A Beautiful Distraction(68)

She needed it.

And she wanted it. Right now. She wanted to lift his arm and cradle into him.

But she couldn’t, she didn’t quite know how to get there yet.

They’d been in the air for maybe thirty minutes, and having Rafe with her actually helped. Was she still shocked by his sudden decision to buy a plane ticket and fly to New York City with her—just for her? Yes.

It was hard for her to wrap her head around the idea of someone being there for her. Someone being there for her in a way different from Jade, or George, or anyone at the club. Because they would—she knew that. But Rafe’s intentions were different. Whatever was starting to grow between them was undeniably different.

Rafe put her first. She’d never been first.

Folding her legs up onto the seat, she pulled her dress over her bare toes, her elbow bumping into Rafe’s arm. His eyes opened and he shifted them to the side to look at her. “Sorry. I’m cold,” she explained when he continued to smile at her squirming around. “I knew to bring a blanket but I forgot and they never have enough of those flimsy little blankets they hand out.” She pulled her thin white cardigan closed, wrapping it around her torso tightly.

Rafe’s hand shot out as one of the flight attendants walked by, stopping him. “Sir, could we have a blanket, please?”

The man barely acknowledged him. “Sorry, we’re out.”

“I would appreciate it if you’d check, please.” His voice had lowered with evident demand and the flight attendant finally looked at him.

“We’re out, sir.”

Rafe’s signs of an approaching temper were becoming more and more readable every time she was around him. His hard body contorted from relaxed to tense, his posture leaning forward in his seat. “Maybe you’re not understanding me. My girl’s cold. I know for a fact that you’ve got a storage compartment in first class where you keep a stash of extra blankets and those scratchy-ass pillows. Now I’d appreciate it if you’d go check,” he said, teeth clenched. He wasn’t giving the man an option.

He nodded. “I’ll check, sir.”

“How do you know they keep extra blankets?” Fallon asked once the man had made his way down the narrow aisle.

“Some old man gave up his first-class seat for me on my way home for R&R on my last deployment. I saw the flight attendants go in and out of that storage compartment twenty damn times getting extra blankets for people. They’ve got ’em. This douche bag is just being lazy.”

In a surprisingly timely manner, the attendant was back in front of them—handing Rafe a blanket.

“Thanks,” Rafe snapped, glaring at the attendant, who only turned and walked away. Unfolding the tiny square, he draped it over Fallon, tucking it behind her shoulders to keep it from falling down.

“Better?”

“Much.”

Turbulence rocked the plane, the seats vibrating beneath her. It was over as suddenly as it came, but Fallon’s heart had already lodged into the pit of her stomach. She’d absentmindedly latched onto his thigh, digging her fingernails into the denim of his worn jeans. He chuckled and shook his head, but she didn’t care. “No laughing. I hate flying, remember?”

“Babe, you don’t need a reason to hold on to me. You can hold on to me anytime you need to.”

Sable eyes softened, smoldered, morphing with a gentleness, a sincerity that stole her breath. His gaze never broke, never waned, as his long fingers threaded through her hair, curling around her nape. She needed to look away, but she couldn’t—she didn’t want to, but Rafe didn’t let her either. He carefully pinioned her head in place, stealing her eyes, forcing her gaze to remain on him. It was unbearably raw, in the middle of an airplane, hovering thousands of feet above the earth. Intimacy swirled hot and heady around them.

Eyes honing, he leaned in slowly. She braced for his gentle assault, nearly begging for it, but he paused. Fingers bit into her nape, and he shifted her head back. He nuzzled her, his nose burrowing below her chin—and she froze, needing to lift her hands, to cling to him, to clutch him against her. But her limbs had liquefied, turned to mush from the pressure of his lips along her neck.

“This is fuckin’ insane, babe. God, I know it is.” His teeth nibbled her chin, then her bottom lip, before he lowered her head back down to look at her. “But I’m here. You, me—I don’t know what the hell this is. But I’m here. You need me, you name it, I’m here. You know that, right?”

She nodded helplessly, unsure what she was agreeing to. She’d lost all semblance of coherent thinking. What was he offering her? Himself?