He smiled at the boots.

“If you laugh at me, I-”

“I’m not laughing at you,” he said, rising to his full height with easy grace, and he was right. That was definitely not laughter in his eyes, but something that nearly singed her skin.

“You look beautiful,” he said with such simplistic candor that it rendered her speechless.

“You shouldn’t do that,” she finally managed. “You shouldn’t use sweet words like that. Act like my company means something to you. Like you want-” She cut herself off from saying “more.” “Not if you want me to remember what this is between us.” And what it isn’t.

He looked at her for a long moment. “Nothing was set in stone,” he said softly, and boarded the chopper.

Twelve

L eft standing alone, Lilah looked upward. Blue sky, not a single cloud. Of all the times not to have a summer storm on the horizon.

There was a very slight breeze but definitely not the monsoon she could use right about now.

Do it, she told herself. Get on, or you’ll regret it. So with that little pep talk out of the way, she took a deep breath and boarded. Oh God. She white-knuckled herself into the seat next to Brady, ignoring him watching her. “Let’s get this over with,” she said.

“You do realize it’s supposed to be fun,” he said, handing her a headset so that they could communicate over the noise while in the air.

She decided there wasn’t a polite response to that so she went the route of Thumper’s mother and said nothing at all.

He laughed, the sound soft and sexy, and reached over to squeeze her hand with his. “Don’t worry,” he said, flipping switches on the instrument panel in front of him. “I’ve seen a guy do this once or twice.”

“Oh God.” She closed her eyes.

“Are you going to look at all?”

It was weird, hearing him both in her headset and also outside of it. Brady, in stereo. “I don’t know yet.”

She felt more than saw him shake his head. “Here we go,” he warned a minute later.

The roar of the engine, the rotation of the blades, the sheer terror of the sensation of going straight up into the air had her gripping the arms of her seat so tight her fingers went numb. She forced herself to breathe, but nothing could make her look as her stomach landed in her toes at that weightless feeling as they got air.

“You breathing over there?” he asked.

“Yes.” Barely. “And don’t talk to me. Fly the helicopter!”

“I can do both. Open your eyes.”

“You’re awfully demanding.”

“Yes, and as I recall, you like that. Now, Lilah.”

She sighed and opened her eyes, finding that they were very high off the ground. She’d had no idea how it would feel, but it looked as though there were nothing directly below her. All she could see was straight through the glass, which meant everything in front and around her. She gulped at the mix of vulnerability and excitement and studied her pilot.

His sunglasses were silver mirrored frames and gave nothing of his thoughts away. Though piloting a helicopter appeared to take all his limbs-both his hands and his feet were occupied-he was completely in control, aware of everything going on around them: the sky, the instruments, the ground, her. Her eyes were drawn time and time again to those hands, those long fingers moving precisely and surely, in perfect control, just like when they’d been in his bed and he’d handled her much in the same way he was handling instruments…

Turning his head, he met her gaze, the very corners of his mouth barely tilting up. “You okay?”

No. “Yes.” He was far too sexy. She needed a distraction for herself. “If you don’t have a home base anywhere,” she said, “where do you keep all your stuff?”

He went brows up. “Where did that question come from?”

“It was either that or ‘Are we there yet?’”

That got her an almost smile. “I don’t tend to keep much stuff.”

“Why not?”

“Is that your favorite question, ‘why’?”

“Yes. Right after ‘Are the donuts two for one today?’”

He laughed. “The why is simple. My life hasn’t really been my own for years now. When and if that changes, I’ll figure out where ‘home base’ is.”

“But why isn’t your life your own?”

The chopper dipped and she gasped and grabbed the armrests on either side of her hips. “What was that?”

“A pocket of air.” Utterly unconcerned, he made an adjustment to the instruments. “I’ll take us up a bit higher for a smoother ride.”

Oh God. They were going even higher. Be Amelia Ear-hart, she told herself, but it didn’t work. Maybe because things hadn’t ended so well for Amelia. Choosing not to think on that too deeply, she pulled out her cell phone.

“You won’t have reception up here,” he said. “Nor would anyone be able to hear you.”

“I need to text everyone my good-byes.”

A big hand settled over hers. “In the seat behind you, grab my bag.”

When she’d done that, he reached over and pulled out his camera. He flicked off the lens cover and turned it on. Then he set it to auto mode.

The moron-proof button.

“Go for it,” he said.

She stared at him. “You want me to take your picture?”

“I want you to take pictures of whatever you want.”

The Canon was digital and obviously expensive. She brought it carefully up to her face and looked through the lens at the admittedly amazing view. “Is this a distraction technique?”

“Yes.”

She laughed and let it work. After a few minutes, she turned the camera on him.

He was dressed in his usual cargo pants, the pockets filled with his essentials. Probably all sorts of tools, and a variety of weapons, and maybe the secrets of his world.

Last week, when she’d been at the loft and gotten him out of those pants, she’d seen the pile of things from his pockets on the dresser. Money, a credit card, his driver’s license, and a wicked-looking pocketknife was as far as she’d gotten before she’d realized he’d been watching her.

She’d braced for his annoyance at her snooping, but it turned out that her curiosity about him had amused him.

“Just ask,” he’d said in that low, easy voice of his. “Ask whatever you want to know.”

“And you’ll answer?”

He’d just smiled at her.

At the time, she’d blown out a breath and chickened out. Now she looked at his perfectly fitted cargo pants and wondered if one of today’s essentials included a condom.

She had three in her purse now. Her new emergency stash, in the same pocket as her gummy bears-also an emergency stash. Just ask… “Do you ever get lonely? Up here in the air?”

“Lonely for what?”

“Friends. Family.”

“I’m not always in the air,” he pointed out. “And anyway, there are cell phones. E-mail. Visiting…”

“But you don’t. Visit.”

“I haven’t made a habit of it, no.”

“So you’re saying that you’re a creature of habit? You stick with routine?”

That got a bark of laughter from him. “That’s new,” he murmured to himself, or so it seemed. “Creature of habit. Routine. Never been accused of either before.”

“What about women?”

He glanced over at her. “What about them?”

“Haven’t you ever wanted to change your life for a woman?”

“No.”

A little shiver of disappointment went through her. “You’ve never been in love?”

“I’ve been in lust,” he said with a small, private smile. “More than once.”

She rolled her eyes as beside her he let out a breath. “The truthful answer is no,” he said quietly. “I’ve never been in love.”

They fell silent, and Lilah thought that was that.

“But you,” he finally said. “You, Lilah, scare the hell out of me.”

“Why?” she whispered.

He met her gaze and held it. “Because I could fall for you, Lilah. Hard and deep and never want to come back up.”