When You Were Mine (Adams Sisters) by Adrianne Byrd

and studied her.  “Are you talking about the same man you bitch-slapped in front of thousands of people last night?”
    She shifted in her seat again.  “I was upset.”
    “So I gathered.”  He folded his arms and warred whether to confessed that he’d also stuck up for her honor and decked the guy when she’d left.  “Tell me.  Do you and this Larry character do this often?”
    “Do what?”
    “Break up, get back together, break up, and get back together?  Is this a game you two play so one day you can be on one of those crazy talk shows?”
    “No, of course not.  We’re very much in love.”  Joey drew a deep breath.  “I just need to remind him of that.  That’s all.”  Ryan’s chuckling crept under her skin.  “What is so funny?”
    “If you don’t know, I’m not about to tell you.”  He shook his head.  Was this the woman he’d considered calling when he returned to California?  She was not the brightest bulb on the marquee, or the sharpest tool in the toolbox, or¾
    “I know what your problem is,” Joey’s snide voice interrupted his assessment.
    “And what is my problem?”
    “You’ve never been in love.”
    He responded with more laughter.
    “Whatever.  I know I’m right.”  Joey turned and stared out at the clouds.  How could she have thought this man was a gentleman?
    “I’m sorry,” he said. 
    Joey crossed her arms and refused to look at him.
    “But you are wrong.  I have been in love.  Many, many times, in fact.”
    That declaration caught her attention, but she remained dubious.  “I’m not talking about lust, Mr. Donovan.”
    “Okay.  So that takes about fifty people off the list.  But it still leaves me with quite a list.”
    “Fifty people?”  Joey inched away as if he was contagious.  “Just how many people have you been with?”
    He smiled and his dimples winked at her.  “I didn’t sleep with all of them or even half of them.  I was just in love with them--sometimes in silence.”
    “Okay.  I’ll bite.  Name one.”
    “Adenika Towns.”  Ryan rested his head back on his seat while his eyes turned dreamy.  “She was a beautiful goddess with smooth, coal-black skin and with eyes so dark they looked like polished onyx.  She always wore the finest dresses, and she had the thickest, longest pigtails in the schoolyard.”
    It was Joey’s turn to laugh.  “All right.  You had me going for a minute.”
    “Love is love.  And I loved me some Adenika.”
    She drew a deep breath, but could feel the corners of her mouth twitch upward.
    “Is that a smile I see?”
    Her lips ballooned wide.  In that instant, she allowed her gaze to take in his deep-pitted dimples, his thousand-watt smile and his glossy black eyes.  Damn, he was good-looking.
    “And for the record--yes.  I made it up.”  He winked. 
    Joey blinked in confusion.
    “At take off,” he reminded her.  “I don’t know much about you, but I do know that you can’t sing.”
    She laughed and relaxed, but when her gaze lowered to his hands, his fingers were crossed.  She laughed.  “You’re funny.”
    He grinned and adjusted his spectacles.  “Don’t tell anybody.”
    Charmed, Joey laughed and stole another glance at the handsome man sitting beside her.  Maybe the flight wouldn’t be so bad after all.
    Ryan cleared his throat.  “Now back to you loving sex.”
    Then again...

                 

Chapter 11
                 
                  Ten hours into their sixteen-hour flight, most of the passengers in first-class had reclined the seats and rested their heads on small, borrowed pillows.  There were a few light snorers and a couple of full-throttled bulldozers who sounded like they were slicing the plane in half.
                  Only Ryan and Joey’s overhead light remained on while they huddled together and exchanged stories.
                  “So it was love at first sight with you and Larry?”