Page 54 of Frequency of Attraction

She’d do anything for him when he looked like sex and gratitude. “What’s that?”

“Do something fun. Be a tourist.”

She laughed. “Seriously?” He’d remembered that she’d said she never traveled for fun.

“Yes.”

“What do you suggest? Are you a beach, café, or museum guy?”

“All of the above. But go to the beach. In a bikini. Leave your phone in the hotel, but send me a picture first.”

She snorted. “I’ll try. My phone is attached to my body, and I don’t do bikinis.”

“Shame,” he purred. “Or not. Maybe I want your body all to myself.”

She felt his voice on her skin, and that unspoken promise in her heart. “You want it, it’s yours,” she whispered, and she meant much more than just her body. She’d already given Vadim every part of her. He just didn’t know it yet.

26

The desert below him was a uniform shade of brown, broken by sinuous roads and grids of solar arrays. Some reddish hills, like where Quinn lived, and bulldozed tracts for businesses broke up the monotony. Except for the occasional surprise condition from Harv, the flight had so far been uneventful.

Vadim could easily log two hundred hours like this. He could fly forever.

Except Quinn would be arriving home from Cannes that night. He didn’t know what he felt for her, but he knew he needed to see her. He knew he wanted more.

“Baranov.” Harv’s voice came through his headset.

“Harvey?”

“You’re not listening. It’s time to RTB. Bring us in.”

“You’ve been pretty easy on me today. You got something planned?”

“Guess we’ll find out,” his copilot answered.

Vadim forced his concentration away from the uncharted territory of more than sex with Quinn and instead toward the strip of runway thousands of meters below him. The plane preferred to be in the air and was difficult to handle closer to the ground. He’d noticed that on his first two flights. This day was no different. He pushed gently through the shuddering like he’d done before and dropped the landing gear. A sudden crosswind buffeted them to the side, sending the wings into oscillations.Vadim pushed the control stick side to side to stop the vibrating wings, but he pushed too hard. He felt his mistake immediately. They pitched sideways, the runway now to their side instead of under their feet. Adrenaline ricocheted through his system as he tried to get them horizontal to the ground again. He heard shouting in his headset, both from Harv and Thomas, who was watching from base. In seconds, the plane could flip and they’d both be dead.

“I’ve got the controls. Going around,” Harv said in his ears. Vadim felt Harvey try to take the controls from him from the backseat.

“I’ve got this, Harv.”

The plane wobbled between the two of them.

“What the fuck, Baranov? Give Harv the controls. That’s an order.” That was Thomas in a clear rage. He’d forgotten he wasn’t in the military anymore.

“Release the controls now, Vadim!”

He’d never heard Harv sound so angry. Ignoring him, Vadim pulled up and added engine throttle, banking farther to the side in the attempt. Harv swore loudly and let go. It was ugly. He knew it would look like they were teetering on the verge of crashing.

He brought them farther into the sky, preparing his defensive arguments. Autonomy and troubleshooting were essential skills for an astronaut. They needed to let him practice both when shit actually went wrong.

He could feel Harv’s seething silence from the back seat as Vadim brought them around for a second landing attempt. The pathway to the ground looked free and clear, but he knew it wouldn’t be. In the air, just because you couldn’t see the problem didn’t mean it wasn’t there. His pulse hammered in his neck.

“You two were the ones who told me I needed practice,” Vadim said to Harv and Thomas. They’d been silent for a few minutes, likely for his concentration. “I got out of the condition.”

Cursing and static caused a cacophony in his ears. “Nearly at the expense of your lives and my goddamn plane. You’re done for the day. You might be done period. Land that aircraft and get your ass back to base. Now.”

Vadim went through the landing maneuvers again and handled the rough crosswind without incident. He didn’t even break a sweat, though his stomach somersaulted in sickening loops. Thomas could not seriously mean that his job was in jeopardy. He’d handled the real-life condition, for fuck’s sake. Wasn’t that his true job?

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