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Although I definitely perked up at bedroom.

Soon enough, we were trundling down the runway. The world smearing a bit as we picked up speed. I’d once mentioned to my friend Nik that I had no idea how planes went from being on the ground to being in the air. So he’d told me. The bastard. And that had taken some of the fun out of it. But this was still my favorite part of flying: the moment just before takeoff, when what was about to happen seemed absolutely impossible.

I loved the tilty feeling in my stomach, the instinct to hold my breath. The way you could sort of sense somehow, in the responses of your own body, the unimaginable, unbelievable grace of all that metal.

“Are you all right?” Caspian asked. “You aren’t afraid?”

“You know, maybe you should have checked before we got on the plane.” He looked so horrified that I took pity on him. “I’m fine. It’s just…I’m not used to this literally high-flying lifestyle.”

There was a slightly weird pause.

And I found myself almost wishing we were back in the relative normality of a hired hatchback, or in my family’s home, where we’d found this…I didn’t know what to call it…this ease. This burgeoning sense of an us.

I’d liked being so close to him. Having so much of his attention. And I’d liked the secretive parts of himself he’d seemed willing to share with me—things I’d previously only glimpsed, or suspected, or hoped for. The Caspian Hart who played chess. Who was antisocially competitive. Who washed the dishes. Tickled my feet.

Right now, though, he was nowhere to be seen.

The man sitting on the sofa in his private jet seemed so far out of my league as to belong to an entirely different sport.

He crooked a finger at me and I shuddered with a kind of fearful longing. “Come here, Arden.”

He said it softly but there was no doubt that it was a command.

And I suddenly remembered that I loved this side of him too. That it was all part of him: the playfulness and the arrogance, the kindness and the cruelty. That he wasn’t really remote at all, if you knew how to reach him.

If you weren’t afraid.

I found myself eyeing the expanse of carpet between us, filled with the oddest compulsion to crawl.

I imagined the rub of the fibers beneath my palms. The ache in my knees. The way he would watch me, the hunger flaring in his eyes. And when I got to him I would push his legs apart and—

Oh, fuck imagining.

I slid off my chair and dropped to the floor. Making sure to arch my back, raise my arse, bowing my body in supplication. Invitation.

Caspian’s reaction was way better than any fantasy. The gasp he uttered sounded almost shocked. And, God, the look on his face. Desire and this terrifying gratitude. As if I’d given him something wonderful.

Maybe it should have been humiliating. Crawling to someone’s feet. But, honestly, I felt sexy as hell. Very aware of myself: the roll of my shoulders, the curve of my spine, the shapes I could make, sensuous and brazen and all for him.

Caspian was shaking when I got there. His head thrown back, lips damp and parted to admit his harsh, unsteady breaths.

I rubbed my cheek against the inside of his knee, then up a little higher. The denim was rough but he was hot, hot, hot underneath. And he smelled amazing. Not a trace of cologne left. Just his skin and the promise of sex.

Before I could get much further, his hands closed around my upper arms and he yanked me into his lap. His mouth was frantic against mine. His passion unrestrained to the point of need. Making me squirm and whimper and surrender. Leaving me bruised and breathless and dizzy on pleasure.

He shoved a hand into my hair, pulling hard enough to melt me. “Tell me again. What are you, Arden?”

“I’m a…I’m a slut.”

“No, you’re not.” He pulled harder. Pain this time, but so good, so sweet.

I moaned helplessly, confused and blissed out and sensation lost. “I’m not?”

“You’re my slut.”

I garbled something along the lines of yesyesyesoyesplease.

“And what happens to my slut?”