He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the center of her palm, sending a shiver up her arm. “I would never make you quit school or give up a career. I want you submissive to me. I don’t want a Stepford wife.”
“Good.”
“But I’m going to give you my own warning right back,” he said, his gaze meeting hers. “I want to take care of you, Tess. That doesn’t mean making you dependent on me. But it does mean that I want to pamper you and surprise you and take you places on a whim. It means that I’ll worry about you and make sure you have everything you need. I’m madly in love with you right back, and I’m going to want to show it in every way available.” He kissed up her arm. “And I have lots and lots of ways available to me.”
She closed her eyes, his simple touch soothing something inside her. “I think I can work with that.”
He unhooked his seat belt and got to his knee, wincing slightly from his injury, then took her hands in his. His shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath before he met her eyes. “Tessa McAllen, I fell in lust with you the day I first saw you walk across the cafeteria in that purple flowered sundress you used to wear. I lost my heart to you when you hugged me that day in the cabin after your test and looked at me like I mattered to you. And I fell in love with you when I discovered the strong, smart, unfairly sexy woman you’ve become. I want nothing more in this life than to make you mine and to be yours in return. I know it may take you a while to trust that, but I will give you my love without limit or conditions, without an end. I’m not going anywhere. You’re it for me, Tess. Always. No matter what.”
Her throat felt filled with cotton, and fat tears rolled off her cheeks, splashing onto their joined hands. It was everything she’d always wanted to hear, the promise of forever. A real forever. And for the first time, she believed it could actually exist. She’d waited all her life for this man. For this kind of love.
“Will you be mine, Tess? Wear my ring and my collar?”
She looped her arms around his neck and slid down to her knees between the seats, almost too filled with joy to breathe. The truth poured out of her, without filter or fear. “It’s always been you, Kade. I walked away back then, but I never collected all of my heart back from you. Before this, if someone had told me there was a perfect match for me out there, some person destined to fit just right with me, I would’ve laughed. Especially if they told me that guy was someone who’d want to put a collar around my neck. But when I landed back in Atlanta and thought that I may have to give you up, give this up, I realized that I can never go back to the before state. I don’t want to. I thought I was happy with my new life in Texas. And I was. But not like this. I love you, Kaden Fowler Vandergriff, the boy you were and the man you’ve become. And I can’t think of anything I’d rather be more than the wife on your arm . . . and the slave in your bed.”
Kade’s smile lit up the darkened cabin and nearly broke her chest open. There was so much in his eyes, so much emotion he’d been keeping hidden from her, so much love. No one had ever looked at her like that—like she was the reason the sun rose each day.
Kade slid his hands up her neck and cradled her face. “I don’t want to go another day without making you mine. I’ve waited too long already.”
She nodded in his grip, excitement rather than nerves taking over at the prospect.
He reached back to press a button, calling for the flight attendant. The guy came down the aisle, not blinking an eye at the two of them kneeling between their seats. Kade barely spared him a glance. “Tell the pilot to reroute us to Las Vegas. And please close the curtain behind you and don’t check on us again until I open it.”
The attendant gave a brief smile. “Yes, sir. Right away.”
Tess lifted her eyebrows when he looked back to her.
“Tell me,” he said with a wicked tilt to his mouth. “Was membership in the mile-high club on that list of yours?”
She grinned. “It’s not, but I should definitely add it.”
He stood and took her hand, guiding her to her feet. But she didn’t miss the little flinch he gave when he’d gotten up.
“What about your leg?”
He put his hands on her waist and quieted her with a slow, soft kiss. When he pulled back, he gave her an enigmatic smile. “I’ve got ways around that.”
He led her down the aisle and she assumed he was taking her to the back where there was a small sleeping cabin with a twin-sized bed. But he stopped in the open area behind the seats where two couches flanked each side of the jet.
“Take off your clothes, Tess,” he said, that commanding tone sending goose bumps over her skin.
She glanced at the back of the plane. “Here?”
“Yes. Here. I suggest you don’t question me.”
She wet her lips. “Yes, sir.”
She pulled her shirt over her head and slipped out of her jeans, then tugged off her bra and underwear. The plane jolted and she grabbed for the overhead bin to keep her balance.
He gave her a long, sweeping once-over. The cabin lights had been turned down low and the starless night bled in from the windows, painting Kade in shadows and making him look ominous and intimidating and sexy. She shivered in the cool air, her nipples pebbling.
Kade opened the bin behind him and pulled out something. He turned around, holding seat belt extenders. “Wouldn’t want to risk the safety of my pretty little slave.”
She eyed the straps, her heartbeat hopping against her ribs.
“Turn around and face the windows. The view flying into Vegas at night is pretty breathtaking.”
“Yes, sir.” She turned on bare feet, facing the row of round windows, and Kade stepped behind her.