Page 17 of Broken Vows

The deathtrap he’s pointing to isn’t a jet.

It’s a sardine can.

I talk through the lump in my throat. “I’m not getting in… whatever the hell that is.”

“That”—Mikhail smirks, loving my uncomfortable squirms—“is a Cessna 152.” Since I’m still lost, he adds, “It’s a plane. It just has two seats instead of dozens.”

“One.” I point to him. “Two.” Now it’s my chest’s turn to be jabbed. “Three.” I draw his focus to a random pilot, hoping he knows what the hell he’s doing, even in a baby plane. “You’re one seat short. I guess I better stay here.”

I’d sit on my suitcase if I had one. Mikhail’s one-hour demand left hardly any wriggle room. It takes twenty-eight minutes to travel from the bar to my mother’s house and another twenty-eight minutes from my house to the church. I spent the remaining four minutes assuring my family that my departure wasn’t forever.

From the hardness of Mikhail’s cock when he flattened our bodies together, I believe his tight schedule was on purpose.

If he’s hopeful a lack of luggage will have me prancing butt-naked around his fancy-schmancy new mansion he inherited when we tied the knot, he’s shit out of luck.

I’ll wear a potato sack if that’s all on offer. Mikhail knows this better than anyone.

My eyes snap to him when he says, “There are only two seats because there are only two travelers.”

I glare at him like he’s grown a second head when he accepts a flight manifest from a man in a pilot’s uniform before he slips into the cockpit of the baby plane.

“He can’t be serious,” I murmur to anyone listening when he fiddles with buttons and instruments like he’s about to take this bird into the air. “He doesn’t know how to fly a plane, does he?” My curiosity is too high to discount, so I tilt to the side and shout, “Do you know what you’re doing? I swear there are laws where you must disclose that you’re a trainer pilot to intended passengers before luring them into a deathtrap.”

Mikhail laughs, and it does crazy things to my insides. “Come on, Emmy. Don’t act like this will be the first time I’ve made you float between the clouds.”

I snarl at him, but that is the beginning and end of my reply.

I’m too busy struggling not to squeeze my thighs together from how sexy he looks in his broke man’s plane. The headset has pulled his messy locks away from his face, showcasing his panty-wetting bone structure; the microphone sits intimately close to his plump, meaty lips, and he’s rolled the sleeves of his business shirt to his elbows, exposing his cut arms.

He also didn’t lie.

Some days, it took hours for me to float back to earth.

Mikhail’s orgasms don’t float stars in front of your eyes.

They send you into space.

Since I’m struggling to keep a rational head with several feet between us, I make an excuse to leave. “I’m scared of?—”

My phone pings, interrupting me.

Tears form in my eyes when I read the message.

Mom:

You’re probably still in the air, so you won’t get this until you land, but I needed you to know first.

The document attached to her message announces her inclusion into the program that could save her life has been approved.

My fingers move over my phone screen at a million miles an hour.

Me:

This is amazing.

I try to hold back, but it isn’t in my nature.

Me: