Page 6

In a daze, I walked into my hotel room and stopped in front of the big mirror. Dried black streaks of eye makeup stained my cheeks. My hair stuck in a million directions, and I still had the yellow life vest limply hanging around my neck. I looked like a crazy person.

With shaking hands, I pulled the vest off. I didn’t know what to do or how to feel. So many thoughts, so many emotions rushed through me.

Was this real?

Had I actually cheated death?

What is Max doing?

Why didn’t I die?

Feeling disoriented, I sat on the bed. I needed to zone out.

I didn’t want to think about what I had just experienced.

I clicked on the television. Every channel, including CNN, broadcasted the crash.

Announcers stood in the field, with the crash site behind them, and with excitement, explained that this was a miracle crash.

Yeah, so not helping .

I turned off the TV and laid back on the bed.

Despite considerable odds, I had survived my greatest fear. I had survived a life-altering plane crash. Shouldn’t I feel different? Shouldn’t I have big endorphins pouring through my body, giving me a new perspective on life?

Only, I was still me.

Nothing had changed.

I took a hot shower, shrugged on my complimentary robe and sat on the end of the bed. I stared at the wall between Max’s room and my own.

What was Max doing?

Did he feel different?

Max had displayed unbelievable courage through that harrowing event. While people around us fell apart, he had held me together. I had lost my shit on that flight and he had cocooned me from the worst.

And we had survived.

Now I was alone and the only person I wanted to be with was him. I didn’t understand that, but that is how I felt.

What would happen if I popped over to his room to see how he was doing? He told me that if I needed anything, I only needed to knock. But I didn’t want to impose. Hadn’t he done enough for me? He had spent the day taking care of me, so I wasn’t sure he wanted to continue to deal with me.

I can’t be alone right now .

I shoved my feet into my pink converse sneakers which created a ridiculous fashion statement with my robe, but I didn’t care. I moved down the hallway, made it as far as his door, but then couldn’t bring myself to knock. Turning around to go back to my room, I muffled my gasp when his door opened.

We studied each other. Max’s unbuttoned navy dress shirt teased me with a hard expanse of corded muscle. His damp hair indicated he’d recently gotten out of the shower.

Blue eyes took in my runners and housecoat. “I didn’t hear you knock.”

“I was going back to my room. ”

“I was coming to check on you.”

That made me feel better. Enough so I could speak my truth. “I don’t feel like being alone.”

Without speaking, he held his door open wide. I inspected his room.

“Nice room.”

“Is yours different?”

“No. It’s the same.”

“I’ve seen a lot of hotel rooms in my life.”

I glanced at him, interested in the small tidbit of himself that he shared. “Do you travel a lot for work?”

“Yes.”

What did Max do for a living? I debated asking him, but he wasn’t giving me the vibe he wanted to talk about his personal life. I respected that he guarded his personal life, and it's not like I wanted to spill any more of my guts.

He studied me as if he was trying to figure out my train of thought.

“Do you want a drink?”

“Yes please.”

I sat on the edge of his bed and watched as he knelt in front of the minibar.

“Gin and tonic?”

“That sounds nice.” I watched as he poured my drink.

“I don’t have ice.”

“That’s fine.”

He poured himself a scotch, handed me my glass and then sat on the chair by the table, a few feet away from me.

We drank in silence for a few moments. The man before me was a total stranger, but I felt drawn to him.

“How are you doing?” He broke the silence.

“I thought I’d feel different.”

“How so?”

“Shouldn’t a near death experience change my outlook on life?”

He continued to watch me with that intense blue gaze.

I had to know. “How were you so calm?”

“What do you mean?”

“Everyone was screaming and freaking out and you didn’t react. How did you know we’d live?”

“I didn’t.”

“Excuse me?”

He dumped the rest of his mini bottle of scotch into his glass. “I didn’t think we’d live.”

Shock rippled through me. “But you told me. You told me it’d be okay.”

“I know.”

“I believed you.”

“That was the point.”

I sat back and processed that. Max had believed we would die, but he spent his last moments trying to comfort me and make me believe we’d be okay.

“Why would you do that?”

He shrugged. “Atonement?”

What did that mean? I realized I needed to rethink my stance on bossy men. I had assumed they were all one dimensional, but this man felt like a jigsaw puzzle. “I don’t understand you.”

He didn’t answer, but I didn’t expect him to. I looked anywhere but at him. I suppose I should go back to my room, but I dreaded being alone.

“You want to watch a movie?”

I lifted my eyes back at him. “Here?”

He shrugged.

I answered by kicking off my shoes and climbing up the bed. “You pick.”

After the first movie, we ordered room service.

I had a burger with fries, he had a steak with salad.

Other than exchange light banter about the movie, we didn’t speak.

We were two survivors who didn’t want to face the aftermath alone.

Or maybe it was just me who didn’t want to be alone, and he was atoning for more unknown sins.

I didn’t question it. He kept me company, and I refrained from pumping him with questions.

After our meal, we both resettled back on the bed. Stretched out beside me, assuming I would stay for another movie, he flipped through the movies. I was an independent person, so I couldn’t quite reconcile myself to this need to not be alone.

“What do you want to watch?”

“You pick, I’ll watch anything.”

He picked a popular box office movie I had already seen, but I didn’t tell him that.

The movie started and failed to hold my attention.

The man, that lay beside me with his hand tucked behind his head, was all I could think about.

Questions burned my mind. Who was he? What kind of job did he have?

If he told me he had an office job, it would surprise me, but he didn’t strike me as someone who did manual labor.

Maybe he worked as a fireman. But would a fireman transfer to another city to work?

The question came out of me before I could stop it. “Are you American?”

Blue eyes shifted towards me. “Canadian.”

“Oh. Were you working in the US?”

His eyes moved back to the television, letting me know he didn’t want to talk about himself. “Yes.”

“I loved living in New York. Have you ever lived in Vancouver?”

“No.”

“I was born and raised there.”

“Do you want a different movie?”

I shook my head. “No. It’s fine.” I forced myself to lie back and remain quiet. I tied my hair in a knot on my head. I scratched my arm. I fluffed my pillow.

He paused the movie and rolled over onto his side, his head propped up by his arm. “What’s going on?”

“What!”

“You’re restless.”

I stared at his gorgeous face. “Don’t you want to talk?”

“About?”

“Anything.”

“Why don’t you talk.”

I had nothing to say. I had a million questions but none of them seemed appropriate. “Why are you moving to Canada?”

“For my job.”

“Did you get transferred?”

“Something like that.”

“Are you excited?

“Not particularly.”

“Do you know anyone in Vancouver?”

“Nope.”

“You know me.”

His blue eyes held mine. “Rory, I don’t want to give you the wrong idea here.”

My face burned hot. “What do you mean?”

“We can’t take this friendship past tonight.”

This conversation should be making me indignant, but I only felt disappointment. “Okay.”

“Today was a tough day, but when I get to Vancouver, my focus has to be free of distractions.”

“I wouldn’t distract you.”

His eyes dropped to my mouth. “You’re already a distraction.”

My stomach fluttered, and an energy passed between us. I realized this was the moment I should get off the bed and head back to my room. He all but told me he wouldn’t see me after tonight and one-night stands were not my thing. Yet, I seemed stuck on his bed.

“Is this where you try to make me have an orgasm? ”

A smile spread across his face as my words set in. “No. Definitely not.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not the right guy for you.”

“Why do you assume that I want something more than tonight?”

“Have you even fooled around with someone you weren’t dating?”

No, I hadn’t. “What’s your point?”

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

I had all but offered my body to him and he was refusing.

I thought about the blonde flight attendant.

He had been considering disappearing into a closet with her for a quickie.

So maybe it was me. Maybe he didn’t want me.

The rejection made me scramble to the end of the bed. I put on my shoes. “I get it.”

“What do you get?”

“You’re not that into me.”

He reached forward and grabbed my hand and tugged me back, so I faced him. His serious expression traced over my face. “What do you want?”

I swallowed, now unsure about everything. The old me would have said goodnight and gone to my room like the good girl I was. The new I-just-survived-a-plane-crash me blurted out, “I want my orgasm.”

His kiss caught me off guard. It shouldn’t have, considering what we were discussing, but when his mouth moved onto mine, I initially didn’t kiss him back.

I was too shocked. I couldn’t help but compare his kiss to other kisses, but it didn’t compare.

The Baby Men were impatient and sloppy, but Max kissed me like he had all the time in the world. I lay back and his mouth followed mine.