“I hate that word.” He took her hand and pulled her up and together they ducked back inside the plane.
“Fine?”
“Yes,” he grumbled.
“It seems innocuous enough,” she shrugged.
“That’s why I hate it. That, and nobody who uses it ever is.”
She chuckled at the truth of the comment. “True. It should be a safe word.”
Nathan had started his plunge into the leather seat but that jolted him back upright. “How the hell do you know about safe words?”
“I haven’t been living under a rock, Nave. Plus, I’ve been researching you for the past several weeks. You’d be amazed what comes up when you Google ‘Nathan Bishop and kink.’”
He kissed the end of her nose. “Not falling for it, Emily.”
“Darn.”
“Even if I admit to a mildly checkered past, I am the picture of discretion.”
“I see.” He didn’t miss the chill in her voice.
“Hey. What?”
“You asked me that. That first night. You asked me if I had a safe word.”
“Jesus. I forgot. I could kick my own ass for the way I behaved that night.”
“I was … I couldn’t believe you were the same person I remembered.”
“I’m not. I wasn’t. I was preoccupied with you ever since the night you were drugged and burst into that meeting. I was angry with myself for letting a woman get to me. I thought if I spent the night with you...”
“You’d get me out of your system.”
“I should have known then.”
“Known?”
“That you weren’t like the others. A night with you, even before I knew who you were, it would have mattered. It never mattered before.”
“I don’t like thinking about that stuff.”
He pulled them both down into the seats as Brian finished the preflight check.
“About sex?”
“About you having sex with other women.”
He looked at the ceiling, shaking his head.
“Emily, it has only ever been you. I’m not a saint, but no woman has ever.... Before you came back to me, I was....” He scrubbed his face with his hand and then came nose to nose with her. “There has never been anyone but you, beautiful Emily. In here.” He pointed to the left side of his chest. “Got it?”
She did nothing to stop the lone tear that trailed down her cheek and nodded against his forehead, “Got it.”
“Nathan?”
“Hmm?”