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  She’d just lose it in front of me, my friends, and a few Gibraltar flight attendants hitching a ride across the pond.

  I looked at my watch. “Time to head to the gate. Wish me luck.”

  Samantha flicked a little wave. “Good luck, Dev. Hope everything goes well for your nervous flyer. Maybe feed her some drinks?”

  “Worst idea ever.”

  Fort, Juliet, and I left the Galileo lounge, rolling our carry-ons behind us. Flying on a charter was more leisurely than flying commercial. It was still important to be on time, but the plane wouldn’t take off without you, and you wouldn’t be bounced from the flight if you were too far back in the boarding line.

  Fort and Juliet held hands as they walked, exuding a sexed-up glow. They’d doubtless been going at it non-stop in the Tuscan countryside. The only sex I’d gotten during this trip was stroking a blindfolded submissive’s pussy during a BDSM gangbang, although that had been pretty damn arousing. I’d have to tell Fort and Juliet about it at some point, but probably not in front of the scientist I was supposed to help.

  When we got to the gate, one of the pilots greeted me. He was standing beside a woman I thought I’d never see again.

  No.

  No, not possible.

  What the fuck? It was as if my memory of the Via Sofferenza scene had summoned her. The wavy blonde hair was the same, the full lips, the awesome tits, but she was clothed, and her eyes obscured by scholarly, black-framed glasses instead of a blindfold.

  “Captain Kincaid,” the older pilot said. “This is our guest for the flight, Dr. Ella Novatny.”

  The woman from the dungeon—the theoretical astrophysicist?—looked at me and offered her hand. I forced a smile through my shock, and summoned my airline captain’s voice. “Nice to meet you,” I said, pretending I’d never laid eyes on her before.

  She blinked at me, and I could see her panic, her worry. Not that she recognized me, although she did hold my gaze a little longer than normal. I noted that her eyes were blue, so blue. They were the one part of her I couldn’t see last night. Everything else had been naked, exposed, offered, reddened, marked…

  Yes, it’s definitely you, you horny little masochist. I recognize you, even with those brainy glasses.

  Captain Ross turned and patted Ella on the back. He was a veteran of Gibraltar Air with a flawless record. “You shouldn’t be nervous,” I told her. “You’ve got the best pilot in the business flying you over to New York.”

  “Oh, ho, ho.” With his graying beard, Ross looked like an airline Santa Claus. “And you have to put your trust in Captain Kincaid here, Dr. Novatny. He’ll help you relax and tell you what’s what while we’re flying. Before you know it, we’ll be touching down at Kennedy International.”

  Dr. Novatny—oh God, it’s her—listened to our banter with her shoulders hunched, her back to the sweeping glass walls and air traffic outside.

  “Well,” said Captain Ross. “I’m off to do the preflight routine. The second officer and I will go over every list twice, just for you, doctor.”

  He’s making a list, and checking it twice… How had I never noticed how much Ross looked like Santa? This whole encounter felt more and more like a farce. I’d slapped Dr. Novatny’s tits and whispered filthy things in her ear last night. She’d moaned and shuddered as I molested her…and I didn’t think she knew.

  Now here we stood, pilot and nervous flyer. She turned to look out the window, her pale face drawn. I felt stressed as fuck, too. Did I tell her that I’d been there last night? That I’d touched her?

  Hell no. How could I even start a conversation like that? But not telling her felt deceptive and shitty.

  My friends chose that moment to join us. My thoughts flailed, trying to process the coincidence. Dr. Ella Novatny. I’d expected some old, frumpy, college-professor type. Even with the glasses, Ella looked too beautiful to be a scientist. Was it sexist to say that? Her eyes were blue like mine, but more oval-shaped, slanting at the corners. Her features were delicate. Lickable. At close quarters, her lips were a crime. I noted some pale freckles, dusty and scattered.

  She looked on the verge of falling apart.

  “Let me introduce my friends,” I said, turning and pulling them forward. “This is Fort St. Clair and his girlfriend Juliet Pope, and my first name is Dev. Well, Devin. Feel free to call me that. Or Dev. Or whatever.”

  Fort gave me a strange look. I wasn’t normally one to blather around women. They greeted one another and then looked back at me. I didn’t notice the silence for a moment. No, I was staring at the masochistic sub from Via Sofferenza, trying to picture her in an astrophysics lab. Nope. All I could picture was her spread-eagled, nearly nude body, and her blindfold and gag.

  No. Not a good thing to think about at this moment. Fort patted my shoulder. “All right, man. Juliet and I are boarding. We’ll save you two some seats.” He nodded at Ella with a sincere smile, then gave me one that was much more snarky. He suspected I had a hard-on for her, because he knew my thing about busty blondes. If Fort knew about our actual history…

  “I guess we should board too,” I said, pushing away the memories and forcing myself to focus on her face rather than her chest. “Can I carry your bag?” I hoped my brisk, relaxed manner seemed natural.

  Ella shot another glance out the window. Across the tarmac, a large plane swept in for a landing and she turned her back to it, fidgeting with her glasses. “I know the statistics about flight safety. I know I shouldn’t be afraid.”

  “Of course not. Everything’s going to be fine.” I leaned closer, nearly as close as I’d been to her in the dungeon. “If you have any questions or concerns, I’ll be sitting right beside you to answer them.”

  She took a deep breath, studying me, a glint of a question in her eyes. Did she remember me after all? Had she recognized my voice? No, she was only anxious, looking for reassurance. I wondered how someone so intelligent could be afraid of flying. It was pure science: lift, weight, thrust, and drag. I’d be happy to explain it to her when we took off, if we took off. She didn’t move toward the jet way. Her hands opened and closed on her carry-on’s handle.

  “How can I help you?” I asked. “What questions or concerns can I address for you right now?”

  “I don’t… It’s just…” She took a shuddering breath. “I really need to get to New York.”

  “Don’t worry. You will.”

  The fact that I’d spanked this woman’s ass last night didn’t register, only her trembling. She was so afraid. I could see it in her pallid complexion, her tight lips. “We need to leave now,” I said. “Are you ready?”

  She turned from me and buried her face in her hands. I stared at her glossy, thick curls, imagined threading my fingers in them and dragging her onto the plane with my lips at her ear, whispering graphic, erotic threats. Would she like that? Definitely.

  But it wouldn’t look very professional to everyone else.

  “We really do need to go,” I said, sympathetically, but firmly. “The airport in New York will be expecting us at a certain time.”

  “Okay. I’m going to get on the plane, but this is really, really hard. I’m really scared right now.”

  “Did something happen?” I asked. “Something on some other flight?”

  “No.” She was practically in tears. “That’s why this is so ridiculous. I’ve never had anything happen while I’m flying. But what if something does? It’ll be so…catastrophic.”

  “You’ll know if something goes wrong, because you’ll see it in my face. That’s why we’re flying together. You can trust me to be honest with you. And I honestly promise that we’ll arrive in New York without a scratch on either of us. I travel thousands of miles a year by plane, and nothing’s ever happened to me, so I would know.”

  Her eyes searched mine. Deep, rich blue, like photos of the earth’s oceans taken from outer space. Fuck. I had to get her on the plane.

  “I don’t even want to go,” she burst out. “I wanted to decline the job in New York, but I can’t. I mean, it’s groundbreaking work, but… This morning, I just…”

  “I think you want to go,” I said, cutting her off. “You’re here, aren’t you?” I kept my voice light. “Come on. You’ve got to see the inside of the plane. The first class compartment is a beauty.”

  She turned toward the boarding door. Progress.

  “So, you know how to fly this kind of plane?” she asked. “In case something goes wrong?”

  “Well, there’s already a pilot and a co-pilot, who’s also called the first officer—”

  “But do you know how to fly it?”

  “Yes, I do.” I grinned at her, reining in my upstate accent. “I can fly anything with wings. I used to be in the Air Force. I can also land anything,” I added, when she opened her mouth to speak again. “Not that I’ll have to. I know these pilots, and they’re great at their jobs. Everything will be fine.”

  I sharpened my gaze to prevent her from chickening out and backing away. An airline agent beckoned us from the door.

  “If you’re ready, Dr. Novatny?” I said, trying to guide her that way.

  “I guess we have to leave on time, right?” She was trembling. “I mean, otherwise, we might crash into another plane because we’ve messed up the flight patterns.”

  “That would never happen. Air travel is exceptionally safe. There are backup systems on top of auxiliary systems on top of redundant systems. Seriously, the safety precautions are crazy. You were in more danger traveling here in your car.”

  “I took a cab.”

  “My point stands.”

  She hung back, still arguing her points. “Between a car and a plane, a car crash is more survivable. I have more chance of surviving in a car if…if something goes wrong. Because things can go wrong.”

  I heard the scientist in her voice, the scholar who researched and crunched numbers, and considered possibilities. Even in faded leggings and a loose blue sweater, she came off sharp. Her wide eyes blinked. Her lips tensed, revealing a flash of white teeth. Ah, those nerd glasses, and hardly any makeup. She didn’t need it. Hell, she was even beautiful in a ball gag.

  Get her on the plane, asshole. Forget the other shit right now.

  “Nothing’s going to go wrong,” I said in my Dom voice, even though we were in an airport rather than a dungeon. Authority was authority. She was under my protection for the next few hours, and I wanted her to feel secure. I was pretty good at helping women feel secure while their world fell into disarray and danger, while they flailed and panicked, and wished they could use a safe word.

  Ella and I wouldn’t have a safe word, but I was still going to get her important scientific brain to New York so she could do her groundbreaking astrophysicist thing.

  “Let’s do this together, Ella, you and me,” I said. “One foot in front of the other. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Three: Ella

  Devin Kincaid. That was his name, the man who’d whispered in my ear at Via Sofferenza. My body was sure of it, although my mind rebelled, because, while I’d been blindfolded, he wasn’t. If I recognized him by his voice and his body’s presence, he certainly recognized me, as much as he was trying to hide it. He knew it was me.

  And I couldn’t deal with that right now, because I had to get on the plane. I couldn’t get caught up in the fact that the man who’d stroked and spanked me at Via Sofferenza was the flight therapist offered by Gibraltar Airlines to get me where I needed to go, the place I didn’t really want to go. God, I was a thirty year old doctor and professional, and a highly respected figure in the field of theoretical astrophysics. Why was my life spiraling this way?

  Memories of our erotic interaction warred with panic as Devin and I started down the accordion-style jet way to the plane. At the end of the tunnel was a door where I’d have to step into the darkened tube of metal and rivets that would carry me high into the sky. Too high. He touched my back, a small nudge, but any contact brought too many feelings.

  “Go on,” he said. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  I crossed over the threshold of the plane. One step. Two steps. You can do this. You have to do this.

  The plane was bigger than I thought, but not big enough to calm my fears. This aircraft had to make it all the way across a huge ocean, and it didn’t look big enough to do that. Or maybe I was just a mess. No more anxiety meds, my doctor had said, after my bad reaction flying to Italy. You need to use a flight therapist. That was two years ago, and I hadn’t flown since. But now…

  I had to get to New York. Dr. Leopold Mann had summoned me to the NSF’s new astrophysics consortium, where the United States’ greatest science minds were converging to explore gravitational waves. I’d been perfectly happy doing that work in Europe, and refused his invitation when he first offered it. Leo and I had such a sticky history, after all.

  Then he’d sent the photos and videos.

  It’s hard enough for a woman in science, he’d written, attaching new photos in every email. How many had he taken during our six-month relationship? And why had I let him do it? Because I was young and stupid, and he was skilled at manipulating a young masochist’s emotions. If you don’t come to New York, everyone in our field will see these photos.

  Leo left me no choice. He was making me get on an airplane, damn him, and that was the worst thing of all, at least in this moment. Gravitational science, professional rivalry, even blackmail, all of that made sense to me. My fear of flying did not.

  As soon as we boarded, Devin introduced me to the other pilot in the cockpit, a smiling Indian woman with a long last name. Then, to distract me, he introduced me to all the off-duty flight attendants coming along for the ride. I didn’t remember any of their names. I was too unsettled by my glimpse at the vast bank of levers, switches, and electronic lights that made up the cockpit. So many controls and flashing lights. So many things to go wrong.

  The plane was big enough for two hundred passengers, but ninety percent of the seats were empty. Devin led me to a first class row across from his friends. I’d already forgotten their names too, because my mind was preoccupied with silent panicking and my possible violent, fiery death.

  “Do you want the window or aisle?” he asked.

  “Aisle.” No way was I sitting next to a Plexiglas hole carved from the fuselage of a plane.

  “Are you sure? You’ll have a nice view, at least until we fly over the ocean.” He looked at his watch. “Won’t be dark for a few hours yet.”

  I shivered. “No, the aisle’s fine.”

  He moved past me and folded his tall frame into the window seat. I swallowed, distracted from my anxiety for a moment by his physical presence. His navy blue sweater hugged boxer-like shoulders, and his jeans showed off well-muscled thighs. His hair was short and blond, framing a broad, handsome face with model-worthy features.

  Oh God. This scarily perfect man had played with me during the scene at Via Sofferenza. I remembered what he’d whispered about not gagging me. I’d keep your mouth clear and open. I’d stick my cock in it all day. He’d said something else in his smooth American accent, something about me being a good fucking girl. Out of all the deviant whispers, his had affected me the most. It wasn’t just that his words were in English rather than Italian. It was the note of aggression in his tone. I could feel that same aggression in his fingers when he touched me over my panties.

  A pilot…and a pervert. One percent of me still hoped I was mistaken, that he wasn’t the man who’d whispered If you were mine… I guessed he was a few years older than me, maybe late thirties. He had that seasoned, lady-killer aura about him, and his lips, his voice…

  God, it was definitely him. He glanced over at me and I looked away, but I could see in that fleeting eye contact that he felt as uncomfortable as I did. A blush heated my cheeks and I turned my attention to buckling my seat belt. When the plane started its death spiral toward the earth, it would at least keep me from bouncing around the cabin like a ping-pong ball. My fingers shook too badly to thread the latch, so Devin reached over me to do it.

  “Like this,” he said, like I couldn’t do something as simple as buckle a seat belt. Maybe I couldn’t. God, his hands were so big.

  No. Don’t think about his hands, or the way he fingered you, or any of the fantasies you had about him as you were falling asleep last night. I clasped my hands in my lap and tried to take deep, long breaths. It was that, or run off the plane screaming.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “No, not really.”

  “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  He kept saying that, everyone kept saying that, but it was hard for me to believe. I had no reason to be afraid of flying, had never been in a crash or even a hard landing. That’s what made my phobia so difficult to treat: there was no basis for my paranoid beliefs. Scientists were known for their rationality, but the science I studied dealt in theory and mutability, and the inexplicable vastness of space. Theories were proposed and, most of the time in my field, discarded or disproved. I didn’t take anything on evidence, including air-safety statistics.

  Plus, it wasn’t natural for a human to be lifted so far off the ground. Birds were designed to fly. People weren’t. One of the flight attendants smiled at me and swung the door of the plane shut, locking it. Oh God, this was it. Okay. I was going to be fine.

  Devin shifted beside me. “Comfortable?” he asked.

  “Not. Really.”

  “Would you like a drink to take the edge off? Gibraltar serves premium vodka in first class.”

  “No. Thanks.”

  I couldn’t seem to say more than one word at a time, although my mind was racing. The engine revved and I heard a series of bumps. A whimper escaped my lips.

  “That’s just the jet way disengaging,” he said in a low, soothing voice. The air from the vent above me paused, and the lights flickered. “And that’s the APU powering down. This is perfectly normal pre-flight activity.”

  I nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”

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