Hearts in Extra Time (An Atlanta Skyline Novella) Read online

  Stella was a workhorse on the rebound. A recipe for disaster.

  Which is why he’d just have to make it clear that what happened in the airport stayed in the airport.

  “We’ll find another table if we decide to come back.” He pushed his empty beer bottles together to carry to the trash, but Stella shook her head.

  “We’ll have to squeeze in on the floor somewhere. Plus this table is in the perfect spot, not too close to the TV, with a good view of the departures board. I don’t want to sit in this airport all day and then miss my flight because I didn’t realize it was boarding.”

  “We can leave some stuff here to hold the table.” Did the lounge have those individual shower rooms? His cock twitched at the thought of Stella’s skin slick with water, her hair darkened to a reddish brown as he freed it from the elastic, let it tumble down over—

  “Let’s stay here. I don’t want to lose our seats. I should probably get back to work, anyway. My inbox must be a nightmare.”

  He heard a sad trombone as his dick deflated.

  She reached for her laptop, but he slid it out of her grasp. He wouldn’t give up that easily.

  “Come on, Stella. You can spend the rest of the week chained to your desk. Being stuck in an airport with a sexy stranger is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

  She arched a brow. “Sexy stranger? Where?”

  “Handsome, then.” At her unchanged expression he continued, “Cute? Attractive-ish? Not repulsive? Willing, at least.”

  Her mouth softened into a bemused smile. “Sexy is accurate.”

  “An understatement for what I see.”

  She pursed her lips in mock chiding, but temptation glimmered in her eyes.

  “I guess we could ask someone to watch our stuff for a few minutes.”

  “I’ll make it worth your while.”

  The tip of her tongue slid over her bottom lip. “Do you think we have to reserve one of those shower rooms? Or can we just walk in?”

  He grinned. “You read my mind. I’ll go hijack one. You get someone to watch our bags, then come find me.”

  Her smile faltered. “Maybe we should look online quickly to see if there’s a reservation process. If there’s a timed entry system someone could just walk in.”

  “I’ll block the door. It’ll be fine.”

  “Then how will I get in?”

  He suppressed an impatient groan. “Knock four times.”

  “But what if someone else happens to knock—”

  “Attention all passengers. This is an important announcement.”

  The lounge fell silent as a voice blared over the intercom. Stella looked toward the nearest speaker, but he kept his gaze fixed on her, studying the smooth line of her chin, the sparkling diamond stud in her perfect, pink ear.

  Goddamn, she was gorgeous.

  “We regret to inform you that due to inclement weather the following airports are closed, and all flights to those destinations are cancelled. Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston…”

  “Oh my God. This is a complete disaster.” Stella dropped her head into her hands.

  “It’s fine. The airline will set everyone up in a hotel tonight and put us on a flight in the morning. You already missed the whole day at work. What difference will it make if you’re a couple of hours late tomorrow?”

  “I have back-to-back meetings starting at seven-thirty, none of which I’ve had time to prepare for. I have to get to Atlanta tonight. I’ll fly somewhere else and rent a car. What’s the closest airport that’s still open?”

  She squinted up at the departures board, literally wringing her hands. He couldn’t remember ever seeing anyone do that in real life.

  He glanced at the short list of remaining flights. “Chicago. You’d be better off driving from here.”

  She closed her eyes, pinching the space between them. “Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit.”

  “Stella. Stella,” he repeated, finally getting her attention.

  “What?” she demanded.

  He spoke with the same calm, even tone he used when one of his teammates was about to strangle an opposing player who’d thrown themselves to the ground in mock injury. “Let’s gather our stuff, go to the airline counter, get situated for tonight, and figure out the plan for tomorrow. Then you can let your boss or whoever know when you’ll be back and start rescheduling your meetings.”

  She glared at him, but he knew she couldn’t argue. After a second’s hostile silence, her scowl collapsed into surrender. “Okay.”

  By the time they reached the airline counter, the line of stranded passengers snaked all the way to the airport entrance. Aaron saw Stella’s eyes widen in panic, and he automatically pressed a calming hand to the center of her back.

  “This’ll move quickly. They’ll probably open a lot more counters to deal with everyone. We’ll be out of here in twenty minutes, tops.”

  He was wrong on all counts. It took them over an hour to reach the front of the line, and the lone airline staff member watched their approach with the nothing-to-lose aggression of a sole surviving sailor fending off a boatload of pirates.

  “Flight number?” the woman barked.

  “We were on the eight o’clock to Atlanta,” Stella told her.

  “Flight number,” she repeated.

  Over the last hour Stella had slowly withdrawn into tightly wound silence until she practically radiated anxiety. Aaron felt her coil dangerously beside him and placed his boarding pass on the counter, a physical intervention between two forces of vehement opposition.

  “Hi, Karen,” he said smoothly, glancing at her name tag. “There’s the flight number.”

  Karen’s eyes remained narrowed, but she set to the furious typing that was apparently a necessity in any air travel-related exchange. After a couple of minutes, and what had to be several chapters of a novel, she pried her gaze from the screen, her expression steeled for combat.

  “A shuttle will take you to a hotel for the night, then back here tomorrow morning to be rebooked to Atlanta. Here are your dinner vouchers.”

  She shoved a few pieces of paper across the counter, then looked over his shoulder to signal the next customer, but Stella wasn’t done.

  “How soon will we get to Atlanta tomorrow?”

  Karen’s glance could wither a cactus. “The East Coast is under three feet of snow. You’ll be lucky to get there by the end of the week.”

  Stella’s lips thinned into a tight line, and Aaron could sense the furious pressure building up inside of her like lava rumbling underfoot at the base of a volcano. He snatched up their vouchers and wheeled Stella away from the desk with a hand on her elbow.

  “I know—it’s a disaster,” he supplied, hurrying her toward the shuttle as the last few passengers boarded. “But we’re stuck here tonight, so let’s get to the hotel and try to make the most of it.”

  She glared at him, glared at the bus, glared at the sky in what he thought might be an effort to inform the snowstorm of her displeasure. But her sharp exhale softened just at the end, and he smiled as he followed her onto the bus.

  He was in no rush to get back to Atlanta, especially now that he had a brand-new traveling companion. A whole night to spend with sexy Stella Schuster? Oh, yes.

  Three

  “Oh, no. This is not going to work.”

  “Looks fine to me.” Aaron breezed into the hotel room, leaving her standing in the doorway.

  “There’s only one bed.”

  “They told us at check-in the only room left had one king-size bed.”

  “I know, but I didn’t…” She bit her lip, searching for an excuse other than cold feet. “I thought there might be a couch.”

  “I’d rather find myself another hotel than sleep on a couch. I can still do that,” he offered, not unkindly.

  She shook her head. She was the one who’d suggested they share when the check-in clerk told them there was only one room left, buoyed on a wave of uncharacteristic impulsiveness she attributed t
o the close, dark, hushed ride in the cramped shuttle bus. His big body had crowded her, his shifting attempts to give her more space only increasing the friction, flooding her senses with his warm, cedar-and-woodsmoke scent. By the time they reached the hotel, every inch of her flesh tingled with sensual awareness. The clerk could’ve suggested they sleep in a broom closet and she would have snatched the key from his hand.

  But the wait for the elevator and the long walk down the hall had cooled her excitement, and now the lone bed stared at her accusingly, the side-by-side pillows almost vulgar in what they implied.

  This is what you wanted downstairs. You chose this bed. Now you have to lie in it.

  “I’ll go to another hotel. It’s been a long day, you’re stressed, and this is a lot.” Aaron shouldered the bag he’d just slung down.

  “No,” she said quickly, and then more firmly, “No. I want you to stay. I want to…” Drink until I’m not nervous, but not drunk either. Let you take the lead and discover you’re just as good in bed as I think you might be. Have a night of movie-quality sex followed by a totally non-awkward morning after, and then never see each other again.

  “I want to hang out,” she concluded.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  His roguish grin returned. “We passed a liquor store on the bus. I’ll make a supply run. You order room service.”

  No way was she staying here alone. Solitude meant space to think, to second-guess herself, to log on to her computer and let reality yank her out of this strange, surreal encounter. The notion had the first throb of a stress headache pulsing in her temple.

  She looked that big, inviting, secret-keeping bed in its skeptical face. Tonight she was the untethered, spontaneous, fun woman she’d always envied and never been. Forget work, forget deadlines, forget her ex, forget all the anxieties and responsibilities and pressures that dragged her down, yanked the days out from under her, and kept her awake and restless into the smallest hours of the morning.

  She would flirt and tease and seduce. Touch and taste and hold.

  She would have orgasms, dammit. Lots of them.

  “I’ll come with you,” she announced, then dropped her bag and preceded him out the door.

  She hadn’t noticed the cooler temperature during their brief foray outside to board the shuttle, but the chill became apparent as they walked a mile down a busy road to the liquor store.

  “I had such good weather on the cruise, I almost forgot we’re in the middle of December,” she remarked as they passed a gas station decked in scraggly plastic holly.

  “I’ve lived in Atlanta for five years and I’m still not used to having warm Christmas. Although I guess it’s shaping up to be a cold one this year, if the snow sticks around.”

  “Where did you move from?”

  “Skyline recruited me straight from UNC, but I always went home for Christmas in college.” He glanced at her as they waited at a crosswalk. “I’m from Wisconsin.”

  “You must love snow.” She shivered just thinking about it.

  “I wouldn’t go that far, but I don’t mind it. Are you from Atlanta?”

  She shook her head as they crossed. “San Francisco. My tolerance for weather that can be described as anything other than mild is zero. I stayed local for college, but then I went to law school in Chicago and it nearly killed me. I won’t lie, proximity to the equator was a significant factor when it came to accepting a job offer.”

  “Did you make the right choice?”

  “Big question.” She tried to sound nonchalant, but he waited for her answer.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted after a second’s consideration. “I like my job, and I’d like it more if I didn’t let it stress me out so much. But Carl—my ex-fiancé—followed me to Atlanta from Chicago, and into a firm notorious for its work-hard, play-hard culture. Maybe if we’d gone to a city where I spent fewer hours at my desk and he put in a few more behind his, then—”

  “The guy cheated on you, Stella. He would’ve done that whether you lived in Atlanta or Minneapolis or Timbuktu. Cheaters cheat, no matter where they are.”

  “You sound like an expert.” She stole a scrutinizing glance at him as they reached the liquor store. Was he a cheater or a cheatee? Not that it should matter for a twenty-hour affair, yet she deflated a little at the thought of the easygoing, effortlessly sexy man beside her betraying another woman like Carl had betrayed her.

  He didn’t reply, just held open the door for her to step inside.

  The store was empty except for a patient-looking clerk and a skeletal old lady sitting on a stool beside the counter. Stella returned her smile of greeting, unsure whether she was a customer or an employee.

  “Should we get some wine?” She drifted over to the rack of sauvignon blanc and perused the labels. She selected a decent but relatively inexpensive French vintage.

  “Does it taste as classy as it looks?” Aaron appeared at her elbow, a six-pack in one hand and a bottle of tequila in the other.

  “Room service. Not a frat party.” She plucked the tequila from his hand and put it in the empty space left by the wine.

  He shrugged, one side of his mouth lifting playfully. “Can’t blame me for trying.”

  She rolled her eyes and started toward the counter, trying to shake off the disquiet that the unforgiving fluorescent lighting had thrown into relief. She couldn’t decide whether it was the sudden revelation that Aaron might not be the saint she’d mentally cast him as, or the way the cold air had cleared away the last wisps of her gin-and-tonic haze, or the lovey-dovey Christmas carol playing over the loudspeaker, but she knew she had to get back to the hotel before doubt smothered her dwindling flame of reckless enthusiasm.

  The clerk smiled as they approached. “Find everything you need?”

  “Look at ’em, they don’t need anything. They got each other.” The old lady beamed.

  Heat flooded Stella’s cheeks, her heart sinking at the misapprehension. She didn’t have anyone, not really, and certainly not the charming man at her side. She had a temporary fantasy, nothing more, and this kind old woman deserved the truth.

  “Oh, we’re—”

  “Engaged,” Aaron announced, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “I proposed while we were on vacation.”

  The old lady clapped her hands together “Wonderful! Where’s the ring?”

  “At the hotel,” he replied without missing a beat. “Her fingers are a little daintier than I realized so we need to get it resized.”

  She turned to Stella. “Is it beautiful?”

  “Stunning.” She forced a smile.

  The clerk began scanning their purchases but the customer-or-employee was undeterred. “Where did you propose? What did you both say? I want all the details.”

  Stella glanced at Aaron nervously. His expression was calm and confident.

  “It was perfect,” he said softly, his smile turning inward and dreamy. “Happened exactly as I planned. There’s a restaurant in the Keys with a special table that overlooks the ocean. It’s famous for proposals—other diners come to the restaurant just to watch people get engaged. She had no idea, was so impressed that I’d booked far enough ahead to get the table with the best view. We laughed all the way through dinner, watching the moonlight glimmer on the ocean, listening to the waves sweeping up and down the sand. The waiter gave me the signal that the dessert was ready, and I knew it was time. I’ve never been surer of anything in my life than when I got down on one knee. I said, ‘Stella, you’ve shown me I can be the man I didn’t think I could ever become. You’ve taught me to value commitment, honesty, and most of all, love. Will you do me the honor of being my wife?’”

  She stared at him, hand rising to press over her fluttering heart. His tone was so sincere, his gaze unwavering and intent, she could practically smell the salt of the sea and feel the velvet box between her fingers.

  His eyes never left hers as he eased closer and slid one arm aroun
d her waist. His palm found her cheek, and he brushed his thumb over her lips before replacing it with his mouth.

  Her whole body went rigid with surprise, then all but melted into a puddle on the floor as she relaxed into his kiss.

  His lips were warm, his mouth hot, and the first exploratory push of his tongue sent heat radiating down her limbs until her skin prickled beneath clothes suddenly too thick and heavy. He tasted of earthy hops, sweet alcohol, and something else—a subtle, masculine, blood-rushing flavor that was all his own.

  She slid her hands up his chest to grip his shoulders, pleased to confirm the hard, athlete’s chest she’d only gotten glimpses of in the shape of his slim-cut shirt. She dug her fingertips into the round, firm muscles at the tops of his arms. He answered in kind, pressing his mouth harder against hers. She cracked her jaw, inviting him deeper, a murmur of approval escaping unbidden from somewhere low in her throat.

  He tightened both arms around her, yanking her close and giving her a heart-stopping preview of the hard length insistent against the fly of his jeans. Her pulse pounded in her temples, throbbing with arousal instead of stress for once. She moved one hand to the back of his neck, encouraging, asking, desperately hoping he’d push her up against the counter.

  The counter.

  Her eyes snapped open and she stumbled backward, holding Aaron at arm’s length. He smiled slowly, lazily, eyes hooded with satisfaction.

  The clerk cleared his throat. She turned sheepishly, and even Aaron had the courtesy to look mildly embarrassed.

  “Twenty-five dollars and seventy-seven cents.”

  “I’ll get it,” she muttered, but Aaron handed over his credit card as if he hadn’t heard her.

  She smiled nervously at the old lady, whose eyes were worryingly damp.

  “It’s so beautiful to see two young people in love,” she remarked, her voice wobbly. “You look at him just like I used to look at my Herb. Herb was my third husband, but I loved him more than any of the others. I’ve never gotten over losing him.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. When did he pass?” Stella asked as the clerk slid their purchases into paper bags.