Page 30 of Misadventures With My Fake Fiancé

One song in, I didn't think I was going to make it. My morals were being sorely tried by the liquor and Mike's dominating grip on me. Sweat pricked my skin, I knew my cheeks were flushed and heated. There was no doubt he could feel the hard tips of my nipples pressed against him. I'd become scorchingly aroused and when I felt vibrations right...there?—

“Holy shit,” I panted, my forehead thudding against Mike's hard chest. Was that a vibrator in his pocket? If I could practically have an orgasm on the dance floor, I didn't think I'd survive if he ever got in my pants again.

I moved against him and it happened again. I felt the sensation zip through me from head to toe. My heart pounded and a soft moan escaped my lips. Mike leaned down, his breath hot on my ear, his lips lingering there. Did he know such a little spot could drive me crazy?

“Like that?” His voice was low so only I could hear. Dark.

I nodded my head shamelessly. He shifted me back a few inches, reached into his jeans pocket.

He pulled out his cell and smirked.

Oh, God. I was officially a hussy.

He read a text, his grin dissolved. “Shit, we have to go get someone at the airport.”

“Now?”

“Have other plans, babe?”

He winked.

I rolled my eyes. Damn him and his sex toy phone. The plan was to be angry and avoid him at all costs. Now, all I wanted to do was climb him like the nympho I appeared to be and use him for my pleasure. Maybe I could use him and lose him. It would serve him right. I had a feeling though, that once wasn't going to be enough. “Now?” I repeated.

Mike looked at the watch on his wrist. One of the only men I knew who used a watch and had a phone. “Soon.”

“Who?”

“My mom doesn't say.”

“How dowe know who we're waiting for?” I asked.

We were back to the familiar baggage claim area of the Anchorage airport. My ardor had cooled substantially once I was separated from Mike's thigh and cell phone. The same canned voice from the night before prompted me to hold on to my luggage, the same stuffed bear gave me the beady eye. I was just as tired as the night before, but this time, I was well on my way to drunk on top of it. It was still light out after midnight and my body was completely confused.

“Do we even know where the person is coming from?”

Mike looked up at the Arrivals monitor hanging from the ceiling nearby. “Either Dutch Harbor, Nome, Denver or LA.”

“I have no idea where Dutch Harbor is and I doubt either of us—or your mom—knows anyone in Nome. I guess we can narrow it down to the lower forty-eight.” I glanced at the digital time display on the Arrival monitor, inpatient to pick up the mystery person so I could fall asleep, or pass out, whicheverhappened first. Through my sloshy brain, I had a moment of clarity. “Oh, my God. I just figured it out.”

A family pushing two luggage carts and two screaming kids rolled by. Mike eyed me, his hands tucked into his jeans pockets. Waiting. “What?”

“Why Zach put his gnome in my suitcase.”

“And?”

“Nome, Alaska. I bet he thought George was from there and wanted him to go home to see his family or something.”

Mike's mouth tipped up at the corner. “The boy can't spell, but he's certainly imaginative.”

I wasn't the best speller in the world so I wasn't going to hold it against a little kid. I thought it was great. “He's seven.”

“Are we watching, then, for gnomes coming in from Nome? Think they're claiming baggage?”

“They'd fit in the clown car better than we do.” The whole thing was funny. In a seven-year-old sort of way. No grown up would have been creative thinking enough to even consider a gnome from Nome. I needed to text Jane about George, but glancing again at the clock, decided it was too late for tonight. Especially since Montana was two hours ahead.

We stood idly by for five minutes watching arriving passengers before I gave up and slumped down in the nearest seat. Weary travelers, either from the late hour or from the screaming children who disembarked with them, made their way to the luggage carousels. There seemed to be something about late nights at the airport and screaming children.

No familiar faces.

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