****
“Great show, Gorgeous.” Adam congratulated her after the longest standing ovation they’d ever had.
“Yeah, it was great,” she eyed him angrily, still irritated with him over his unexpected antics on stage. “What do you say next time we let Cade Stryker put his paws all over you?”
“I’m afraid he doesn’t swing that way, Hon, or else you wouldn’t have been the one with the rope around your neck tonight.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively, as if she hadn’t grasped his meaning already. “Come on, you can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy having a handsome billionaire’s hands on you. It wasn’t like I gave him a free pass or anything, and besides, the audience loved it.”
“I guess.” She’d argue, but he was right—at least the part about the audience loving the extra little show.
“And you know, there’s no reason you can’t have a little fun of your own now that the show’s over. A private after-party, if you know what I mean?”
“Why Adam, have you decided to give women a try? I’m flattered, but you’re not really my type.”
“Very funny. I know I’m not your type, but I bet tall and muscular with eyes a person could get lost in is right up your alley. Filthy rich doesn’t hurt, either.”
“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think,” she replied dryly.
“Come on, you could use a little fun, Hope. I don’t think I’ve known anyone who could use letting loose and having a good time more. You don’t have to marry the guy. Have a couple glasses of champagne, jump his bones and you can go back to warding off the world with your ten-foot pole in the morning.”
“Thanks for the suggestion, but I think I’d rather spend the night cuddling up with a porcupine than with that spoiled, arrogant bastard.”
“Is that so?” a deep, husky voice spoke from no more than a yard behind her. She knew who it was without turning around. Did the man sneak around like a cat? She hadn’t even heard the door open, which of course led her to wonder exactly how long he’d been standing there. Adam hadn’t said a word!
She turned around slowly, reluctantly, but there was no point in pretending the man wasn’t there. “Good evening, Mr. Stryker.”
“Please, call me Cade. I don’t think anyone who’s let me touch them like you have should have to be so formal, do you?”
“Mr. Stryker, you don’t think that was anything more than part of the show, do you?”
“I happen to know that little scene had never been a part of the show before, and trust me, I’m flattered.”
“Well, don’t be. It was Adam’s idea.” What else could she say? She had tried to brush it off and he’d caught her.
“You don’t honestly think I’m a spoiled, arrogant bastard, do you? It usually takes someone at least three or four hours with me to come to that conclusion. You, Miss Winter, have not even given me an hour of your time, so I think your judgment is rather unfair, don’t you?”
She always had a quick retort at the ready, so why the hell couldn’t she come up with one now?
“Have coffee with me, Miss Winter. Just one coffee—that’s fairly harmless, isn’t it? And then I won’t even ask that you wait the customary three to four hours to place judgment. If you still feel I am a spoiled, arrogant bastard, then I’ll graciously accept your conclusion.”
It did seem fair—wait, was she insane? Since when did he get to decide how long she had to wait before summing a person up?
He took a step toward her then, and she really wished he hadn’t. His nearness was overwhelming, but not in a way that made her feel suffocated. It served to make every fiber of her body keenly aware of him; of the breadth of his chest and the taut muscles of his arms; of his brilliant, green eyes and the way they were trying to peer into her soul; of the way his hands had felt against her on stage.
“Alright. One coffee, Mr. Stryker,” she heard herself reply. She really had taken leave of her senses.
“Excellent, then, shall we?” He motioned to the exit from the backstage area to the main hotel.
She sighed heavily, hearing Adam snicker quietly behind her, and she accompanied the man to the elevator, which she presumed they were taking down to the parking garage below. It seemed odd that the owner of the hotel would park his vehicle down there with every other hotel patron’s. She assumed he would have had a personal attendant to do things like fetch his car. Once inside the elevator though, he didn’t press the button for the parking level; he pushed the button for the penthouse. He was taking her back to his suite? Coffee to her had meant a café somewhere, not in the comfort of his hotel suite with a bed no more than a few feet away.
“I think I should be calling it a night,” she protested quickly, but not quickly enough. The elevator doors had already closed, locking her inside with the deceitful man.
He smiled. “Just trust me, Miss Winter. I assure you, I’m not taking you to my room to have my way with you.”
Great, it was like he could read her mind, though it probably wasn’t a huge leap to figure out what she’d been thinking. She looked up at him, meeting his gaze, trying to assess whether he was telling the truth. But the elevator door opened a moment later and he stepped out. She could just press the button and go back downstairs to where her car sat waiting for her two streets over.
Even while she was in the midst of contemplating what to do, her feet carried her forward and out of the elevator. She didn’t fully realize what she’d done until the door closed quietly behind her.
“Trust me,” he whispered once more when she didn’t move from where she stood.
She had no idea why, but she nodded then and followed him down the hall. Instead of turning into the only door to a suite on the entire floor, he continued down to the end of the hall, inserted a key card in the lock at a heavy exit door and opened it wide.
They were going up to the roof. Coffee on the hotel rooftop? She supposed it wasn’t the worst idea. As she followed him out further though, something else caught her attention, namely a giant death trap located squarely on the center of the roof. He was walking straight for it and it didn’t take her long to surmise what he had in mind.
“Oh, I don’t think so. You said coffee, not coffee in a flying tin can.”
“Seriously? You’re afraid to fly?” His smile was something between cocky and surprised.
“I didn’t say that. I just think if humans were meant to fly we’d have sprouted wings a long time ago. I prefer my feet firmly planted on the ground, thank you.”
His smile grew brighter then, and this time she had no idea what was hidden behind it. He seemed genuinely pleased by what she’d said. Strange.
“Would it help if I told you I’ve been flying a whole lot longer than you’d imagine?” he cajoled her, almost sweetly.
“You’re going to fly that thing? Oh no, you’ve got to be kidding.”
“Would you feel better if someone else was flying my helicopter,” he asked in a husky tone, closing the distance between them. He was so close, not much more than an inch separated his body from hers. Her skin hummed in anticipation, waiting for him to bridge the small gap, but he didn’t. He didn’t move, and he didn’t speak. He just stood there overwhelming every one of her senses.
“No,” she replied, meaning she wouldn’t feel any better if someone else was flying the thing.
“Good.” He smiled, stepped back and motioned for her to climb on board. “I was worried you were going to turn out to be a chicken.”
It seemed he’d taken her ‘no’ in some way other than she had meant it. But a chicken? He was calling her a chicken because she wasn’t comfortable soaring thousands of feet above the ground in a machine that could fall right out of the sky at any moment. Shouldn’t that make the person willing to indulge in such a risk the one worthy of insult? Still, regardless of how rational the argument, her feet compelled her forward, just as they had when she’d stepped off the elevator. Apparently, her body was more concerned with being viewed as a coward than it was with self-preservation.
“Why do we need to take a helicopter to a coffee shop?” she asked in afterthought once she’d climbed up into the contraption.
“It’s just easier to get to the shop this way. It’s a little outside the city.”
It seemed like a plausible enough explanation—if there could be a plausible explanation for why she was sitting in a death trap with a man she’d sworn she never wanted to see again.
He hopped into the pilot’s seat and took off quickly, before she had a chance to come to her senses and change her mind. She gripped the edges of her seat as the ground grew further and further away. Not that holding onto her seat for dear life was going to do a lick of good if the thing malfunctioned and they plummeted to their deaths.
“Just breathe,” he told her softly without looking at her. That was easy for him to say. She’d bet he didn’t feel like his heart was pounding a thousand beats per minute, and given that he was flying the helicopter, she seriously hoped the world wasn’t beginning to spin out of control for him like it was for her. If she made it back from this stupid coffee run alive, she was going to have her head examined. A problem with her brain was the only explanation for her sudden descent into insanity.