Twenty-five minutes later, she spotted Colton’s Jeep pull into her building’s parking lot. She opened her front door the second his knuckles grazed the wood. Those sharp green eyes settled on her. “Wow. I was only fifty percent sure you weren’t messing with me,” he said, letting his gaze roam her from head to toe.

“Seriously?” McKinley laughed.

“I thought I’d knock and a middle-aged NASCAR fan would answer. And I’d have to save face by pretending I was doing door-to-door surveys about delivery pizza.”

“That’s oddly specific.”

“I gave it a lot of thought last night.”

Dunes scampered to the door, shoved his face between McKinley’s legs to rub his nose in Colton’s crotch. “Hey there buddy,” Colton said, leaning down to ruffle Dunes’ ears. “You smell a lot better.”

McKinley wrinkled her nose. “My bathtub needs a deep cleaning, but at least this way he’s allowed to touch my furniture.”

Colton straightened and McKinley felt her heart do a little flip-flop when his gaze returned to her. “I brought a few more things for him,” Colton said, holding up a bag.

Just because she invited him in, didn’t mean they were having sex, she reminded herself. McKinley bit her lip because right now he looked good enough to have sex with in casual shorts and another polo that hugged his athletic frame. “Come on in, then.”

Colton and the dog followed her inside, down the narrow foyer and hallway into her little living room. Colton made himself at home on her couch and unpacked the bag on the coffee table. Dunes nosed through the items with excitement. “I thought since we were leaving him alone today we could give him something to entertain himself with,” Colton said.

He dropped a large rubber item on the coffee table and placed a jar of peanut butter next to it. McKinley stared at the items.

“What is that?”

“It’s a Kong. You fill it with peanut butter and the dog spends a crazy amount of time trying to lick it out.” He demonstrated by finding her kitchen and her utensil drawer and filling the mysterious Kong with peanut butter.

“Dogs are so weird,” McKinley observed as Dunes tap-danced on his hind legs.

“So are dog lovers,” Colton said, making Dunes sit before handing over the toy to the ecstatic dog. “You look great. Are you ready?”

She resisted the urge to smooth a hand over her hair. “Uh. Sure. Let me get my bag.”

She paused in the doorway and looked back at Dunes. He was slurping away at the Kong on his belly halfway in the kitchen and living room. “He’ll be okay, right?”

Colton laid a hand on her shoulder. She hated that she liked the shock of his touch. “He’ll be fine. I promise.”

“I’m holding you personally responsible if he destroys my couch or cries sad little dog tears while I’m gone.”

Colton looped an arm over her shoulder and steered her toward the door. It was a friendly move, but her blood started to sing. Everything about him was easy, charming, and just a little too sexy. “He’ll be just fine,” he said confidently.

He led the way to his topless Jeep in the parking lot and McKinley looked over her shoulder up at the window of her apartment expecting to see Dunes’ face mournfully staring after them. There was no dog face in her window.

“He’ll be fine. He has his peanut butter,” Colton promised, reading her mind.

“Where we going?”

He held the passenger door open for her and waited until she slid onto the seat before closing it. “I thought we’d take a little side trip before we eat. Hope you don’t mind.”

Colton navigated the streets of St. Pete, heading east. The hot Florida breeze blew her hair off her neck. Nineties R&B, the kind that took her back to high school, poured from the speakers.

“You’re not taking me to my work on my day off, are you?” McKinley joked, when Colton headed in the direction of Sunset Point.

“Please. Give a guy who’s been thinking about a first date for eight months a little credit.”

McKinley’s lips curved. There was that easy charm.

“The airport?” she asked, when Colton swung the Jeep into the small lot. “So you’re taking me to your work.”

“Ever touched the clouds before?” he asked, turning the engine off.

McKinley shot him a skeptical look. “Does that line actually work?”

Colton gifted her the full wattage and made her toes curl against her flip-flops. He leaned in close enough for her to smell his soap. “I’ll let you know in about half an hour,” he said.

McKinley laughed despite herself. “Seriously what are we doing here?”

He reached over and unfastened her seatbelt. “We’re going up there,” he said, pointing an index finger towards the sky.

She shook her head. “Oh, no. I don’t know you well enough to get in a tiny metal can and go thousands of feet above the ground.”

Colton was undisturbed. He hopped out from behind the wheel and rounded the vehicle to open her door. “McKinley, you know every single detail of my life thanks to our getting-to-know-you dance. You can trust me. I want to take you up. Show you my happy place.”

Reluctantly, McKinley slid out of the Jeep. “You’re not going to do any weird loop de loops or pretend we’re out of gas, are you?” she asked suspiciously.

“Jesus, what kind of guys have you dated?” Colton wondered, taking her hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do.

“I don’t date,” she told him. He held the door for her and she entered the small airport office.

“Good,” he said, with a wink. “Because then I’m really going to stand out.” He led the way down the hall to the U-shaped desk in a reception area overlooking the runway. “This is where Talia works during the week,” he said.

“Hey, Colt,” the silver-haired man at the desk wore a blue polo shirt and a bored expression.

“How’s it going, Martin?” Colton asked, picking up a clipboard and scrawling some information on the page. “Can we get two headsets, please?”

“Sure thing. I’ll get the extra good one for your pretty friend,” Martin said with a long, slow wink in McKinley’s direction.

Colton laughed. “Get your own girl, Martin.”

Martin held up a hand to the side of his mouth. “Give me a call if you get sick of this one,” he said in a stage whisper to McKinley.

“I’ll do that,” McKinley returned.

Martin produced two headsets and wished them a happy flight.

McKinley’s nerves started vibrating the second her flip-flopped feet hit the tarmac. Colton, on the other hand, sauntered toward a small shiny single engine plane whistling as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

He must have sensed her hesitation because he paused and held out his hand. “I promise you’ll love it,” he told her.

And damn if she didn’t believe him. She approached the shiny aluminum beast the way she would a horse. Slowly and with great respect. McKinley watched Colton clamor around the long slim body checking the plane from propeller to tail and back again.

“Preflight check,” he explained.

She nodded, gnawing on her lower lip. He could spend an extra hour checking if it meant she’d get to put two feet on solid ground again.

“All set,” he said, opening the passenger side door.

“Oh, god,” she whispered under her breath. McKinley had flown before. Once. When she was seven she and her parents had flown to Buffalo, New York, to visit her grandparents. But she’d never set foot in a plane so tiny. She peered into the cockpit. A wall of instruments that looked like she really shouldn’t touch them sat innocuously beneath the small windshield. There was a steering wheel—a yoke—in front of her seat. Probably in case Colton was knocked unconscious and she had to take over and crash land in the Gulf.

“Hop in,” Colton said. He held her hand while she scrambled into the seat. He popped her window open and then shut the door. The sweltering Florida heat had taken up residence inside the small plane and McKinley wondered nervously if she’d remembered to apply deodorant.

Colton opened the opposite door and climbed in. “I’ll get the air going,” he said, swiping his hat off his head and replacing it with the headset. He turned the key—planes had keys?—and the engine sputtered to life along with a blast of slightly cooler air.

He took the plug of her headset and inserted it into the auxiliary jack. McKinley hesitated briefly then put it on over her ears and adjusted the microphone.

“Couple more preflight things and we’ll be on our way,” Colt’s voice crackled in her ear. McKinley turned to look at him and felt her pulse kick up a notch. They sat shoulder to shoulder in the crammed cockpit and he was running through some mystery checklist.

He radioed the tower and must have understood the garbled reply because then they were suddenly moving, bouncing and rolling in a wide arc. The turquoise bay was straight ahead, the nice, safe building at their back. Colton turned them again in a tight 180 to line them up with one of what looked like hundreds of lines on the ground.

He leaned over her and pulled her window shut. Colton looked at McKinley and grinned. “Ready?”

No, she was not ready. She wanted her nice quiet apartment and her familiar job. She didn’t want to be flying hundreds of feet above where human beings were supposed to be. She didn’t want to date. She just wanted the comfort and safety of her normal.

Oh, shit. What if they crashed? Who would know to look in on Dunes?

But they were moving, lumbering and bumping forward, the whine of the engine loud even through the headset. Terrified, unprepared, McKinley reached out and gripped the muscle of Colton’s thigh.

She thought she heard an intake of breath through her headset, but it could have been the whooshing of her blood as it left her head. She was in a tiny metal bucket that was rapidly picking up speed with a man she hadn’t intended to date. This was the single dumbest thing she’d ever done in her entire life. This could be the world’s shortest first date.

And then the wheels stopped bumping, the ground dropped, and everything was smooth. “Holy shit,” she murmured.

Colton’s laugh echoed softly in her ears.

The ground was falling away beneath them as the nose of the plane tilted, driving them higher. They were being pushed and pulled and suspended and suddenly there was nothing but blue beneath them and above them.