Her eyelids squeezed tight as she struggled to shut out reality.
“We’re above the clouds now. There’s no danger.” His low voice rose over the mellow drone of the jet engines.
Gingerly she opened her eyes, and the bright light gleaming through the row of tiny oval windows threatened to blind her. Silhouetted against it was Elan’s face, features creased with concern.
She realized she was clutching both his hands in a death grip. But she couldn’t let go. Desire had nothing to do with it. She clung to him out of sheer terror.
“See, it’s not so bad. The plane cruises along. You can’t even see the ground from up here.”
“Oh, God.” The thought of the ground miles and miles below made her stomach drop.
“Are you going to be ill?”
Oh, God, please don’t let me throw up. “I don’t think so.”
“Good.”
“I’m sorry I’m such a …” Wimp? Wuss? Weak woman?
“Don’t apologize, Sara. Many people are afraid of flying.” He gave her hands a quick reassuring squeeze.
She took a deep breath, and another. They were airborne. Oh, God.
“You’ve never flown before?” His look of tender concern caused a swell of emotion to rise to her throat. She swallowed hard.
“No.”
“I thought Americans flew everywhere.”
“Some do, I guess. Not me.” She still couldn’t believe they were above the clouds. At the thought a fresh surge of horror seized her gut. She saw her anxiety reflected in Elan’s pained expression.
He wrenched one of his big hands free from her rigor-mortis clench. As Sara shuddered with—fear?—he unbuckled his seat belt in one swift motion and slid his arm around her shoulder.
The warmth of his sturdy arm encircling her shivering torso soothed her as she leaned into it. She took a deep breath. Maybe she could survive this after all.
“Your family didn’t fly abroad on vacation?”
She let out a snort of laughter. A nervous explosion. “No, we rarely left the city limits. My family’s finances were strictly hand to mouth.”
“They were poor?”
“Very.”
“Oh.” His lips pursed as he appeared to consider the information. Would it make him think less of her? Surely not. It was hardly her fault. Though she didn’t plan to be poor again if she could help it.
“But you’re from Wisconsin, aren’t you? How did you come to Nevada?”
“By road.”
“On your bicycle?” His eyebrows shot up.
She laughed again. The release of laughter and the comfort of his reassuring embrace steadied her nerves.
“No, I drove a car. An old clunker. It died as soon as I got here. That’s why I ride a bike now.”
He smiled. “I’m relieved to hear it. But you’ll buy another car, no?”
“Eventually.”
As soon as I pay off tens of thousands of dollars in debt. She didn’t really want him to know about that. Her personal burdens were nobody’s business.
“The color is returning to your cheeks.” He spoke softly. The deep, mellow tone of his voice was intimate, assuring. She gradually became conscious of the way their bodies were entwined. Elan still leaned into her airplane seat, his strength wrapped around her.
His broad chest pushed into her shoulder. The firm surface of his pectorals rubbed against her, heating her through the thin fabric of their clothes. The vibrations from the jet’s engine hummed through them both, causing little shock waves of sensation to surge through her, heating and arousing her from head to toe.
The color returned to her cheeks in a blaze of glory.
She tore her eyes from him. As her fear ebbed it was being replaced by an entirely different sensation.
Lust.
His hand rested on her waist just below her right breast. A curl of heat rose in her belly as she became aware of the pad of each long, dexterous finger pushing gently against her skin, warming her through her blouse. Her breast stirred beneath her shirt. Her nipple hardened, craving his touch.
And she was conscious of the scent of him—earthy, musky, with an exotic note of fragrance that wound itself through the air around her.
Elan.
Secret fantasies were coming to life. Dreams stalking the daylight. Her most humiliating craven longing fulfilled in the touch of this man.
Her boss.
As her body tingled with the sensation of sheer physical excitement, her mind struggled with the knowledge that his embrace was purely a gesture of compassion. If he knew what was going on in her body, in her mind, he’d recoil in horror.
But she couldn’t help wanting to prolong the illicit pleasure, the dangerous high of being held in the arms of the man whose allure was the torment of her days and the solace of her lonely nights.
Yes, she dreamed about him—waking dreams, as well as sleeping dreams. Fantasies, the shame-laced release of all the pent-up emotion bottled inside her at the end of a long day spent in close proximity to him.
But never as close as this.
On impulse she looked at him and her heart seized as she read the expression in his narrowed eyes.
I want you.
His irises were nearly black, indistinguishable from his pupils, fathomless depths, wells that drew from a dark, secretive soul. But at that moment she knew exactly what was on his mind.
Just as he knew exactly what was on hers.
In a sudden flurry of activity they disentangled themselves. She cleared her throat and smoothed the front of her blouse. He snatched up his Wall Street Journal and arranged it in his lap with a good deal of rustling.
He fiddled with his tie. Ran his fingers through his hair. Unhooked his cuff links and rolled up his sleeves. He shuffled his paper, appearing to scan the columns with keen interest.
Avoiding her glance.
Sara leaned stiffly back into her seat. She had no idea where her briefcase was. In the paralytic terror that had accompanied her onto the aircraft she’d been aware of nothing but an urge to run screaming back down the ramp to the safety of terra firma.
Oddly, though, she wasn’t afraid anymore.
Fear seemed a paltry emotion after the intense, primal madness that seized and shook her as Elan held her.
She cleared her throat. “Um, I can’t seem to remember where I put my briefcase.”
He gave her a quick look of alarm and pointed to where it lay at her feet.
“Thank you.” She rifled inside it, bending forward and letting her hair hang down to conceal her crimson face. She pulled out a report she wanted to proofread and made a big show of finding her place and uncapping her pen.
She sneaked a glance at him. His expression was stony as he read his paper. He snapped the big pages open and scrutinized the tiny print with focused intensity. She attempted to concentrate on the dense scientific text in front of her, but her mind couldn’t make sense of the words.
“I’m sorry.” The words formed on her lips of their own accord.
I’m sorry I can’t stop wanting you in just the way you despise.
“For