Phil
I started the flight back to New York on my phone. Sophie pulled a book out of her tote bag and was lying down on the couch, pretending to read it. I knew she was acting because I would catch her periodically sneaking glances at me.
Crap. I promised her I would help her forget. This isn’t helping her forget.
But you need to sort this shit out or she’s going to have much bigger issues.
I picked her legs up and sat down with her feet on my lap. I had my earbuds in, and I put my phone on the table and continued my conversation with London while I started to give her a foot massage.
“You already went over that. Do you have any new information to give me?” I looked over at her and rolled my eyes. She grinned back at me and bit her lip.
My eyes drifted to her feet. Even her feet were perfect. Her nails were painted electric blue, the same color as her hair. I pressed my thumb along her arch.
A soft moan came out of her. I glanced over at her. She had her eyes shut.
She’s too damn gorgeous and sweet.
“Call me when you have more information.” I hung up, put my earbuds back in the case, and went back to her foot massage.
“Maybe you should start a new career,” she teased.
I just grinned at her.
We didn’t talk for a bit.
She pulled her feet back, grabbed her tote, crawled across the couch, and propped her body up on the back of the couch so her legs were on both sides of my body. She set her tote down next to me.
Laughing, I asked, “What are you doing?”
She reached around the front of my shirt and unbuttoned it. I turned my head toward her and gave her a questioning stare.
“Just relax, Phil.” She smiled at me and pushed my shirt over my shoulders.
I gave her another What are you up to? stare.
She dug down into her tote and pulled a bottle of lotion out, squeezed some on her hands, and rubbed them together. Placing her hands on my shoulders, she dug her thumbs into the knots in my back.
I let out a sigh.
“You’re so tight.” She leaned her head over me, and her soft blue hair brushed against my face. She kissed the top of my head and pushed farther into my knots.
I rolled my head up toward the ceiling, and she brushed her lips against mine.
My phone rang. I went to grab it, but she snatched it first. She turned it off and threw it on the other couch.
“Hey, that might be important.”
“We’re in the air. You can get to it later. Just sit back and stop thinking, Phil.” She nibbled on my ear and circled hard into another knot.
“It’s not that black and white.”
“I can do other things to you if this isn’t working,” she whispered seductively.
I licked my lips. “If what isn’t working?”
“I want you not to think for a little bit. Isn’t that what you need?”
“Is that what I need?”
“Blow off some steam...stop thinking... What do you need from me?”
What do I need from her? Wasn’t I supposed to be making her forget?
Her cherry, tonka, and cedar scent filled my nostrils, and I inhaled extra deep. She made her way across my shoulders, and I started to relax a bit.
The flicker of her tongue slid across my neck, right behind my ear. My dick pulsed against my zipper, and I groaned as my heart started to beat faster.
Heat from her lower body permeated against my spine, creating a buzz of energy through all my cells. Her lips mumbled next to my ear before she sucked on my lobe. “You make me so wet, Phil.”
“Fuck,” I quietly groaned. My eyes were still shut, and I inhaled more of her. She wrapped her legs around me so her calves were crossed around my chest. I crossed my arms tight against her shins and rolled my head to the side so she could have more access to my neck.
“Did you think about me the last few months?”
Did I think of her? Is that even a question?
“You haunted me,” I admitted.
Her soft lips moved across my neck. “Did you try to fuck me out of your system?”
I gulped and nodded. God, she was a vixen. “Yes.”
“Did it help?”
“No.” I didn’t see the point of lying.
Her thumbs pressed into another knot, and I could smell the faint hint of her sweet sex as she circled her hips slowly against my back. Her calves pressed against my chest, and I squeezed them. “I tried to fuck you out of my system, too.”
Normally I wasn’t a jealous person, but when I closed my eyes and visions of the men I’d seen with her in newspaper articles rushed to my mind, the images of her fucking them made me slightly nauseated. It surprised me; she was the first woman about whom it bugged me to think of her with another man. But I couldn’t be mad or judge her—I had done the same.
A tiny amount of panic ran through me. My voice was hoarse. “Did it help?”
“No.”
Thank fuck for that! Somehow, knowing that she had screwed other men thinking of me, but couldn’t shake me, made me feel a bit better.
She grazed her teeth on the back of my shoulder. Her foot flexed, and she started to tease my dick.
I groaned again.
“Did you compare me to those other women?” she murmured near my other ear.
“Yes.”
“Did you think about my tongue?” She snaked her tongue behind my ear.
I moaned. “Mm-hmm.”
Her cheek slid against my beard, and her entire body pushed into me harder. Her heat ground harder into my spine. “Did you think of how I taste?”
I nodded and gulped. My cock tried to rip out of my pants as her foot stroked me further.
“Did you imagine it was my body gripping your cock tight and shattering all over you?”
“Yes,” I groaned as the jet started to shake.
“When they cried out, did you think of my voice crying out to you?” She dug her thumbs in farther and sucked on my earlobe.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Why did you compare me?”
I blurted out, “Because you were all I could think about.”
Cindy came on over the speaker. “Please buckle up. We’ve got some unexpected turbulence.”
The jet took a dive, and we both rolled down to the seat cushion. She fell underneath me, and her tote bag went flying. The contents rolled out onto the floor.
I grabbed her pants and pulled them off her, then jerked my own off. She quickly pulled her shirt over her head and threw it on the ground before pulling me onto her and opening her legs and bucking her hips into me.
My already-wet-from-pre-cum cock hit her wet pussy and slid deep in her.
Holy shit. So that’s what it feels like.
“Oh God,” she breathed.
“Sophie, where are your condoms?”
“I don’t have any left. Where are yours?”
“In my bag in the front cabin.” The plane began to shake so much I had to grab onto the railing attached to the bottom of the couch.
“I’m on the pill. I just got checked, and I’m clean. Are you?” She gazed up into my eyes.
“Yes, I’ve never gone without a condom and get checked every month.”
“Then don’t worry about it.”
“Fuuuuck, Sophie!” I shut my eyes for a minute. Nothing had ever felt better than her body wrapping itself around mine. Slick, warm, supple.
“You feel so good, Phil. Don’t I feel good like this?” she whispered.
I moaned. “Sophie.”
“Don’t think,” she whispered, and made the decision for me by grabbing my ass, rocking her hips, and pushing me farther in her.
I groaned. She was going to ruin my enjoyment of sex going forward. There was no way a condom would ever feel good again. I nuzzled down into her neck. “You’re going to wreck me, Sophie.”
“You’ve already wrecked me,” she murmured into my ear. Her warm breath sent new little volts down my neck, and her words sent an unfamiliar feeling through my bones. It took me a few seconds to realize what it was.
Hope. Her words gave me hope that we were something more, and I tried to push it out of my mind.
My hard shaft rippled across her walls, and she clenched against me.
“Oh my God, Phil,” she breathed while grabbing my face in her hands and making a tiny O with her mouth.
I pushed her hair back, and my quivering lip met hers as I breathlessly shoved my tongue against hers.
Trying to catch my breath, I pushed my forehead against hers, and the plane went into a long patch of turbulence. She dug her fingernails into my ass and pushed me harder into her.
Obsession. Addiction. Emotions. They all took over, as did my need to know exactly what she’d thought about while we were apart, when she could have found me and didn’t.
“Tell me what you thought of,” I breathed on her as I locked eyes with her.
She tried to ignore me and kiss me, but I wouldn’t let her.
“Tell me,” I said in a stern voice.
“Your dick.”
I circled my hips into her hard.
“Don’t stop!” she breathed, and pulsed on me.
“What else?”
“Your tongue.”
Without hesitation, I tasted her, flicked at her, and took control of her mouth till she was breathless and moaning.
The turbulence continued, and the rattling of the overhead bins was loud.
“What else?” I repeated.
She closed her eyes.
“What else, Sophie?” I demanded.
“Your face.” She opened her eyes and grabbed my face with both hands. “I missed your face most of all.”
My eyes scanned hers as I continued to thrust inside her. “Why did you think of me?”
She closed her eyes again and swallowed hard.
“Tell me, Petal.”
Honest, emotion-filled eyes revealed everything. She wanted to love me, but she couldn’t. She blinked back her tears.
The need to have her as mine grew at that moment. It spiked through me and tortured me. And then I let it torture her.
“We’re so fucking good together, Sophie,” I murmured against her lips while still staring into her eyes.
Her hand turned my cheek, and she dove into my neck, sucking on it hard.
My balls had already tightened, and her insides throbbed all around me. “I don’t know how much longer—”
The plane went sideways, and we rolled against the couch. She slid into me hard and started to shatter all over me as I exploded into her, pumping harder than ever before and holding her tight in my arms.
“Sophie,” I muttered into her neck as she loudly cried out my name.
The plane leveled out, and I rolled back over her. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head, and her body convulsed hard on me.
There was another ten minutes or so of hard turbulence. I rolled her on top of me and held her in my arms tightly as she nuzzled into my neck.
We didn’t speak as my hands caressed her back and I kissed her head several times. When the turbulence was over, the seat belt sign dinged and turned green.
Sophie quickly sat up, threw my clothes at me, and got dressed.
I watched her as I pulled my pants on.
She collected her items that had rolled out of her tote bag, threw them back in, and grabbed my phone that had jammed into the corner of the couch. She turned it back on and handed it to me.
I sat back on the couch, tilted my head, and stared at her as I reached out for my phone but held her hand. “Sophie?”
“Everything’s fine.” She blinked back tears, yanked her hand from mine, turned, and walked into the other room.
It was official: Sophie Cradle had ruined me. But who had ruined her?
Sophie
As quickly as possible, I walked off the jet and got into the car. Two cars were waiting on the runway, both Phil’s and mine.
Phil came and got into my car. “You want to tell me what’s happening right now?”
“Nothing. I’m fine. I told you everything is fine.”
“Everything is not fine.”
“It is. Thank you for helping me. I know you went the extra mile. Tom’s lucky to have you. I appreciate it.”
Phil sat back and glared at me with a disgusted look on his face.
I sighed. “What now?”
“So I’m your employee now? Is that it?” he spat at me.
I jerked my head at him. “I didn’t say that.”
He shook his head and pursed his lips together. “Have a great day, Sophie.” He threw me one last disgusted glare, got out, and shut the door.
Shit.
Phil didn't deserve to be treated unfairly, but things had gotten too intense, and I needed to stop it.
I should never have made him tell me how he tried to fuck me out of his system. I had been playing with fire, and I knew it. But I couldn’t help myself.
And I pushed him inside me without a condom because I needed to feel him… I needed all of him. The only other man I had ever let in me without a condom was Eric—and, to be honest, he had just been a boy—and that was a teenage mistake we’d made.
Phil wasn’t a boy. He was a man. His admission to me that I’d haunted him over the few months we were apart told me that he wanted me as much as I wanted him.
And I craved him. I desperately craved him.
All I had to do was look at him and my body started to singe. But it had gone beyond physical. He would care about me as much as I let him, and I needed to stop letting him.
Phil didn’t do relationships normally, but if I told him I wanted more, he would give it to me. I’d seen it on the jet. Yes, I’d opened Pandora’s box when I pushed him to tell me how he thought about me when he was with other women. And I couldn’t handle a real relationship. I’d had one of those once, and the pain almost left me for dead myself.
When Ethan’s brother Eric killed himself, my soul was ripped out of me. It took me a few years to even look at anyone else, and even longer to let them touch me. But I eventually discovered if I didn’t get close, then I could appear normal.
I’m anything but normal.
Yep, I was fucked up, and Phil didn’t need to be brought into my crazy world. The best thing he could do would be to forget about me.
I sat in the car and pushed my head back against the headrest, closing my eyes. From now on it was going to be pure business with Phil, and that was it.
I couldn’t afford another heartbreak. I wouldn’t survive it this time.