The Stopover (The Miles High Club 1)

I walk into the airport and up to the arrival gate of her plane. I still have forty minutes. I look over to the bar, and it calls my name in a sweet song.

A scotch would be so good right now . . . take the edge off.

No.

I need to cut that shit out. I haven’t allowed myself to have a drink all weekend. Emily deserves more than a drunk.

With nerves racing through my body, I walk to one end of the airport and then back to the arrival lounge. I glance at my watch. Thirty-five minutes to go. I do it again and again.

I can’t sit still.

Not when I know what’s coming.

Emily

I walk with the crowd into the arrivals lounge. My flight has just landed, and my heart is beating hard in my chest.

I’ve dug into the bottom of my soul this weekend, searching for the answers.

Trying to work out what to do with my life and who to do it with.

One thing is clear: the only thing that is clear . . . is who I love.

I can’t deny it.

Jameson Miles is etched into my heart, and as petrified as I am of him hurting me again, his words keep coming back to me. “To love is to be brave.”

I’m going to swallow my pride and be brave. I’m going to let myself go . . . and hope to God I’m doing the right thing, because I can’t go through this again.

He comes into view, and he smiles as our eyes lock. Excitement fills me, and I do a little skip and begin to run, and I jump into his waiting arms. We cling to each other tightly, locked in an embrace. We don’t speak; we don’t kiss; we just hold on.

Clinging desperately to the hope that we can get past this.

My shadows are chased away for a little while.

“I missed you,” he whispers into my hair.

“I missed you too.”

He bends, and his lips take mine as we forget where we are. His tongue slowly strokes through my open lips, and he holds my face in his two hands as we get lost in the moment. His kiss is tender and, more importantly, familiar.

With him, I am home.

An hour later, we walk into my apartment, hand in hand.

We hardly spoke on the way home. I sat on his lap, tucked safely in his big arms, and enjoyed the closeness. His lips dusted back and forth over my temple as he held tight, as if not believing I was here with him.

I’ve missed the closeness. Our closeness.

It’s not even about the sex with us anymore. I mean, it was in the beginning. But my heart has eclipsed any physical need that my mere body desires . . . and I know he’s the same.

He turns me toward him, and his eyes search mine. “Em . . .” He pauses as if trying to get the wording right in his head. “I swear to you, from this moment on . . . you are my everything. Our new life together . . . starts right now.”

I smile up at him as my eyes fill with tears anew. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” We kiss, and unlike the tenderness we have shared over the last hour, a new desperation fills us.

Suddenly I want him . . . all of him. “Take me to bed.”