The Mile High Club Read Free Page A

conjured on the windshield, leading me to a hard sigh.
    “So, you’re formulating the plan to win her back.” Max looked out over the nose of the 767. Again, not a question, but a statement. It was getting irritating.
    “Of course not. We signed the final papers.”
    She turned her body into my line of sight the way she had each time I fed her a line. “I hope you don’t fancy yourself a poker player.”
    I blurted a laugh and looked over my left shoulder, south over the Atlantic. She remained in position until I looked back in her eyes.
    “No, I know better.” My right hand was resting on the yoke, though we were on autopilot. It eased toward her. I tried to stop it, really I did, but the backs of my fingers brushed down her cheek. She was soft and smooth, and warm like a fever. My cock got heavy. I pulled my hand sharply away as if she were Sister Mary Margaret about to rap my offending knuckles.
    She tilted her head curiously, then leaned back in her seat. “You have nice hands.”
    Sunsets vary from place to place, time to time. They are a by-product of humidity, altitude and—well, to get clinical might take the mystery and magic out of sunsets. But there are those
who say that man’s flying has taken the magic out of watching birds. Not true. It is the magic of flying that yields some of the most stunning sunsets. Through the malleable terrain seven miles above sea level, strips of clouds carpeted and danced with the pulsing glow of this lingering sunset.
    There wasn’t a trace of turbulence; it was as calm a flight as I’d ever taken—physically.
    After the long, pensive silence, she rested her hand on the pedestal between us, first pretending that there was a purpose to where she had placed it. We both knew there wasn’t. Still I hesitated, until she rolled her palm upward.
    I laced my fingers in hers.
    I hadn’t gotten turned on from holding hands since Leann Dormand in eighth grade. And as powerful as that was, it didn’t compare to what I felt with Max now. I had a hard-on that reverberated deep into my body. I’d never felt a need quite like it, even after long separations from Friederike in our best days when I was in the Air Force.
    Max gripped tight and swallowed hard as she took me in from her peripheral vision. She held her breath when I squeezed. Her breathing became audible over the din. She turned her torso quickly over the pedestal as if it were an ambush.
    It worked.
    I propelled toward her despite my better judgment, like reverse thrust, hard brakes on a short runway and our teeth clicked. Her breath, tinted with ginger and orange pekoe tea, breezed into my mouth and spiced my coffee. My tongue entered her, and hers retreated coyly. The sharp points dodged and parried like fencers’ foils. I grasped her strong neck with my left hand and pulled her tighter. Her clean soapy scent released with hints of her sweat. Our heads rotated in perfect time, side to side, as if we could somehow deepen the kiss like driving
a screw into wood. We popped softly as my mouth left shiny prints around her lips.
    “I—uh—sorry.” I turned toward the instruments as if something needed attention. Something did need attention: if we were to continue and get caught, it would be an immediate dismissal.
    She wiped the beads of sweat from her brow with the back of her thumb and looked away.
    The autopilot controls seemed to wink at me. “Um—I was a good pilot in the Air Force.”
    “I believe that.” Again her eye turned just enough that her dark pupil formed a tight ellipse. I realized how exceptional her peripheral vision was. The way she looked at me was extraordinarily powerful. It felt like an eye-to-eye stare from a foot away.
    My hard-on had started to soften, but now it came back with a vengeance. I fumbled for words to explain. “I mean—not a great pilot. But the great ones sometimes said they’d want me on their wing in a pinch, because I was smart and reliable. They’d trust me to remain