“What?” she asked, sure that he’d caught her snoring or drooling, which really wouldn’t be that big of a deal. He’d seen her at her worst and still taken on the challenge of loving her. Maggie had to remind herself that she didn’t have to be anyone but herself with him. She could just be.
He lifted the armrests that formed the barrier between them, then took her left leg and draped it over his right. Griffin let out a sigh and smiled.
“Don’t move,” she said, and then pulled her camera from the seatback pocket. Something about the way he looked at her made her want to capture this moment.
He chuckled as she snapped the photo.
“I’m glad you got some rest, but I have a confession,” he said, a glint in his eyes that made something in her gut tighten.
“What’s that?”
He traced circles on her thigh, sparks bypassing the thin blanket and then the denim covering her skin, traveling straight through her core. She squirmed, and his grin broadened, eyes crinkling with delight.
“I may have been fantasizing a bit about what we could do when you woke up.”
His hand was under the blanket now, her jeans the only thing standing between his skin and hers.
“On…on the plane?” she asked, willing him both to stop and to keep driving her insane. “But I’ve been sleeping for, like, three hours. I’m all travel gross and have morning mouth. Or afternoon mouth. What time zone are we in?” She gasped on that last word as Griffin’s fingers dipped under the hem of her sweater, the tips brushing the bare skin of her belly.
She stood abruptly, her head bumping the air blower thingy. Griffin laughed.
“I need to freshen up. Or something. I need to… I’m gonna… Can you grab my carry-on from the overhead bin?”
Griffin stood next to her, resting one knee on his seat to accommodate for his height and save him from head-butting the ceiling as she had. He kissed her softly on the jaw, just below her ear. His late-night or early-morning stubble—Jesus, what time was it?—tickled her skin, and there were those sparks again. God, what she wouldn’t do for this man, but not before assessing the situation. And besides, what were they going to do on a plane? People didn’t really…
“I’ll meet you in there in five,” he whispered, interrupting her internal monologue. His breath warmed her skin, his voice low and gruff and, shit, so sexy.
“K,” was all she could manage because, omigod, people really did that? On planes? That was his fantasy…and apparently hers now, too.
Griffin stepped out into the aisle, opening the bin to retrieve her bag.
“Oooh, perfect timing!” Jordan said, popping up from her seat to stand next to him. “Can you grab mine, too? I’m hungry.”
“I’ve got it!” Noah sprang up as well, nailing his head as Maggie had.
They all shared a collective laugh, and Maggie’s heart raced as she grabbed her bag and headed to the back of the plane. Once in the tiny bathroom—door left unlocked—she studied herself in the mirror.
So much had changed in a year, and Griffin was the catalyst for that change—for getting her to step outside the safe zone. After hiding herself away, hiding how she’d had to alter her lifestyle to compensate for the new way her brain worked, she had finally let Griffin in fully and completely. She had loved and trusted and let herself be loved in return, and it had gotten her to where they now were.
She blinked at her reflection. The skin under her eyes was a little darker than normal, but Maggie Kendall was smiling because she was on a plane to another country, so far from safe she couldn’t even see it anymore, and it felt good.
The door opened, and she gasped when she saw an older man recoil at the bathroom not being vacant.
“Sorry!” she yelped, heart pounding, and then she giggled. “Occupied.”
The man grunted a sound of disapproval. “Lock the door, then,” he grumbled. “Why doesn’t anyone lock the door?”
She pulled the unlocked door shut again and waited for Griffin. She hadn’t realized it until she met him, but she had spent two years waiting. Waiting for life to return to normal. Waiting to be the girl she was at nineteen, the one who hadn’t suffered a traumatic brain injury and undergone surgery that left her scarred in ways no one could see but her. Griffin never knew that Maggie, and a part of her wished he could have. Another part still waited for normal, a word that would never exist in their shared vocabulary.
“Stop psyching yourself out, Mags,” she said to the girl in the mirror. “He loves and trusts the you you are now.”
The problem, though, was that Maggie was still learning to do the same. This weekend would be the test. If she could survive the flight, the jet lag, the extra stimulation of places and people she didn’t know, then maybe she could trust in a future that was less than safe.
Right now she just had to trust that the next person to open that door would be Griffin, and with that trust she let the worry fall away, replaced with thoughts of his lips on hers and his hands on her skin.
The girl in the mirror smiled back.
“Nope,” she said aloud, biting her lip. “What we’re about to do in this closet of a room falls nowhere under my definition of safe. Not at all.”
Chapter Seven
Noah
He watched Griffin eye Maggie as she headed to the back of the plane before he sat down again in their row. Then Noah followed suit, collapsing into the seat next to Jordan with a sigh.
“Hey,” she started. “What’s wrong?” She ripped open a package of almonds and offered him one, but he shook his head.
How could he explain how being here with her and Griffin brought him back three years—to watching her with him while Noah made mistake after mistake, pushing her away. It wasn’t that he was still jealous of Griffin dating Jordan first. Okay, fine. He was a little jealous. Seeing the guy who got to be with her when Noah couldn’t? He blamed himself for losing that first chance with her, but being around Griffin—he felt that loss all over again. He still felt it was pure luck that she hadn’t written him off by the time he found her in London just before New Year’s Eve, that she fought hard enough to break through his trust barriers so they could get to where they were now. Even though it had been three years, Noah still worried that he’d somehow mess up again, that he’d lose his best friend—the person who filled the spaces in his heart he never knew were there until he met Brooks on that train. How the hell did he put all that into words that would explain that when it came to their past, he’d always want to prove to her that she made the right choice.
Noah pushed the armrest up and hooked a finger into Jordan’s belt loop, urging her closer.
“You know,” he said, his lips brushing her ear as he spoke in a soft whisper. “I could meet you back there. If you want.”
Jordan sucked in a sharp breath, and he smiled. Maybe he couldn’t put into words what kept eating away at him, but he could do everything in his power to make this trip perfect, to make sure Jordan knew how important she was to him.
At first she only nodded, and he grinned against her, sliding his hand from her belt loop to her thigh, the tips of his fingers disappearing between her legs.
“Noah.” His name was a whispered plea, and he realized this was how to say what he couldn’t articulate. He pressed a finger against her center, massaged her through her jeans, and Jordan squirmed in her seat. “Noah,” she said again, and this time it was a reprimand, yet one that was accompanied by her gorgeous smile.
“Head on back there,” he said softly, his voice doing nothing to hide his need for the woman sitting next to him. “I’m right behind you.”
She stuffed the almonds back into her bag and shoved it under the seat. Then she kissed him before stepping into the aisle and disappearing toward the back of the plane. He stayed facing forward, not wanting to be obvious, and counted to sixty. Twice. And then he couldn’t wait any longer.