Chapter 3 He wasn't joking. That was the part that made my skin prickle, my chest squeeze tight, like I'd suddenly been pressurized more at 35,000 feet than the hunk of metal shooting through the sky had already done. I swallowed and turned slightly back toward the bar, staring hard at the smear of condensation trailing down my glass. If I just laughed, if I just told him to fuck off, this whole moment would dissolve into an anecdote that Jules and I could cackle about over too many margaritas. Remember that stupidly rich, hot stranger who looked old enough to be my dad, who tried to talk me into joining the mile-high club on that flight to Italy? But he wasn't just hot. And I wasn't just annoyed. I was starving. Starving for something, for someone, for a clean and numbing break between who I was with Ryan and whoever I'd be after this trip ended. Maybe that was supposed to start here. "You're very full of yourself," I said, but the words came out wrong-too breathy, too insecure. Too rattled. He smiled regardless, like he liked that I was pushing back. "Not full of myself. Just observant." "You're a stranger," I shot back. "So are you." "This is a red-eye. People sleep on red-eyes." "Not all of them." My stomach plummeted 35,000 feet the second I felt the lightest brush of his knuckle against my knee. He was shameless now, leaning in further, close enough that his stubble brushed my cheek and his cologne filled my nostrils-deep, masculine, clean. "You don't have to take me up on my offer, Sienna." He kept saying my name, and every goddamn time, my mouth went dry. "But if you let me," he continued, that single knuckle turning into a warm hand, palm down, wrapped gently around my lower thigh, "I'll make you forget that man's name. I'll make you forget what he did. Just for tonight." My throat closed. My cheeks heated. He didn't say it with a hint of sleaze. Just quiet, anchored certainty. Like he knew he could. I took a deep breath, barely, the air almost croaking through the thin space in my throat. "I shouldn't," I whispered, but I wasn't sure if I was telling myself or telling him. He squeezed once, just barely, before pushing off the stool without another word. The warmth of his invasion dissipated, his scent vanishing a half-second later, and all that lingered was the brutal hum of the airplane and the chill of the too-cold cabin as he turned his back to me and walked toward our suites. Like he was betting I'd follow. Like he knew I would. And God help me, I did. My pulse thudded in my throat as I slipped off the barstool and headed back for the suites. Matt was waiting as I stepped back around the corner and into the galleyway. Not inside his suite, but leaning against the outer wall beside his open door like he knew I'd come. The low blue light of the cabin caught the sharp cut of his jaw, the curve of the smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. I didn't stop at my suite's closed door. I didn't make eye contact, either. I walked past him, my shoulder brushing against his chest-Christ, it had zero give-and turned, crossing the threshold into his suite. The door clicked shut behind him as he followed me in. The warmth of him at my back flooded my senses as I glanced around his space. It was identical to mine, but mirrored, with the bed on the right against the half-lowered partition between our suites instead of on the left like it was in mine, and his passport sat closed and face-up on the little desk, United States of America in gold embossed letters shining with a boarding pass shoved in the center of it and poking out like a bookmark. His breath on my ear from behind me made my spine stiffen. "Get on the bed, Sienna." I forced a swallow. "You haven't even kissed me yet, and you're telling me to get on the bed?" The warmth of him disappeared, and I blinked, turning my head in confusion - but he was moving, leaning down slightly to press a blue button at the foot of the bed. The partition started to lower further. "Our heads are visible over the walls," he said quietly, hazel eyes flicking to the plastic separating us from the galleyway. "I'd rather not give the flight attendants a show by standing." I stared at him, caught between the horror at the idea of a flight attendant catching us and the thrill of it. "How did you know it did that?" I asked, nudging my chin at the partition as it slid down that final bit, absolutely nothing but an inch of plastic separating our single beds. Matt didn't answer. Just watched me as he stood up straight, his eyes glancing toward the galleyway for half a second before his fingers found the top button of his shirt. It popped open. Christ. Another. My legs wouldn't move. I was too fixated on the third button as it popped. A sliver of toned chest with a light dusting of salt-but-mostly-pepper hair peeked out, a hint of a collarbone visible as his fingers shifted the fabric. My throat closed. Matt exhaled, slow and amused, like he could see my pulse jumping and my nerves spiking. His fingers stilled on the fourth button, and he sank onto the edge of his bed, eyes glued to mine as a familiar warmth wrapped around my wrist. A single tug, firm but not rough, had my knees buckling and my body falling toward him. Asshole. He caught me with a hand on my waist, his thumb pressed against my ribs, as he guided me over him and onto his lap, my knees pressing into the firm mattress on either side of his hips. My sundress rode up, the heat of his body searing through his slacks and into my bare thighs, through his shirt and into my palms where I steadied myself on his shoulders. His scent surrounded me, invading my nostrils, branding itself to them as he looked up at me with an infuriatingly confident smirk he wore like a second skin. The hand on my side slid down to my thigh, just below the hem of the dress that was barely giving me a shred of decency downstairs, and I shivered as his thumb dug in just enough to make me really feel it. It was strange. He looked younger like this, like the lines beside his eyes and on his forehead had smoothed out from the promise of pleasure. "How old are you?" I asked, the words slipping out before I could think. His thumb pressed in a little harder, drifting an inch further in and higher. Teasing. Punishing. "Does it matter?" "No," I swallowed. "I'm just curious. Want to know if I'm beating a record here." He snorted, that overly-confident facade cracking as he fought a grin. "I'm forty-seven." His free hand wrapped around the back of my neck, bracing around the base of my skull. "Don't think we're beating any records, sweetheart, but humor me. How old are you?" I swallowed. Forty-seven. Our age difference could vote, join the army, take up a nicotine addiction. "Twenty-eight." He pulled me closer as his hand pushed higher on my thigh, fingers skating beneath the hem of my dress and pushing it up, his thumb getting maddening close to the heat building between my legs. "Younger than I normally go for," he murmured like it was the most casual thing in the world. "We'll make it work. But stay quiet." His hand moved again, eating the distance, and before I could even process his fingers lifting the already-damp cotton gusset and sliding through slick heat, he pulled me that final inch closer and pressed his mouth to mine, swallowing any hint of noise that threatened to spill past my lips. Oh, God. There was no hesitation. No gentleness. Just claiming, immediate and urgent. His tongue swept past my lips, and I melted into it, my fingers grasping at the collar of his shirt to keep myself upright as he released the back of my neck. He leaned back, his elbow catching him, and I followed, keeping my mouth locked on his. I popped a single button. "Soaked," he muttered against my mouth, tracing slow, deliberate circles over my clit. "Just from this?" I choked back a whimper, trying to focus on another button, and then another, despite the maddeningly slow but perfect touches. I pulled at the bottom of his shirt, freeing it from where it was tucked into his slacks, and worked the last button free right as the plane picked the perfect moment to jostle us. Two of his fingers thrust inside of me, deep, merciless, and harder than he intended. My head spun. They curled inside, his thumb pressing in against my clit, and my hips ground down on him, driving him deeper, chasing more. A quiet, rough groan escaped him, half frustrated and half something I couldn't place, and then the world tilted and shifted in a blur as gravity seemed to reroute, and he flipped me beneath him. With the partition gone, I was sprawled across both sides, my heels digging into the mattress on his side and my shoulders pressing down on mine. He hovered above me, the two sides of his shirt dangling in the narrow space between us, his belt catching on the fabric of my dress and pulling it higher. He moved away from me for enough time to wrestle my underwear down my legs and off before he sank back down between my thighs. Matt's mouth found my neck this time, sucking, biting, his stubble scraping across my skin like a match to a flame. Heat pooled low in my stomach, twisting, warping, pleasure blooming, and shit, I never got here this quickly⁠- His free hand clamped down over my mouth. He could tell. "Come." I shattered around his fingers, my eyes screwing shut, the smallest little whimper breaking out against his palm as I fought for control over my vocal cords. I didn't have time to recover. "For the love of God, tell me you're on birth control," he growled, his voice low enough against my neck that I could barely hear it over the hum of the engines. I nodded beneath him, and his hand went to his belt, slipping it free with practiced precision. His mouth dragged lower, teeth grazing my collarbone, cutting off my view between our bodies. He uncovered my mouth as I managed to catch my breath. "Do you want me to wear a condom?" "I don't fucking care, Matt, please⁠-" A dark laugh ghosted over my skin as I felt the warm, rigid tip of him against my entrance. "You sound so pretty saying please," he murmured. "That impatient?" My hand sank into his once-neatly-styled greys, tightening, and I hooked my leg around his hip. My heel dug into his ass to tug him closer. "Yes, you pompous⁠-" His hips snapped forward, hilting in a single, brutal thrust. His mouth covered mine before I could even think to cry out, swallowing the sound, and he gave me all of two breaths to accommodate the sheer size of him before he moved. Oh, God. Oh, fuck. That wasn't fair. He was perfect. Stupidly, annoyingly, agonizingly perfect, the burn of the stretch morphing so quickly into the burn of pleasure that I nearly forgot where we were as his pace started out ruthless. His hands pushed my thighs up, his fingers digging into the backs of them hard enough that I was positive I'd be coming back from the Amalfi coast with both a tan and bruises, before one hand left and grasped my jaw instead. "Look at me," he ordered, his voice low. I blinked through the haze and snapped my gaze to his. His pupils were blown, his jaw set tight, a single wave of grey hair falling forward over his brows. Why did he have to be hot? His grip on my jaw tightened, his thumb pressing into the hinge. "Bet you thought I wouldn't live up to the arrogance." Asshole. A breathless laugh leaked out of me, but then his angle changed, and the laugh choked and bled into a whimper that I barely managed to keep quiet. His smirk was victorious. "By all means, sweetheart, tell me if I don't," he rasped, his hold on me shifting, his thumb dragging across my lower lip. Every thrust was deliberate, deep, the kind of precision that made my thighs shake and my eyes struggle to stay focused and heat coil low in my gut. "But I can feel the way you're clenching around me like you're seconds from coming again." He released my face and dragged his hand down my body, roughly palming my breast over the fabric of my dress, before drifting lower. My hands fisted in the shirt still barely covering his shoulders, the heat between us turning heavy, slick, and feral. "Matt⁠-" His breath tickled my ear. "Tell me, Sienna, do you normally manage to come from just this?" I hated him. I hated him so much, even as I started to peak, even as it built from just the way he was burying himself inside of me. The hand between our bodies pressed down flat on my lower stomach, and I nearly lost my mind. "Fuck you," I gasped, digging my nails into him. He laughed, low, dark, and sinful, his teeth nipping at my jaw. "You are." My orgasm hit before I could mentally prepare for the onslaught without stimulation, sudden and violent and ripping the air from my lungs. He swallowed the cry climbing up my throat with his mouth on mine, grunting, groaning quietly against my lips as his hips jerked and stuttered, his own release flooding him and filling me. For a heartbeat, the only sounds were our ragged breaths and the low hum of the plane. But then he was pulling back, just enough to meet my gaze again, a rim of hazel barely visible around his blown pupils. Christ. I wasn't going to get a single second of sleep on this flight. ---- Matt's scent still lingered on my skin as I exhaustedly dragged my roller behind me down the gangway. I'd let him touch me three more times after the first, need outweighing rational thought. The partition had gone back up after that, him insisting he needed at least an hour of sleep, but I hadn't been able to for a single second. My body ached in every good way and a handful of bad ways from not getting any rest, but I couldn't find it in me to care. Ryan was no longer the last person I'd slept with. That was enough to make the stupid decisions worth it. I tried not to think about how Matt's hands had felt on my skin despite being able to feel his presence walking behind me. We hadn't exchanged full names, hadn't given each other phone numbers - once and done. That was it. Strangers who probably wouldn't cross paths again. And even though he'd touched me like Satan himself had blessed him with the ability to give out sin, I was fine with that. He'd raised my standards. But something was different. Something I couldn't quite place. The staff along the gangway gave me a smile and a wave, but I saw the way their faces shifted just as I got passed them, morphing into something far more reverent and appreciative in the millisecond before they were out of view, their gaze locked on the man behind me. The moment my sandaled foot crossed the threshold into the airport to head for Immigration, I heard it. "How was your flight, Mr. Strathmore? Everything up to standards?" I froze. Just for a half-second, everything shut down. Strathmore. The air in my lungs left in an instant. Strathmore. Matt Strathmore. Matthew Strathmore. No. No, no, no, no. That couldn't be real. But the puzzle pieces started clicking into place before I could catch my breath - the flight. The fact that Ryan managed to get us a first-class experience that fancy, so easily, before I'd kicked him off the booking. The fact that Matt-Matthew-had gotten that seat last minute. I'd slept with Ryan's brother. Ryan, who used to talk about his estranged sibling like he was the devil reincarnated. Ryan, who'd told me he was disinherited from their family's wealth because Matthew-not Matt, Matthew-took everything and locked the accounts. Matthew, who owned an airline. This airline. The one I'd flown on, courtesy of a ticket Ryan had booked months ago when I still thought we had a future, and he had a soul. God. I felt sick. I didn't turn around. I walked faster, through the doors of the terminal like they'd personally offended me, needing to be anywhere else than within eyeline of him. Away from Matthew Strathmore, away from the man I'd let myself want without knowing just how tangled and fucked-up it was. This was going to my fucking grave.