Excerpt-Strung Out by Kaitlin Maitland

This proposal scene is just the ticket when it comes to being over the top. It’s every girl’s dream, and a perfect addition to the romance between the two main characters of my latest Contemporary Erotic Romance, Strung Out.

Enjoy-

A sea of strange faces and every one of them looking at him as though he’d lost his mind. And maybe he had. How else could one explain the transition from cool, unaffected businessman to lovesick lunatic searching an airport full of strangers for one woman?

He strode the length of the security line, eyes searching for a face and form he’d have known anywhere. It was a given that he looked like a crazy person. He’d discarded his suit jacket and tie in the car between the Boston School for the Arts and the airport. A breath of cool air against his bare skin told him his shirttail was hanging out, and he’d practically yanked out his hair while trying to convince Talia’s friend Leslie to tell him where she’d gone.

“Hey, lady, you okay? You’re white as a sheet.”

Erik zeroed in on the concerned voice buried half a dozen paces away in the middle of the line. He stopped, angling for a better view. A tall man dressed in a tailored business suit was focused on a woman standing just in front of him.

The details were hidden behind a dozen other travelers and their belongings, but Erik glimpsed a curtain of dark hair, shapely shoulders, and the graceful arch of her back as she stared determinedly at the floor.

“Talia!” He lunged forward. “Talia, please give me a chance. Just listen to what I have to say!”

The entire line seemed to hold its breath. Everyone stared, their eyes darting back and forth between him and the woman who was refusing to look at him.

Finally she lifted her gaze, though she kept it carefully averted. “There’s nothing left to say, Erik. We want different things.”

“No, we don’t.” His hands clenched, wanting to draw her closer and cup her face in his palms, to force her to meet his gaze and see the truth in his eyes. “You were right.”

She canted her head sideways, and her hair fell away, exposing enough of her face for him to see her eyebrows knit together in consternation. “I’m not going to share, Erik.”

“I don’t want you to.” He hated the desperate note in his voice, but the time had passed for hiding behind appearances and indifference. “I want you, Talia. It’s all I want. I don’t want you to share me. And I sure as hell don’t want to share you.”

“God, would you just get out of line and talk to the guy?” The businessman rolled his eyes. “This is like a scene from a really bad chick flick.”

“Shh!” A nearby woman waved her hand. “I want to hear what she says.”

From the corner of his eye, Erik noticed two or three photographers with cameras slung over their shoulders, notepads in hand, and a predatory gleam in their eyes. This entire incident was going to be splashed across the society page in no time.

“Marry me, Talia.”

“What about Courteney?”

A collective hiss came from the women scattered throughout the crowd.

Erik shook his head emphatically. “I told her it would never work. I couldn’t do it anymore. I love you. I want you to be my wife. The rest of it doesn’t matter.”

The hiss morphed into sighs and a round of encouragement. The first camera shutter clicked on the moment.

“I can’t marry you. I’m moving to New York.”

“Then I’ll buy a ticket and follow you there.”

She turned fully around to face him, her head tilted to one side and a skeptical look on her face. “Then what?”

“I’ll follow you around and keep asking until you say yes.”

A smile played at the corner of her mouth. “Is that how you’ve gotten your way all these years?”

He placed a hand over his chest and gave her his most charming smile. “You got me. I built Aasen Investments on a firm foundation of whining and banging my head against a wall.”

The rest of the cameras started flashing, and Erik realized he’d just identified himself and waved a red flag in front of the proverbial bulls.

“So what happens if I say yes?”

“We go home and celebrate?” He watched her face ease into a playful grin. Her blue eyes were bright. An answering wave of excitement sent a rush of blood to his groin, and his head filled with images of exactly what would happen if she said yes.

She stooped down, picked up her violin case, and looked up at the businessman blocking her path. “Could you excuse me?”

She squeezed her way back through the line. People had stopped paying attention to whether or not they were getting closer to the security checkpoint, and a gap had opened up ahead, causing the TSA employees to crane their necks to see what was going on.

She bent over to slide beneath the barrier. The nylon tape caught on her jacket, tugging on the fabric and exposing a strip of pale skin at the small of her back. He reached out and lifted the black nylon away from her body. She moved again, and his fingertips brushed her bare back.

The contact was fleeting, but the jolt of awareness leaped through him. Talia straightened, turning and looking him full in the face. Her breath was coming quickly, her chest rising and falling in rhythm with his. Her pupils dilated, and her throat contracted as she swallowed. She didn’t have to confess the arousal that had begun creeping over her body. He saw it, recognized it, and felt the answering response inside his own.

The violin case and her bag hit the floor. “Ask me again.”

So many thoughts and emotions crowded his brain. He hadn’t thought he possessed that many. But this wasn’t the time for giving in to the urge to rush. This was forever.

He placed his hands on her sides, his palms finding the bare skin where her shirt and jacket met the waistband of her low-rise jeans. She was warm, but his fingertips raised gooseflesh when they skimmed her curves in order to pull her closer.

She reached up and cupped his face in both hands. Her soft fingers tickled against the stubble on his chin as she slid her hands up his jaw before pushing her way into the hair at his nape. The feel of her nails scoring the sensitive skin on his neck sent a chill racing directly from her fingers to the tip of his cock. He ground his teeth together to bite back a groan. This was neither the time nor the place to strip her naked and sink his cock in her pussy just to remind her who she belonged to.

There would be time enough for that later. Plenty of time, if things went the way he’d planned.

With that thought, Erik disentangled himself from her embrace, took a step back and knelt down on one knee. He thought of how many times he’d dreaded being pushed to this point. He hadn’t been nervous about it then, just resigned. He hadn’t even figured on taking a knee. But now, kneeling in an airport before an audience of complete strangers, his whole world was on the line. And the answer mattered more than he’d ever thought possible.

“You took me by surprise, Talia. I never expected to meet someone like you.” Erik chuckled and gave her a devilish grin. “And before I do something else stupid to screw it up, I’m going to do one thing right and beg you to be my wife. Will you marry me?”