Layers Crossed by Lacey Silks Page A

be
enough. And as much as I wanted to join the mile-high club on my
virgin flight, this wasn’t the right time.
    When we pulled
away I traced her lip with my thumb, kissing her gently once more.
Her eyes were wide open now, her heart pounding against mine so
profoundly. I smiled and she smiled back, and I knew that this time
I’d done it right. I gave her a kiss worthy of acceptance – even
though in all honesty, the first one wasn’t bad either.
    “I won’t make
the plane come down and kill us both, but you’re definitely not on
your feet, Emma. And there is much more where that came from,” I
whispered, getting up and straightening her clothes, as well as
fastening the three buttons which had now popped on her shirt.
    She didn’t say
anything, but the obvious flush on her cheeks told me I’d succeeded
in knocking her off her feet.
    Emma remained
quiet for the remainder of the flight. She opened her laptop and
began searching through a database. With a sidelong glance I caught
Huntz’s name on the screen. He’d apparently made his way to Mexico
quite often, but always returned to a different town you could
barely find on a map. But there was only one little nest he’d come
back to more than once. Emma focused her search on that part and
was now reading through a page. I closed my eyes for a moment,
trying to clear my head. If I was going to get the answers I sought
while keeping her occupied for more than a couple of weeks, the way
I’d promised, I needed to make sure Emma could concentrate. There
was no way she could find Huntz earlier, could she? If I was going
to keep my promise to Hunter, kisses like the one we’d just shared
would have to be postponed. The question was, how in the world was
I going to do that?

     
    C HAPTER 9
    Emma
    I hadn’t been
able to recover from the way Eric kissed me on the plane. The
passion that curled through me from his mouth and the way he’d held
me against him left me breathless.
    No man had
ever kissed me that way, and I was afraid I was getting more
involved with him than I should. After all, he was a client, and I
didn’t fool around with clients. Yet what was happening between us
was more than just playing around. The attraction was like a
sparkling current of electricity igniting midway between our
bodies. It didn’t surprise me that both my brothers and their wives
had been suspicious.
    And then there
was the guilt. Knowing how much Eric had affected me brought back
memories of someone else who had once drawn similar emotions from
my body. The one person who made me feel like the world belonged to
us. I was his and only his: laughing, crying, sharing secrets and
making plans for the future. He’d moved from Vienna to be with me.
Dropped everything that he loved and planned to open a bakery in
New York just so that he could wake up next to me in the morning.
And he was taken away so quickly. It had been two years since David
died, and it was my fault. For months I couldn’t even say his name.
I’d moved out of our apartment at my parent’s guest house, leaving
everything behind. And when I finally began dating again, I knew
the moment I agreed to a date that it wouldn’t last longer than a
week. I hadn’t been able to let go of the past with anyone.
    Eric was so
much more than I’d expected him to be. That first kiss spun my
head, and the second one had me nearly climaxing as I rubbed myself
against his erection. And whatever piece of jewelry he sported on
his nipples – I wanted to see it, to lick it and play with it with
my tongue. First it was the tattoo, and now his piercings? Pressed
against him, the abrasive metal rubbed on my cleavage with
excruciatingly delightful force. If he didn’t pull away, if he
didn’t stop, I was sure I’d melt underneath him and start removing
his clothes. I was all ready to rip that shirt off him when he
pulled away. With my mind finally free, desperately trying to
return to earth, or at least back to our flight, I’d