‘Just relax and feel my movements through the stick. That’s it. Smoothly…’
Suddenly the control she had took on sexual undertones for her. She’d never been in a relationship with a man where she’d had the courage to be one of those women who took control. She’d never asked to be touched a particular way or in a certain place; nothing that might have made the experience better for her. Nope, Roane’s method had always been more along the lines of making approving mumbles and hoping he got the message. But in her plane, where she was totally in control of her environment, even giving instructions to a man like Adam Bryant seemed like the most natural thing in the world to her.
Unfortunately the fact it was a man like Adam made her think about what it would be like to give him a different set of instructions. Like a breathless, Kiss me, Adam. Or, Touch me, Adam…
Since when had she been so obsessed with sex?
Feeling the vibration of the engine through the stick Roane stifled a moan, squirming on her seat in an attempt to ease the unfamiliar tension she felt between her legs. Thankfully when she glanced at Adam he seemed engrossed enough with flying not to have noticed so she damped her lips and told him, ‘Okay. Now you try.’
His fingers flexed around the stick while Adam took a breath and tried to ignore the move she’d just made—he’d seen that shimmy of her hips on the seat. She was more distracting than the flying lesson.
Of all the things he’d mentally prepared for there had never once been the scenario of being instantly viscerally attracted to his little brother’s woman. And woman she was, no matter how much the ‘little girl’ tag he’d given her as a kid still seemed appropriate. Everything about her was little: little fine-boned hands, little wrists he could circle comfortably with his thumb and forefinger, little waist he could probably have spanned with both hands, little breasts that would easily fill his palms…
Yet everything she did and said belied any air of fragility her body intimated. Not that she came across as tough—quite the opposite. She had an air of vulnerability to her that Adam found compellingly fascinating. Not a bad thing considering where he was.
Adam hated small planes.
Her softly feminine voice filled his ears. ‘There you go. You’re flying.’
While Adam focused on the combination of what he was doing and his physical awareness of the woman sitting beside him Roane took the silence to mean she could try making conversation again.
‘Is it weird being back?’
‘At the Vineyard?’
‘Yes.’
‘No.’
‘How can it not be? You’ve been gone a long time.’
Adam didn’t take kindly to being called a liar, even subtextually, frowning as he spoke. ‘“My witness is the empty sky.”’
There was a brief silence.
‘Voltaire?’
‘Kerouac.’
When he looked sideways at her she was staring at him and Adam liked that she couldn’t figure him out. It could stay that way as far as he was concerned.
‘You have dozens of these, don’t you?’
Adam felt his mouth twitch. ‘A few.’
‘As a way to avoid making conversation?’
Nope, he could make conversation when he wanted to. ‘You’re not good with silence, then, I take it.’
‘I’m fine with silence.’ Said the woman who had babbled nervously at him all the way through the airport concourse. ‘It’s rudeness that bothers me—I’m just trying to figure out if that’s what you’re doing.’
‘So short sentences make me an idiot—the lack of idle conversation makes me rude.’ Adam took a breath. ‘Anything else?’
There was another moment of silence and then a mumbled, ‘You really couldn’t be any different from Jake if you tried…’
She might not have meant it with quite the same level of contempt his father had any time he’d used similar words, but they had the same effect. Adam felt the echo of adolescent anger roll in on him like a tsunami—destroying any sense of reason or tolerance in its wake the same way it always had. He’d heard the words a million times; said with impatience or frustration or resentment or in disappointment. But the result was always the same. Jake had been the son their father wanted. Adam had fallen short of the mark.
Well, not any more. Maybe Roane Elliott should be the first of them to understand that.
Adam turned his head, dropping his gaze to look her over at his leisure. He heard her sharp intake of breath when he watched the rise and fall of her breasts long enough to see two distinct beads appear against the soft material of her blouse. Then he smiled a slow smile as he looked up at her parted lips, at the flush on her cheeks and finally into the darkened blue of her eyes. Only then did he quirk his brows, his voice a low rumble in the headsets.
‘Ready to find out just how different, little girl?’ He angled his head a little and studied the way her honey-blonde hair curled against her cheek. ‘I saw how you looked at me on the beach last night. Manners and IQ weren’t high on the list of things you were interested in then, were they?’
When she stared at him with widened eyes he leaned a little closer, deliberately looking down the ‘V’of her blouse at the rapid rise and fall of creamy half-circle breasts above the lace of her bra. He watched the beating pulse on one side of her elegant neck, the way she damped her parted lips before sucking in a shaky breath. Then his gaze locked firmly with hers again. ‘You’re right. It is about control with me. But you want to lose it, don’t you? In a way you obviously don’t with my brother or you wouldn’t react to me the way you do. You know I’d take you the way you want to be taken. Hard. And slow. For hours on end…’
There was a brief narrowing of her eyes before he continued, ‘Maybe you should make sure you chose the right Bryant, little girl…’
Roane’s breath caught, she swallowed hard and then her eyes sparkled with a mixture of outrage and desire. ‘I’m not some little girl you can intimidate.’ Her chin lifted defiantly, the husky edge of her voice giving away her physical reaction to his words as much as her body already had. ‘Let go of the stick. Please.’
Adam frowned. ‘Wh—?’
Without warning her knee jerked, and the plane veered violently to the left, throwing Adam away from her. He released the stick as if he’d been burned, his stomach lurching and a violent expletive leaving his mouth. When the plane eased smoothly onto an even keel again he glared angrily at her.
‘What did you do?’
Roane was facing forwards, both hands on the stick and her fine-boned jaw-line set with determination. ‘I’m sorry. My foot must have slipped.’
Meaning she’d kicked the rudder, right? Adam would have laughed at her audacity if she hadn’t just taken a year off his life. His brother had gone and got himself quite the little firecracker.
‘Clever.’
The compliment didn’t earn him any brownie points. ‘Feel free to take your lack of conversational skills to the extreme from here to New York. Or I can give you a demonstration of just what this plane is capable of if you’d prefer…’
Adam knew she wasn’t just referring to the plane. She’d clearly told him not to mess with her. It was a nice try, he’d give her that. It would have worked better if she’d denied anything he’d said about wanting to be taken hard and slow and for hours on end…
The knowledge did several things to Adam.
But what it did most was bring out the primal strand to his DNA code. One that now felt