Mile High (Up In The Air #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The flight was an agonizing ordeal. Every time my aching breasts pulled or strained at the clamps, which was constantly, I thought of James, and it left me yearning and hot but still with a job to do.

It was a full flight, the only empty seat the one next to James, as was his habit.

I rushed and served and passed him again and again, my sensitized breasts sending little jolts right to my sex every time I so much as thought of him.

He barely glanced at me, working on his laptop. He didn’t even look up as I asked him direct questions, just gave brief answers, his bored gaze on the screen of his laptop. He was the disinterested master tonight. It made me want to scream, I was so agitated and keyed up. I wanted to hit him, I was so frustrated. The fact that he wouldn’t even look at me drove me crazy.

It was nearly two hours into the flight before the cabin began to get quiet and sleepy. Most of the first class passengers were drinking heavily, so I had been on my feet in the cabin, serving almost constantly.

Stephan headed back to help coach as soon as our regular service was done. Javier was on the flight as a passenger, though he hadn’t been able to snag a first class seat. Flying non-revenue, we only got first class seats when there was space available. He had been lucky to find a seat at all, since the flight had been overbooked. That would have been a waste, since he had taken days off to join Stephan on our layover.

My passengers were all taken care of, most falling asleep or already there. A few alert faces could be seen, but I was suddenly too desperate to care, my usual professional reserve escaping me in a brash moment.

I sat down in the empty seat next to James. I leaned over the console that separated the two seats, grabbing his wrist, pulling it from the keyboard of his laptop. Finally, he looked at me.

His gaze was amused, and I wanted to scream. “No touching, Bianca. That’s an order.”

I dropped his wrist like it was on fire, breathing heavily as I glared at him. His smiling eyes were wickedly infuriating. I tried to compose myself, tried to smooth my features. I knew I failed. “Please, Mr. Cavendish, I’m desperate. Why are you ignoring me? You’ve put these…things on me, and I can’t think of anything but you. Meet me in the restroom. I need you to touch me.”

He shook his head, still just looking amused. “Not tonight, Bianca.”

I clasped my hands together tightly, nearly overwhelmed with the urge to touch him. “Are you punishing me?”

He ran his tongue across those perfect teeth. My sex clenched, and I felt a rush of moisture between my legs. “No. Just teaching you. Sometimes we have to wait for what we want. I have been extremely lax in this part of your instruction, but you need to learn.”

“I’m so wet, James. And I think if you just keep talking, your voice alone could make me come.

Please.”

His eyes turned a little hard. “You won’t entice me into changing my mind, you little vixen. You’ll be punished if you try that again.”

I wanted that punishment, wanted it badly, but I wanted to please him more. “I can’t bear this. What should I do, Mr. Cavendish? I could go into the bathroom and pleasure myself. It’s not what I want, but I think it would help.”

His eyes narrowed into an almost mean glare. “No. You’re not allowed to touch yourself, either.” His eyes moved to a spot behind my seat. “You need to move, Bianca. That seat is spoken for.”

I got up, moving away, feeling baffled and bereft. I noted absently that Javier took the vacated seat, giving me a polite nod. I nodded back, moving away as Stephan stepped in close to them, thanking James for relinquishing his extra seat.

That was nice of him, I thought absently. James began to chat amiably with Javier, not sparing me another glance.

I went into the galley, not knowing what to do with myself. I took off my serving vest, leaving just my white dress shirt and tie. My nipples stood out like sore thumbs with the clamps on them in such a thin shirt. I decided I didn’t care. I wanted James to see how conspicuous they were, how impossible to ignore. He had left me wanting, and seemed unaffected himself. I wanted to affect him.

I returned to Javier, asking him politely if he needed anything. I felt James’s gaze on me then, since I had interrupted their polite small talk.

“Just a bottle of water, please. Thank you, Bianca,” Javier said with a smile.

I smiled back, not looking at James. I turned away, heading back to the front of the plane.

“Bianca,” James called, his voice very casual.

I looked at him over my shoulder, my brow arched.

“Put your vest back on, Love. Now.” James gave me a bland smile, as though he hadn’t just given me an arbitrary order in front of Javier, in front of strangers.

I fumed as I went back into the galley. I hadn’t gotten around to putting my vest back on when Damien stepped out of the cockpit to use the restroom. He stepped into my galley when he saw me, smiling warmly. I had seen him briefly on the crew bus, but we had been in too big of a hurry to chat. His smile dropped a little when he saw that I was visibly agitated.

“Everything all right?” he asked, concern in his voice.

I just nodded, meeting his eyes while I took deep breaths. I should have realized that the action would accentuate my conspicuous breasts, but I didn’t, not until his eyes roamed there, widening when they saw the outline of my clamped nipples. I didn’t think he could see the actual clamps, but I really wasn’t sure.

I thought he must have just seen my over exaggerated nipples. Whatever he saw, it seemed to freeze him in place. He couldn’t seem to look away from my chest.


He put a hand on my shoulder, licking his lips nervously. “Can I help you with anything?” he asked in a low voice.

I just shook my head, still looking at him. I didn’t remove his hand, didn’t think of it. My mind wasn’t working right. I knew that James wasn’t touching me, but all I could think about were his hands on me.

So while I knew that it was Damien’s hand on me, it felt almost as if James was touching me. And besides, it was only my shoulder he was touching. But I was in a state.

“Kindly remove that hand, Damien. Shouldn’t you be flying the plane or something?” James asked, stepping into the galley. His voice was cold as ice. I didn’t have to look at his eyes to know that they would be the same.

Damien pulled his hand back, eyes wide, looking as though he’d been doing something much worse than just touching my shoulder. He mumbled an agreement, backing off and going into the lavatory.

I felt more than saw James moving to me. He plucked my vest from where it hung on an open cabinet, holding it out for me to slip into. I did so without a word, not looking at him.

“What was that, Bianca? Do you want him? Explain it to me.” His voice was still so cold. I was intimated and…embarrassed.

“I-I don’t want him. I think he was just caught off-guard. And I…I was just distracted, thinking about you. I know he was standing right in front of me, but I couldn’t seem to focus on him.”

James gripped my hair at the nape, the only place he touched me, pulling my head back to look up and squarely into his eyes. They were more shuttered than I would have guessed. Whatever he was feeling, I couldn’t have guessed it from his face.

“I told you this wasn’t a punishment, Bianca, but it is now.” He pulled my hair hard enough to make me gasp. His voice was strangely blank. “It will be better or worse, depending on your answer. Were you trying to make me jealous by letting him touch you, or are you drawn to him? Do you want him, just a little?”

I mulled it over, wanting to give him the most honest answer, dreading the punishment, when it was this overwhelming depravation. “I was too involved with my own thoughts to react to what he was doing. I think I would have reacted, would have pulled away, if he had touched more than my shoulder, but he didn’t, so I didn’t. I just don’t think of him like that.”

I was relishing his hands on me, even with this limited contact, as I continued breathlessly. “He doesn’t feel like a threat, and I’ve never even thought about having sex with him. I couldn’t tell you why. I can see that he’s good looking, and I value him as a friend. He’s funny, and charming, and nice, but I’ve only ever had platonic feelings. Perhaps it’s something like how you feel about Frankie. For all I know, he’s another submissive. That may be why I could only see him as a friend.”

He studied me for the longest time, his eyes still shuddered, but if I had to guess, I would say that he was feeling hurt and worried.

“I like your answer,” he finally said. “I can’t tell if I believe it because I want so desperately to, or because it’s the truth. You’ll still be punished, but I won’t draw it out like I was planning to when I saw his hand on you. Don’t let it happen again.” With that, he walked away.

The rest of the flight was long and James wouldn’t so much as spare me a glance. When he deprived me, he deprived me of everything, even his beautiful eyes, and that intense regard that I had come to adore and depend on so helplessly. I hadn’t realized how much I craved even his stare, how it made me feel less empty, less cold. He was the sun, and when he turned away, I felt so cold and empty, so achy and wanting.

I hadn’t realized it before. Is that why I was getting this lesson? Had he known the extent of his affect on me, and known how to show me just how much I needed him to want me, needed him to show me.

The depravation of his physical affection affected me first, but I thought that the emotional withdrawal from him was by far more devastating. And I wouldn’t have realized it, wouldn’t have realized how generously he had always tended to my emotional needs, until he had set my body on fire and withdrawn from me completely. It was a revelation.

He was a generous man. I had never doubted it. But I had never given him credit for being so generous with his emotions and feelings. They were things I never would have realized I needed so desperately until he’d lavished me with them, and then suddenly taken them away. How long would I feel the loss?

How long would he put me through purgatory? It had only been hours so far that he had left me wanting, but I didn’t know that I could bear much more of it.

I wanted to bask in the sun again.