Page 80 of Puck

“Ready?” Harris said.

“NO!” I shouted.

“Too late.”

I watched his hands shift gently forward, and I felt a corresponding increase in pressure on my chest as we accelerated. That wasn’t so bad—

And then he hauled backward on one of the controls, and our nose lifted abruptly, forcing my stomach down toward my toes. We climbed like a rocket for what felt like a full minute, though I knew it was far less, and then instead of merely leveling out, Harris tilted us to the left and tipped our nose downward, and now my heart was in my throat and threatening to pop out of my mouth, and I felt dizzy and fought darkness at the edges of my sight. We dove and dove and dove, arcing around and down in a long, steep curve, and I could see water through the windscreen up front and beyond the window on my left, water rising toward us at a terrifying pace, a brilliant azure. Harris banked the helicopter over to the other side so now I was totally suspended in the air, only held in the seat by the harness Puck had tightened. I glanced to my right, and Puck was gripping his knees with white-knuckled fingers, but he had a wild grin on his face as we soared tilted sideways, nose down, toward the Caribbean.

At what seemed like the last second, he leveled out, and this time he was maybe twenty-five feet above the water, so close I could see the individual whitecap waves.

All we’d done was a rising loop, going up and around back down so we were heading in our original direction, yet it had felt like an entire airshow’s worth of death-defying tricks.

I gasped for breath as Harris slowed back down. “I hate you, Nicholas Harris.”

“That was nothing,” Layla laughed. “You wanna really toss your cookies, go up in one of his actual vintage fighter jets. He just got his paws on a Harrier, so now he can do some really crazy shit.”

“No thanks,” I gulped. “I don’t even like rollercoasters, much less death-defying aerial acrobatics.”

“Death-defying, she says,” Harris said with a sarcastic guffaw. “We can’t even break the sound barrier. We’re in a goddamnhelo, for Chrissakes. You want death-defying, let me take you up in my Phantom. I can make you shit your actual pants.”

“Truth,” Puck said. “I went up with him in the Phantom, and I did actually poop a little.”

“I’m good.” My voice was, once again, a sissy squeak.

The rest of the flight was thankfully uneventful, even a little boring. It was the week before Thanksgiving, and the entire A1S family was heading down to Kyrie and Valentine’s guest village. Yes, that’s exactly what I meant: an entire village. Roth had gone whole-hog, as he was apparently prone to doing, and bought a tiny little island near the one their home was on, and he built a village on it. Renewable energy via wind and solar, plumbing and water reclamation, Internet, a post office-slash-general store, and ten individual two-bed one-bath homes, each with its own private beach access. Fucking ridiculous, was what it was. He’d sent e-mails to all of us with a link to a Dropbox account, containing a hundred-plus photos of the village, with detailed descriptions of the amenities available. Of course, throughout the year he rented the homes on a week-by-week basis to tourists, but it was officially “closed” from Thanksgiving to New Year, so all of us at A1S could come down for as long as we wanted.

I’d worked my ass off and saved my vacation time throughout the year and had gotten the entire holiday season off, mainly because I’d closed on more accounts myself than any other three people combined. It’s amazing what being truly happy could do for a woman, especially when that happiness was derived from regular orgasms thanks to Puck’s talented fingers, tongue, and cock. I kept him happy with all the sex and blowjobs he could want and then some, and in return he made sure I rode a near-constant high from my own orgasms. It was a perfect scenario. He’d be gone for a week at a time with work, and I’d worry my tits off, and then he’d come home and we’d fuck for an entire weekend, not leaving the bed for anything except food and to use the bathroom—and to shower, but that also ended up with more sex.

He wanted to flat-out purchase my apartment, but I refused to let him, leading to our first blowout fight, because I refused to let him take over my finances, and he wanted to “take care of me,” which was nice, but fucking no; I’d been taking care of myself since I was sixteen and wasn’t about to let any man, even Puck, have that kind of control over my life, even if I did trust and love him without reservation. So we compromised, and he bought a penthouse suite in downtown Manhattan, thanks to a literal steal of a deal via Valentine—meaning, Roth had bought the entire upper floor of a building, renovated it, and “sold” it to Puck for a sixteenth of its actual market value. It was a breathtaking place, glorious, jaw-dropping, with floor-to-ceiling windows on all four sides, an expansive kitchen . . .

And a personal chef whenever we wanted him, a personal trainer, and a valet—which didn’t just mean someone to park cars, but do our every bidding.Perks of the condo, Valentine had said, with a subdued laugh in his voice. And shit, it was amazing, so how could I say no? It was literally a five-minute walk from my office, and, oh yeah, did I mention the helicopter that was only a text message away, ready to take us wherever we wanted to go? Apparently, when Valentine Roth decided he wanted to thank someone with extravagant gifts, he didn’t accept no for an answer.

Puck kept working for Harris, of course, and I kept working at my import-export firm, but we accepted Roth’s generosity and took full advantage of it.

And now I had a month and half of vacation time, paid, and we were going to spend it in the Caribbean with the whole gang, drinking excessive amounts of alcohol, sitting on the beach around a fire, and of course, absolutely inordinate amounts of time spent naked together.

Sounded perfect.

Eventually, we landed on a helicopter pad built on one end of Roth and Kyrie’s private home island; the landing was smoother than an elevator ride, with barely a bump as we touched down. Kyrie was waiting, a little girl of three or four years at her side, and a brand-new baby on her hip. Apparently she’d been pregnant when she was snatched and hadn’t found out until a month later.

Layla, too, was showing a bump, which was a more recent development.

Nothing here, nor would there be anytime soon, although I had noticed Puck surreptitiously browsing for engagement rings online. I’d say yes in a heartbeat, obviously, but neither of us was in any way ready for kids. Jeez, just the thought made my spine shiver. I loved babies, loved kids, they were sweet and fun and cute, and I liked to be able to give them back.

Which was why I was puzzled when Kyrie handed me her little one, and my heart melted as the adorable little towheaded, blue-eyed boy gurgled up at me and yanked my hair in a slobbery fist, and I found myself thinking maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

Also weird was that I carried Cal, the baby, all the way from the helipad to the house, and continued holding him as the gang all gathered on the deck and started the usual bullshitting, teasing, joking banter. I didn’t give him back until Kyrie needed to feed him.

Puck noticed.

We were sitting in a deep, comfortable chair near a fire on the beach, me on his lap, his hands in my hair.

“You ain’t gettin’ any ideas, are you?” he murmured.

Why not test him? Stupid and bound to backfire in some way, but fuck it, right?

“Umm . . .” I shrugged, as if unsure. “I mean, no. Right? No. That’s a stupid idea.” I didn’t sound like I believed it.