His to Love (Fireside #1)(2)

Perhaps I was drunk, although I didn’t remember having any alcohol that day. Maybe the mushrooms in Aunt Eleanor’s spaghetti the night before weren’t really regular mushrooms. It wouldn’t have been the first time she made that mistake.

“Did I hurt you?”

That voice cut through my wondering and I shook my head. “I’m good.”

Lie. My entire body felt like it was being lit up like a fireworks show. I was tingly and hot and squirmy. I was also still staring at Tyson’s hand. His fingers were perfectly manicured. Long and thick. His dark gray suit fit him perfectly. It had to be designer. Made just for him. Nothing off the rack could fit so snugly in all the right places.

I swallowed slowly and dragged my eyes up his body until I met his gaze. His thick black eyebrows were pulled in so close they almost touched.

Damn, he looked incredible.

He caught me checking him out and smirked. Awesome.

“Do you need some help?” he asked, just as the voice of the pilot came through the intercom announcing that all passengers must be seated. I felt all eyes turn to us, and I ducked my head under the shield of my long black hair.

Needing to get away from him, I dragged my suitcase in front of me and then stared at the packed overhead compartments. A groan fell from my parted lips. There was no way I was getting my bag in there.

“Let me help you,” he said. This time it wasn’t a question, but a demand. Yet he still sounded patient. Potentially amused.

“Thanks.” I let go of the handle of my suitcase and squeezed into my seat as he shifted luggage around and my bag disappeared.

There were so many things I wanted to ask him. Things I wanted to tell him. How was he? What was he doing now? Did he ever think of me? They all crashed into my brain at once, giving me the beginning twinges of a migraine. But I wanted to ask them so badly, I could taste them on the tip of my tongue. I was ready to spit them out when he slammed the overhead compartment and, without looking at me, took his seat directly across the aisle near the window.

I couldn’t think of anything, couldn’t focus on anything or anyone except the man just two seats and an aisle away from me. I leaned forward, trying to catch his eye when Tyson tilted his head in my direction, too. I watched as his lips curved into a slight smirk and he said, “It’s good to see you. Enjoy your flight.”

As if. Flying alone was possibly the cherry on top to my already craptastic day.

“Thank you…again,” I replied quietly and buckled my belt. It was only then that I realized I was sitting between a young child in the aisle seat and a man in the window seat whose arm had clearly claimed the armrest. His eyes were closed and his breathing was heavy. At any moment, he was probably going to start snoring, and I quickly looked away.

I shivered in my seat and closed my eyes.

Please don’t let me die on the plane.

Please don’t let me die.

Please don’t let someone throw up on me.

Please don’t let me throw up on someone.

I repeated my silent hopes and prayers until I felt the plane slowly roll back from the gate and the attendants began their safety spiel, which I ignored. Not because I was confident the plane wouldn’t throw me to my death from twenty thousand feet in the air, but because if the plane did crash, I had always been highly suspicious of whether the oxygen masks would actually deploy. Nothing, absolutely nothing, would be able to save me—least of all my under-seat inflatable device that had to be older than my grandmother.

With one hand curled over the other armrest, I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing while the plane took off. Until the plane leveled, I focused on slow inhales through my nose, exhales through my lips, and tried not to think about how much it hurt to breathe. Between my fear of flying and my sudden run-in with Tyson, my head was a mess of conflicting emotions. Terror. Anger. And was that…a little bit of lust?

Because for real…the man looked incredible. So incredible I could see the outline of his well-dressed frame behind my closed lids.

Someone sneezed next to me and my eyes flew open. I felt it hit my arm and jumped slightly. Turning my head, I saw the culprit staring at me. His eyes were bright green and he had a small trail of yellow snot running down his nose.

Gross, gross, gross. I gagged and looked around. On the other side of the aisle, right next to Tyson, was a woman. Her hair was perfectly coiffed, her long, thin legs were tucked into a pair of jeans that must have been painted on, or sewn on, and she wore the most gorgeous, tan suede boots I’d ever seen.

I wanted those boots.

And she was laughing with the man who once promised to love me forever. I couldn’t tell what they were discussing, but everything inside of me wanted to reach my hand across the aisle and dig my fingernails into the forearm that was suspiciously too close to Tyson’s.

I had no reason to react like that. Tyson wasn’t mine. He hadn’t been mine for ten years. And even then, I had learned one late night after being busted coming home from his place, that it was a very real possibility that I had never actually been his…not in the way I thought I was, or had wanted to be.

I frowned, remembering the night I had come home from his house to find the disappointment and fury clear in my father’s eyes. It should have stopped me from wanting anything to do with Tyson ever again.

Yet the rational thought didn’t quell the irrational emotion buzzing along my veins, increasing my pulse.

“Is that your mom?” I asked the little boy and pointed across the aisle. He nodded and sniffed. I saw his yellow snot disappear into his nose before sliding back out.

I was so going to throw up on someone.

Jumping out of my seat, I climbed over him into the aisle, and tapped the woman on her shoulder.

“Excuse me,” I said politely and cheerfully. It was fake. By the sound my teeth made as they ground together, she had to know it. I didn’t care. “Would you like my seat so you can sit next to your son? He seems a bit insecure with flying.”

Lie, lie, lie. The kid was currently picking his nose and wiping it on the back of the seat in front of him. And on my armrest.

Ohmygod.

I shuddered and turned back to her.

Tyson looked up and smiled at me, humor dancing in those dark blue eyes of his. “What a great idea.” His voice rumbled through me and hit some spot deep inside. Had I looked at her, I figured both of us would look the same, with our jaws dropped to the floor at that deep timbre.

“Oh, I think he’s okay…”

“Mommy, I have to poop.”

Bright hot pink flooded her cheeks. She didn’t look at Tyson before she unbuckled her belt and murmured, “Of course.”

As she stood, she smiled at me but it didn’t reach her eyes. I shook off her annoyance at my interrupting her and Tyson. I wasn’t even thinking about him.

Lie.

Kids just made me nervous. Especially sick kids.

“Excuse me.” Acid clung to her words as she passed me in the tiny, cramped aisle.

My smile widened. “Sure.”

With a huff, I plopped down in her seat—because no way was I sitting by that kid again—and quickly re-buckled.

“You look like you barely survived.”

“Oh…huh?”

“The kid. He scares you.”

A piece of my hair dropped into my eye, and I blew it out of my line of sight. “Of course not.” I tucked another piece of hair behind my other ear. Why…why, of all days, did my hair have to act like I stuck my finger in an electric socket?

“You fidget when you lie. You always have. And I also know you’ve always been scared of little kids, but not why.”

That knowing tone, the fact he knew so much about me when all he ever did was lie to me, made me cringe. Why did he have to be on my flight? All on a day that I was flying home, getting ready to see my father and my childhood home for the first time in ten years, and when I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t had enough time to prepare myself to see my father, or my mom for that matter. But as much as I tried to prepare myself for seeing my family, considering I’d see Tyson Blackwell again wasn’t even on my radar. I never thought I’d see him again—much less sit next to him in a cramped seat on an airplane.

I snapped my head to the man sitting next to me, intent on telling him off, but words clogged inside my head and I was lost in an ocean of blue. It was his eyes, or his shirt under his suit, or maybe it was just him. Not that he was blue. He was just…

He was the most incredible-looking man I had ever seen. Straight out of a GQ photo shoot. And so far, he had seen me panting like a dog in heat, sprawled out on the floor in front of him, and possibly drooling.

Fantastic.

“All right,” I rasped, leaning in. He did the same, and I caught a whiff of cologne that should have been illegal for every woman’s nose. It was intoxicating. Addictive. Spicy and I didn’t know what else, I just knew I wanted to lick the taste off his neck.

“Fine,” I agreed again while I tried to ignore his closeness. “Kids make me nervous, they always have. They’re always in your way. They’re fast and short and you trip over them. They’re loud, they’re messy, and they’re always…” I rubbed my fingers together and made a face, “sticky.”

One side of his lips quirked up. They were sexy full lips, too, and I almost got distracted. “Sticky?”