Introspection had never been high on Alec's priority list. He preferred to leave the past in the past and keep his focus on forward momentum. So he didn't want to probe what it was about Cordelia that kept making him break his own previously unbreakable code of conduct. Not only was he faking a relationship and forgetting to hold his cards firmly against his chest, but for the first time ever, he was more in thrall to his passenger than the joy of soaring through the air.
"Oh...Alec." The wonder in her voice through the headset was big enough to push everything else away. "You were right. This is incredible. It's not like any other plane I've been in. Not like anything I could ever have imagined."
When he and Cordelia had been making their plans for the press conference, he'd known they'd need a way to release the tension of a situation that only seemed to cage them more tightly with every hour that passed. More sex was a hell of a temptation--and he wasn't counting that out later today--but only flying had ever worked to completely empty Alec when he was twisted up inside.
He'd also needed to see if he was right, if Cordelia would respond to this flight the same way he did, the same way Gordon always had.
With pure joy.
Her laughter rang beautiful and clear. "I don't even need a barf bag!"
It felt good to laugh, to shake off everything but this flight--and Cordelia. "Ready for some tricks?" When she didn't reply, he teased, "Maybe an air show tumble or a loop-the-loop?"
"No!" Her panicked scream made him laugh harder. Soon, she was laughing again too. "You jerk. I almost thought you were serious."
"Almost?" he teased. "That squeal was pure terror."
"You're going to pay for that later." But he could hear the smile in her voice. And that little hint of wickedness that you wouldn't guess was there unless you knew her the way he did.
"Is that a threat... or a promise?" He loved hearing her swift intake of breath, wished he could see her skin flush, her pulse jump.
"You're making my head spin, Alec."
He was planning on making her head spin a hell of a lot more than this before the day was over. But first, as the airstrip for the Bayport Aerodrome on Long Island came into view, he said, "I'm about to bring us in for our landing." One he planned to make so smooth that she would barely feel the wheels touch down.
Minutes later, he was helping her unbuckle and climb down from her seat. As soon as they were on the ground, she threw her arms around him. Her legs too. And it was perfectly right, holding on to her like that.
"My God, Alec. I loved it! But you know what I love even more?"
He shouldn't have wanted her to say his name. Was stunned that the thought had even crossed his mind when he'd sworn his whole life that he wasn't looking for love. "What?"
Her mouth on his was his answer.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Cordelia was on overload. Again.
She'd felt overwhelmed so many times during the past week, but flying with Alec had stirred up something inside her that she hadn't even realized was there. She'd always been happy in her small town, in her small garden, in her small family. But lifting off into a brilliant blue sky, flying over lakes and rivers and cities and parks and people in a historic aircraft suddenly made her see that there was more. More to explore, more to experience, more worth taking risks for.
She wanted Alec with a ferocity that blew even her desire from the previous night to smithereens. "I need you," she whispered against his mouth. "I need you to take me. And I need to take you too." She kissed him again, tightening her hold on him with her arms and legs. She couldn't get enough of him. "Now."
He began to move, walking with her toward what she prayed was a private space where they could be with each other again. She needed to celebrate with him. Rejoice over how he'd just opened her eyes to so much wonder that she was all but bursting with it.
But instead of taking them inside the small airport, he opened the door to a limousine and slid her into the backseat. "Thanks for picking us up," Alec said to the man behind the wheel. "We're headed to Watch Hill Beach."
Though Westchester County was only two hours by car from Fire Island, Cordelia had never been here with her family. As though she'd been saving it for Alec. She tried to muster up excitement for their journey, but it was difficult when she'd been so hopeful that he'd find them somewhere private to devour each other.
Her thoughts stopped short as a dark divider began to slide up behind the driver. Alec hit a button on the ceiling marked SPEAKER. "My friend and I have a few things to discuss," he told the driver, "so if you arrive before we're done with our discussion, there's no need to come back to open the doors for us. We'll let you know when we're ready to get out of the vehicle." Alec let go of the button and turned to her. "He can't see us now. And unless I hit this button again, he can't hear us either."
Her heart rate sped up as he prowled toward her, pushing her back against the seat so that she was lying flat across it and he was levered over her.
"Won't he--" Her words temporarily deserted her as Alec began to undo one of the buttons at the front of the dress she'd worn for the press conference. God, she'd never wanted anything so much. Never wanted anyone so much. But she'd never had sex outside of a bed before either, except for their glorious romps in her shower and kitchen yesterday. "Won't he still know what we're doing?"
Though Alec lifted his eyes to her face, his fingers continued undoing buttons. "Yes." He pushed aside the silky fabric of her dress so that her bra was fully on display. "How does that make you feel?" He leaned down and pressed a kiss to the flesh that swelled over the cotton. "Does it bother you?" And then a kiss to the other. "Or does it excite you?"
Before Alec, she would have been sure of her answer. She would have been too embarrassed. Nervous about making too much noise or having the driver give her a knowing look when she got out of the vehicle. But with Alec, she could finally admit the truth.
"It excites me."
The whispered words had barely fallen from her lips when he was crushing her mouth against his and all but tearing off her dress.
She'd thought she was desperate for him directly after the flight when she'd jumped into his arms. But that hunger had nothing on how ravenous she felt now. As though the only reason she could breathe, the only reason her heart could still beat, was because Alec's arms were wrapped around her.
Her head was spinning from his kisses by the time he laid her across the seat, completely exposed to his mouth, his hands, his heated gaze. "Cordelia." She loved the way he kept saying her name between kisses and fevered strokes of his hands over her curves. "Mine."
She arched into his mouth at her breast, his hand between her thighs, pleasure already shooting her so high that she was teetering on the edge. And when he stroked her aroused flesh, then went deep with his fingers, the climax hit her so hard that she forgot they were in a limo with a driver mere feet away. Alec's mouth covered hers and swallowed the sounds of her pleasure.
She'd never felt so wanton. So wicked. Until she came back to earth enough to realize that Alec was kissing his way down her breasts and over her belly, then shifting her so that he could gently push her thighs apart and settle his mouth between them.
As soon as he'd sent the divider window up, she'd known they were going to have sex in the limo. But as his tongue slipped and slid over her, as she gripped his shoulders and bucked her hips up into his mouth, as she begged him for moremoremore--she couldn't help but wonder who the woman in the backseat was. Driven not only by lust, but also by the thrill of new experiences, one after the other. With the only man she could ever imagine trusting to show her this brave new world.
And then, every thought fell away as another climax crashed over her. Even bigger, even more beautiful than the previous one, it was a release unlike any she'd ever had before. Ecstasy that went on and on as he worshipped her body with his mouth, with his hands...and with the care he took to make every second in his arms even better than the blissful moments th
at had come before.
*
Alec tore at his clothes, knowing he was acting like a madman, but unable--unwilling--to stop himself.
He'd never felt this before, as though he were only halfway to whole, and the only way he could get all the way there was with Cordelia. As though he would only barely be holding on until that moment when they were finally together, as close as they could be.
He couldn't get enough of her soft skin, the gorgeous sounds she made when he found just the right spots with his hands and mouth, the way she flushed and heated all over, head to toe, when she came apart beneath his hands and mouth. Satisfaction filled him at just how much she wanted him, but even when she was crying out his name and shattering with pleasure at his touch, it wasn't enough. Didn't come anywhere close to enough.
His heart pounding fast, his hands shook from his desperate need to touch, to possess, to claim, as he tossed away the last of his clothes. Rolling on protection, he knelt on the carpeted floor of the limo, wrapped her legs around his waist, then put his hands on her hips and thrust deep. So deep that both of them lost their breath.
And yet, even as he experienced more pleasure than he ever had before, something told him that even this might not be enough. To sate him. To satisfy him. To make it so that he wasn't always wanting more of Cordelia.
Strong and lithe beneath him, she gave as good as she got, her strong limbs holding him tightly as their tongues danced, their mouths as hot and wet and greedy as the rest of them.
As skin slid against skin, his breath came fast and hard as pleasure rode up his spine. His lovemaking was wild, raw. But Cordelia was not only keeping up with him, she was urging him for more. Begging him to take her over the beautiful edge of bliss one more time.
They fell together, so lost to anything but each other that when the limo took the next corner, they went sliding off the seat and onto the floor. Lying there, their arms and legs tangled, Alec felt his lungs burn as though he'd just sprinted around a track. After a while, he realized the vehicle had not only come to a stop, but the engine appeared to have been shut off as well.
Rolling slightly so that Cordelia's weight rested on him, he stroked her hair. "We made it."
She laughed, her naked breasts bouncing against his chest as she said, "We certainly did." She lifted her face to smile into his eyes. "That was better than amazing." She gave a happy little sigh. "Better than the flight, even."
He knew they should get up off the limo's floor and put their clothes on. He'd never been one to linger in bed with a woman after the deed was done to everyone's satisfaction, hating the thought of getting any more entangled with his temporary partner than he absolutely had to be.
But with Cordelia, it was exactly the opposite--the thought of pulling apart grated on him.
In the end, that was what finally had him drawing away. For both their sakes, they needed to keep things fun and friendly.
And nothing more.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
"Thank you for bringing me here." Cordelia looked down the long stretch of sand in front of them. "I can't believe we're the only ones on the beach."
"That's because everyone else in New York is stuck in the office," he said with a grin.
Both of them had plenty of work to do, but she couldn't bring herself to care. Not after Alec had sent her soaring in pretty much every way he could. First with his plane and then with his body.
She slid her hand into his, loving how natural it felt to be close to him. Friends to lovers wasn't something she'd ever thought would work for her. She knew better now. "I've been to Long Island before, but never to Fire Island. Now that I'm here, I realize I've been missing out. You're going to have to drag me back to the limo to fly us home."
"You'd miss your garden too much even to stay the night."
She laughed, knowing he was right. "True, but that doesn't mean I won't appreciate every single second we're here today." She kissed him then, just because she felt like it. "How many times have you been here?"
He looked out to sea. "Not much in recent years. But when I was a kid, we used to come a lot."
She was touched that he'd brought her somewhere that obviously held deep meaning, and history, for him. "Your whole family?"
His hand tightened on hers. "My father--" When he paused, she thought he might not continue. "He made a lot of money with his paintings of my mother. Sometimes, if her mood was good, she'd decide out of the blue that she wanted to see the ocean, and he'd hire a plane. Just like that, we'd be here, playing on the sand."
Alec had grown up with private planes and a family fortune. A week ago, she would have assumed all that money and privilege made him untouchable. But now she knew that all the money in the world couldn't have protected Alec from pain.
"My mom loved the water." He'd stopped walking, his gaze reaching beyond the crashing waves, beyond the blue that stretched into the horizon. Almost as though he was looking into the past instead. "She loved to play in the surf, no matter how cold or rough. My father would worry that she'd hurt herself. He'd ask her to come back to the shore. Beg her to come back. But she wouldn't. She'd simply laugh and tell him she was happy." Alec swallowed hard. "Finally happy. Until we got in the plane and headed back to the city, where she'd close up into herself again."
Cordelia was glad that Alec was sharing his memories of his parents with her, even if they weren't easy ones. As far as she could tell, he'd kept it bottled up for far too long. "Was she not a city person?"
"The way you love your garden, that's how much she loved the ocean." His deep voice was hushed now, barely audible above the surf. "My father must have known that the city was killing her. I don't know why he didn't just move us out here. Maybe then she wouldn't have died."
"Or maybe," Cordelia said, "it wasn't that clear-cut." From the little Alec had said about his mother, Cordelia visualized a complicated woman with more shades and contours than even a world-class painter like Alec's father could have seen. "Maybe her emotions weren't tied to a place."
"Or to people either." Bitterness swamped his words, and she longed to soothe him. "She was there for us when she wanted to be, then gone the rest of the time. Even when she was in the same room, or at the dinner table, you'd have to fight to get her attention."
Cordelia's heart broke for Alec, for the man who had survived being a little boy who didn't know how to get his mother to see that he needed her. No wonder that as an adult he was so intent on living without a woman's love. She couldn't blame him for closing himself off to ever being in a similar position with a woman again.
"You looked after your brothers and sister, didn't you? When she was there but not there?"
"They'd get too close to a hot stove or be about to fall down the stairs or be hungry or dirty," he said. "Someone had to take care of them. Someone other than a maid or a nanny. Someone who actually cared about them, who wasn't being paid to be there. My father was too busy painting, too busy obsessing over her to step in." Alec's face twisted into an expression of disgust, different from the sadness of talking about his mother. "Hell, I don't even think he noticed us. Because he couldn't see past her."
Alec hadn't needed only his mother's attention, he'd needed his father's too. But he'd had neither. "Have you and your father ever talked about it?"
He dropped her hand, then ran his through his hair. "This is supposed to be a fun afternoon, not a therapy session."
Despite his deflection, his answer was clear. No, he and his father hadn't talked about a thing. Cordelia wasn't surprised, given how reluctant Alec had been to get involved in his father's birthday party.
In any case, he was right that this morning's press conference had been more than enough strain for one day. She wasn't going to give up on helping him repair his relationship with his father, but she could let it rest for the remainder of the day.
She picked up a branch that had washed up on the shore and doodled with it in the sand. "Tell me about your siblings. I realized whe
n we were all in my cottage yesterday that I don't really know anything about them."
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his shoulders relax. "Harry's fifteen months younger. Like he told your parents, he teaches medieval history at Columbia. He was always a big reader, happy to sit by himself in a room full of dusty books, and learn. He's a hell of a teacher too. His students love him, and I've been to enough of his lectures to get why. He doesn't just tell you about what happened in the past, he brings it to life."
She looked up from her sand drawing. "How does he do that?"
"He's been jousting since he was a teenager--with a horse and armor and everything."
Harry looked so mild-mannered, but somehow that fit. And explained a surprisingly broad and muscular physique for an academic.
"Can you joust?" she asked.
"I couldn't resist the chance to take on my little brother. One day I hope to best him at it, even though I haven't yet. Harry's a fierce competitor," he said with obvious pride.
"Takes one to know one," she said with a smile. "What about Suzanne?"
"Brilliant doesn't even begin to cover Suz. I swear she understands things about computers and networks and electronic systems that haven't even been invented yet."
"Is that what she does? Invent things?"
"Security is her specialty, but if she sees something else that needs to be done, she'll put her mind to it."
"What about her boyfriend, Roman? He seems like a really nice guy."
"He worked for me a few years back and we became friends. When she got into some trouble last year, we needed someone to watch over her, to make sure no one hurt her. Roman is the first guy I thought of." Alec looked like he was grinding his teeth as he added, "I never thought he'd make a play for her, though. If I had..."
Hiding her smile at what an adorable protective older brother he was, Cordelia said, "I know it wasn't what you planned, but they seem good together."
He blew out a breath before nodding. "They are. He treats her right and she seems really happy. And he knows what would happen to him if he ever took a wrong step."