This was not one of those times. This was raw sex. Frenzied, loud, primal. I doubt if we lasted more than ten minutes, but they were ten of the most incredible minutes of my adult life.
I lay there on my bed, wrapped in her arms, completely spent, deliriously happy. “That,” I said, still breathing heavily, “was the best going-away present I ever got.”
“Wait till you see the welcome-home present I have planned for you,” she whispered, her tongue teasing my ear, her fingertips making small circles against my nipple.
I felt myself stirring. “You keep that up, and I may not wait till I get back home to collect.”
She kept it up. I collected.
This time the sex was unhurried, sensuous, tender, each of us caught up in the act of making love, neither of us racing to the finish line.
“You’re getting pretty good at this,” she said as we curled up for the second time.
“Thanks. I’d be even better if I’d had any sleep last night. I’ve been up since three.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll sleep on the plane.”
“I hope so. I don’t sleep well on airplanes.”
“You’ll sleep like a log on this one.” She pressed her body closer to mine, and I could feel her warm breath on my ear. “Trust me,” she said. “I’m a doctor.”
CHAPTER 42
Princeton Wells thought of everything. At five thirty I got a call from a man named Matéo, who asked me what I’d care to eat en route.
“I’m easy,” I said. “Whatever you’ve got on the plane.”
“At the moment the cupboard is bare, but I’m about to call our in-flight catering service,” he said. “They feed some of the world’s most demanding clientele, so please tell me what foods you enjoy, and they will be on board.”
I gave him a few of my favorites.
“Is that all?” He sounded disappointed.
“I’m sure my traveling companion will give you a much more challenging shopping list,” I said.
“She already has,” he said. “A car will pick you up shortly. I’ll meet you on the tarmac.”
The car turned out to be a custom-built stretch Bentley complete with the obligatory bar in the back. Kylie had already popped the cork on a cold bottle of champagne, and a crystal flute of golden bubbly was waiting for me as soon as I got in.
“To police work,” she said, raising her glass in a toast. “Somebody’s got to do it.”
Traffic was heavy, and we arrived at the airport in Teterboro, New Jersey, about fifteen minutes before flight time. A no-no in real life, but perfectly acceptable when your limo pulls up to the nose of your Gulfstream G650.
Matéo gave us a grand tour of the aircraft. I’d been on corporate jets before. Comfortable reclining leather seats, highly efficient tables that can be adjusted for work or for meals, a well-stocked bar, and a number of available options for in-flight entertainment. Very corporate chic.
This was not that. This was Princeton Wells’s fantasy bachelor pad with wings—decadence on a grand scale, high in the sky at six hundred miles an hour. The main cabin was a sumptuous living and dining area with some of the same decorating influences I remembered from Wells’s apartment in The Pierre. At the rear of the plane, hidden from sight by a sweeping frosted-glass bulkhead, was a large master bedroom with a king-size bed, and behind that a spacious bathroom with polished marble countertops, a heated floor, and a shower big enough for two.
“What do you think?” Matéo asked.
“Mind-boggling,” I said.
Kylie shrugged. “It’ll do.”
I could see in his eyes that Matéo, like men everywhere, was dazzled by her.
“Your flight will be approximately seventeen hours,” he said. “We have three pilots on board. Captain Dan Fennessy is in command. Normally there would be only two in the cockpit, and a second team would be flown commercially to relieve them when we set down to refuel. But Mr. Wells pulled this together in such a hurry that there was no time to get a relief crew in place.”
“Pretty sloppy way to run an airline,” Kylie said.
“I’ll make a note to management,” Matéo said, half smiling, half drooling. “Can I get you anything to drink before takeoff?”
“A glass of water,” I said, clearly disappointing him again.
“I’ll stick with champagne,” Kylie said.
We sat down, buckled up, and Matéo brought our drinks.
“Water?” Kylie said to me. “You’re an embarrassment to freeloading cops everywhere.”
Cheryl had given me an Ambien, and I popped it.
Five minutes later, we were airborne, and Matéo invited us to make ourselves comfortable in the main cabin, where he’d set out platters of cheese, caviar, and seafood.
“This looks great,” I said, “but I could use a before-dinner nap. Do you mind if I stretch out back there?”
“This is your airplane, Detective Jordan,” he said. “Think of it as a hotel at fifty-one thousand feet. There are fresh linens on the bed, and there’s an assortment of nightwear in the closet.”
“Zach, you are no fun at all,” Kylie said, spooning caviar onto a toast point.
“Wake me in half an hour,” I said. “I promise to be more fun then.”
I went to the bedroom and found a supply of men’s silk pajamas, all black. I changed, donned an eye mask and a pair of Bose noise-canceling headphones, and crawled into bed under a thick comforter.
People actually live like this, I thought as I drifted off. The next thing I knew, I was jolted awake. It took a few seconds to remember that I was on an airplane, and I figured that the bump I’d felt was turbulence. I took off the headphones, and I could hear the hum of the tires on a runway. We’d landed. I had no idea where or why.
I peeled off my eye mask and got hit by a second jolt. There was a body, also wearing black silk pajamas, lying next to me in bed. Kylie.
She put her hand to her head. “I think I drank too much.”
There was a knock on the glass bulkhead, and Matéo called our names.
Kylie muttered something that sounded like an invitation for him to come in. He did.
“Good morning, Detectives,” he said. “Welcome to Helsinki. Can I start you off with some coffee and fresh-baked korvapuustit?”
I didn’t answer. I was still staring at the woman in my bed.
CHAPTER 43
“Give us a few minutes, Matéo,” Kylie said.
Without a word, he backed away and eased the door shut with all the grace of an English butler who knows that what happens in the master bedroom stays in the master bedroom.
Kylie sat up, leaned back against the headboard, and drilled her eyes into mine. “And what are you staring at, Papa Bear? Goldilocks is sleeping in your bed? Is that a problem?”
Of course it was a problem. But not one I wanted to discuss with Kylie. “No,” I said. “More like a surprise.”
“What was your last partner’s name?” she asked. “Shanks, right?”
“Omar Shanks.”
“So if you were making this trip with Omar, and you rolled over and saw him asleep next to you, would you give him that same what-the-hell-are-you-doing-in-my-bed look?”
“It depends. Did Omar and I bang our brains out when we were in the academy together? Because if we did, I might give him a weird look if he suddenly hopped back into the sack with me twelve years later.”
“Oh please, Zach. Get over yourself. Don’t dredge up what happened a lifetime ago. Plus I didn’t exactly hop into your bed—excuse me—the bed, the only bed, which technically makes it our bed. I tried to wake you after a half hour, then I gave you another half hour, but you were lying there like a dead mackerel. So I had dinner and more wine than I should have, and I crashed. Remember, you’re not the only sleep-deprived cop on this airplane.”