Alistair waited until he heard the hum in the distance before he told Jess about the next phase of his plan. Deep down, he knew it would be another activity to push her outside of her comfort zone. But he wanted her so desperately to be excited for this spur-of-the-moment engagement celebration.

Please don’t hate what we’re about to do. He led her outside, both of them zipped and bundled back up to confront the frigid air outside. In the distance, a helicopter approached, the hum turning into a roar.

“Oh. My. God.” Her jaw fell, eyes widening as she watched the sleek black chopper slice through the air. Alistair couldn’t believe the private cabin and helicopter tour were part of the menu back at the lodge, but he’d been quick to scoop them up once he discovered it. Exactly his sort of exciting add-ons for a vacation. He just hoped Jess would come around to this part.

“What do you say? Fancy a ride?” He squinted up at the helicopter as it hovered over the landing pad nearby, hidden behind a thicket of bushes. Once it touched down, he grabbed her hand.

“I don’t…I can’t even…” She stumbled after him. If she said anything else after that it got lost in the whirr of the helicopter blades. The wind generated from the helicopter made him squint to see. He ducked his head and led them toward the door, where an attendant waited.

They climbed into the helicopter quickly, the attendant, Boris, sliding the door shut behind them. Inside the body of the craft, the whirr of the blades sounded mechanical and all-encompassing. They were handed headsets and told to sit on the bench along the side. Once Alistair got his headset on, he helped Jess place hers.

“What do you think?” he asked, but her face said it all. She looked somewhere between shocked and incredulous.

“I’ve never been in a helicopter before,” she shouted over the noise, her voice ringing clear through his headphones. He winced at the volume, which made her grin.

“I arranged a tour,” he said, slinging his arm over her shoulders, settling into his seat while Boris conferred with the pilot. “I thought it might be nice to see a bit more of Austria.”

She nodded, looking around at the helicopter with panicked eyes. “It’s safe, right?”

“The safest,” he said. Though he wasn’t sure what sort of question that was.

The attendant buckled each of them in and then got himself situated near the front by the pilot. The chopper lurched upward. Jess screamed.

“Easy, now,” Alistair said with a chuckle. Her grip had turned deadly on his arm.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” she wailed as the helicopter soared upward.

Alistair bit back a smile, watching the pines fall away, the outside world turn into a panorama of snow and mountain ranges. “Just breathe, darling.”

She breathed loudly through the headset, her knuckles turning white as she gripped his knee. “I’m afraid of heights, you know.”

Alistair shook his head, sighing with defeat. This is what he’d been afraid of. “Good thing we’re in here, then.”

She let out a strained chuckle, something between a laugh and death rattle. “Yeah, you would say that.”

He rubbed her back, leaning in close. “This helicopter is safer than any car you’ve been in, I assure you. Even your daily commute to work is wrought with more danger than this helicopter tour.”

“But my commute doesn’t involve being a thousand feet in the air,” she said.

“Jess. Just give it a chance.” He squeezed her hands. “And if you really can’t stand it, we’ll return early.”

She swallowed hard, nodding. “Okay. Let’s give it a whirl.”

Boris pointed out a few things in heavily accented English as the helicopter tore through the sky. They couldn’t have had a clearer, more picturesque day. Everything shone below them, blanketed with white, tranquil and distant.

Jess wasn’t even looking at any of it. She squeezed Alistair’s hand. “I’m doing good, right?”

“Very well, my darling.” He bit back a laugh, kissing her forehead.

“I’ve only screamed once,” she said, like this deserved a prize.

“Proud of you,” he said.

She nodded, gaze dragging toward the windows. She looked outside for a moment before snapping her eyes shut. “Okay, I looked. It’s beautiful. Now tell me when we’re almost on the ground.”

Alistair chuckled, resting his chin on top of her head. He could keep trying with her. But was it worth it? Maybe they were condemned to a lifetime of separate vacations and disparate itineraries. He rubbed her arm reassuringly. “Just take another look. It’s truly stunning.”

She opened one eye, then the other. The grimace on her face was almost comical. “We’re still alive.”

“Fact,” he said, pointing out toward a distant mountain range. “And that over there is Germany.”

“Cool,” she said. “I’ve seen Germany!”

“Indeed.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Isn’t this fun?”

She looked up at him, crinkling her nose. “I would use a different word.”

The rest of the helicopter tour alternated between shrieks and pinched eyes for Jess. They managed to get one halfway normal photo of the two of them against the sprawling backdrop, even though the picture didn’t capture Jess’s iron-claw grip on his thigh. By the time the helicopter returned to the helipad at the cabin, Jess looked more than relieved.

“I would only stay in this thing longer if it would take us back to the hotel,” she said before tugging her headset off. “But that’s it.”

Alistair thanked Boris before pressing a one hundred euro note into his hand. He followed Jess down the path toward the cabin. He watched the sleek black thing rise into the air and head for the open spaces of the ravine, the roar of the engine turning into a distant hum once more.

“I’d like to get one of those for myself someday,” he said when he entered the cabin, stamping his feet off on the welcome rug. “What do you say?”

Jess was already stripped down to her sweater and leggings by the fire. She sent him a flat look. “You can have whatever toys you want. Doesn’t mean I have to use them.”

He tugged off his jacket. There was something cute in her aversion. “Not even sometimes?”

“Once my therapist clears me from the PTSD I just suffered, maybe.”

He smirked, sauntering closer. “Not even if I use it as an excuse to get you wrapped around me?”

She started to protest but stopped once his arms were around her. He buried his face in her warm neck, nuzzling his chilly nose against her.

“That would be the exception,” she finally said.

“I do have one last toy to show you,” he murmured against her skin, enjoying the goosepimples that flared in the wake of his voice.

“Please tell me it’s more of the kind that vibrates and brings pleasure as opposed to flying and fear.”

He laughed, squeezing her around the middle. “I can promise you it doesn’t fly. But vibrating…well…you might be headed in a different direction. But I think our destination is the same.”

She lifted a brow. “Keeping both feet on the ground and not more than one mile from civilization?”

He took a gentle bite of her shoulder. “Follow me.” He led her by the hand toward the back of the cabin, where a door led out to a small wooden deck. They hadn’t had time to explore here earlier, but the lodge receptionist assured Alistair of this important feature of the cabin experience. When Jess began to protest entering the cold without their shoes or jackets, Alistair squeezed her hand.

“Trust me,” he said, unable to hide his wicked smile.

She paused, drawing a sigh. “Those words make me nervous now.”

“Don’t be worried. This is the tamest surprise of them all.” When he led the way again, she followed, sucking in a sharp breath at the cold. He looked around only once before he saw the spiral staircase the receptionist had promised would be there. He climbed it quickly, waiting for her to join him on a hidden roof deck where a hot tub awaited them, already opened and burbling.

“Oh, thank God,” Jess said, pressing her palm to her forehead. “It’s just a hot tub.”

He slid his hands under her sweater, inching it upward. “I’d say it’s time to get in, wouldn’t you?”

She nodded vigorously, hopping from foot to foot. “Okay. It’ll just be freezing cold for a few seconds.”

“And then we’ll be in a bath of hot water,” he said, shimmying out of his pants. The cold air bit his thighs, making him suck against his teeth. He tore his sweater and undershirt off quickly, leaving his clothes in a pile by the hot tub. “Come on now. In we go.”

He tore off his boxers, every square inch of his body exposed and protesting the frigid late afternoon air. He stepped into the tub, a gust of air escaping him as his skin met the water, watching as Jess undid her bra. When her breasts were exposed, her nipples were pebbly and pert. He moaned low, reaching for her, forgetting entirely about the soothing water around him.

“Let me warm you up,” Alistair growled, lifting her at the hips when she climbed into the tub. She giggled, clutching at his shoulders.

“Put me in, put me in.” Her teeth chattered, and he lowered her slowly, enjoying the range of expressions that crossed her face.

“Just watching you get into the water nearly made me come,” he murmured, his lips skating along her jawline. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and they sank into the water, their bodies suctioning together.

“Just one look at you and it makes me wet,” she whispered, tilting her head back as he lavished kisses along her neck.

“Even inside the helicopter?”

She laughed throatily. “Even there.”

Alistair smoothed his hands along the length of her thighs, squeezing big handfuls of her ass. She tightened her legs around him. His cock pressed hard and seeking between her legs. A rattled breath escaped him as he dragged the tip of his cock over the folds of her pussy.

“Mmmm. You know, I thought we might just lounge in the water for a bit, sip on some sparkling water before things turned sexy,” Alistair murmured into her hairline, jerking her against him. She gasped at his ear, rocking her hips against him. “But I should know better than that by now, Marigold. You’re impossible to resist.”

“You act like you have no part in this,” she breathed, her voice coming out weak. “Like you aren’t the sexiest man to walk the planet or anything.”

His breathing grew ragged as he flexed his hips against her, his cockhead pressing for entrance. “Oh, please. I fell in love with you the minute I saw you.”

She laughed, arching her back. “But you don’t even remember when you first saw me.”

“The second first time,” he clarified, and then sank himself into her, gloriously slow. A strangled cry escaped her, fingernails digging into his back. Her head tilted back, and he dragged his lips over the creamy skin there, tracing the arc of her body as if he was drawing a map, learning all her lines and meridians for the second time around. When he was buried to the hilt, he stayed there, his cock throbbing deep inside her, her pussy a silken home for him that made his vision go spotty.

“Please,” she gasped.

“What’s that?” He wanted to ram into her so badly it almost split him in two, but he had just enough clarity of mind left to tease her. “What do you want, love?”

Jess groaned, head lolling backward. “You know what I want.”

“Tell me.” He tensed his ass cheeks, fighting the urge to thrust into her. He wanted to hear his sweet, rosy-cheeked fiancée tell him exactly what she wanted. “And make it dirty.”

She swallowed hard, looking pained. “You know what I want, Alistair. What I neeed.” Her words turned into a moan as he ground himself against her in a slow, teasing circle.

“And that is…?” He tweaked a nipple, standing up out of the water. The transition from beneath the water to the open air sent their skin prickling into goosebumps. His biceps swelled as he took her full weight out of the water. He eased her onto the ledge of the hot tub, kissing a path between her breasts, over her rosy nipples, tugging on the tight, pebbled flesh there.

“Mmmm.” She tightened her thighs around his waist, arcing against him. “I…I need you to fuck me, Alistair. Please.”

Her voice came out quiet but confident. Like she’d summoned those words from the depth of her being. He growled into her neck, hooking his hands beneath her ass cheeks, rocking against her.

“Do you want it hard, love?” He drew his hips back, letting himself slide all the way out, snagging her gaze.

She whimpered, nodding. “Oh, God, yes. Give it to me hard.”

Her words shivered through him, and he rammed into her, desire coiling tight inside him as he pulled back and thrust again. And again. Their breaths came out in tight gasps as he buried himself inside her over and over, the cold barely registering as a distant annoyance against the fire between them.

“God, yes,” she wailed, tugging at him like she could bring him closer, as if there were any space left between them. “Give it to me.”

Alistair snagged her ear lobe between his teeth, hoisting her legs higher around him, the new angle sending pleasure streaking through him. He grunted, sweat prickling at his brow despite the cold air.

“I’m close,” he gasped out, clutching at the fleshy sides of her thighs. She tensed, smashing her breasts against his chest, a low wail escaping her.

“Harder. Fuck me harder, Alistair.”

The words made his vision close in. Heat prickled through him, and he pumped as hard as he could, loving the way she yielded to him, the way their bodies fit together so perfectly, the sweet, maddening heat that she generated in him. Her head fell back, and she released a low moan, raw and unhinged. Hearing it from her opened him up too, as if they were just two more parts of this wilderness, and his own orgasm rocketed through him, flooding him with bliss. Her pussy clenched rhythmically around his cock as she came, and he swooped them both back into the water. The heat enveloped them, an explosion of comfort on the heels of that mind-blowing orgasm.

“Ohhhhh, my God,” Jess moaned, her voice distant. “Oh my God. Alistair.”

He panted against her shoulder, searching out her gaze. “Yes, love?”

She chuckled low, her eyes shut like she was still in another world, clinging to him as if he was her life raft in the ocean. “Of all the adventures you’ve taken me on,” she murmured, “this has been the best one.”

He grinned, smashing his lips against hers. His dick pulsed, still buried inside her, softened slightly but curiously alert, like wondering if round two might begin immediately. “Don’t say that until we’ve completed all our adventures for the day,” he chided jokingly. “I have a few more rounds planned for this hot tub, you know.”