Inflight Meal

Leo was not a fan of flying. Not like this. Sitting quietly with strangers in an enclosed space. Like he was back in the classroom. That was one of his ideas of hell. He had many ideas of hell and very few of heaven. He made sure her was one of the first passengers on the plane. He took his seat with no fuss and no nonsense and then did his best to weather the storm of humanity around him. He tried the breathing technique his therapist had taught him and he also tried zoning out. Neither worked. A voice in his head was screaming at him to leave. Anything was better than this. Screw the deal. Just get off the plane and go home. Maybe Jimmy was right, they should buy the Vibe Bar, change its name to something far cooler, and live the simple life.

Leo’s Bar; thoughts of the bar helped calm him for a little while, but then he realised that his ambition was taking the concept to places that were far from simple. Leo sighed. Jimmy would make that bar work. He really would. But then Leo would come along, interfere and fuck it up, and the worst of it was that Jimmy would smile sweetly and let him ruin everything. Sometimes Leo wondered whether he wasn’t wired right. That maybe he’d been dropped on his head as a baby or his mother had had a secret drug habit. Leo was never settled or content. Nothing was ever good enough. Or if it seemed like it was? It soon turned into the brown stuff and stunk to high heaven, meaning Leo had to move onto pastures new before the shit stuck to him and he was the one stinking the place up.

Somehow, he lost himself somewhere in his thoughts and self-absorption, thankful of the respite. Barely taking in the safety briefing, he came to himself as the plane accelerated down the runway and he was pressed down into his seat as they travelled skyward. He enjoyed this bit, but it also terrified him. There was nothing natural about being propelled into the sky. He tried not to consider the landing. It was the landing that could kill you. Hit the ground hard enough and it was all over. He blew out a breath and closed his eyes. He kept them closed as he mulled the deal. This was the big time. Once he’d done this deal he’d be a different animal and the Vibe Bar would be far beneath him. He was a player now. Things were on the change, and people better take note. They would have to take note. He’d make sure of it.

“Drink, sir?”

The question phased him, but he quickly returned to himself, ordering a bourbon. Then making it a double. As he poured his drink into the crappy plastic cup he tuned into the interaction between the air hostess and the passenger sat next to him. The voice was what caught his attention. There was no mistaking the owner of that voice. If Leo were to turn and gawp at the woman next to him, he knew that he would find her attractive. Maybe too attractive. Leo’s measure of too attractive was not misogynistic, he applied the same rule to man and beast alike. Beautiful people could be really up themselves and manage to be a pain in the ass at the same time. Leo had experienced this and had no time for it. Mostly he had no time for it. There was always room for exceptions and she turned out to be yet another of the exceptions.

“Hey,” he said as he turned to greet her, “I’m Leo.”

She smiled and nodded, “I’m Grace.”

“Nice name,” he told her, and for once he thought he might mean it.

There followed a silence that could have been awkward, but instead was filled with anticipation, or at least was as far as Leo was concerned. 

“I don’t usually…” he began, but trailed off as both the words and the sentiment felt off kilter.

“I bet that’s what you say to all the girls you sit next to on a plane,” she said with a hint of humour in her voice.

That voice. There was something cathartic about it. Not only that. Her very presence was doing something to him. Some things. He was regressing. A young boy around the babysitter. A pretender to a throne he never thought he would ever sit on. His body was fizzing and his brain was spinning so that he couldn’t think straight. 

“So Leo,” she said, “what is it that you do?”

That last word was heavy with meaning, but he could not discern it, “I’m a business man,” he replied.

“The problem with the dog-eat-dog world of business is you have to piss a few people to get anywhere. Am I right?” she was smiling.

He nodded, “seems impossible not to.”

“Trick is not to piss the wrong people off,” she said in a quieter tone.

Leo paused for a moment, his face a question. It were almost as though she knew something that he didn’t. But how could she? She was just a stranger on a plane and this was small talk to pass the time as they lingered in the limbo of this uncomfortable travel.

Then she casually place her hand on his thigh and everything took a sharp right turn, “I find flying so dull,” now she was barely whispering, “don’t you?”

“Not so much so now,” Leo replied.

Grace grinned at him. There was something overtly sexy about that grin. It sent a thrill up Leo’s spine, the sensation was heightened as Grace’s hand stroked higher up his thigh and he found himself wanting more. Wanting so much more. 

“Your business?” she asked, her voice stroking the back of his neck in time with her hand on his thigh, “is it dangerous?”

“Very,” his own voice felt thick and stilted. He was inexplicably drowsy, but his senses felt heightened. Her touch was electrifying him, “I walk on the wild side.” He wasn’t sure why he’d told her that. Wild side? They weren’t even his own worlds.

“I knew it!” she said excitedly, her hand going all the way up his inner thigh and resting exactly where he had hoped it might, “you’re a very naughty man aren’t you?”

Naughty? Was he? If anyone else had asked him this question he’d have put them in their place. But with her it was different. It was like she was royalty. A bona fide princess. The sort you couldn’t refuse. And he wasn’t going to refuse her when she was working magic on him with that hand of hers. Couldn’t react badly with where her hand was right now.

“I have been known to be naughty,” he struggled to say the words as an involuntary gasp threatened to intermingle with them.

“In that case, I think you better ask for a blanket,” Grace gave him a playful squeeze. She was leaning in towards Leo now. He felt her breath on his ear lobe and neck.

“Sure,” he said, and duly obliged.

“That’s better,” purred Grace as she spread the blanket over Leo. The armrest was up and out of the way now, “this business of yours. It’s criminal isn’t it?”

“Can be,” Leo replied as Grace moved closer to him and nuzzled his neck sending waves of pleasure through him. The anticipation was building and he was reeling from this turn of events. He was no longer enduring a painful flight, he was enjoying a mile high tryst. 

“Oh look, you’re bleeding,” her words took too long to sink in. He responded instead to her hand leaving him and taking his wrist instead. There was a smear of blood, but he hadn’t noticed any pain or act that could have caused the slight wound, “here, let me.”

He watched as she lapped at the bloodied skin on his wrist. However slow he’d been with what she’d been saying, his body responded quickly and fully to this. She was sending waves of pleasure through him and his imagination was going to the best of places even before she began kissing and then sucking at his flesh. He’d never known pleasure like it. Never realised how sensitive his wrists were.

They sat like that for a while. Grace lapping and kissing him as he looked on. Leo doing his best to stifle his moans and hold himself back. The way he was responding to her. It was like his first time, but he had decades of experience to bring to the party. Something so simple as kissing his wrist. Who knew? And if she could have this effect on him as she did this? What further pleasures awaited?

He was disappointed when she stopped. Resisting the urge to ask her not to cease, putting a hold on begging her for more. Instead he went for small talk to disguise his blatant need for her. “What do you do Grace?” he asked as she slipped her arm around him and drew closer to him. 

Her hand was wrapped around him now. It felt so good. He barely registered her having undone his belt and trousers. Losing his touch. Drowning out the dissenting thoughts. Going with it. He’d seen plenty of action before today. But not like this. Not with a woman like Grace. And she was doing things to him that he didn’t know were possible. He wanted her more than any woman he’d ever met. Wanted to give himself over to the pleasure he knew she could so readily bestow. Her voice. Her presence. It had spoken of this. Drawn him in. Now she was fulfilling the promise that was made as soon as they’d taken their seats on this flight. A chance encounter that was blowing his mind to pieces.

As she stroked him and pleasured him, she answered his question with that voice of hers, “I deal with the naughty boys. I eliminate risks,” she breathed into his ear, “and you’ve been a very, naughty boy. Fran Johnstone is not happy with you going behind his back with this deal of yours.”

His eyes widened in shock, but he barely had time to let the words sink in before her teeth sank into his neck. His back arched and he wanted to protest, to struggle, but it was already too late for that. Too late for Leo. Grace took her time and enjoyed her inflight meal. These business trips were very lucrative for an assassin with her skills and proclivities. Less so for loose cannons like Leo.