“Less formal than work clothes, but more than jeans. Just make sure it’s easy to get it off.”
“I might have something with Velcro seams.” She needed to thank him for the chocolate. “Nathan, the chocolate is amazing. I can’t believe I had the nerve to taste such a work of art, but it’s as delicious as it looks.”
“Just like you.”
The heat inside her went molten. “Please stop.”
“Do you really want me to?”
She didn’t want him to stop for the rest of her life, but that was a pipe dream. “Only until dinner. Then you can start again.”
He laughed and hung up.
Chloe sat on the edge of the bed, the phone cradled in her hands, as she took in several deep breaths to calm her racing pulse. She wasn’t sure how she was going to get through the next seven hours without exploding.
Nathan stood in the project manager’s empty office, staring sightlessly out the window, as he considered Gavin Miller’s comment that he should use every weapon at his disposal.
A smile of wicked glee lit his face, and he hit Ed’s speed dial on his phone. “Ed, tell Kurt to have the jet ready to go at Teterboro with a flight plan to Kennebunkport, Maine. I need dinner reservations for two at the Weather Vane Inn on the jetty. Oskar should pick up Chloe at her home at five.”
Miller was right. There was no point to having all this money if you couldn’t use it for the important things in life.
Like having Chloe naked at thirty thousand feet.
CHAPTER 15
Lolling on the glove-soft leather of the Rolls’s backseat, Chloe was caught up in daydreams of Nathan stripping off first her cream V-neck sweater, then her pleated lavender sateen skirt, and finally the sheer peach lace bra and panties she’d sneaked away from Grandmillie to buy at the mall. When the big car made a sweeping turn and came to a stop, she peered out the window to discover they’d driven directly onto the tarmac of an airport. Ten feet from the car, a sleek black-and-silver jet crouched with its door open and its steps let down.
As she squinted at the writing on the side of the plane, Oskar came around to open her door. “Mr. Trainor is already on the plane,” he said, holding out his hand to help her up from the depths of the car. The deep hum of the jet’s idling engines surrounded her as their draft flattened her clothes against her body. She hugged her gray silk bomber jacket around her.
Now she could make out the logo of Trainor Electronics on the jet’s fuselage. “Why stop at a helicopter?” she muttered.
He was pulling out all the stops, and that should have flattered her. Instead it reminded her of the vast gulf between her and her boss. She grimaced as she realized she’d just thought of him as her employer. For the blissful hours between their phone call and this moment, she’d considered him as just a man—a very sexy, smart, fascinating man—but someone she could face as an equal.
She stopped to take in the massive Rolls-Royce with Oskar standing beside it and the elegant power of the company jet, and felt a clot of tears in her throat.
She’d better make the best of this date, because she wouldn’t be able to hold the interest of a man who commanded these resources for very long.
Nathan watched Chloe come to a halt on the tarmac, her gaze directed toward the jet. He should have told her they were flying to Maine to get the freshest lobster in the world.
He jogged from his seat to the plane’s door, running lightly down the steps to meet her. He did the one thing he knew would overcome whatever barriers she was building in her mind. He kissed her, pulling her body against him and tasting the delicious softness of her lips. The hell with the lobster. This was the feast he was interested in.
For a moment she felt stiff in his arms, and then she melted against him so he had the sense that they fit together perfectly. He wanted to stay like this, not changing a single angle or atom of how their bodies touched.
Until she wound her fingers into his hair and slid her mouth along his jawline, where she blew a warm breath against the side of his neck just under his ear. Heat slammed into him like a missile.
“On the plane,” he said, turning her in his arms and half carrying her up the steps. He needed privacy.
He escorted her to a seat beside a window before he opened the door to the cockpit and gave the pilot the go-ahead. As he turned back around, the sight of Chloe sitting on this plane that he had flown on a hundred times hit him with a shot of pure joy. She had been craning her neck to look out the window, but now she caught his gaze and smiled.
There was no way they’d make it all the way to Maine without making love.
The look in Nathan’s eyes sent a pulse of arousal through Chloe. On top of his welcome kiss, she was pretty well seething with need.