Читать книгу First Class Seduction - Anita Bunkley - Страница 11

Moving up from the rear of the plane with an armload of pillows, Lori left her fellow crewmembers, Sam and Allen, hanging out in the back to monitor the dwindling space in the overhead bins. She squeezed past passengers stuffing bags of all shapes and sizes into the narrow bins, knowing that space was going quickly. Soon, leftover bags would need to be checked back at the plane’s main cabin door, tensions would begin to mount and wrestling oversized duffel bags from surly passengers would begin. However, the one-hour, fifty-five minute flight from Acapulco to Houston, with a short stop in Mexico City, would give everyone plenty of time to calm down.

Boarding always produced the most problems, snafus and complaints during a flight, stressing out the flight attendants, whose main goal was to get carry-ons stowed and everyone seated as quickly as possible so the captain could depart on time.

As soon as Lori reached the first-class cabin, she handed the pillows to a family of four seated in the last two rows and then took their drink requests. Two sodas for the kids and two champagne mimosas for the parents. Lori nodded her understanding at the harried-looking mother who seemed to have struggled to get her sullen preteens settled into their seats.

While Phyllis prepared the drinks, Lori approached passengers seated in the emergency exit rows to determine if they were willing and able to assist in case of an emergency. Even though one of the passengers was quite elderly, the wiry little man assured Lori that he was up to the task.

When Lori returned to the first-class cabin, she met the agent working the flight. The agent handed her a copy of the manifest, which listed first-class passengers, passengers with special needs or meals, and any gate connections. She glanced at it, turned to face the passengers seated in the forward cabin and started her walk-through to get a head count.

However, she had not taken two full steps when she froze in the center aisle, her eyes riveted on the man sitting by the window in row 2, seat A. Was it possible? Was that her mysterious dance partner from the night before, calmly leafing through a magazine? Quickly, she checked the passenger list. Ramón Vidal—destination: Houston, Texas. Squinting at him, she did a double take. Yes, he was the man who’d burned her lips with his fiery kiss and branded her heart with an ache that wouldn’t go away.

Drawing in a calming breath, she moved right up to the edge of his seat to make sure he saw her. “Well, hello,” Lori said, trying to sound as casual as if she’d just run into a classmate from her college days, aware that everyone in first class would hear every word she said.

Ramón lifted his head, slid his sexy brown eyes up to hers and then hit her with the most adorable half smile Lori had ever seen, making her body tense and her nerve endings flare.

“Well…hi. You work here?” Ramón asked, looking bewildered as he glanced around, half turning in his seat.

“That’s right. I’m Lori, your flight attendant and I’ll be taking care of you during our flight to Houston.” Even though the plane hadn’t left the tarmac yet, her insides were tumbling around as if they’d entered a rough patch of turbulence. She held on to the nearest seat back to maintain her balance and looked down at the manifest again, determined to hold her emotions together. “Uh, so, you’re Mr. Vidal, right?” she inquired, shifting her attention back to Ramón, thankful that no one was sitting beside him.

“Yes, that’s me…but you can call me Ramón,” he offered, giving Lori a wink that revved her pulse like a jet engine preparing to take off.

“Would you like something to drink?” she asked, slipping into her perkiest passenger-request mode, knowing she couldn’t ask him what was really zipping through her brain: Why did you kiss me and disappear? Why did you have to wind up on my flight? Why are you making me so damn nervous? Would you like to go dancing again?

“Oh…sure. Coffee. Black.” Ramón paused, reconsidered and then added, “And a Bloody Mary, too. Extra spicy.” He lifted his index finger, as if to stop her from moving on, his half grin exploding into a full-blown smile. “I hope you enjoyed yourself at the club last night. I sure did.” He rested his head against the back of his seat. A glittering ray of sunlight streamed through the cabin window and lit the teardrop earring in his left ear.

“Yes, I did have a good time,” Lori murmured, not about to expand on the topic as she pivoted away from Ramón and turned to the passengers across the aisle.

“Would you like something to drink?” she asked the Middle Eastern couple sitting across from Ramón. As soon as they’d given Lori their order, Ramón leaned across the empty seat next to him and forced Lori to glance back.

“So, you’re gonna give me first-class service all the way, right?” he teasingly called over to her.

Lori sent a scowl of warning at Ramón, whose sensuous expression was begging her to forget about helping the other passengers and sit down beside him so they could chat. But that would never happen. She had too much to do to let him become a distraction.

“Yes, sir, first-class service all the way,” Lori replied with a mental jerk, her words clipped and tight. “If you need anything at all during the flight, Mr. Vidal, don’t hesitate to ask,” she finished, ignoring his request for her to call him by his first name. “Globus-Americas wants you to be as comfortable as possible.”

“Thanks, I’m sure you’ll do everything to my satisfaction,” he assured her, pinning Lori with that same dark look he’d zapped her with in Club Azule.

Once they were airborne, Lori got busy serving passengers, but couldn’t escape Ramón’s insistent attempts to monopolize her attention. If she paused by his seat, he made some remark about his love of Acapulco and how much he looked forward to visiting the city again. When she bent down to hand him a drink, he would add a tidbit about some place she should try to see the next time she was there. As she walked up and down the aisle during meal service, he had no problem stopping to make some new request. Another Bloody Mary. A more interesting magazine. A pillow, please? More coffee. Help with the earpiece before the movie came on.

As the miles slipped by and the plane zoomed toward Houston, Lori grew more and more irritated, yet intrigued, by the man who seemed to want to become her new best friend. Or more than that, she decided, amused with his determination to attract her attention and occupy her time.

Deep into the flight, Phyllis squeezed past Lori with a food tray and threw her a What-in-the-world-is-going-on? kind of look. Lori cut her eyes and jerked her head toward the galley, where she cornered Phyllis and confessed everything. “That’s one of the guys I danced with at the club last night. We danced and then…well, he kissed me and walked away.”

“Kissed you and disappeared?” Phyllis probed, touching her tongue to her upper lip as she refilled a coffee cup for the father of the still-sulking preteens. “Come on, Lori. More than a dance and a kiss must have happened,” Phyllis said. “Mr. Vidal is practically undressing you with those gorgeous brown eyes, and anyone looking at him can tell the guy is totally smitten with you. What went on that you aren’t telling me?”

“Nothing else, I promise,” Lori groaned, placing china and glassware on a tray. “And the kiss was not that much of a deal, really. Anyway, I never thought I’d see him again.”

“But there he is, chatting you up and feeling you up with his eyes.”

“Kinda looks that way, huh?” Lori admitted, feeling as if Ramón Vidal were still staring at her.

“Damn straight. So what are you going to do?”

“About what?” Lori tossed back.

“About him! I have to admit he is kinda sexy. Why don’t you find out what you can about him while you have him captive?”

“Absolutely not. I’m not going to go out there and grill him for information.”

“Oh, go on. Just talk to him. He might be a keeper.”

Lori snapped a white linen napkin at Phyllis, like a punctuation mark to end their conversation. “Please. I am not looking for a keeper and you know it.”

“Hey, don’t be so sure. Everybody needs somebody, sometime, Miss Play-the-Field. I’ve been widowed for ten years, but I knew what it was like to have a good man in my life. You deserve that, too.”

“I’m not about to rush things.”

“I understand your concern about getting involved again after what you went through with Devan Parker, but your I-don’t-want-to-be-attached attitude ought to be wearing thin by now. Go on. Your mystery man is so eager to talk…See what you can find out about him.”

Muttering an unintelligible reply, Lori finished preparing her tray and then headed out to serve her passengers.

Once food service ended, the crew tidied the cabin and dimmed the lights for in-flight movie and TV-watching. Taking advantage of the break, Lori returned to the forward galley to stash supplies while Phyllis headed to the rear of the plane to see if the guys in the back needed help getting their passengers settled in for the rest of the flight.

“Mind if I stand here and stretch my legs for a minute?”

Lori’s head whipped around. “Oh. No,” she told Ramón, not totally surprised to see him standing in the galley entry, coffee cup in hand. “Be my guest,” she added. “It’s a good idea to get up and walk around.”

“I don’t know about walking around…all I want to do is stay right here and talk to you.” His velvet-smooth voice was low and controlled.

“Yeah? About what?” Lori asked in a flirtatious manner, deciding that Phyllis might be right. Maybe it was time to put old fears behind her and stop throwing roadblocks in front of every man who threw out a pickup line.

The hum of the jet engines filled the silence as Ramón considered how to answer. He wanted Lori to talk about herself—to tell him what she liked, what she wanted, what his chances were of getting closer to her. But why would she tell all to a stranger she’d only just met in a club the night before? No, the best way to get her to open up was for him to open up first.

“Why don’t I tell you a little about myself?” he started, taking the easiest route.

Lori shut the door to the microwave oven, nodded her approval and smiled. “Sure. What would you like me to know about you?”

“That I’m single, straight, and I work hard every day.”

“Oh? Doing what?” Lori asked.

“Keeping people safe,” Ramón replied.

“Interesting. Were you in Mexico on vacation?”

“No, visiting my brother, Xavier. He’s just become a district judge in the state of Guerrero.”

“Good for him. So your brother lives in Acapulco?” Lori asked.

“Right. In a spectacular house on the bay.”

“Then you’re…I guess…you’re Mexican?”

Ramón chuckled at Lori’s hesitation to probe deeper into his ethnicity. His bronze skin, dark wavy hair and lack of an accent often left people confused about where he was from. While growing up in Houston, classmates and teachers had called him everything from mixed-race black, to Italian and even Middle Eastern, and he had learned over the years not to take offense, but to speak with pride about his Mexican-American heritage.

“Born and raised in Texas. My parents emigrated to the United States from Mexico and became naturalized citizens before I was born. My mom passed away a few years back, but my dad still lives in Houston. Only a few miles from me.”

“You said something about keeping people safe. Are you a policeman?” Lori asked.

“No, I own a security company. Alarms, burglar systems, that kind of stuff. It’s called Vida-Shield Security. My partner and I specialize in state-of-the-art systems for residences, businesses and government agencies.”

“So…if I ever needed protection, you’d be the one to call?” Lori joked.

“Absolutely. Here’s my card. As it says right there…We’re experts at keeping strangers out of your home.”

“That’s funny,” Lori tossed back, chuckling softly as she scanned his business card and read from it, “Let the experts keep strangers out of your home.” Again, a low laugh escaped her throat.

Her humorous response took Ramón by surprise, and he watched her closely as he asked, “What’s so funny about alarm systems, burglar bars and passcodes to stop criminals in their tracks?”

“Oh, it’s not that. It’s just that Globus-Americas’ motto is, “‘We’re experts at making strangers feel at home.’”

Ramón fingered his earring, smiling. I’d sure like to let her make me feel at home, he thought, determined to make headway while he had the chance because once they landed, they would go their separate ways and maybe never see each other again. He had to make an impression that would last beyond the moment the plane hit the ground. “Well, I can certainly testify that you do your job well,” he replied. “And I hope we won’t be strangers very long.”

Lori gave him a look that sent a ripple of anticipation through Ramón when she tossed her head back and tucked his card into the skirt pocket of her uniform. “Never know when I might need a safety check,” she teased, breaking the sexual tension that was connecting them like an invisible length of wire.

Ramón stepped closer to Lori, filling the tiny galley with his frame and blocking her from leaving. Attracting women had never been a problem for Ramón, but he was very choosy about the ones he dated. He didn’t go out a lot, but when he did, he made sure he spent time with women who intrigued, attracted and impressed him. Lori did all three, in a big way, and getting to know her was going to be a pleasure. He placed two fingers on the side of Lori’s neck, bent down and brushed his lips over hers. “I can’t think of anything I’d enjoy more than keeping a woman like you safe from harm.”