Chapter 35
The East Tennessee Airport, where Green Valley Aviation is, sits halfway to Merryville and consists of a single airstrip. There’s no real terminal, just a large hangar that the mechanic shop operates out of and an office, equipped with a friendly cat receptionist.
Apparently, the biggest plane the place sees is the private jet that sometimes lands here, carrying Shelly Sullivan’s brother and his family when they come for a visit.
“Most often, we see single-engine planes, like this Cessna.” Robin gestures toward an aircraft that seems small in my opinion.
Could that thing really get a guy like me off the ground?
“We’re going up in that?” I ask, and she must hear the doubt in my voice because she grins.
“Yeah. You trust me, right?”
I grunt, “Mostly.”
That’s a lie. I trust Robin with every piece of me. Even my heart, though I know she’s going to break it when she leaves. Doesn’t stop the fact that I’m gone for her.
I thought I was in deep before with that soulmate kiss.
But now, I know what she looks like when she comes. The way she lets out a little scream when I stroke her clit the right way. The flavor of her pleasure still sits on my tongue.
Mainly because I knocked on her bedroom door this morning and asked if I could practice again. The sleep immediately cleared from her eyes, and she collapsed back on her bed, telling me to go for it.
Robin’s pussy is better than an extra-large cup of coffee to start the day off right.
Almost a full week of this, and I’m addicted. All I do is mutter the word practice, and she’s stripping for me and parting those thick thighs to make room for my face. If I’m not careful, I’ll get hard every time I hear that word in the future.
Not that it takes much these days. I wake up with wood every morning, grinding my hips into my mattress, wishing Robin were beside me, waiting for me to roll over and sink into her. But other than the short nap we took together after the Jam Session, she sleeps in her room. And I’m determined to keep this “practice” all about her.
As if not finishing with Robin will somehow keep a small part of me safe in the end.
Or make me feel like less of an ass for how selfish I’m being, not telling her the truth. That none of this is fake for me. That I want her.
That she’s the only one I’ll ever want.
Unaware of my inner turmoil, Robin chuckles and pats my chest, and I wonder if I can convince her to go back to the car and straddle my lap again while I slip my hands into those tight jeans. Instead, I take control of my raging need and stand by silently as she tows the plane out of the hangar and into the breezy fall day.
After sliding the seat back all the way, I’m able to tuck my body into the snug cabin. Robin hands me a headset, and I adjust it to fit over my head, glad I’m wearing a baseball hat to tamp down my hair. Robin straps herself into her seat and shuts the door with a slam. In this cockpit, with my seat pushed all the way back, our size difference is even more stark to me.
“Won’t I set things off-balance?” I ask, imagining the scenario of the aircraft spiraling out of control when she tries to take off.
Robin pats my thigh and gives it a reassuring squeeze that does nothing to ease my increasing heart rate. Only now, my pulse is hammering for a different reason.
“That’s a good question, but no. Balance matters more from nose to tail than side to side. Since you’re next to me, aligned with the wings, we’re good.”
Her confident tone settles my worries. Robin is in her element here, working through her pre-takeoff checklist methodically.
“You ready?” she asks me through the headset, her voice tinny, but still hers.
I nod. She gives me another torturous thigh squeeze, then starts the engine.
Shit, that thing is loud. Even through the noise-canceling headset, I hear the roar.
Worried about distracting her, I stay quiet and unmoving as she guides us out to the runway and starts speaking through the radio. I understand “East Tennessee Airport,” but the rest is pilot jargon that sounds like a different language to me.
“Here we go.” Robin throws me a grin, and the next moment, we’re rushing forward, lifting up, my belly dropping as the treetops suddenly pass below us and we’re in the air.
We’re flying.
I’ve been in a plane before. The trip to India was multiple flights, adding up to something like twenty hours. But that was different. More like a crowded bus ride, where I tried to get comfortable in a seat that hadn’t been made for a man my size and trust a pilot I couldn’t see to keep the whole thing moving.
This—while still slightly cramped—is vastly different. The sky is everywhere, the ground visible but shrinking, the noise a cacophony.
And the person I’m trusting is Robin, who wears a huge grin as her capable hands pull back on the steering mechanism.
Below us is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
I lose my breath in the wonder of the moment.
“How you doing over there, Bear?” she asks, her voice the perfect touch in my ringing eardrums.
“Good.” The single word is all I can manage as I continue to revel in this situation.
Robin’s chuckle comes to me, sweet even through the electronic delivery.
“Thank you,” she says, and I glance over to find her wearing a softer smile.
With her broad aviator sunglasses, I can’t see her eyes, but I’ve daydreamed about them so often that I know exactly what they look like behind the reflective surface.
“For what?”
“For coming with me. I like taking people up sometimes, but it’s hard to find anyone willing to go. I think . . .” She hesitates, then taps the left covering of her headset. “This worries them.”
I understand then what she’s getting at. How some people assume her hearing loss makes it risky to fly. Which is ridiculous. If it did, she wouldn’t have her license.
“I’ll come,” I tell her. “Whenever you want.”
And it wouldn’t be a favor. Flying with Robin is an honor.
Her eager grin is back. “Deal.” Then, she turns the plane gently, the wing on my side dipping until all I see is a stretch of red and gold treetops out my window.
“Let’s go find some beautiful views,” Robin says.
But I don’t need to look out the window for that.