Page 14 of Goode to Be Bad

Myles whistled. “I’d back Crow against Satan himself.”

“Me too,” Jupiter said. “Baxter Badd is just…on a different plane of existence.”

“So if you met him again…?” Myles asked.

Jupiter waved his hand. “Ah, it was a fight, a paid fight. I’ve got nothing but serious respect for the man. He’s out of the fighting world now too, I guess. Running a gym up there, nowadays.”

The cockpit opened, then, and the pilots emerged, in matching captain’s uniforms. “We’re ready to go, Mr. North,” the male pilot said.

“All right guys, I gotta go,” Myles said. A chorus of goodbyes from the band, and then Myles ended the call. He gestured to me. “Captain Alan Murphy, and Captain Rebecca Callahan, this is Lexie Goode. She’ll be flying with us a lot in the future.” He eyed me. “I hope.”

We all politely ignored that, me especially—and I stood and shook hands with the pilots, finding myself impressed with the relative youth of the female pilot. “Pleased to meet you, Captains.”

The male pilot, Captain Murphy, gave the spiel. “We’re going to be taking off in a few minutes, but I’d like to thank you for the opportunity to work with you, Mr. North, and to assure you that you are in the best hands there are. We’ll be touching down in Seattle for a quick refuel, and then on to Ketchikan. We should have you on the ferry to Ketchikan by…oh, eight or so this evening. We have great weather and good wind, so we should make good time. If anything comes up, which I don’t anticipate, I’ll pop on over the intercom. Your seats all have buckles, including the couch, so please buckle up until we’re at cruising altitude. I’ll let you know when it’s safe to unbuckle.”

The takeoff was smooth, smoother than any commercial flight I’d ever been on, and we reached cruising altitude a few minutes later. I half expected Myles to make some sort of move to “break in” the plane, but he just hunted around for the iPad which controlled the lights and TV; he turned the lights down, turned the TV on, selected a movie—a late nineties rom-com—and kicked back beside me, feet extended. I found it so easy to lean against his chest and forget where I was, or anything else.

Please don’t bring up our conversation from this morning, I found myself thinking. I knew damn well he’d seen right through my clumsy avoidance, but it had been instinctual. Defenses had kicked in before I knew what I was doing, and now it was done. Not that I’d do anything different. He’d hit upon not one, not two, but three different triggers: blowjobs and swallowing, being restrained, and cuddling. And the nature of our relationship. And my insecurity with how he felt about me.

So more than three.

Fuck.

I’d ducked and dodged and picked a fight, and he’d seen through it all. But hadn’t called me on it. I gave him kudos for that.

But right now he was a little distant.

Instead of trying to bend me over the couch, he was cuddling up and watching a movie—a girly movie, too, not a guns-and-tits-and-explosions dude movie. Which, honestly, I would have preferred. Rom-coms are too saccharine and too touchy-feely and too much aboutloveand happily ever after—all the things I hate and despise and don’t believe in.

But I couldn’t bring myself to move out of his arms. It’s not that it didn’t feel good. It’s not that I didn’t feel at home, and safe and secure.

I didn’t feel the things Myles had talked about.

No way.

I didn’t do cuddles. I didn’t do…this.

But I just couldn’t move. I’d been awake last night, late. I’d passed out after we had sex, but then had woken up with Myles wrapped around me like an octopus, arms and legs coiling around every part of me, his cock nuzzled between my butt cheeks and his hand on my boob, nose against the back of my neck, hot breath on my spine. I’d been hot and uncomfortable with being held like that.

Yet then, like now, something deeper even than my deeply rooted disgust atcuddlinghad prevented me from moving away, from disentangling his hands, from throwing off his legs.

I was tired. It was all right, at best, being here on this jet, held and safe and comfortable. But just okay, though.

A bed, alone, a bottle of wine, and my vibrator. That’s what I really wanted.

For real. And I meant it.

That’s definitely better than being safe and secure at forty thousand feet, in the arms of a sexy, talented, wealthy, famous country music star who was absolutely gaga for me, who would do anything for me, who looked at me like I was his sun, moon, and stars, who gave me more and better orgasms than all the other men combined in my past.

Yeah.

I didn’t believe it myself, but a girl can try, right?

And it was totally logical and sane to be trying to convince myself of that in the first place.

Right?

Right.