The aviatrix, p.18
The Aviatrix, page 18
“You don’t mind giving me the wheel, then?” she asked as they left the establishment together and started picking their way through the warehouse.
“As long as you don’t break our necks.”
She smiled at him. “I can manage that.”
Mattie reached up and laid her hand over his as they stepped into the street. A city with its narrow alleys, glaring streetlights, and pungent odors had never seemed so beautiful to Leo or filled with such potential.
“I like this.” Mattie tipped her head up at him, her skin somehow still glowing despite the unforgiving glare of the artificial lights. She had the amazing ability to take any harshness and transform it into softness.
“What?” Leo asked, leaning his head closer to hers as they walked along. A motorcar or two passed, but otherwise it was quiet, peaceful even.
“Us getting along. Not fighting. Walking together. Working together.”
“I like it too.” More than anything. He traced his fingers over her skin. She shivered despite the humid night air. His touch had done that. Inspired the pleasure. And he wanted to give Mattie more. He wanted to give her everything.
“I feel so wonderfully alive—so energized!” Mattie snuggled her body against his. “I never thought mere emotions could do this. Did you?”
They’d rounded the corner now, and Leo could see the brilliant lights of the hotel’s marquee, big and bold as it declared the establishment’s presence to the world. It, like the woman in his arms, shrank from nothing.
“Yeah,” Leo admitted. “I did.”
“How—” Mattie began to ask, but he was spared from answering by the doorman, who snapped to attention at the sight of them. The older gentleman clearly recognized Leo and her as Miss Jones’s friends. With the efficiency of a butler on an old English estate, he arranged for one of the bellhops to pick up the Duesy. The exchange, blessedly, had distracted Mattie, but it hadn’t Leo.
He knew the powerful effect of emotions because he’d battled them for so long. Unlike Mattie, he didn’t have many feelings bouncing inside him. He didn’t often have little spurts of joy or whispers of affection. He couldn’t find inanimate objects cute like she did, and he’d never sobbed over a sad picture show, although he’d watched her bawl during Something to Think About. But on the rare occasion when Leo did feel, it roared through him.
The sleek Duesenberg pulled up to the curb, and the bellhop jumped out. Mattie slid into the driver’s seat. After stripping off the white gloves she’d borrowed from Vera, she caressed the steering wheel and emitted a little breathy sigh. Leo hadn’t thought he had any space left in him to burn, but clearly, he did.
He wanted her hands on him like that, her lips parted in the pleasure he’d given her. Drawing in air, he quickly pulled open the passenger door and sat down in his seat, glad that the style of men’s trousers had grown roomier in recent years.
Mattie pressed on the accelerator, and they sped off. At this time in the evening, traffic in Chicago was thinner but still thick enough that Mattie couldn’t race the machine. They didn’t talk as the Duesy rumbled through the city lit by streetlamps and the glow from apartments, hotels, restaurants, and clubs. It was as if they’d agreed to take this time for each of them to adjust to the monumental change.
When they reached the open road and the moon provided the only illumination other than the automobile’s headlamps, Mattie reached for his hand once again. It felt so natural, weaving his fingers through hers, yet Leo had never done this before. Not with Mattie. Not with anybody.
He liked it . . . but that didn’t mean it was necessarily safe.
“Shouldn’t you have two hands on the wheel?” Leo asked as casually as he could. He really should have released her, but he couldn’t. Not yet.
She shot him a quick look before returning her eyes to the hard-packed dirt road. “How about a compromise? I won’t increase my speed, and we keep touching each other.”
She was driving at a sensible pace, so Leo settled back in the leather-upholstered seat. The evening air gently buffeted his face, a cool contrast to the orange-colored inferno still raging inside him.
“What are you thinking about?” Mattie asked.
“You,” he admitted. It was surprisingly easy to confess his internal thoughts. After all the years he’d kept them hidden, he would have thought he would face some sort of barrier. But they just seemed to flow, and not even in some released-dam sort of way.
Mattie smiled in the moonlight, the air ruffling her short curls. Her hair looked like dark shadows, but he didn’t need the sun to show him that her locks glowed with fiery redness.
“I like that,” Mattie said, and even her words sounded like a grin.
“Me thinking of you?” He rubbed his thumb against her palm, drawing circles on it with slow precision.
“Yep. It makes me feel all gooey inside, like a melted caramel.”
He barked out one of his rare bursts of laughter at her turn of phrase. “I’m glad, because I’m planning on doing plenty of it.”
“Thinking of me?” Mattie asked, her voice rising almost girlishly at the end. He liked hearing the giddiness, knowing he’d caused it.
“Constantly.”
“I’m going to be a giant puddle all the time, aren’t I?” The wind caught Mattie’s happy laughter, carrying the lilting melody into the night.
“Maybe.” Leo’s voice had taken on a flirtatious tone that even he didn’t recognize. He didn’t know when he’d last felt this carefree—maybe never. “You’ll get used to it.”
“I suppose so . . . ,” Mattie said airily before she trailed off. Suddenly, she whirled in his direction. Her eyes glittered in the silvery light, the myriad of color lost in the darkness but not the intensity. “Wait! Do I make you a puddle?”
He hesitated. Should he reveal this weakness to her? Should he confess how much power she wielded over him, had always wielded over him?
His momentary pause evidently confirmed her suspicions.
“I do. I do!” She paused and then added suspiciously, “How exactly are you a puddle when you’re constantly arguing with me?”
“Hard-coated exterior,” Leo admitted.
“You know I’m going to keep on penetrating it.” Mattie quickly sent him one of her cockiest grins.
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” he said dryly.
They fell into another silence, this one a happy, contented one. It reminded Leo of the days before the war when he, Alfred, and Mattie would lie on their backs for hours, watching the clouds and talking about flying. Well, talking and listening. Mattie and Alfred had done most of the chatting and he the contemplating. But tonight, it was just the two of them, and they were both enjoying the quiet.
About ten minutes later, they arrived at Vera’s castle. Somehow, even bathed in moonlight, it looked fairy tale–like instead of foreboding. Leo still couldn’t believe he was living in such whimsy. Climbing out of the Duesenberg, he stared up at the spires stabbing the star-studded sky. Mattie snagged his fingers once more.
“Come on.” She gave a tug as she slipped off her high heels with her other hand. “We have a beach to explore.”
They ran like carefree schoolchildren. The full moon provided ample light, but they still slowed when they reached the edge of the bluff. Although it wasn’t a sharp cliff, the trail was still steep enough that they couldn’t barrel down it. As soon as they had picked their way to the bottom, Mattie turned toward him and smiled. “Shoes off, Mister!”
“Is it a requirement?” Leo laughed.
“At beaches? It sort of is. Don’t you want to feel the sand between your toes again? It’s soft and sinky.”
“Sinky?” Leo repeated with a chuckle.
“You know what I mean.”
Still holding on to her, he untied his shoes. It was a little more difficult for him to remove his oxfords than it had been for Mattie to undo the buckle on her pumps, but he was managing without too much undignified hopping.
“You know, it would be easier to do that with two hands,” Mattie observed, but Leo noticed she made no move to release him.
“I’m not ready to let go of you just yet.” Now that he was finally touching her, he had no idea how he’d had the strength to keep his distance all these years.
Her fingers squeezed his. “To tell the truth, I’m not either.”
Emotion gushed through Leo, rushing into every hollow, every deep, chiseled place that he’d never hoped to fill. At last, his second shoe popped off. Leaving it in the sand beside its mate, he pulled off his socks and then straightened. Mattie’s light laughter mixed with his deeper, rustier chuckle, and together they dashed along the sandy stretch. The water lapped lazily against the shore, the sound rhythmic and soothing. Pearly light danced along the surface, giving a pleasant, magical glow.
Mattie suddenly skidded to a stop, her neck craned upward. “Isn’t the sky beautiful tonight?”
She grabbed Leo’s other hand and twirled them in a mad circle, her chin pointed toward the heavens. He, however, watched her face and the wondrous emotions that flitted across it.
“Yes, it is,” he said.
“The stars are a bit overshadowed by the moon, but altogether it is breathtaking. Don’t you just want to jump into our Jennies and dance among the constellations?”
“Night flying is dangerous,” Leo pointed out, thinking of how Alfred had gotten so twisted during his final battle as the twilight had crept in upon them. “It’s easy to get disoriented and lose your way, and you can’t see to land.”
“It’s what happened to Alfred.” Mattie echoed his thoughts as she stopped their mad whirl. “If only there had been some way for him to know where he was headed.”
“During the war,” he admitted, “I volunteered to perform reconnaissance months after Alfred’s death. It was near the end of the fighting, and a group of doughboys were pinned down under heavy fire. Headquarters wanted to make sure that more German troops weren’t being sent to wipe them out.”
“I didn’t know that,” Mattie said softly.
“By then, I’d grown to be calm in the air—maybe preternaturally so. But it was unnerving being up there in the darkness with nothing to guide you, no landmarks below, your maps useless. Any signal, any hint of my direction other than my less-than-reliable compass would have helped.”
“But you never thought about turning back, did you?” Mattie asked.
“Our boys on the ground needed me. I wouldn’t abandon my mission until I had the information. I was never so glad, though, as I was when I saw the spotlights from my own aerodrome.”
“Home,” Mattie said softly, as if she understood, but then Mattie had always seen his inner thoughts so easily. That is, all the ones except his affection for her.
Leo cleared his throat, the old memories pressing down on him, deflating his elation. He’d never spoken much about the war, not even to Mattie’s brothers nor to other fellow veterans. He supposed it was like any other part of his past. Something he either swept away or hid deep inside.
Yet here with Mattie, on this magical stretch of beach, he found himself able to talk.
“Sometimes when a pilot didn’t return after dusk, we would shoot Very lights into the sky. They would burst in the air, sort of like fireworks or shooting stars. We were all trying to bring lost aviators home, as if those little streaks of brilliance would somehow produce a miracle.”
“I can see why you don’t want to go night flying,” Mattie said softly.
“Mattie, you don’t have to go sailing off into the stars to find excitement.” He stood before her, their hands still clasped in each other’s from their wild spin. Instead of turning their bodies again, Leo gently pulled Mattie close. She could break his grip at any time and stop her forward momentum, but she didn’t.
“Exactly what adventure are you proposing?” Mattie asked impishly, clearly taking his cue to change the mood back to lighthearted. She collided gently with his chest, her chin now tilted up at him instead of the firmament.
“I’m thinking that the best way to soar without ever leaving the ground is to do this . . .” He dipped his head and pressed his mouth against hers. Having lived as a nomad most of his life, he hadn’t had too much experience in the kissing department. He figured Mattie really hadn’t either. But it didn’t matter. Their lips might have slid over each other’s a little awkwardly at first, but his heart still pounded from the thrill of it all.
He hadn’t felt this alive, this good, since before the war. It was like flying for the first time, only better because he was still grounded. There was a rightness at the core of this, a marvelous, wonderful steadiness in all the swirling madness.
Mattie’s lips felt soft and cool, and the gentle friction triggered glorious sparks. Mattie’s body sank against his. They didn’t have too much difference in height, and he loved that fact. Loved how they fit together so neatly, her softness against his hardness. Yet she possessed undeniable strength too. Her arms were strong against the back of his neck. He could feel her muscles, earned from years of fixing engines and hauling parts. This was his Mattie, unique and utterly perfect for him.
His hand touched her curls, and he marveled at their smooth, soft resilience as they bounced back into shape as soon as his fingers brushed over them. They didn’t feel like fire, but they affected him just the same. Warm heat zinged through him, like a thousand incendiary bullets finding their marks. He made a sound, a low groan that seemed to reverberate through him. Mattie rewarded him with a little moan of her own. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, the pressure echoing his own tumbling need.
Leo’s lips moved from her mouth, exploring her cheeks. If it had been daylight, he might have taken the time to kiss each individual freckle. But he swore he knew where most of them were from memory. She shuddered in his arms, her breaths growing shorter and shorter. The sound galvanized him. He traced his lips over her temple and then drew them over her jaw. She uttered another marvelous sound as she allowed him to explore.
Then she lifted her head. The silvery strands of moonlight illuminated her pale skin. He recognized her expression instantly—the thrill and utter glee. Mattie looked this way when she whipped her Jenny through the sky, letting the machine swoop and dance more gracefully than a majestic hawk. Her lips pressed against his mouth with the same focus and passion she exhibited in the cockpit. He felt like he did when in free fall, spinning, whirling, his mind utterly dazed. But for once he didn’t worry about the landing.
He just let himself feel, giving himself over to Mattie and her wild joy.
Mattie had never thought she could soar on the ground.
She’d been wrong.
Her body felt like it did during takeoff. Primed. Ready. Energized.
It fascinated her how many sensations Leo could evoke. She had stolen kisses from boys before, meaningless moments, all but forgotten. An embrace had never felt like this. Monumental. Marvelous. And above all memorable.
It wasn’t that Leo was a Casanova. Mattie had been embraced by men with more finesse, more practice. They’d been smooth talkers who’d pictured themselves as suave Valentinos. But their slick kisses had never inspired her, let alone devastated her.
Not like Leo’s.
She’d heard the expression of knees growing weak. She’d always dismissed it as overromanticized ridiculousness. Even if it were true, she’d had no desire to feel swoony, especially over something so silly as a mere embrace.
But her legs did feel very much like a newfangled Jell-O salad, all wobbly and unsteady. But somehow, despite currently having gelatin for joints, she wouldn’t have called herself weak, not with all this amazing power rippling through her.
Mattie ran her fingers down Leo’s back, freely exploring his body with her hands as she plumbed the depths of his mouth with her tongue. Even with his dinner jacket and cotton shirt, she could feel the ridges of his muscles as they stretched and bunched the fabric. Leo had never shied away from manual labor. Even with Vera employing several mechanics to maintain their planes, he still did more than just tinker with the engines. He was always hoisting the heavy parts, always in the middle of any major repair. That work had shaped his entire body into something glorious.
Mattie was a woman who marveled over machines instead of men. But something about Leo fascinated her even more than Vera’s sleek cherry-red Duesenberg. Yet it made sense. After all, he had the same strength and steadiness as one of those finely crafted mechanical masterpieces.
Leo’s lips left hers again, making those naughty, delicious patterns over her skin. He smelled slightly of engine oil, like he always did. Although it wasn’t the world’s most pleasant aroma, it was a solid one, like him, and Mattie had always associated the scent with flying.
Sounds emerged from Mattie, low and throaty. She’d never thought she would ever make such needy moans, but they felt right. Even better, they seemed to encourage Leo to do more wonderful things with his mouth. He gently sucked the skin between the crook of her neck and her shoulder, and glorious shivers danced through her until she positively reverberated.
Just then the sky lit up. Mattie thought at first it was her imagination, but a bright light filled the atmosphere, causing the lake to glow. She and Leo pulled apart, breathless, as they stared at the horizon. Suddenly, another burst of energy illuminated the water.
“Heat lightning.” Leo’s voice sounded ragged, and its coarseness caused Mattie to shiver.
“I firmly believe we caused that.”
He chuckled as he drew her close. “I don’t think that’s scientifically accurate, but I like the explanation.”
Mattie leaned her head against his shoulder as they watched another flare in the distance far across the lake. “You act pragmatic, but I think you might be hiding a romantic side. After all, you’re the one who wanted to make a sand château instead of a fortress.”
