Page 44 of The Heiress

“No, it’s me.” She leans back. “But you can pray if you want.”

I shoot her a half-hearted glare, then glance toward the cabin door. “Are we alone up here?”

“Totally. Just us, a busy pilot, and the weight of your family’s disappointment. What do you say we make this jet ours?”

“You are not seriously trying to mile-high me right now.”

“Oh, but I am.”

Something inside me – something feral, feminine, and furious – doesn’t want to push her away. It wants to dive deep into her dark eyes and remember last night, when she got on top of me and rubbed herself all over my back, my hips, mysoul.Maybe this is infatuation, you know? Maybe I’ll regret this in a year. But…

That same something inside of me remembers how Cristiano’s name sounded like a brand being forced on me. Something that remembers my mom scouring all of Italy for someone “good enough” for her baby girl. My father… thinking he can keep me being a girl for twenty more years.

Something that burns with the need to take all of that back and say,This is mine. This is who I am. This is who I choose.

I straddle Lorde’s lap with a breath that almost won’t leave my lungs. Her arms come around me, hands settling on my waist, possessive but reverent. She leans up, lips on mine, and for once she doesn’t joke.

“You sure?” she asks.

“I want to take my life back.”

Her lips crash into mine with all the hunger I’ve come to love. We kiss like the plane’s going down. My hands are tangled in her hair, hers slipping beneath my blouse. I gasp when her fingers find bare skin.

“How the hell are you always this warm?” I tease.

“Sexual tension,” she groans, kissing me back. “And pent-up devotion.”

I laugh, breathless. “That sounds fake.”

“Shh. Let me worship my future wife.”

I melt into her. There’s no space between us. My hips grind down instinctively, rolling against her thigh. Her hands slidebeneath my skirt, tugging my undies aside with ease. She growls against my mouth as her finger slides inside of me.

“Yes,” I whisper, body clenching around her. “God, yes.”

We move in sync. For a second, it’s pure bliss.

I ride her fingers slowly at first, savoring the way she moves. She kisses down my neck, murmuring things I can’t even process, justpossession. My shirt slips from my shoulders, bra undone in a blink. Her mouth finds my nipple and I moan, head falling back as I almost lose my balance.

I forget about the plane. Vegas. My last name. Who I fucking am.

All that exists is her. And me.Us.

It builds too fast. I try to hold back, to stretch the moment out, but she knows exactly how to wreck me. Her thumb finds my clit and it’s over. I come, hard, grabbing her hair and gasping her name.

She holds me through it, stroking my back, kissing my temple. When I finally slump against her, she blows hot breath against my ear.

“Daisy DeMonte,” she whispers, “you are the hottest, most daring girl I’ve ever met.”

“Shut up.”

“I mean it. You should hijack private jets more often. It’s totally your brand.”

We stay tangled together for a while, wrapped in this strange cocoon thirty thousand feet above our old lives.

“What if I call my mom tomorrow and she tells me she’s cutting me off?”

“Then I guess we live off our trust funds and praymymom is more understanding.”

---