Page 9 of Veiled Fantasies

One thing at a time. Her lost luggage. His, too?

Backpack in hand, she hesitated outside the door to 514, working up her nerves. What if he sensed what she’d been dreaming about last night? Could he somehow smell it on her? See it in her eyes? Because it was all still there. The taste, the feel of him. The lingering tingle of satisfaction that ran all the way through her core.

Ridiculous. He’d never even guess. As long as she didn’t let dreams push too far over into reality, she’d be fine. And anyway, he barely even knew she existed. She raised her knuckles over the door. They’d spent hours sitting in a plane next to each other and he’d exchanged more words with the stewardess than with Jill. He was totally uninterested in her.

She sucked in a long breath and knocked.

The door swung open and he appeared in tan pants and a blue button-down shirt. The lucky man had a change of clothes.

“Hey,” he said softly, prompting a fluttering in Jill’s stomach. His perfect posture reminded her to stand up the way her mother had taught her. Behind him, she could see his propped-open laptop on the desk. Already hard at work?

“Hi.” She nearly got lost in the alluring scent drifting over to her. It was a perfect match to the one in her dream. If only he had some incense burning in the background.

“I’m Jill, from…from…” She pointed next door.

He nodded with a curious look and offered his hand. “Erik.”

Nice, warm shake. Firm and confident without being crushing. Jill almost forgot to let go. She could make out a tiny shadow of stubble on his chin, see his perfect lips. Perfect for kissing. Perfect for—

She dropped his hand like a wet fish.Get on with it already!She tried to recall the next part of what she rehearsed. But he was so close! It was all she could do to resist the temptation to lean in and sniff his neck.

A sharp breath, and she was back on track. “I was going to the airport to check out…to check out…” Her eyes wandered to the broad chest that she’d snuggled against in her dream. “Flights,” she hammered the word home as his eyebrows coaxed her along. “To check out flights. And I was wondering if you’d like me to check on yours, too.” His flight, that is. She rushed the last words out in a jumble and stood stock still. Everything but the nervous tick by her right eye.

“To check out flights,” he repeated, eyeing her closely.

She wanted to melt into oblivion. “Flights,” she whispered, her voice sounding far, far away.

“That would be great.” A smile appeared, along with a slight bunching of the cheeks. Perfect teeth. And perfect composure, despite being barged in on by a complete twit first thing in the morning.

He turned away to search the jacket thrown over a chair. He had a perfect ass, too, but she already knew that. Soon, far too soon, he turned back with some papers in his hands.

“You’re sure it’s no trouble?”

She was fairly sure she’d hike naked across the desert at noon on a mission—any mission—for this guy. “No trouble…” What was his name? Oh god! She’d been so distracted–

“Erik,” he filled in, unfolding his itinerary.

“Erik,” she heard herself repeat, managing to keep it to a mumble and not a dreamy sigh as he rooted in his work bag for something else. Her eyes traveled the path forged by her imagination the night before, down his chest and along his abs. Bump, bump, bump. She imagined her hands skipping over a solid six pack. Down to his pants and his—

“Passport,” he said, handing her a small blue booklet with gold embossment.

He was trusting her with his passport? Probably because he could already tell how harmless she was. The same way security personnel never checked her—not at the airport, not at the one concert she’d attended in the last five years. Even the marines behind the barricades of the US embassy in London didn’t frisk her. Especially not the marines, and especially not the cute ones. Because she was harmless. Forgettable. Jill.

Erik was zipping the overnight bag in his room and showing it to her. “It looks like this.”

Huh? Oh, his lost suitcase. Right. She figured she’d remember the look of it about as well as she remembered his name the first time around. She was too fixated on those brown eyes. She’d imagined them wrong last night. They weren’t flashing, but deep and soulful, like a wood-lined lake fringed with weeping willows. Something to fix in her next dream.

“But,” he said, pointing to a line in his itinerary, “I need to change my destination to Stockholm.”

Her thoughts skidded to an abrupt halt. “Why?”

He paused, taken aback. “Well,” he started slowly, probably asking himself why she had a right to know, “I’ve already missed the meeting in London, so I just need to get to Stockholm now. If there’s a flight.”

Damn. She’d just managed a thirty second conversation with Mr. Perfect, Erik, only to find out that it would probably be their last. Soon, Allah willing, each of them would be on separate flights back home. She to her cramped, lonely flat in London, and he to his gorgeous wife in Sweden.

Well, what did she expect?

Those dark eyes would soon be jetting far, far away. They’d never look into hers again.

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