Friendly Persuasion Read online

  This was good. They were joking like always.

  Then Ross leaned in for a kiss.

  “Bad idea,” she said, and slid away from him. Right now they were Ross and Kara in the S&S kitchen, not Miguel and Katherine in a hotel suite. “Not here.”

  “Tonight, then,” he murmured in Miguel’s delicious accent, “while Miguel is still in town and dying for Katherine’s mouth.”

  Kara had to brace herself against the counter to stay upright.

  “What’s the matter with you two?” Bob, a graphic artist, stood in the doorway. “Sampson figure out who’s been stealing the celery?”

  “Nothing,” Ross said, while Kara cleared her throat.

  “Don’t forget you’re taking me to the airport tonight,” Bob said, pulling open the refrigerator and poking around. “Tina said there were bear claws in here.”

  Damn, Ross mouthed at Kara, pretending to bang his forehead with his palm. “Right,” he said out loud. “The airport.”

  “Seven p.m. Desert Air,” Bob said, still rummaging.

  It’s okay, Kara mouthed back, sick at heart. Tonight was out for Katherine and Miguel.

  “Tomorrow night then,” he said out loud. “Saturday.”

  She nodded.

  “Tomorrow night, what?” Bob asked, coming out with a somewhat-shriveled peach, which he rubbed on his shirt.

  “Nothing that concerns you, doofus. You’ll be in Seattle.”

  Bob shrugged and walked out. The musky sweetness of peach nectar mingled with the sexual tension in the kitchen air.

  Kara and Ross held each other’s gaze. “Tomorrow night, then,” she said finally, and backed slowly away. She came to her senses in her office, not quite sure how she’d gotten there. All she knew was she had a date with Miguel for Saturday night. And this was only Friday morning. So many hours to wait…

  She remembered her snack and headed back to the kitchen just in time to see Tina slide the last pineapple ring onto her tongue. The empty cottage cheese and cantaloupe containers sat beside the sink.

  “That was my snack,” Kara said.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right.” She couldn’t eat anyway. She was too dazed.

  “I got the script for the Desert Airline ad worked out for you,” Tina said, clearly trying to make up for the purloined food. “The one with the baby and the grouch in first-class?”

  “Great.” Kara sank into a chair.

  “You look faint,” Tina said. “Want me to run out for a hot dog for you?”

  “It’s not hunger. I have another date with Miguel.”

  “No! When?” Tina whisked into a chair beside her.

  “Tomorrow night. He’s got to take Bob to the airport tonight.”

  “Ooh, baby. You are hot.” Tina licked her finger, then touched her hip and made a sizzling sound. “Tell Tina all.”

  Kara told the tale of Katherine and Miguel missing each other at the Hyatt bar.

  “God, it’s like an O’Henry short story. Only with hot sex. So what are you going to do this time?”

  “We didn’t talk about it. The same thing as Wednesday night, I guess. Except I’ll pay for the room this time.”

  “You can’t do the same thing. Too boring. Plus, it’ll never be as good.”

  “What then?”

  “Well, let’s put on our thinking caps,” Tina said, scooting closer. “We’ve got time to figure it out.”

  “Yeah,” Kara sighed. “Saturday night’s so far off. I don’t know how I’ll last.”

  “So make it tonight. After the airport.”

  “After?”

  “Yeah. How long could it take to drop Bob off? Hey, even better—” Tina got that dangerous look in her eye “—do it at the airport. I’ve got the perfect idea—and even the uniform.”

  ROSS CLIMBED OUT of Bob’s battered Xterra into the warm spring dusk on the departure side of Terminal Four, and watched Bob remove his duffel from the back.

  Ross prided himself on being a stand-up guy and a solid friend. The kind of friend who helped his buds move, took them to the airport and watched their pets when they were gone. Unfortunately, being a good friend to Bob was keeping him from the hottest sex he’d had in a long time. Maybe ever.

  “Thanks, man,” Bob said, tossing the strap over his arm. “You’re a rock.” He gave Ross a low five. “You can drive her if you want. I get back Sunday night.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  “Thanks.” Bob gave him the flight info and Ross watched him walk through the automatic doors. Then his eyes caught sight of a familiar figure. He did a double take. Was that Kara in a flight attendant’s uniform? Maybe he wanted her so much he’d conjured her up. He blinked. The woman gave a hesitant smile. Absolutely Kara.

  “Hey, traveler,” she called to him, trying to sound sexy but with nervousness in her voice. So Kara—ballsy but shy. She was forcing herself to do something she thought would be good for her.

  He walked down the sidewalk to her. “Traveler?” he asked.

  She met him a mere kiss away. “How about before the rest of the passengers board your flight, I offer you a little coffee, tea…or me.” She ran a finger—trembling, he noticed—down the middle of his chest to his waistband.

  “My flight?” he repeated like an idiot. The uniform she wore was a Desert Air one. S&S was working on a promotion for the hometown airline, so Kara obviously had borrowed the suit. It was skintight and she seemed to not be wearing a blouse under the jacket, which dipped deeply between her breasts. Evidently, she had something planned. Something hot.

  “Where am I headed?” he asked, tugging her by the hips against him.

  “The mile-high club, I hope,” she murmured, licking those plump lips of hers.

  “I always wanted to sign up for that.” He ran his hands down the curve of her backside.

  “Park in short-term and meet me at the counter and I’ll, um, bring you on board.”

  “Can’t wait,” he murmured back, then watched her sashay through the automatic doors into the terminal. He was dying to go after her, but they’d tow Bob’s truck if he left it in the drop-off zone, so he drove like a maniac to the parking garage and found a spot, his vision so blurred by lust he narrowly missed a concrete post. His hard-on made it tough walking, so he sort of swaggered his way to the ticket counter, where Kara waited for him with that look in her eyes.

  He didn’t even wonder how she’d arranged for them to get onto the tarmac—when Kara wanted something, she worked every angle until it happened—he just followed her curves toward an empty airplane in a hangar, grateful, this once, for her unstoppable nature.

  The plane looked permanently stationary with a serious set of stairs to its open door. Maybe something they used for kiddie field trips or to desensitize people afraid of flying. There were a few people in the hangar—mechanics clanging away on a plane and some men in a clump at the far end of the hangar—but no one looked twice at the flight attendant and her passenger ascending the stairs.

  Ross climbed behind Kara, delighted by the enticing triangle of firm thigh that appeared and disappeared as she moved upward. He wanted to touch, but restrained himself. Kara had a plan. He’d give her a chance to put it into operation.

  At the entrance to the plane, she turned to him with that stewardess welcome smile. “Welcome aboard, Mr…?”

  “Migue—Mike. Just call me Mike.” He needed a new character for this fantasy. He noticed the air had a warm cinnamon scent, completely masking the stale smell of airplane fuel and plastic. Kara had obviously taken air freshener to the place. He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d vacuumed, too.

  “Mike it is,” she said. “We have a first-class seat reserved just for you, Mike.”

  He sat in the brown-leather seat she indicated. With the armrest up, the two seats made a decent sofa. He stretched his legs. First-class leg room. And he was sure they’d find a good use for every inch of it.

  “Let me make you more comfortable,” Kara sa
id. She pushed the recline button and his seat back tilted a few inches. She leaned across him to make the window seat recline as well. He noticed beads of sweat in the space between her breasts and that she wore a nearly transparent bra under the V-lapelled jacket. No blouse.

  “Much better,” she said. She stood up, her face flushed—nervous, he could see. “I find airplane travel lonely, don’t you?” she said, but she didn’t wait for an answer before she babbled on. “It seems to me that when two strangers meet each other in the air, there can be a magic connection, don’t you think? As if they’ve created a private little world? All their own? And…”

  She was anxious about this. He needed to calm her, so he slid his hand under her skirt, moving upward slowly, watching her face the entire time.

  “Oh,” she said. Shock flickered across her face and a shudder passed through her body. He inched a little higher on her thigh. She wobbled as if she might faint. He loved the way she reacted to the merest brush of his fingers—as though she’d never been touched before. He couldn’t imagine anything more erotic.

  “This isn’t what I planned,” she managed to say, bracing herself against the back of the seat, her fingers squeaking on the leather. “You’re the passenger and I’m the attendant. I’m supposed to be taking care of you.”

  “Oh, you are taking care of me,” he said, his fingers sliding higher. “You’re taking care of my curiosity. I’ve always wondered what was under these tight, tight skirts….” He brushed the thin strip of silk that stood between him and Kara’s most tender flesh. She gasped.

  “Shh, now,” he murmured. “You’ll have to be quiet so the other passengers don’t realize that I’m touching you like this.”

  She nodded rapidly, then pretended to glance around the plane. The light coming through the plastic windows was romantically dim. He could almost imagine rows of passengers reading magazines, listening to music or dozing as the plane gently rocked through the air…and he stroked Kara’s most private of places.

  He wanted to watch her face while he made her come without being distracted by his own needs. It would be tough, but worth it for the pleasure it would give her.

  He tugged her panties down and out of his way and grazed the curls between her legs.

  “Oh, oh, oh,” she said, her knees giving way.

  “Steady,” he said, as he ran a finger along the crease between her buttocks and thigh. She tensed. The flesh on her bottom was firm—only a thin layer of padding over taut muscle. “You feel good.”

  “Uhn-nn,” she managed. Thank you, was probably what she meant.

  He slid his other hand up the back of her other leg to cup her bottom, loving the moan she gave in response. Then he slid a finger very gently between the folds of her skin, not all the way to her clitoris, just enough to give her a charge.

  “Oh, my,” she said, sagging against the back of his seat. “Oh, oh, oh.” She grabbed his hair and tugged—a measure of her excitement that aroused him, too.

  “Careful,” he reminded her. “If the other passengers know I’m touching you like this, they’ll want to touch you, too. I could never allow that. You’re all mine.”

  “Ross—I mean Mike,” she said, her eyes flying open.

  The mistake set off a little alarm in his head. She needed to think of him as Mike, not Ross. And he’d better not be thinking of her as Kara. “Tell me your name, beautiful sky angel,” he said, slowly stroking her.

  “A-a-angel,” she stuttered, barely able to speak, it seemed. “Angel sounds good.”

  “Perfect,” he said, carefully separating the folds of her flesh, thin as paper and slick with wetness, going for her core. “You’re my angel on this flight. Now, let me make you fly.”

  “You are,” she gasped, trying to play along, he could tell, but distracted by what his finger was doing.

  “You’re so wet,” he murmured.

  She clutched his face against her stomach, and he kissed her through the stiff fabric, wishing the skirt were gone so he could put his mouth on her soft, warm belly and then lower to taste her sweetness. But both his hands were happily busy.

  Besides, they had the pretend passengers to think of. Seeing real people out the window and imagining passengers envying him made him even more aroused. His right hand kneaded her bottom, his left slid gently along the path she’d made wet for him.

  Now Angel’s fingers moved down the sides of his face, memorizing his features as if she were blind and wanted to know him. Her fingers bore her light floral scent. So Kara—innocently erotic. How he wanted those sweet fingers on him where he was swollen with blood, nearly exploding with the ache to be inside her, pushing in as far as he could reach. No. This was for her. He had to make a sacrifice for the greater good. He smiled at his bogus nobility.

  Her fingers traced his lips, which he parted to suck her finger into his mouth.

  “Oh. Oh-oh-oh. Oh,” she said. “That feels so… I feel so… Your mouth is…your fingers are…” It wasn’t like Kara to struggle for words. He smiled as he continued to stroke and suck her into mindlessness. He licked the space between two of her fingers, nipping with his teeth. She moaned and collapsed against the seat.

  A shudder coursed through her. Then very deliberately, he slid one of his fingers inside her to discover the slick wetness, smooth corrugations and delicious warmth of her interior.

  She stilled at the contact, then began to push herself against his finger. He picked up her rhythm, his erection aching to move exactly that way inside her.

  “Oh, oh, yes, yes,” she said, moving faster. He sucked and nipped her fingers, squeezed her bottom with the other hand while his finger pushed in and out keeping up with her rhythm. He could feel her orgasm rising in her, almost as if he were part of it, part of her.

  “Oh, I can’t stop,” she cried out. “I can’t…help…it.” He looked up and watched her face as her body began to shudder with a climax. Her eyes clouded, she bit her lovely lip, and flush fingered up her neck. The walls of muscle around his finger squeezed sweetly.

  And then she fell against him, shuddering and quaking. He kept his finger inside her long enough for the quivering to stop, then slowly withdrew it.

  “Oh, my good— Oh dear…oh, oh. I’ve never felt anything so…it was so concentrated, so…just…big.”

  “Come here.” He leaned back against the plane window and pulled her into his arms, brushing her hair out of her face. “So, that’s the mile-high club, huh?”

  Kara lay across Ross in the seat, panting and trembling from the pleasure that had hit her like a Mack truck. This hadn’t gone according to plan. Ross was supposed to be a lonely traveler who hadn’t been with a woman in a long time, and she would be a geisha of the air who would fill his empty heart. Except Ross had reached under her skirt, set her on fire and sent her seduction plans right out the plastic window.

  “That was supposed to be for you,” she said, fighting for breath.

  “Ladies first.” Ross grinned, not the least disappointed, it seemed.

  “So now it’s your turn,” she said, determined to make him feel as good as he’d made her feel. She pushed up to her knees, then straddled his thighs, looking down at him.

  “What will the other passengers think about you climbing on me like this?” he said, grinning in languorous anticipation.

  “That they should be so lucky,” she said, unhooking his belt with nervous fingers. She lowered his zipper and found him. “Did I do that?” she said, trying to be playful, no matter how her heart pounded.

  “I’m afraid so.” He sounded anything but afraid.

  “It looks painful.” She tightened her fingers around him—velvet and steel and lovely against her palm. She slid her hand upward, stalling at the crown.

  “But it’s a sweet pain,” he said, pushing into her grip.

  “You know, we stewardesses are taught first aid,” she said, and rose onto her knees over him. “Let me see if I can make it all better.” She guided him to her wet openi
ng, then inside just a little way.

  He looked relieved, but she lifted herself off him.

  “Where are you going?” he said, grabbing her hips.

  “Not far,” she said. She lowered herself onto him just a little, then rose, then slid down, then up, then down, bringing him slowly and deliciously deeper into her, the way he’d entered her the night before. None of the usual questions plagued her. Is this too fast? Too rough? Am I jiggling? Ross’s face told her she was doing great.

  “You feel so good,” he said. He slid his hands under her jacket to cup her breasts through her bra, watching her face as he squeezed her nipples between thumb and forefinger.

  “Oh,” she said, alive with the heat of it. Now she rocked and moaned and he groaned and thrust, paying no mind to the “passengers” watching from behind. The fantasy was fading as she became absorbed in sensation, so she fought to stay in character. “We try to make our first-class passengers feel special,” she said, feeling as if she might faint.

  Ross went deep inside her, pushing upward hard, making her ache deliciously. One of his hands left her breasts, slid under her hiked-up skirt and found her spot.

  “Oh,” she said, freezing for a second. That felt so good. As though he knew exactly what she needed. She leaned down to kiss him in gratitude, but it turned hungry and she sucked his tongue into her mouth. She felt another climax approaching. She’d never been one for two at a time—why be greedy? And the second one took work. But not this time. This was easy as breathing.

  The pressure built and built until she exploded. Ross’s spasms began, too, and they rocked together. Light flashed behind her lids and she lost control of her movements for a few seconds.

  When it was over, she dropped her cheek onto the top of Ross’s head, holding his face against her chest, loving the smell of his hair and its texture, his hot breath on her breasts, the way he was a stranger and someone she knew at the same time.

  “That was great,” Ross said, gasping for breath.

  “It was, wasn’t it?” She’d been worried the fantasy would fall flat, seem silly, but it had worked magnificently, even better with Ross’s improvisation. It had been different than Miguel and Katherine, but equally good. Maybe even more intense because they’d gone at it deliberately, both of them with the eager intent to please the other. “I couldn’t wait for Saturday, so I made it tonight.”