Flying Read online

  “Wait,” Stella says, and sits. “Let me.”

  She brushes her lips over his belly, that soft patch of hair. Closing her eyes, she breathes in the warm, male scent of him. For a second or so, Stella lets herself nuzzle his skin while her hands run up the insides of his denim-clad thighs. She cups the weight of his testicles and runs her thumb over the hardening lump of his cock, but doesn’t undo the button. Not right away.

  She looks up at him with a smile. Truax isn’t smiling. His brow is furrowed. Mouth pursed. He cups a hand to her face, then strokes his fingers through her wig.

  “Why do you do this?” he asks.

  He could mean take men home from bars. He could mean wear a disguise. He could mean a lot of things, but Stella’s answer is the same for all the questions she can think he might be asking.

  “Because I want to.”

  His thumb rubs the line of her chin, then tucks into her mouth. She sucks gently, nipping at the tip of it, and is pleased at his reaction. His eyes go heavy-lidded. His lips part, moist from the swipe of his tongue. His hips bump a little forward. Beneath her hand, she imagines the throb of his cock, imprisoned by his jeans. He sighs when she undoes his zipper. When she takes him in her fist, stroking, her breath gusting over the sweetness of his thick erection, Truax gives a small, soft moan.

  “I haven’t had...this...in a really long time.”

  Stella pauses, the tip of her tongue so close to his cock he should be able to feel the heat of it. Her fingers twist around his shaft, her knuckles nudging the rim of his head. “No?”

  His hand caresses her wig again. She can feel the weight of his touch, of course, but it’s different than if he’d touched her own hair. For a moment, she considers slipping off the wig and letting her own hair down so he can tangle his fingers in it. Pull as hard as he wants.

  Instead, she takes him slowly into her mouth, sucking gently and using her tongue around the rim. Down, down, she engulfs his cock with her mouth until she can’t take any more. His cock is thick but not too long, and Stella’s able to brush her lips against his belly before sliding her mouth up and off him. Her hand follows behind and she strokes him while she looks up to see his reaction.

  He shudders. “Oh. God. So good.”

  “Good.” Stella smiles and takes him in her mouth again. Slow, slow, she sucks gently at first and then harder. She pushes his jeans and briefs down to his thighs and settles herself between his legs. He bends his knees a little, fucking into her mouth, and she lets him.

  The thickness of him, the length, both are just right. Stella lets herself get lost in the back and forth and up and down, sucking and stroking. She cups his balls with her other hand, stroking her thumb along the seam. His moans turn her on.

  She shifts her thighs, pressing them together to squeeze her clit with a delightful pressure that makes it unnecessary for her to use her hand on herself. She can probably get off this way, if it goes on long enough. For now, it’s enough to let her body fill with slow-growing pleasure.

  “I’m gonna come,” he mutters, and tries to pull away. “It’s too good.”

  “No such thing as too good.” Stella stops sucking him but keeps her grip with her fist. His cock is hard and gleaming from her mouth, gone that yummy shade of on-the-edge red. She lets her fingers drift up and down his shaft, avoiding the sensitive divot beneath the head. She blows a breath across it.

  Truax shudders and jerks; he lets out a low, guttural groan. But he doesn’t come, and Stella grins. She flicks her tongue once, twice, on the underside of his cock, which pulses.

  “Shhh,” she tells him. “Not yet.”

  He laughs breathlessly. “You’re killing me.”

  Stella, his cock still firmly in her fist, leans back. “How long has it been since you’ve had your cock sucked?”

  “Five years,” he says at once, no hesitation.

  Her fingers squeeze him gently. “That’s a long time. How come?”

  “My wife...” Truax chokes on the words or on the pleasure in his dick; it doesn’t matter. “She doesn’t like it.”

  “That’s a shame.” Stella rubs his slit with her thumb, covering the head of his cock with clear, sticky fluid. “And nobody else?”

  “I haven’t...with anyone else.”

  This stops her. “What?”

  For a moment, she thinks he’s going to pull away, but the allure of what her fingers are doing, what her mouth has done, keeps him standing there. Never underestimate the power of a blow job, she thinks, and doesn’t let herself dwell. She takes him briefly in her mouth again, sucking until he starts to shake.

  She stops. Truax lets out a muttered curse. Stella smiles and strokes him, judging how close he is by the look on his face.

  “You want me to keep going.” It’s not a question. “You want me to suck this lovely cock until you come.”

  “Please,” he says. “Oh, fuck. Yes. Please.”

  He could be lying about it being five years since a woman sucked his dick. He could be lying about not fucking around too. And really, it doesn’t matter because nothing about any of this is all the way honest, not her hair or clothes or the way she paints her lips.

  But the way his prick throbs against her tongue—that is honest. The weight of his balls in her palm, that’s honest too. And so is Stella’s desire to make this man explode for her.

  “Lie down,” she says.

  He hesitates. She lets go of his cock, and it rises proudly to tap his belly. Stella unequivocally loves cocks, but there’s no denying Captain Truax’s is particularly lovely, and frankly, she adores that thick hardness she gave him with her touch. She loves how he shakes as he lies back, how his poor, fellatio-deprived prick pulses under the sweep of her tongue from the head to the base just before she settles herself between his legs.

  “Shhh,” she tells him when he starts to speak. “Just enjoy it.”

  “Do you want me to—”

  “Shh,” Stella repeats. “Not now.”

  She takes her time. She worships and adores his cock. Hands and mouth working together, she sucks and strokes. She wiggles out of her dress and presses him between her breasts until he bucks and cries out hoarsely; then she eases off and watches his cock fuck the air.

  Again and again she brings him to the edge, certain each time she’s going to misjudge and finish him, but either her skills are just that fucking good—which is possible—or he’s just willing to be teased, which might also be true. And the longer she goes, the wetter she gets. The harder her clit. The tighter her nipples.

  Stella fucks him with her mouth and hands, every so often stroking herself, but it’s the pressure of her thighs as she squeezes them together in rhythm that sends her hurtling toward her own finish. It would be easy to forget herself just now, lost in the pleasure, but Stella focuses. Sitting up, rocking her hips and clenching her muscles to keep herself edging toward her orgasm, she strokes his cock a few more firm pumps.

  “I’m...” is all he says this time.

  “Me too,” she tells him, and bends back to take him in her mouth for that last, desperate thrust.

  She comes in slow, rolling ripples that are so different from how it feels when she comes while actively rubbing her clit. The pleasure goes on and on while his cock pumps into her mouth and she swallows again and again. Breathing hard, Stella sits up again, her body still quivering with the force of what turned out to be a surprisingly strong orgasm.

  Truax had been moaning, but is now silent. His softening cock is a reminder of how little Stella likes this part—what she thinks of as “the clash” because of that rock group’s famous song. “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” Stella almost always votes for go, especially on nights like this when she still has a cab ride back to her own hotel and a plane to catch.

  She takes a moment to fall ont
o the bed next to him. Staring at the ceiling, Stella says quietly, “I hope it was worth it.”

  Truax rolls onto his side and puts a hand on her belly. “Yes. It was. But...”

  She looks at him with a smile. “Don’t worry, Captain Truax. Your secret’s safe with me, and it was a onetime offer, already redeemed.”

  He laughs gently but has the grace to look ashamed. “I’ve seen you before, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “You do this often.”

  “Yes,” Stella says. “I do.”

  He brushes the hair from her eyes. “Because you want to.”

  “Yes.”

  He doesn’t ask her why, and she’s grateful, because in that moment, Stella thinks she might tell him all her reasons. Impulsively, she leans to kiss him. He hesitates for a moment, and she thinks she misjudged. That he might pull away, making this sad and awkward. But after that second or so, he kisses her too. His arms go around her. She breathes in time with the rise and fall of his chest and wishes that just for a few hours, she could relax here with him. Sleep. It’s been so long since she shared her bed, and though most of the time she relishes having the bed to herself, there are times she misses someone to snuggle with.

  But she doesn’t really want to snuggle with Captain Truax.

  “She’s going to leave me,” he says. “I’m pretty sure of it. And my daughter... She knows too. She thinks her mother’s right to want to go.”

  “I’m sorry.” Stella doesn’t really want to know.

  “Sometimes...things just happen and you think you know what you’re doing, and you wake up and realize that everything you thought was right, all the choices you made, they’re all wrong. And everything’s gone.” His voice cracks a little but doesn’t break.

  Stella sits up to look at him. “I understand.”

  “I tried listening to her, but she says I never pay attention. I do,” he says, too defensively. “But I’m gone a lot. It’s part of the job. She doesn’t seem to care when it comes time to spend the money, though. That, she has no problem with. She spends my money and turns my kids against me, but she can’t be bothered to ever appreciate any efforts I make.”

  Stella doesn’t want him to say more. She doesn’t want to talk about the things in their lives that have gone wrong, all the broken things that have kept them in misery. That’s not what this is about, this coming together. But when Truax swipes a hand over his face, Stella knows there will be no getting out of the conversation.

  She should never have gone with him, no matter how charming the smile. No matter how appealing the damage. With a sigh she keeps locked behind her teeth, Stella puts a hand on his chest, over his heart. The steady thumping has eased to a normal pace. How quickly things go back to normal, she thinks, when the fucking’s done.

  “Men and women speak the same language, but different dialects,” she says. Nothing more.

  Truax blinks. Frowns. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

  “I need to use your bathroom, okay?” Without waiting for an answer, she gets out of bed and goes to the bathroom. She takes her time, using the toilet. Rinsing her mouth. Drinking a glass of cold, clear water. She brushes her fingers through the blond wig, setting it more firmly in place though it hasn’t even gone askew—she’s gotten so good at securing it.

  In the mirror, her reflection smiles. Grimaces. Bares its teeth. Frowns. Gives a sultry wink.

  When she’s able to put on her concerned and sympathetic face, Stella leaves the bathroom. Whatever gloom he was harboring has passed, at least a little bit, because he’s turned on the TV. Good. It will make it all the easier for her to slip out if he doesn’t expect to cuddle.

  The late-night news is on, which surprises her into looking for a clock. What seems like a reasonable bedtime at home is ridiculously early when she’s flying, but surely more time has passed than this? Truax has dressed in a pair of pj bottoms and a faded blue T-shirt, but he hasn’t pulled down the comforter to make the bed more inviting. He’s propped against the headboard, remote in hand.

  “Well,” Stella says. “This was great....”

  He gets up. “You’re going to go?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you...always go?” He looks uncomfortable.

  “Yes,” Stella says. “Almost always.”

  “So it’s not me.”

  Her eyebrows rise before she can force her expression into compassionate neutrality, and before she can stop herself, she’s stepped forward. “Oh. No. Wow. No, it’s not you.”

  “Because I didn’t fuck you? I mean, you said you wanted me to just enjoy it, but I could’ve... I meant to. I wanted to,” he says. “I wanted it to be good for you too. I’m not a total caveman.”

  Men are so wrapped up in their cocks. How they work or how they don’t. There are plenty of men who don’t give a damn if they make their partner come, and a lot who take so much pride in their ability to get a woman off they lose sight of the important thing. Her pleasure is hers. Not his.

  “My wife says I’m selfish in bed.”

  There it is, of course. Stella says nothing when he sinks onto the bed and puts his face in his hands. His shoulders shake.

  Oh, she thinks. Fuck.

  There is one Mother Teresa moment when she thinks about sitting next to him, maybe taking his hand. Letting him cry on her shoulder. She could reassure him that she came hard, and it won’t be a lie. She can tell him he wasn’t selfish, at least as far as she could see, because she chose to do what she did. That wouldn’t be a lie either, but it also wouldn’t matter.

  “She always accuses me of fucking around. But I never have. Not until tonight.” He shoots her an accusatory look from red-rimmed eyes.

  Frankly, Stella’s not in the mood to play nursemaid. She doesn’t owe the captain anything. She seduced him; she didn’t force him. She ought to feel worse about it, she supposes. Fucking a married man and all. There seems to be a line she shouldn’t cross, some sort of responsibility she should take for this. But, while she owns her part in it, never ashamed and rarely regretful, Stella is unwilling to take on anyone else’s burden.

  “Look,” she says, because she’s not entirely a vicious bag of dicks about this sort of thing, “your wife will never know.”

  “I’ll know.”

  “Then maybe it will teach you something,” Stella says, too harsh. “Happy people don’t cheat. Trust me, I know.”

  He nods after a moment. “No. I guess they don’t.”

  “She’s fucking around on you. Isn’t she?”

  He nods again, and she thinks now’s the time for him to cut his gaze from hers, but he doesn’t. “Yeah. I think so.”

  “This won’t change any of that.” Damn, her feet hurt. She wants to get out of her heels and this dress and this wig. Wash away the makeup under a hot shower and crawl into the big, soft bed with its crisp white sheets and sleep until her alarm wakes her in time for a leisurely breakfast...alone...and then her plane ride home.

  “But the next time she accuses me, I won’t be able to say it’s not true. Not without lying.”

  Stella’s eyebrows go up again. “And?”

  “And nothing, I guess.” Truax frowns.

  Stella sighs. “I’m going to head out. It’s late and I’m tired. You get some sleep, okay?”

  He doesn’t answer her.

  Stella gathers her things. At the door, she looks back at him, knowing she should feel pity even if he doesn’t want it, and unable to find any. Something’s cold in her. And broken. But it’s her own fault, she supposes, for picking men she knows are already damaged because it feels easier to justify breaking them.

  “Good night,” she says, waiting for him to answer.

  He doesn’t.

  * * *

  She’s not sur
prised the next day when Truax is the pilot on her flight back to Harrisburg. She’s not even surprised when he doesn’t say a word to her as she boards, and it’s not because she’s not traveling as a blonde. She is surprised, though, when he won’t even look at her. It shouldn’t sting her, but somehow it does.

  She should’ve known better, Stella thinks, as she settles into her seat for the swift trip home, than to fly with someone she knew she’d have to see again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Didn’t your dad say he’d be here by eight? Or do I have to drop you off?” Stella’s phone buzzed in her pocket as she turned from the suitcase she was unsuccessfully trying to pack with everything she’d need for a week away from home. She’d been offered the chance to take a weeklong seminar on advanced Photoshop techniques in Chicago on the company dime, and she was taking it. She ignored the buzz. No time for a call right now.

  “He’ll pick me up.”

  Something in Tristan’s tone made Stella look at him. He lounged in the doorway, headphones around his neck, a bottle of soda in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. She straightened.

  “What time?” she asked.

  Tristan shrugged. Stella looked at the clock. Her flight wasn’t until tomorrow morning, but it left at the ungodly hour of 4:30 a.m., and it was inching on toward 9:00 p.m. at this point. It wasn’t unheard of for Jeff to be late, of course, but something in Tristan’s shifty gaze tipped her off to something going on.

  “Tristan.”

  He scowled. “I’m going there after school tomorrow. Okay? Not tonight.”

  Stella scrubbed at her eyes, behind which a steady pressure had been building for an hour. “Why?”