Once they were seated, she double-checked to be sure he was buckled in correctly, gave him some brief instructions, and they were off.

  He was quiet for the first ten minutes of the flight, and she didn’t say anything to pull him out of whatever he was experiencing. Everyone takes in their first helicopter ride differently, and he’d enjoyed hang-gliding, so she was certain he was okay. However, she pointed out the Ocoee River when they neared it.

  “How do you know where to go? It’s hard to see landmarks from up here.”

  “GPS isn’t just for cars. How are you doing? Any motion sickness?”

  “Taking off was a new experience, and it took a while for my stomach to catch up with my body, but it wasn’t bad. I love this — it isn’t as thrilling as hang-gliding, but it’s a lot different than an airplane.”

  “I’ll take you up in a small plane someday. They are different, but you’re comparing this with a commercial plane, and I’d like you to compare it with the cockpit of a smaller plane.”

  “I thought you only had a helicopter?”

  “I have access to rent a few planes out of the Collegedale Airport. Right now, renting them makes the most financial sense, but I may need to look at purchasing one eventually.” But only if she could find and hire a trusted pilot who could handle charter flights, because it didn’t make financial sense to buy one and have it sit unused.

  “I’m not sure Kyle will ever be able to handle this.”

  She wasn’t inclined to argue, but she’d never tell Kyle she didn’t believe he could do it. “I know the basics of what triggered things — he saw a small plane crash when he was camping with his family when he was eleven, and he snuck away from camp and climbed a tree about twenty yards away from the crash. No one knew a child watched as the victims, horribly broken, were taken out of what was left of the plane. No survivors, and I imagine the recovery spotlights showed him every last detail of what a crash does to the human body.”

  Marcus didn’t correct her or add anything, so she went to the next traumatic event. “And then at fourteen, he and a friend went over the fence onto the old TNT property, and he fell into a deep hole. His friend went to get help, but then couldn’t lead them right back, and Kyle was in the hole seventeen hours before they found him again. So, fear of flying and claustrophobia. He hasn’t explained the fear of heights thing, but I assume it’s a side effect of seeing the plane crash.”

  “He’s told you why he went into plastic surgery?”

  She nodded. “He realized he couldn’t deal emotionally with people who were sick. Also, he never wanted to have to tell someone they were going to die. This way he gets to practice medicine and rarely has to deal with illness. I’ve wondered if it doesn’t have something to do with seeing the shape those bodies were likely in after the crash, but I’m not a shrink so I’ve kept that to myself.”

  “You seem to know the most important stuff. I can’t tell you anything — everything has to come from him. Also, I won’t talk about him in this context when he isn’t around, but I wanted to make sure you knew the original triggers.”

  Heather respected that, so she didn’t argue. “I have an idea — something that may help — but I’ve never mentioned it to him.”

  “What is it?”

  “Even with the doors on, the helicopter is open, with windows at the front and sides, so it isn’t like you’re in a hole. You can see all around you. You’re stuck here until it lands, but a person wearing a parachute could leave anytime they wanted. I take the doors off when I’m taking jumpers up, but even with them on, you can open one and jump.”

  She didn’t look at Marcus, but she had good peripheral vision and she saw him considering it.

  Marcus rubbed his hands on his thighs while he thought, as if feeling the texture of the fabric with his fingers. “If you had someone else flying, and you were in a parachute as well, so you could go down with him if he chose to jump, it might work. I think it’d need to be an up and almost right back down trip the first time, immediately followed by a five-minute flight, and if he handles it okay, a ten-minute flight.”

  “I think I’d rather pilot him, and have someone I trust handy to jump with him. They could be outfitted for a tandem jump, so he won’t need any training. Is my logic good? It would give him an escape, so if there were problems with the helicopter he had a plan B — another option. And if he felt claustrophobic, he’d have a way out.”

  “It just might work.”

  And now for the question she hadn’t expected to find an opportunity to ask, but the conversation had worked around to give her an opening, so she’d take it.

  “I’ve wondered — is it possible Kyle’s fascination with me has to do with the fact I’m involved in search and rescue? That I’m one of the people who sometimes pull people out of small plane crashes? I mean, this was such a pivotal point in making him who he is, and he’s found someone to love who could have been one of the people who....” She stopped talking. She couldn’t completely vocalize the thought.

  “Were you in uniform when he met you at the hospital that first time?”

  “Yes. We’d just brought someone else to the hospital, and I went to check on someone we’d rescued a few days earlier out of a wilderness area. She’d fallen from a cliff and broken her leg, and I went in with a ’copter, dropped someone down to her, and pulled them up. She was a real trooper on the flight back, and I wanted to check in on her. They had to do surgery to set the bone with pins; it was a nasty break.”

  “And Kyle had sewn her face up while they fixed her leg, so he was there checking on his handiwork at the same time you were checking on yours.”

  “He put thirty-two stitches in her face and she doesn’t have a single scar to show it. He’s really good. Do you think he’s attracted to me because I sometimes do the search and rescue thing?” She wasn’t going to let Marcus change the subject without giving his opinion.

  “I think it’s possible it may have gotten his attention at first, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the relationship you formed later. The two of you have chemistry — anyone who’s around you sees it. Even before you started officially dating, we all saw it.”

  “And you all wondered why I kept him at arm’s length. Now you know.”

  “You were afraid you’d lose his friendship if the sex thing didn’t work, and since it hadn’t worked with anyone else, you were determined not to let it go past friends. Now that you know your libido works just fine, are you going to need to experiment around with other people before settling down?”

  “I love Kyle, and you’re growing on me. I can’t see myself…” She shook her head. “I know I brought it up, but do me a favor and wait to shrink me when I’m not in the pilot seat. I can talk about other people and fly, not so sure I want to talk about my own issues while flying.”

  Marcus laughed. “Fair enough. Tell me about the controls. Show me what you’re doing and why?”

  Chapter 18

  As Heather prepared to land in the field near Marcus’s house, she was amazed at the view. She went through the shutdown procedure before she admired it too much though, and she noted Marcus watched her with an odd look on his face while she went through the three-minute process.

  When it was finally time to get out, she reached for her seatbelt and saw Marcus reaching for his. “Like I said, it’s not like just turning off a car.”

  “What would happen if you didn’t do all of that?”

  “The rotors are spinning pretty fast when we land. I have to safely get them slowed down, but the problem with that is the bird wants to flip over if you don’t do it just right. That’s why I asked you to keep your seatbelt on until you saw me taking mine off.”

  “Probably best you word that a bit differently should you ever instruct Kyle to keep his seatbelt on for that part of the ride.”

  “Right. You’re sure no vandals are going to come along and do something to it here?”

  “I own twenty-nine acres up here. There are some rental cabins below us, but this house is fenced in with a privacy fence, and that includes this lot. I like to host clothing-optional parties, and I don’t want people stumbling upon my outdoor guests.”

  “You said you could get someone to mow this field, and it looks like they did — who has access onto the property?”

  “The management company that handles the rentals has access so they can handle the maintenance for the house, and so their cleaning staff can enter. Dinner and some groceries should be in the fridge; we’ll just need to pop dinner in the oven and we’ll be good to go.”

  “What are we eating?”

  “There’s a mom-and-pop Italian place in town, family run, and their food is beyond delicious. I had them put together a lasagna, ready for the oven, and the management company had someone pick it up along with my groceries. They usually bring flowers too, though I never ask for them.”

  Heather shook her head. “We could’ve brought groceries, so you didn’t have to pay your management company to shop and run errands for you.”

  “But then I’d have had to do the grocery shopping before I met you, and I went straight from the office to the airport. I have someone who does my shopping for me at home, too. It isn’t a chore I enjoy.”

  “Did you grow up with a lifestyle of maids and chauffeurs?”

  She saw a muscle in his jaw tighten. “Yes.”

  Hmm, a one-word answer. Probably time to back off. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s your money, and you seem to have plenty of it. Nothing wrong with paying people to make your life easier.”

  He pulled his keys from his pocket, touched a key fob to a pad over the deadbolt, and then reached for the doorknob, “No offense. Are you ready to talk about you now that you aren’t flying?”

  She took a breath, caught off guard, and then said, “Yeah, sure. No time like the present, I guess.”

  “It makes you uncomfortable? To talk about yourself?”

  Heather stepped inside, and Marcus closed the door behind her.

  “With you? It seems to work out that way. Especially once you consider I’m not really used to talking about sex at all, and your conversations require a whole lot of... I don’t know, sometimes I feel like my conversations with you make me vulnerable, and that’s not a comfortable feeling for me.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way. If there’s anything I can do to make you feel less vulnerable, please tell me.”

  “This whole sex thing is kind of new to me. Just have some patience, I guess.”

  They’d made it through the huge great room into the kitchen by that time, and Marcus pulled a pan out of the fridge. “The instructions say to bake at three hundred and fifty degrees for forty minutes. Let’s get this in the oven and then I’ll show you around. I think I might like to take a quick shower before we eat, too. Would you like to join me?”

  Heather didn’t know what to say, and as she was trying to think of how to answer, he said, “No need to give me the deer in the headlights look. There’s more than one shower if you’d rather hold off on seeing each other naked.”

  “You just caught me off guard. I’m not really sure where you and I stand. I mean, you’ve done... things... to me. And I gave you a blowjob. And you’ve seen Kyle and I having sex. And you’ve given me some, well, some earthshattering orgasms — but you’re not my boyfriend, and some of this feels awkward.”

  Marcus put the lasagna in the oven, and she asked, “Doesn’t the oven need to heat up first?”

  He pushed some buttons on the number pad above the oven and said, “No, it’s a new model, and it heats up almost immediately. Here’s what I’d like to see happen. I’d like to give you a quick tour of the house and then let you undress me, then me undress you, and then I’d like for us to take a practical shower together. Lots of soap and warm water, but nothing overtly sexual. And then I’d like for us to put on these fabulously soft robes I have, and eat lasagna together, and talk a little about the new experiences I’d like to introduce you to this evening.”

  Heather closed her eyes, and without opening them, asked, “Am I being high maintenance?”

  He chuckled. “Not even a tiny bit. You’ve seen the living room, though you probably didn’t notice that the way the rafters are built allow for slaves, submissives, and masochists to be suspended. There are also various implements on the walls that allow someone to be attached to said walls. The dining room is through here, but the table seats eighteen and is mostly just used for parties.” He motioned off to his right. “I usually eat in what the realtor called the breakfast nook, but it just looks like an eating area with huge windows to me. I love the view here though, and when I need to work while I’m here, I usually set up by the windows.”

  He walked down a hall and she followed him, watching as he gestured to the left. “There’s a movie room in there, and this is the game room — do you play pool?”

  “I know how, but I’m not especially good at it.”

  “You’ll note the three stripes of rope going around the room in here, and you’ll note that one is about waist level of the average human, one about the level of arms held above the head, and one is at the floor. The ropes are secured firmly to the wall every eighteen inches, and can be used to restrain wrist cuffs, ankle cuffs, or harness holding a submissive in a variety of possible positions.”

  “You’re serious about your parties, aren’t you?”

  “It’s a wonderful spectacle — the Dominants playing games while their submissives kneel at their feet, or are bound to the wall to watch. The sight of a dozen or more people secured to the wall in here during a party is beautiful. Better than art.”

  “It’s a long drive for a party.”

  “I host people for the weekend a few times a year. I have three guest bedrooms, and you already know there are rental cabins just below us.”

  He walked down the hall, and Heather followed him into one of the most masculine bedrooms she’d ever seen. It looked like something out of a medieval castle, with tan walls, navy bedding, navy curtains, and lots of wood and wrought iron. The headboard and footboard were a complicated wrought iron design, and the four-poster bed had the biggest columns she’d ever seen on a bed — as big around as a large tree trunk. It looked like a normal king-sized bed though, not another monstrosity of a bed like he had in his playroom at home. There were also two armoires in the same rich tones as the wood of the bed, and a leather padded wooden bench stood against one wall.

  “This is my bedroom. I would be honored if you decide to stay in here tonight, but I’ve had a bed freshly made up in another room in case you don’t feel comfortable with that. No need to make a decision now, I just wanted you to know it’s entirely up to you. No pressure. When we get to that point we’ll figure it out, but right now, I’d like a shower.”

  He reached for her hand and urged her towards what appeared to be a dressing area and then through a large doorway into a spa-fantasy bathroom with a huge tub, and a separate shower that matched the one at his other house, with lots and lots of showerheads and jets all over the place. He walked to the shower and reached for the number pad, hitting a few buttons to get it started and then turned back to her. “If you’d like to strip me first, I’m all yours.”

  “Why don’t I just take my clothes off, and you take yours off?”

  He shrugged. “We can do it that way, if you’d prefer.”

  He began unbuttoning his shirt and she did the same. They mirrored each other with pretty much everything, with the exception of Heather’s bra, but Marcus took his belt off as she took her bra off, so the synchronization thing they had going didn’t get interrupted. Not a word was said, but they connected as they moved together, in a way Heather couldn’t quite define. Marcus’s eyes showed both a serious intent along with an unexpected playfulness, and the contradiction was unexpected, but appreciated.

  When they finally stepped into the shower, she realized he’d turned the water on in such a way that their bodies were getting wet while their heads stayed dry, and she smiled with thanks because she didn’t really want to wash her hair and deal with it before they ate.

  Marcus sudsed a poof, and when she stepped near him, he gently touched her shoulder to face her away from him. She complied and he began washing her shoulders, working his way down to her ankles. He washed her methodically and she enjoyed the attention and the sensations. Somehow, by doing it in a way that was obviously not supposed to be a turn on, it freed her to be able to enjoy it. When he was finished, he handed the poof to her and moved to an area the water wasn’t hitting, so her hair wouldn’t get wet when she returned the favor.

  Heather washed him as he’d washed her, and she resisted the urge to spend a lot of time on his cock and balls. She tried to be methodical about it, as he’d been, and thought she pulled it off.

  When she finished he wasn’t erect, but wasn’t totally soft, either. He stepped back into the spray and rinsed, and Heather grabbed a sprayer to make sure she was rinsed everywhere. When she followed him out, he held a huge bath sheet, which she allowed him to wrap around her. She put her foot up on one of the benches and dried her legs, then made sure the rest of her was dry. She looked up to see him holding a robe open for her, and she slipped out of the towel and into the most comfortable robe she’d ever put on. It was the perfect weight on her body — just enough to cocoon her and make her feel cozy, and it was incredibly soft. She noted he put one on as well, and realized hers was the right length, and that never happened unless she shopped in the children’s section. Her hands even stuck out at the wrists without her having to bunch the sleeves up.