muffled voice in the cockpit as he spoke to someone in the control tower.

  Sirens wailed in the distance. Why was this guy just lounging around? If he wanted to go somewhere, he would have been better off insisting on an immediate departure.

  Shayla gripped Heather’s hand for support as they both inched back a bit farther.

  “Stay where you are, ladies.” He leered at them, his gaze sweeping up and down their bodies. “Rumor has it my studly brother nailed a bunch of stewardesses. I wonder if he ever fucked either of you.”