Christmas in Coconut Creek (Dirty Delta, #1)(3)
Frankie, 35—Guaranteed admittance to the Mile High Club.
Charming. I was also now exceedingly less likely to venture into any airplane bathroom without seeing it was properly sanitized first.
I scrolled through the rest of his pictures. A candid shot taken on a beach somewhere, his hair in shaggy brown waves, eyes hidden behind a pair of Ray-Bans. The buttons of a Hawaiian half-open down his chest with a peek of the tan skin underneath. Another with him relaxed against a wooden trail fence, backpack strapped around his waist and chest, pulling his shirt taut to his body. He had a soft smirk on his face but was looking off to the right, like he was slightly embarrassed to be the subject of the camera. Reserved. Then a group shot with a bunch of guys, all arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders, beers in hand. Thank God he didn’t lead with that one. He wasn’t even at the center of the photo, and the red eye made it look like someone had taken that shit on a Kodak disposable.
Actually…
I squinted a bit and realized that was exactly what it was. An old glossy photo he must have taken a picture of with his phone camera and uploaded to his profile.
“Christ.” I giggled to myself, hiding a grin with the back of my hand. The decade of difference between us was showing, which I strangely found endearing.
Scrolling to the last picture, my nostrils flared and I groaned.
Frankie was standing in front of a helicopter wearing a tactical vest with a gun belt slung across his waist, cargo pants and shirt in muted shades of gray and beige. The stoic hard-jawed look on his face would have admittedly been ridiculously attractive if he wasn’t—
“In the fucking military,” I scoffed under my breath.
Angling my thumbs on the photo I dragged them outward to zoom in on his face—bringing the screen comically close to my eyes and squinting. A total shame, there was a lot of potential there. I could see the soft splatter of stubble, plush bottom lip. The tight sleeves of his shirt hugging all the right muscles on his arm. Even the cargo pants (which I wasn't a fan of in any circumstance besides job-related) were filled out exceedingly well. I shifted the focus until the zoom landed directly over the crotch of his pants and tilted my head.
A second later, someone cleared their throat from above me.
“Shit.” I slammed my phone facedown in my lap and looked up at the person who undoubtedly just watched me analyze a dude’s bulge. Only, it was much, much worse than that. “Oh—fuck.”
“It’s better in person.” Frankie stood above me, smirking. There was a slanted, proud lilt to his lips that subsequently put me at ease and sent a flare of embarrassed heat to my cheeks at the same time. Of course this man wasn’t catching a rideshare into Colorado Springs. Of course he was overhead carry-on tea-bagging me on the same flight.
“I—am sure that it is, that’s…” I closed my eyes and squeezed them together hoping that when the television static that was the back of my eyelids subsided, I would open them and Frankie from fucking Hook(Up) would be gone.
Very wishful thinking.
“And what’s the problem with the military?” He shoved his bag into the open storage and immediately dodged a snow boot cascading toward his head and into the aisle. “—the fuck?”
“Sorry.” I reached down to pick up the boot off the carpet. “How long were you standing there?”
“Long enough to be both insulted and then eye-fucked—so approximately five seconds.”
“I did not eye-fuck you,” I argued weakly, holding the lone boot out to him and nodding up toward the storage container. His thick eyebrows knitted together but he took it anyway, stuffing it back in the compartment.
“What exactly would you call it then?”
“I don’t know, the female gaze.”
“Poetic.” He looked unimpressed.
“Thank you.”
“You could just say you were looking at my dick.”
I rolled my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. Was there a way to retract inside one's own asshole?
“It’s fine,” he assured me. “I did it too.”
“You looked at my dick?”
Frankie coughed out a laugh and looked around as a man shimmied behind him and further down the aisle. “I’m more of an ass man, to be honest.”
“Poetic,” I mimicked.
“It must be my male gaze acting up again.”
I snorted, hiding a smile by staring at my lap.
The intercom crackled to life and a flight attendant introduced himself, asking everyone to be seated and buckled before the aircraft made its way to the runway. Another woman squeezed her way behind Frankie and gave him a less-than-impressed side-eye.
“Are you planning on standing for the duration of the flight? Are you one of those rule-breaking flyers that get up and use the bathroom when the seatbelt signs are on?”
“Oh yeah, it’s just… You’re sitting in my seat actually, so…”
I looked down and saw my ass was indeed incorrectly placed in the middle chair of the row, and it clicked to me that he did, in fact, put all of his belongings in the overhead right above the seats.
“Well, it’s not likely a third person is coming to sit with us, so you don’t have to sit here. You can take the aisle.”
“Actually, as an avid rule-following flier, I’ll have to stick with the assigned seat printed right here”—he pulled his ticket out of his back pocket and showed it to me—“on this ticket.”