Read Online The Trouble With Tomboys by Linda Kage - Free Book Online Page B

caught the words. When he didn’t comment, she blocked him and proceeded to get them in the air. Five minutes later, they’d climbed as far into the sky as she was going to go, and B.J. pushed the limits of their speed. But it didn’t help. As much as she loved going fast, today it didn’t seem to give her the rush she craved. Instead, she kept staring at Grady’s knee from the corner of her eye. His thigh was incased in tight Wranglers, and she wondered if she reached over and set her hand on it, if it’d still be as hard as she remembered it being last night.
    God, she really needed to get her mind away
    from that. If she was going to do anything about their evening together, she should be giving an apology instead of partaking in a little air action.
    This was so not the day to join the mile-high club.
    She had an awful feeling if she tried to eat crow, though, and own up to her mistake of pushing him into the sack—er, against the door, as was the case—then she’d somehow turn the tables around and demand to know why he’d ditched out on her just when things were getting good.
    Okay, so she knew why, and she didn’t blame
    him a lick. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
    Gritting her teeth, she commanded herself to stop thinking about it altogether. There wasn’t going to be any kind of resolution if she tried to bring up the topic, not that she wanted to anyway. So, ignoring the tension was going to have to be her best bet. But, hell, there was no way she could ignore it, especially when he shifted in his seat and stirred the air around them, rustling up his scent so her body responded and the insides of her thighs tingled.
    B.J. couldn’t do it any longer. She glanced over.
    “Want to learn a couple of things about flying?” she blurted out, not even realizing what she was going to 57

    Linda Kage

    ask. He lifted his face. His blue eyes showed surprise, but other than that, she couldn’t read anything. The nerves in her guts knotted and then tightened painfully. She ripped her gaze away.
    “The basic concept is pretty simple,” she started in, ignoring his lack of response and the growing ball in her stomach. She needed to get her mind
    off...well, you know. And nothing could grab B.J.’s attention like talking planes.
    So, she talked planes.
    “There’re four forces at work when flying. Lift, weight, thrust and drag.”
    Oh, God. Did she just say thrust?
    “To take off, your thrust, uh, has to be more powerful than your drag and your lift has to be more powerful than your weight. To land, it’s vice versa.
    Drag dominates thrust and weight dominates lift.”
    When he didn’t say a word in reply, she
    shrugged and continued. No way was she going to drive herself nuts, just sitting there, letting her thoughts take over. So she blubbered on.
    “Weight and drag are natural forces. You see, weight is merely gravity trying to yank the plane back to earth, and drag is like the wind on your face when you’re running. It’s air pushing against you when you’re trying to go forward. Therefore thrust and lift are fashioned by the plane mechanically to get it up and going.”
    And here came thrust and get it up in the same sentence. Jesus.
    “The propeller makes up our thrust to...to work against the drag and keep us heading forward, and lift happens when air blows above and below the wings, helping us go up and down.”
    Grady remained stonily quiet; she didn’t have a clue whether he was listening to her prattle or not.
    There was no way she was going to glance over 58

    The Trouble with Tomboys

    again though. Her hormones had nearly fried
    themselves out the last time she’d snuck a peek.
    “So, once you’ve got your lift and thrust
    overpowering weight and drag,” she droned on, sounding more like an encyclopedia than herself,
    “you’re in the air. Now once we’re sky bound, we deal with pitch, roll and yaw to keep the plane going in the direction we want.”
    Lifting her hand to