All The Pretty Lights (The "A" List #1) Read Online Free

the rounds to prepare the plane for lift-off. The fans may have taken their seats, but they continue to glance over to me and whisper to each other. I turn from them, angling my body to face away from the spectators.
    “Thanks for the pen,” I offer my companion the sleek writing utensil back.
    She waves her hand, “Keep it. You’ll probably need it again.”
    I laugh to myself. She has no idea. Once it hits the news that I’m flying to New York, there’ll be a crowd waiting when I land. Doesn’t matter the time of day, or night. They’ll be there. They always are.
    Daphne absentmindedly reaches for the magazine folded in her bag and flips through a handful of the pages before all motion suddenly stops. I can hear her inhale sharply and then quickly crumple the glossy magazine back into the depths of her bag.
    She doesn’t push it in far enough and the cover is just visible, peaking out.
    I can’t help but laugh as I nonchalantly read the title. Sparkle magazine. It’s the sexiest man of the year issue. Nearly choking, I ask her. “What’s wrong? Didn’t like the pictures?”
    I have a six page spread, mostly shirtless, smack in the middle of the monthly magazine to celebrate the title they’d given me.
    She moves to answer, parting her lips to speak, but is interrupted by the gentle chiming of high notes through the built-in speakers above alerting us that we’re about to head down the runway. Whatever blushing my pictorial caused her is now gone, replaced with white blanching.
    “Shh!” She hisses. “Don’t talk.”
    I narrow my eyes and watch as she squeezes her eyes tightly, perfectly timed with the plane picking up speed. Her chest begins moving quickly and I can’t help but stare at her neckline, at the delicate skin grazing the edge of her top with every brisk breath that she takes.
    I swallow fast and hard as I straighten my shoulders, leaning back an inch or so to see down the shadowed ravine in between her breasts. My lips feel like they’ll crack and I can’t fight the urge to lick them. My lips, not her tits. Although… I want to lick them, too.
    “You okay?” I notice the pained expression on her face as tiny wrinkles appear where there were none before.
    The force from our intense speed pushes us back and pins us to our seats while the engine’s high-pitched whirling grows louder. Daphne, the little speed demon reaches and grabs hold of my hand as if it’s the only thing keeping her from falling off a cliff. She holds tightly, really tightly, and I can feel the little curves of her fingernails digging into my flesh.
    That split second when you feel the wheels leaving the ground is an odd one for most people. Most people who aren’t already panicking. For those that are, it’s gotta be one helluva sensation. Judging by the look of Daphne, it’s not one I want to experience.
    I spend more time on planes than anyone else I know, whether it’s jetting off to a film set, premieres like tonight, or for press. It’s never bothered me, not in the slightest. One look at the gorgeous girl with her eyes clenched shut, her hand gripping mine in a deadly grasp and her body still as stone and it’s no secret she’s scared shitless right now.
    Her lips catch my attention and I stare at them, reading their silent mumbles. It doesn’t take me long before I figure out that she’s quietly reciting a Hail Mary. All my years spent in Catholic school when I was a kid are good for something right now. A thought rips through my head like a lightning bolt on a dark night.
    I wonder if she, if Daphne, was a little Catholic school girl, with her short little dark plaid skirt showing off hints of her forbidden thighs, a tight white shirt stretching to—
    Crap! That hurts!
    Daphne’s nails are nearly drawing blood. Can she read my thoughts, does she somehow know how I’m thinking of her in nothing more than scraps of fabric the likes of which every hot blooded male has fantasies of?
    The plane tilts