A hot shade of lipstick calls for a hot, sexy guy...
Makeup artist Chloe Masterson has a look for every occasion. Flying home for your sister’s wedding and family torture? Easy. Bring out the sarcastic wit and black eyeliner. Bonus—the look catches the eye of the corporate hottie sitting beside her on the plane. Turns out Ben has the exact same last name, and everyone assumes they’re married.
When they get stuck in a hotel room together, Chloe decides to accept the gift the Fates have bestowed upon her. (Tip: a bold lip color does wonders for seduction.) But as their lies begin to snowball, Chloe and Ben find it harder and harder to distinguish between what’s real and what’s all just smoky eyes and mirrors.
“I can do torrid...”
Ben’s expression darkened seconds before he caught her mouth in a scorching, wet kiss that convinced her they were both wearing way too many clothes.
She reached for the buttons on his dress shirt, and when she’d finally popped the last one, he rewarded her with a shift of his hips that brought their bodies into perfect alignment, and the pleasure that streaked through her made her gasp.
Damn, he felt good. Hot and hard. Her fingers curled against his skin, and her hips bucked to get closer. She wanted Ben, naked and panting, thrusting inside her until she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t care less about her sister’s wedding, or her exile in Chicago.
She felt alive. And sexy.
And desperate for more...
You know that little smidgen of hope that hits when it’s just you, an in-flight magazine and the empty airplane seat next to you? Then the hot guy you were scoping out at the gate boards the plane, and your tummy flips with anticipation as he starts down the aisle? That uncomfortable chair beside you is suddenly chock-full of possibilities. Sexy, sultry, X-rated possibilities.
Yeah, that never works out in real life. Hottie McHotterson always walks right on by. But what good is writing fiction if you can’t fix that type of karmic unfairness and see what kind of sparks will fly between strangers on a plane?
Ben and Chloe were the perfect pair to explore the notion of instant attraction and whether a one-night stand has a shot of surviving once real life intrudes. And boy, does it intrude! Because you never really know if you’re right for each other until you’ve survived a snowstorm, a fake engagement, a wedding, a business dinner and your own mother, amirite?
Oh, and since this internet thing doesn’t seem as if it’s going to die down anytime soon, I’ve carved out a cyber-niche at tarynleightaylor.com, facebook.com/tarynltaylor1 and twitter.com/tarynltaylor, so stop by sometime. I’d love to virtually meet you!
Keep on dreaming out loud,
Taryn Leigh Taylor
Kiss and Makeup
Taryn Leigh Taylor
TARYN LEIGH TAYLOR likes dinosaurs, bridges and space, both personal and of the final-frontier variety. She shamelessly indulges in clichés, most notably her Starbucks addiction (grande-six-pump-whole-milk-no-water chai tea latte, aka: the usual), her shoe hoard (I can stop anytime I...ooh! These are pretty!), and her penchant for falling in lust with fictional men with great abs (Roarke, Harvey Specter, Kid Chaos, Dean Winchester and so on, ad infinitum.) She also really loves books, which is what sent her down the crazy path of writing one in the first place.
To my family—
Mom, for keeping me sane (and for believing in me always, no matter what),
Dad, for inspiring me (“You should add a kid with glasses. And a dragon.”),
and Logan, for keeping me honest (“Are you writing? Because that doesn’t look like writing.”).
And to my friends—
Crystal, you know I couldn’t do this without you, right? We brainstorm together, we split...70–30, plus you get the benefit of reading the stories no charge (that’s very fair);
Michele, this story is published because of you and I’m forever grateful;
and Michelle, thank you for teaching me to never ever give up on a dream. Ever.
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“DOYOUWANT me to kick the crap out of that seat back and tray table for you?”
Chloe Masterson looked over at Window Guy, the man that the Goddess of Economy Airline Seating had seen fit to plaster against her right side. The upper-arm contact had started in Seattle and lasted until Chicago. Thanks to bad weather, their scheduled forty-five-minute layover in the Windy City was now pushing two hours, and had featured a long wait in the plane deicing line and then a “that didn’t sound good” thunk. The plane was now sitting motionless on a vast expanse of snowy tarmac and they’d officially hit the six-hour mark of their touching-a-stranger marathon fifteen minutes ago.
It wasn’t his fault, really. Window Guy had broad shoulders, so the contact was incidental and, in a weird way, kind of comforting. She liked that the sleeve of his gray wool suit was soft and warm against