“I love it,” I answered quickly, all of my hesitation momentarily gone. “I love it more than almost anything else on earth.”
“Tell me why,” he said.
“I love meeting new people all of the time, whether the passengers or the other crew. I love wondering what kinds of lives those people lead, where they’re going and where they’ve been. I love the idea that these planes could take us anywhere in the world. All we have to do is decide where we want to go.”
As soon as I stopped talking, I felt a wave of embarrassment flood my body. I'd meant to answer him, sure, but I hadn't meant to go into such specifics. The things I'd just told him were things I never said out loud, not to anyone. I couldn't understand what had made me just unload all of my thoughts on this man, who I didn't even know. All I knew was that I didn't want him asking me any follow-up questions, and so I turned his own question around on him in a preemptive strike.
“And what’s your answer?”
“To what, whether or not I like to fly?” he asked.
“No, actually, I think I already know the answer to that,” I said. “Something tells me you love it. But why? What’s your reason?”
“I love the control. The feeling of having total control over something so magnificent as an airplane. There’s nothing else like it. There’s no rush better in the world.”
It was a straightforward enough answer, but the way he looked at me when he was done talking wasn't straightforward at all. His eyes began on my face, but from there, they moved down slowly, taking in every inch of my body as they roved. Every place his eyes landed felt suddenly naked, like he had the power to take anything he wanted with his eyes alone. I felt frozen under the weight of his gaze, and if it hadn't been for the sound of Fred's voice ringing out from the cockpit, I didn’t know what would have happened.
“Hey! Pretty boy! Any c
hance you’re going to come up here and do some actual work? Or were you just going to talk to that pretty young thing all day and night?”
“Coming,” Drew called over his shoulder, his eyes never leaving my body. “On my way. As for you,” he directed his words at me, that intensity still all over his face. “It was good to meet you. Very good to meet you, in fact. I look forward to getting to know each other better while I’m working with your crew.”
His eyes did one more quick up and down movement, and then he was off, headed towards the cockpit so quickly that it was hard to believe that the two of us had ever had a conversation to begin with. I immediately set my mind to remembering that one of my hard rules was that I would never date a pilot, no matter what.
I had spent enough time with pilots to know exactly what they were like, and it wasn't what I was looking for. They were arrogant and inconsistent and would only come in and out of my life. And not just my life, but Emma's as well. A pilot was the last thing I wanted for myself, but as I made my way to the back of the plane, I found that I couldn't quite get Drew's searching eyes out of my mind. They were still roaming up and down the length of my body, and no matter how many times I shook my head to clear his image, I couldn't quite manage it.
“Enough, silly girl,” I whispered to myself, annoyed by how girlishly foolish I was behaving. “Just stop it. That guy is off limits, no ifs, ands, or buts.”
Chapter 4: Drew
“I ever tell you about that time I had with the Chinese hooker, pretty boy?”
I was getting pretty goddamn sick of him calling me pretty boy. “Wait, Fred, are you telling me your Chinese hooker was a pretty boy?”
“What?” he asked, scowling.
“I mean, it’s fine if that’s what you’re in to,” I said, not letting him continue. “But I don’t really want to hear the story if that’s the case.”
“No, you dipshit,” he said. “I was calling you pretty boy.”
“Well, stop,” I said firmly. “That’s just fucking weird, man.”
Fred narrowed his eyes and stared straight ahead for a moment. Then he burst out laughing. “Okay, fair enough,” he said. “No more ‘pretty boy’.”
“Good,” I said.
"So anyway, this Chinese hooker, who was most definitely a woman,” Fred continued, almost as if I hadn’t interrupted him at all. “Let's just say, a Chinese hooker in Taiwan is a recipe for disaster, especially when you've been on a drinking binge for a week. I almost don't want to elaborate, but boy, you know I'm going to. You don't hardly know me at all, and I bet you already know that much."
I smiled and nodded to show that I was listening, but my mind was as far away from this conversation as it could get. We were already halfway through our flight, and I hadn't been able to stop thinking about the little blonde flight attendant.
When I had first seen her in the Pilots’ Lounge, I had known immediately that she was the kind of chick I would want to bang. When I found her on my flight, that temptation had become far more real. I wasn't even sure if she had given me her name, for Christ's sake. I didn't think she had, and I didn't think Fred had, either, but I also didn't really give a damn.
It wasn't like I was interested in her for her life story. I wasn't even sure why I had asked for her opinion on flying, except that I hadn't wanted her to walk away from me quite yet. Sure, her answer, and the passion I could sense behind it, was more interesting than I had anticipated, but that didn't mean I legitimately wanted to get to know her. I didn't want that. I just wanted her.
I wasn't any more interested in dating her than I was in dating any other woman on the planet. I wanted to fuck her, and I wanted it badly. That wasn't typically something I really had to give much thought to, seeing as Fred's over the top assessment of my prowess with women had been pretty on point.
Usually, when it came to women, I just had to flash a smile at the one I wanted, and she practically fell into my bed. It wasn't something I gave much thought to. It was just the way things were. There was something about this chick, though, that made me think it might not be quite that easy. I had no clue where that idea was coming from, only that something told me it was correct. If I was going to get this chick into my bed, it was going to require a different kind of approach. That, I was certain of. What I wasn't so sure about was if it was worth the effort it might require.