Free Flight 69: The Mile High Club (Hot Sex with a Handsome Stranger) by Chloe Thurlow Page B

nonexistent creases from my dress and toss my hair in the way actresses in movies always do as a sign that they don't want to be bothered by anything.
    The man who had helped me with my bags leisurely refolds the newspaper he's been reading before returning it to the table. He is wearing blue jeans, a dark grey jacket, white polo shirt and loafers, smart-casual and breezily self-confident. I had thought under the bright lights of the departures area that his hair was pale blond, but it's grey with dark flecks and sweeps back in a faintly-curling wave. His hair gives him a 'sophisticated' look, but he has a young face with wide cheek bones , a strong nose and those eyes, deep blue like a lake.
    He smiles, nodding his head slightly, and I feel the color rise up my neck. I'd been caught staring at him and bite my lips in embarrassment.
    I make my way behind the women with children and show my boarding card to the flight attendant. He's a young guy with a bushy moustache.
    'I'm Craig,' he says, and points at his name tag . 'If there's anything you want, you just have to ask. Okay?'
    'Okay.'
    As he leads me up the aisle, he tells me there is fresh sea bass for dinner, a new white wine that's totally gorgeous and the flight is scheduled to leave on time.
    'We've got a 96% record,' he adds proudly.
    There are eight rows in business class, four in a row. I am in seat 32, the last one. The seat is dark blue leather – and big, like an armchair, with wide arms and a pocket in the seat in front containing safety instructions and the in-flight magazine. I put some gloss on my lips and slide my Kindle into the pocket. I don't have much time for reading, but I had devoured Fifty Shades of Grey and wondered what pleasures awaited Anastasia Steele in Fifty Shades Darker.
    Business is about half full when he appears, making his way past the empty seats until he reaches the last row. He looks at his ticket and, when he looks back at me, I wonder for a moment if I am in the wrong place.
    'I'm 31,' he says, and for half a second I think he's telling me his age.
    I guess that's probably what he is, 31, with that grey hair and blue eyes that look into mine with such sudden intensity I feel my neck flame again and look away.
    He folds and places his jacket in the overhead locker, wedges a book and magazine in the seat pocket and sits, turning with a smile.
    'You haven't fastened your seat belt,' he says and passes me the end nearest to him. 
    Why does this man keep making me flush? Remember girl, business class, act like you belong.
    'I was just going to put this in the locker,' I tell him, and stand, shrugging out of my jacket.
    He instantly leaps up to help, puts my jacket away and we both sit and strap up.
    'James Swanson,' he says, offering a long slender hand with neat nails.
    'Kelly Conway.'
    'It's my pleasure,' he adds, peering deep into my eyes, and I would think about that short sentence later, and how he stretched out the word pleasure with a faint Southern drawl .
    People in cattle class are being herded down the aisle with things hanging out of their bags, children shouting. We watch a blond with enormous breasts in a tight top and he turns to me, rippling his brow, his smile seeming to invite me into a secret.
    Then he turns away and takes out his magazine – the Oil & Gas Journal, and I assume he's in the petroleum industry, although he doesn't look like an oil man . He looks more like an actor, someone in the media. With that hair and eyes, those carved looks, he could easily be a weatherman, and the thought makes me smile. It's fun trying to work out what people do, even if nine times out of ten you're wrong.
    Kindle time. Christian Grey is making an effort to be charming and Anastasia is submitting to his charm. You can work out what's going to happen next: a spanking, a taste of the whip, being gagged and suspended from the ceiling in the Red Room of Pain. You can guess, but the fun is not knowing and watching like a voyeur as