Page 7 of Stick Work

I glance at my watch. Dammit, shouldn’t she be back by now?

I head to the lavatory, finding the Occupied sign glowing red. I knock softly on the door. “Taylor? You okay in there?”

Her muffled voice carries through the door. “I… ugh.”

Before I can ask, the door unlocks and swings open. She’s standing there, her face a mix of frustration and embarrassment. “What’s wrong?” I ask.

“I dropped my lip balm,” she mutters, gesturing inside. “It’s on the floor, but every time I try to grab it, it rolls.”

I bite back a laugh, stepping closer. “Step out, and I’ll get it for you.”

She moves toward me, but as she does, the plane gives an unexpected jolt. She turns, stumbles back, her hand reaching for the sink to steady herself, only for me to lose my balance and stumble in after her. With the tight quarters working against us, the door snaps shut behind us, sealing us in the small space.

“Shit,” I mutter, trying to regain my footing. But there’s no room to maneuver, and I’m pressed against her back, my chest to her shoulders, my hips against hers.

She freezes, her breath hitching. “Um… I think we’re stuck,” she whispers, her voice barely audible over the hum of the engines.

“Stop moving,” I growl, my voice rougher than I intend as the heat of her body sinks into mine. Her squirming is doing things to me—dangerous things.

To my cock.

“Um, did you find my lip balm?” she asks innocently, her tone laced with awkward humor.

Is she seriously asking me that right now?

“No,” I grind out, my voice thick with tension. “That’s not—” I bite back the rest, knowing I’m not about to explain what’s going on in my pants. “We need to get out of here.”

She glances at me in the mirror, her eyes locking with mine, wide and uncertain. The tension between us crackles like a live wire, her curves pressed against me in a way that sends my pulse into overdrive.

“I think…” My voice drops further as my hands find her hips, gripping instinctively. “You need to…flip over.”

Her lips part, her breath catching, and for a moment, neither of us moves. Has her brain gone in the same direction as mine? I don’t know, but the space suddenly feels impossibly smaller, the air ridiculously thicker, as if the plane itself is conspiring to trap us in this dangerous, electric moment.

Then she smirks, breaking the tension with a laugh. “All this for a lip balm?”

I groan, shaking my head as I try to steady my breathing. “I’ll buy you a million tubes when we land. Just…ugh, just hold still,” I mutter, knowing full well this moment is about to become a story neither of us would forget anytime soon—especially if the media got a hold of it. But I can’t let that happen. In fact, when it comes to Taylor and me, I can’t let anything happen. But that doesn’t mean this encounter isn’t going to plague my dreams all weekend.

Things are really looking up, dude.

As that sarcastic inner voice mocks me, I glance down at my crotch. Yeah, things are really looking up, in more ways than one.

3

Taylor

Flip over.

Good God. Here we are, sitting in the back seat of an Uber, on the way to his parents’ place in Sacramento, and those two words are still banging around in my head.

Don’t think about banging.

But I am. I am thinking about banging, and my body is warming in all the wrong places, or rather, all the right places. God, what was I thinking? I’m not going to make it through this weekend alive.

“Almost there,” Elias confirms, pulling my thoughts back and I turn to him and plaster on my best smile, all while my brain is picturing him saying those words to me in the bedroom. Honestly, I’m not at all experienced. It’s embarrassing, really. What guy would touch me with my looming brother ready to pounce? I’ve hit ‘bases’ before—although that asshole from my senior year was quick to point out I sucked at oral sex—but I’ve never gone all the way. Sure, I might act like I do, like I have tons of sexual knowledge, but when it comes right down to it, what do I really know about ‘flipping over’? Only what I’ve read in the romance novels tucked into my nightstand.

I’ve wanted to join the WAGs book club, but with my studies and plays I can’t read fast enough. That doesn’t mean I don’t read romance novels at my leisure though, or that I don’t want to try out all the things on the pages.

“I’m okay,” I croak out.

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