Landing the Air Marshal

By Jennifer Blackwood

He knows just how to make her forget her fear of flying… a sexy new story from USA TODAY bestselling author Jennifer Blackwood....

As an Air Marshal, I have two rules: keep everyone safe and always remain professional. But when I take a seat next to the hot blonde in 7B, I can only promise one of those things.

Abby Winters and her uptight librarian attire are more than a little distracting. And when she grabs onto me during turbulence—all bets are off.

A mile-high hookup is great, but what happens when we land and neither of us wants to walk away...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Sep 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781633757097

Jennifer Blackwood

Jennifer Blackwood is the USA Today bestselling author of the contemporary romance series The Rule Breakers, Snowpocalypse, and Flirting with Fire. Jennifer writes funny and warm novels, as well as sizzlingly sexy romances. When she’s not writing, you can find her hanging out at coffee shops and in the planner aisle of Michaels. Jennifer lives in Oregon with her son, a husband who reminds her that happily ever afters do happen in real life, and an adorable (but poorly behaved) black Lab. For more information on Jennifer and her books, visit her website at www.JenniferBlackwood.com, or follow her on Twitter (@Jen_Blackwood) and Facebook (@AuthorJenniferBlackwood).

Book preview

Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 by Jennifer Blackwood. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

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Suite 105, PMB 159

Fort Collins, CO 80525

[e-mail]

Brazen is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

Edited by Candace Havens

Cover design by Michelle Fairbanks

Cover photography by bezikus/Shutterstock

ISBN 978-1-63375-709-7

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition September 2016

Dear Reader,

This story has been years in the making. For those of you who don’t know me personally, or follow my Twitter feed right before a major trip, I have horrible flight anxiety. To the point where I’d benefit from strong sedatives. I’d even settle for horse tranquilizers. I was traveling home two years ago from a writing conference when our plane hit horrible turbulence. I actually grabbed on to the person next to me—and, okay, I might have screamed—and blurted out enough expletives that my mother would most definitely be appalled (sorry, Mom. And P.S. if you’re reading this, stop right now. I already told you you’re not allowed to read this book). Yes, he was cute. Yes, I spent the rest of the flight curled up next to the window, making as little eye contact as possible. When I got home from the trip, I told my critique partners about what had happened and they all said this needs to go in a book! And, so, here it is. My travel experience wasn’t as eventful as my heroine’s, but sure glad it happened.

For Jensen Ackles, because Dean Winchester would make the perfect dirty air marshal.

Chapter One

Please keep your tray tables in the upright and locked position. We’re expecting a bit of turbulence during the first hour of the flight.

This was it. Abby Winters was going to die. She could hear Samuel L. Jackson’s voice in the back of her mind yelling, This motherfucking plane is going to take a nosedive into the motherfucking tarmac. Though really, threat of turbulence or not, the same thought occurred every takeoff and landing. But this time was different; she could feel it. The plane rolled out of the gate in an uneven fashion—maybe a flat tire?—and there was way too much rattling going on underneath her to pass a safety check. The plane was falling apart, she knew it, and they were going to crash to a fiery death during landing because all the screws fell off during the red-eye flight. Yes, she was definitely going to die.

Abby jammed her thumb into the button on the side of her seat, and the light above her head illuminated red. She needed the flight attendant. Now. If she was going to die, she at least wanted to knock back the complementary first-class champagne and go out with a buzz.

A blond flight attendant poked her head through the curtain of the drink station, looking less than pleased that she was being summoned minutes before takeoff, presumably right before she and the other flight attendants would begin their What to do in case we all crash and die spiel. Really, let’s face it—if the plane went down, there would be no need for the damn flotation devices seeing as the most water they were traveling over was in A-list celebrities’ pools.

Can I help you, ma’am? The flight attendant flashed a smile that seemed a little too rehearsed, much like the look Abby gave her slimy coworker Jeremy every time he popped into her office unannounced.

I need a drink. She swallowed past the thick lump in her throat, even thirstier now that she’d said it aloud. Hopefully they had a bottle of Dom, because really, why not go with the good stuff for the inevitable last meal?

I’m sorry, sweetie, but you’ll have to wait until we get up in the air and past the turbulence.

Abby worked to keep her features impassive, even if she really wanted to scowl at the woman. She knew she didn’t get preferential treatment in terms of getting a drink minutes before takeoff, but damn it, what was the point of being in first class if it didn’t have any perks—like getting wasted before imminent death?

The attendant smiled sweetly and ignored Abby’s glare, instead going into her spiel about the emergency exit to the nearly empty cabin. There were a whopping two people in first class, herself included. When the flight attendant got to the part about the proper way to fasten a seat belt, she gave her own belt a reassuring tug. Abby had that on lockdown the second she’d plopped down, the buckle digging into her hips. If this plane did go down, fat chance of her falling out of the seat during a crash. Her ex-boyfriend, Rick, had called her the Organization Task Master, along with fun-sucker and vanilla—hence the ex—but being a free spirit hadn’t gotten her on the fast track to success in her job. Meticulous attention to detail had. Like the fact that the aircraft was listing ever so slightly toward the right, which put her frantic mind into overdrive at the thought of a flat tire.

Just as the flight attendant disappeared through the curtain, another came from the coach cabin. Sir, we’re about to take off. Please pick any seat you’d like, quickly.

Thanks, came a deep, rich voice that caressed her skin like expensive cashmere.

She couldn’t see him, because of the whole squinting-waiting-for-imminent-death thing, but she didn’t even want to put a face to that sexy voice. It would probably be a disappointment. Much like when she googled her favorite Disney character with the sexy baritone voice—utterly disenchanting. She’d never think of Aladdin in the same way again.

Please don’t sit next to me. Please don’t sit next to me.

Last thing she needed was Mr. Sexy Voice to witness her in-flight freak out.

Mind if I sit here? By the volume of the question, she could tell he was still in the back row of first class—her row.

Aw, crap. She drew in a deep breath and exhaled it through her mouth, ruffling her bangs along her forehead. This guy didn’t know he’d just earned himself front row tickets to Abby Winters: The Airline Chronicles.

She glanced over at his midsection—nice, tailored pants, and a crisp, white button-up. She’d like to tell him there were exactly four other rows to choose from, but her mother had given her the gift of proper manners. And maybe a mild generalized anxiety disorder. But really, what parent didn’t screw up their kids to some degree? Hence the fact that kids weren’t even a blip on her radar.

I don’t mind. She totally minded. Not that being huddled in the corner of a germ-infested seat was any indication. Nope.

He sat down, and his scent wafted over to her side of the seat—some fresh, woodsy cologne that must have been mixed with pheromones because her inclination to lean over and take a deep sniff was overpowering. It said I like camping and hot showers, both things she also really liked.

She caught herself leaning toward him, and shifted quickly back to her corner. Shit, what was in that cologne? Crack? She hadn’t even seen this man’s face yet—still didn’t want to, because she’d automatically copied and pasted Jensen Ackles’s handsome mug onto the guy, and this was just too good of a fantasy bubble to pop. If he didn’t live up to that, this cologne would be such a disappointment. Instead, she kept her eyes closed and focused on her breathing. That much she could control.

Flight attendants, take your seats and prepare for takeoff, the captain’s calm but authoritative voice boomed over the speakers.

Abby dug her fingers into her sweaty palms. Shit was about to get real in here. Amazing that, even though she traveled thirty weeks out of the year, the fear never subsided. Abby screwed her eyes shut and swiped her thumbs over her lucky four-leaf clover earrings. Silly superstition, but the earrings hadn’t failed her yet. Not when the person who’d gifted them to her was watching over her from heaven, making sure she made it to her destination. It was times like these that she really missed her father. He always had a way of calming her down. The serene Yin to her neurotic Yang.

Just as the plane rocketed off the tarmac, Abby mumbled a quick prayer to anyone who was listening upstairs and clenched the armrest with enough force to leave indents of her in-desperate-need-of-a-French-manicure nails in the aluminum.

This was the part she hated most, the hours spent in the air, where anything could happen and she was at the mercy of other people. And she hated putting her life in someone else’s hands. Hello, she’d seen that pilot movie with Denzel Washington where he flew drunk 90 percent of the time. That could be her pilot.

Please don’t be drunk, she whispered, more like a prayer than anything else.

What? the gruff voice next to her asked.

She shook her head. Man, it was true—you really could hear everything on these planes. Sorry. I was just saying that I hope we have a good flight. And by good, she meant arriving at her destination alive and in one piece.

Supposed to be a rough one, but it’ll be all right.

Maybe their definitions of all right were subjective. Because all right to her meant being unconscious for the whole thing—or intoxicated. Where was that damn champagne when she needed it?

If you looked up control in the dictionary, Abby’s picture was lined up with expert precision next to the definition. She oversaw all set designs and locations for her production company, people reported to her, she got shit done—and did it in four-inch heels with a smile. The fact that she was stuck in this POS plane that took away all her control made her want to curl up in a ball and let out a guttural scream. Okay, so Rick may have been spot-on with her need to be in charge. Maybe setting scheduled days to have sex, and making lists of acceptable positions, took it a tad bit too far, but she had a schedule to abide by, and she wanted to do it with maximum efficiency, all right?

They’d broken up over a month ago, and even though she was long past missing him, his parting words still stung. Was she really that boring? Or vanilla? Whatever. She didn’t have time to contemplate those things, she was too busy with work, work, with a heaping side of more work—all for the chance of a promotion to key set designer when Robert, the current occupant of that position, retired in four months. The only other competition was Jeremy—who would take any opportunity to step over someone with those black loafers to get what he wanted. And she’d be damned if his good-ol’-boy ass beat her out for the job.

The plane leveled out from its ascent. Woohoo! We didn’t crash into the tarmac! She took a calming breath through her nose and exhaled deeply out her mouth. First obstacle tackled, now if she could sleep through the rest of the flight, she’d be golden. She shifted in her seat, trying to get comfortable. Just as she found a position in which she might be comfortable enough to get some shut-eye, the plane rattled and took a nosedive toward the ground.

Abby let out a scream, arms flailing to latch onto anything to keep her steady. She clamped onto something hard to her right and closed her eyes so tight that stars sparked behind her lids. This was it. Her lucky earrings had failed her, and she was going to die on this motherfucking plane.

And then, just as quickly as it happened, the plane leveled out and the pilot came on the speakers. Sorry about that. The captain gave a nervous chuckle It’s going to be a bumpy ride. Please stay in your seats until further notice.

She still had her eyes closed, clinging on to…what was she holding? It was warm, unlike the cool metal of the armrest that dug into her thigh. Oh no. She pried one lid open and immediately regretted the decision.

Turned out that the armrest was an actual arm. A forearm really. A really, really nice, muscular forearm from what she could tell, covered by the crisp cotton of a man’s dress shirt and locked in the vice grip of her fingers.

Her gaze wandered up, breaking the Jensen Ackles spell. The very nice arm was part of a genetic-lottery-winning package, with a facial structure that should be cast as the lead in her company’s next film, and a pair of honey-colored eyes that pierced straight to her core. Crap. This was even better than anything her imagination had conjured up.

Heat flooded her cheeks, and she wished she had a parachute so she could kamikaze straight out of this plane instead of face the fact that she’d just grabbed this guy and screamed. She released her grip on him and smoothed invisible wrinkles out of her skirt. I’m so sorry. I…really hate flying. That was by far the lamest sentence to ever come out of her mouth, beating out, Yeah, I came; that was good for me, too.

Oh God. She still had five hours left with this guy. If she were in the studio right now, a laugh track would be sounding in the background. Maybe she should ask the flight attendant to move her to a different seat. Because as embarrassing as that would be for a few minutes, that beat stewing for multiple hours.

After a moment of awkward silence, she looked up to see him smiling at her. One dimple popped out, and holy moly, if this guy wasn’t at least a model, someone needed to notify a talent agency, stat.

I don’t mind a pretty girl on my arm, he said and winked down at her.

An honest to God wink.

On a scale of one to cheesy, this ranked a solid Gouda. And yet her lower half was whispering something more along the lines of yes, please, can a pretty girl touch more than just your arm?

Um, whoa, that didn’t need to cross her mind. That thought had come from so far out of left field, she now had third-degree whiplash. If a guy pulled that line on her at a bar, she’d roll her eyes and tell Mr. Gouda to take a hike.

The smile reached all the way to the crease in his eyes. For a moment, she was transfixed by this stranger and the way he was able to command her attention with just one look. Heck, not even Jensen Ackles was capable of that when she’d met him the first day on set, and she sported mad lady boner for the guy. She continued holding this stranger’s gaze, and she suddenly forgot why this type of pickup line never worked, because it was sure as hell working on her right now.

Damn, he’d barely said two sentences to her in total, and she was totally drooling over this tantalizing package of pheromone cologne, gravelly voice, and bedroom eyes all tied up nicely with a tag labelled, Give me some of this. The guy was good.

And that was why she needed to reel