Her hand felt warm as sunlight on his knee. He stared at it and said, “What do we do when the plane lands?”

“You leave that up to me and Mr. Mendoza, I’m sure we’ll think of something.” The words sounded confident, but she looked tired, almost vulnerable. Her hand moved a couple of inches. Up his thigh.

“Are—” Martin cleared his throat and glanced around for the flight attendant, small lurking children, nosy grandmothers. “Do you think we could—stay together? Tonight?”

She cocked her head to one side, eyes luminous and controlled. He felt something bend in his fingers, and realized he was still holding the emergency exit procedures card. He missed the pocket twice trying to put it back.

“Is that a proposition?” She sounded amused. He didn’t dare look at her directly.

“Uh—” He cleared his throat again. “Yes. I think so.”

Hard to believe she was the same woman he remembered from the Washington basement—smooth warm skin, a hot hungry mouth, she’d been so completely real, so amazingly present. He wanted to cross the distance again, hear her say his name in a whisper like raw silk.

She leaned over, and the smell of her overwhelmed him—perfume, skin, hair, even the slightly stale smell of her clothes. Her lips brushed his, warm and moist. Her hand traveled further up his thigh.

“I think,” she whispered, and lightly kissed the skin just under his ear, “I think we’d better get some sleep, Marty. We’ll need it.”

She had just effectively zeroed his chance for sleep, and she knew it. He saw it in the flash of her eyes, the crooked half-smile.

He kissed her, felt her lips part under his. It only lasted a second, before she put her hand flat on his chest and pushed him a safe distance away. The air felt thick and hot between them.

As he gulped in deep breaths, he saw the flight attendant watching them like a nun. She hustled off down the aisle when he caught her eye.

“Let’s not do that,” Carling said, smoothing her skirt. “I need to keep a clear head.”

He nodded and turned face forward, staring at the headrest in front of him. The plane dipped down, descending, and a constellation of lights wheeled outside the windows.

“Won’t happen again,” he said to the headrest, and thought he heard her laugh just as the captain turned on the NO SMOKING and FASTEN SEATBELTS signs and announced the weather in Dallas. Cold, windy, expected freezing rain and sleet in the next few days.

“No smoking,” Carling said, and snapped her seat-belt shut. “Words to live by, Marty. Words to live by. Have you thought about what would happen if somebody flamed out in an airplane?”

He closed his eyes, opened them, and reached for the emergency exit procedures again.