Chapter 24
ZINAIDA
Luke is waiting by the hangar when my car pulls onto the tarmac.
I drink in the sight of him through the tinted window, his huge hands thrust into his pockets, laughing with the security team.
The high, bright sunshine catches the chestnut ends of his hair, which looks even more disheveled than usual, and the burnished hue to his skin suggests he spent most of his time here outside.
Even clad in his perfectly tailored suit, he still looks like he just stepped out of the water.
Sudden, savage longing hits me square in the chest.
I don’t want to stay away from him anymore.
I don’t want him to stay away from me anymore.
And I have no idea how to breach the gap between us.
As Luke turns toward the parked limo, his smile fades, the hard set of his jaw sending a shiver down my spine.
He strides toward me with the purposeful, intense grace of a lion on the savanna, pulling his sunglasses off as he nears my door.
His eyes are as brilliant as I’ve ever seen them, blazing with a vitality so raw it knocks the breath from me.
I remain frozen in place as he reaches for my door, then drop my own sunglasses as he opens it.
“Zin.” He nods, his mask firmly in place.
“Luke.” I return his nod with equal coolness and walk past him to the plane’s entry carpet, trying not to breathe in his sharp, fresh ocean scent or notice the way the ends of his hair are still damp.
I’d be willing to bet there’s a wet suit still covered in sand somewhere in his baggage.
Even the thought of it sends heat through my body, a queer feeling almost like homesickness aching in my bones.
I wish I’d been with him on that beach, his big hands lifting me over the waves, his hard body warm and slick against mine . . .
My heel catches on a step, and I almost stumble.
Luke’s arm wraps around me from behind, righting me before I can fall.
“Careful,” he murmurs in my ear. His hand splays across my abdomen, his thumb resting in the small hollow right beneath my breasts, the heat from his palm searing straight through the thin silk of my blouse.
Suddenly I don’t want to move.
I’m not even sure I can.
His thumb rubs slowly over the hollow, and the breath hitches in my throat.
“One step at a time,” he growls softly, virtually lifting me from one to the next. His body is a wall against mine, his cock a hard length against my ass.
He wants me.
The realization hits me in a fierce flood of heat that dulls into an insistent, pulsing need. My lips part, my eyes half closed in the midmorning sun.
I hear Darya’s voice echo in my mind: “Maybe just settle for searingly hot sex for a while . . .”
Something shifts inside me, some heavy weight I don’t want to carry anymore.
And just like that, I’m lost.
“Move,” he breathes against my skin, and somehow I do, climbing the rest of the stairs on badly shaking legs.
I return the steward’s greeting at the top with astonishing calm, given my body’s turmoil.
“She hurt her ankle on the stairs,” Luke says as we enter.
I keep my sunglasses on until I pass the crew, biting my lip to stop myself from laughing semi-hysterically.
“Sit at the back.” Luke’s low command comes close to my ear.
I take small steps down to the rear end of the plane, his hand resting loosely on my waist. “I’ll need to have a look at that foot when we’re in the air,” he says as I take my seat, loudly enough for the rest of the staff to hear.
The security team, taking the hint, seat themselves at the front, out of eyesight of the offending foot that’s apparently about to be inspected.
Luke sits opposite me, facing the front of the plane, so thankfully I’m staring at the rear wall—and the door to the bedroom.
I swallow.
His eyes drop to my swelling nipples under my blouse. “Fuck,” he mutters, dropping his sunglasses to hide the sudden darkness in his eyes.
“We’re cleared for takeoff, Miss Melikov.” The pilot’s voice comes over the loudspeaker as the plane starts to taxi along the runway. “Three hours flying time to London City Airport, and clear skies all the way.”
The skies outside might be clear, but inside there’s a fucking storm raging.
I stare at the V of sun-burnished skin at the top of Luke’s shirt. He’s ditched his customary tie and left the top buttons open. I want to pull the shirt apart and put my hands on the thick wall of his shoulders, taste the salt I know still lingers on his skin.
The plane picks up speed and lifts off, Spain falling away below me in a dazzling patchwork of blue sea, white walls, and red roofs that I barely notice.
All I can see is the breadth of Luke’s chest under the white shirt and the hard length of him pressing against his suit trousers.
I gasp as the plane judders beneath us, the friction sending a thrill through my entire body.
Luke’s face is impassive behind his glasses, his arm resting loosely across the armrest as if he’s entirely relaxed.
His iron control is certainly outdoing mine, but I don’t miss the tension in his body, and not even his sunglasses can disguise the way his eyes are roaming over my legs.
This plane can’t get to altitude fast enough.
Compelled by some dark mischief, I inch my thighs slightly apart.
Luke doesn’t move, but his eyes burn up my legs like wildfire. I widen them a little further, just far enough to show him the lace at the top of my stockings and the suspenders holding them up.
His sharp intake of breath turns the heat high enough to sear the knickers from my body. Biting my lip, I inch my skirt higher and spread my thighs a fraction more.
Luke’s fingers grip the armrest, the nails turning slowly white, but apart from that, he doesn’t move at all. His lethal stillness only adds recklessness to my game.
His eyes behind the sunglasses follow my finger as I trace it up my thigh and over the top of my stocking, where I allow it to linger. Slowly I draw it higher again, along the suspender holding up my stocking, until my finger reaches the lace of my knickers.
Luke’s eyes flick over the plane assessingly, then settle back on mine with disquieting intensity. “Take them off.”
Fuck.
I might have started this game, but it’s rapidly spiraling out of control.
As the plane banks into a turn, I lift my ass and pull the scrap of silk and lace down over my knees so it slides to my feet.
I ease my feet out of my stilettos and lift the silk with one toe, propping my foot on the edge of Luke’s seat, just outside his knee.
He closes one large hand over my ankle, covering my knickers, his thumb caressing the inside of my foot.
My knee sways outward at his touch, and his eyes slide between my legs.
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. If anyone was watching him, there’d be nothing in his posture to give him away.
And that only makes it so, so much hotter.
I move slightly, almost gasping at the friction as the air hits my wet heat. Luke strokes the underside of my foot maddeningly slowly, the ball of his thumb pressing the arch of my foot almost as if he were pressing directly on my clit.
His mouth curls in a dark smile. “It’s definitely swollen,” he says in a remarkably even tone. It takes my frazzled mind a moment to realize he’s pretending to talk about my ankle. “The throbbing must be painful.”
The semi-hysterical urge to laugh is getting worse. Fuck you, I mouth.
Luke tilts his head, smirking. “I can’t see to it just yet,” he says in the same stupidly composed voice. “The seat belt sign is still on.”
Oh, you bastard. I drop my eyes deliberately to the hard length behind his fly and slowly run my tongue over my lips. When I raise them again, his smile has hardened into something much darker and infinitely hotter.
The overhead bell dings to indicate the seat belt sign is off. I jerk from my seat, unable to think of anything but getting naked on the bed just beyond the door. Luke’s hand tightens around my ankle, holding me in place.
“Not yet,” he growls.
I lift my hips in answer, rucking my skirt upward.
“Fuck.” Luke sucks in his breath, and I feel a surge of triumph.
Then his eyes flicker over my head, and I hear the clatter of the drinks trolley starting toward us.
He leans forward, his hand traveling rapidly up my thigh.
For the briefest moment, his thumb presses directly on my swollen clit, and I almost fucking scream.
Then he tugs my skirt down and settles back in his seat, balling my underwear in his hand and slipping it into his pocket as he lowers the table between us, hiding both my crooked skirt and his raging hard-on.
Luke takes his sunglasses off and slips them into the V of his shirt as he turns to smile at the stewardess.
“Champagne for Miss Melikov,” he orders in a remarkably smooth voice. “Sparkling water for me.”
“Mr. Macarthur is going to have a beer,” I say, astonished my voice still works at all. “Spain was a busy time. I think we both deserve a drink, and the rest of the day off.”
“In that case”—Luke gives the stewardess a lazy half smile that almost has her dropping her own knickers—“I’ll have a Macallan, with a touch of water.”
Beneath the table I slip my stockinged toe beneath his trousers and up the curve of his calf.
Luke’s expression doesn’t so much as flicker. “Carrie,” he addresses the stewardess, “where’s the first aid kit kept? Miss Melikov hurt her ankle on the way up the stairs.”
“Oh, no! I saw that. You poor thing,” says Carrie, shooting me a sympathetic glance. “I can fetch it for you, if you like.”
“No need for that.” He waves her away as she puts our drinks on the table. “Just let me know where it is.”
“It’s in the bathroom.” She nods at the closed door of the private bedroom. “But I can get it—honestly, it’s no problem—”