Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 34243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 171(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 171(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
I don’t know if he’s been looking at me.
I don’t know if he’s been working or reading or doing whatever it is that a man named Arkane Young does at 35,000 feet.
I don’t know anything, because I refuse to turn my head to check. Turning my head would be looking, and looking would be admitting I’m interested, and I, Tiara Sauller, am not interested.
I’m not.
I’m just...cautiously neutral. Like Switzerland. Switzerland with a headache.
The seatbelt sign dings off. I hear Icelle’s buckle click open across from me, and I figure that’s my cue to stop pretending. I sit up and reach for my own seatbelt like a person who’s just woken up naturally and not like a person who’s been faking unconsciousness for the emotional equivalent of a full-length movie.
And here’s where it gets embarrassing.
The buckle doesn’t cooperate.
Which is ridiculous, because I’ve been wearing seatbelts in cars since I was three, and I’ve got exactly two other plane trips under my belt, both economy, both middle seats, both buckles I handled without any drama. Same mechanism. Same little metal tab. Same banana, as my mom would say when she’s trying to sound relatable to people younger than her.
And yet here I am, fingers slipping off the tab like it’s been greased, and my face is starting to heat because of course I’d pick this moment to turn into a sitcom character.
“Allow me.”
I don’t even get the chance to protest. One moment, he’s not close enough to be a threat. Another moment, he’s right in front of me, the direct cause of my respiratory difficulties as he leans over me, his hand brushing over mine, and then...
Click.
The latch releases on the first try, and I feel like the biggest idiot ever.
“Thanks.” I nearly choke at having to say this.
“You’re welcome.”
His tone on the other hand is lazy and amused, and oh, if only he weren’t Icelle’s brother, I would totally kiss him kiss him some more—
I think I’m about to lose my mind. Why won’t he just go away? Why is he still leaning over me, one hand resting on the armrest, and his too-beautiful face close enough that I can see the glint in his impossibly dark eyes?
His hair falls forward the tiniest bit, and my fingers curl around the armrest, my only way of fighting off the urge to touch it.
Something rises up my throat as he stays there, near enough to touch.
I wish I could just stay still and indifferent, but the longer we stay like this, the harder it is to ignore the tension between us, simmering and smoldering hotter and hotter until it has me biting my lip, which then has his gaze dropping to my mouth...and staying there.
No no no no no no.
My heart is doing something frantic in my chest. My throat is too dry. And before I can stop it, before I can think about it, before I can even register what my body’s about to do—
I swallow.
Hard.
And the glint in his eyes?
It turns into a gleam.
Knowing. Satisfied. And absolutely annoying.
AAARGH.
He’s already straightening and stepping back, and here I am still trying to catch my breath, still trying to forget how having him just six inches away from me is enough to turn my world upside-down—
“Ti, let’s go.”
Icelle pulls me out of my seat, and I don’t know if I feel relieved or worried that she’s completely oblivious to the tension that’s still gripping the air.
Arkane steps aside as we reach the door. “Ladies first,” he murmurs.
Oh, he’s acting like a gentleman.
Ha!
Does he really think that’s going to work after everything?
As Icelle and I head down the stairs, all I can do is focus on each step because I can feel her stepbrother gazing at me from behind, and it’s painfully, terribly, and shamefully distracting.
The warmth of San Antonio air envelops us as we walk to the tarmac, the heat shimmering up off the asphalt.
I’ve always been more of an autumn than summer kind of girl, but just this once I’m grateful for the heat. It’s the perfect alibi with how my cheeks are still flushed for all the wrong reasons.
As we cross toward a low white building that I’m going to assume is the private-terminal equivalent of an airport, Icelle suddenly looks at me and asks, “Did you pretend to be helpless?”
I almost trip over my own feet. “Ugh, no."
Icelle nods slowly, like a scientist confirming a hypothesis. “So he makes you clumsy then, when you’re normally not.”
“Will you please stop analyzing us?”
“Why?”
“Because there’s nothing to analyze!”
“Actually—”
“Can we please talk about this later?” Like Arkane is still right behind us, hello?
“How much later?”
I’m saved from replying when staff comes forward to greet us at the terminal, which is more country club than airport at first glance. We walk through it like we’re walking through a hotel lobby—no pausing, no ID, no bag check, none of the things that make up the normal human experience of flying. Nobody stops us. Nobody even looks up.