Chapter 18
Dane followed Shana, with a slight limp and leaning on the embarrassing cane, onto the same Virgin Australia airplane as they’d taken on their way over, according to the registration number under the fuselage.
He was damn happy, if uncomfortable, to be on their way home in spite of the doctor’s advice to stay longer.
Wendy and Emory greeted them as they were the last to board, by his design. He’d preferred to wait in the Virgin flyers’ lounge rather than sit in his seat any longer than he needed to.
“Welcome back, Mr. Blaise and Ms. George.” Emory gave them a British smile. “Your TV photos didn’t do you justice.”
Wendy tripled her smile to make up for Emory’s sarcasm. “I’ll bring you tequila—Patron—right off.” She stood back and indicated the same two front seats in the roomy first-class row for them to sit.
“That would be perfect,” Shana said. She touched his hand and he knew she wanted to do more. She’d have carried him to his seat if she could and if he would have let her.
By the time he got settled, with his wrapped leg stiff and stretched in front of him, Wendy brought them each a tequila, his without ice and Shana’s with. Impressive. He wondered where Wendy did her homework or whom she’d spoken to.
He took a long sip, holding himself back from draining the glass. Feeling Shana’s eyes on him, he turned to her.
“Drink up, girlie.” He read her mind and all the unspoken reprimands on it and thanked whatever incompetent god had granted him the good luck to have her.
She kept her reprimands to herself. He knew well the doctor had said not to drink with his medication, but since the main side effect of doing so was sleep, it was exactly the right thing to do.
“Do you think they would come looking for me if I didn’t come back in two weeks to testify?” she asked. It was hard to tell if she was serious. He hoped she was.
He shrugged. “Give it a shot.”
“Don’t say shot.” She pierced his heart with the painful tenderness of her smile.
“Seriously, Dane. I don’t know how long this whole process will take.
We’ll need to postpone our wedding.” She paused and he didn’t comment, wasn’t sure what he ought to say because it was one of those traps—whether he said it would be all right or not all right, he could be deemed unsupportive.
Then she added, “I’ll hate to leave you alone.”
“You won’t be leaving me. I’ll be with you all the way.”
“That’s impossible. You need to stay home and let your leg heal.”
“No chance in hell, girlie. I’m coming back to Sydney with you. Two weeks is plenty of healing time. What’s a minor limp?’
“You can’t come back to Sydney. Besides, you need to stay on Martha’s Vineyard to take care of a new case. It came in this morning.”
She was smart. He’d give her points for her cagey ploy to tempt him with a case.
“We’ll take care of what we can on the new case in two weeks.
Then we’ll go back to Sydney together.” The plane began moving faster, from taxiing to the runway to racing to airborne speed.
He’d always gotten a rush from that instant where he first felt the wheels leave the ground, lifting them into the sky.
Shana faced the window and he looked over her shoulder, nuzzling close.
When she turned back, hard emerald eyes faced him.
“What about the commissioner’s warning to not to set foot in the country?”
Dane laughed. “He doesn’t own Australia, sugar buns.”
*****
She ought to be annoyed with his patronizing air, but it was difficult when his eyes melted her in all the strategic places, hard when he called her sugar buns and meant it.
Even if he meant it as a tease, she felt the endearment sizzle through to her core, felt the heat and the irrepressible desire well up like it always did.
His arm lay possessively across her lap, his shoulder pressed into hers, the foot on his good leg touching hers. The intimacy in the full plane with attendants watching them should have unnerved her, but it didn’t. She refused to look past his face, feel past his warmth.
She leaned in close and whispered, “I can’t wait to get back to our bed.”
He cupped her chin and kissed her mouth, pressing his lips to hers, scraping his teeth against them, tantalizing her with his tongue.
Lacing her fingers through his hair, pulling his face tighter against hers, she was aware that the world hovered around them, but felt like they were inside a bubble, their own cocoon of passion, where all she could hear was his breathing, his murmuring against her mouth, her pulse speeding and her heartbeat sending the blood rushing insistently past her ears.
His passion and tenderness gave her all the life she ever needed.
He let go of her chin, moved back from her, stared into her eyes, silent yet speaking volumes. The rush of pleasure she felt, feeling his adoration as if he’d bowed at her feet, spun her head, made her dizzy with joy. She said again what she was thinking. “I sooo wish we were at home in our bed.”
“Proves what I always knew to be true,” he said, keeping her close, keeping his voice a husky rumbling whisper, the sexiest thing she’d ever heard.
“What’s that?” she knew he was setting her up because that’s the way he was, even in the most tender of moments.
“You are the more wanton one of the two of us.”
She purred a soft laugh. “At least I finally bested you at something.”
**THE END**