The man was hovering over the boy near the Los Angeles International Airport department gate, hand gripping the boy’s shoulder, and talking to him in earnest as a man in a Delta Airlines copilot uniform paused to hear their snippet of conversation.

“You’ll be fine, Ricky,” the man was saying. “I had planned to take in this audition with you in New York, but there’s a last-minute emergency here. There’s just one plane change, in Chicago, and Hiram will have someone there to meet the plane, get you to the meeting, and then back on the plane. You’ll be back on the set down at the Malibu beach house in no time. This could be a good break for you.”

“Excuse me,” the guy in the copilot uniform said. “I couldn’t help but overhearing. Is your son traveling alone now. If he’s under thirteen, he’ll need—”

“He’s fourteen. They said at the ticket counter that it would be fine.”

“Oh, yes, in that case it’s fine.” Neal thought he’d better check. He’d recognized the kid right off the bat from his movies. He played a kid younger than fourteen. But if he was fourteen that would be fine for travel. He still should have someone to watch out for him on the flights. “I’m going as far as Chicago. Repositioning. I would be happy to keep an eye on him.”

“That would be great, Howard Hendricks, Ricky Strong’s L.A. agent, said. If someone will ensure he gets on the plane from Chicago to New York, that would be great. The airlines said they could provide that help.”

“I’d be happy too,” Neal said. I’d be way more than happy to, Neal thought, wondering if there might be some sort of opportunity in this. But Neal was good at making his own opportunities.

I don’t need no chaperon, Ricky was thinking. How screwed up does Howard have to be to think I need any sort of babysitting. Not considering the demands he makes of me. But Ricky wasn’t complaining. He was looking the airline copilot, with his overnight case in tow, and wearing that spiffing uniform, up and down and he was wondering if there would be any alone time with this hunk.

The plane from LAX was packed, so Neal didn’t manage to get a seat next to Ricky—the boy was traveling tourist; he wasn’t that much of a movie star—but he was seated just a few rows back and he kept the boy in his sights for the flight into Chicago’s O’Hare airport.

“I’m afraid that all of you with connecting flights need to recheck your flight schedules,” the pilot came on and announced as they were descending into O’Hare. Anyone with a window seat already knew what the problem was. The snow was swirling so furiously outside the plane that the ground couldn’t be seen until after the wheels had been released and they almost were down. “If you don’t connect within the next half hour, you might be out of luck for the night,” the captain announced again. “We receiving notification that the airport is starting to shut down because of blizzard conditions forming out there.”

A steward showed up at Ricky’s seat. “You’re traveling alone, son, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Go to the desk as soon as you deplane. Someone will make sure you’re taken care of.”

He didn’t make it as far as the desk when he exited the gangway. As the tunnel opened into the chaos of an airport concourse in the midst of flights being canceled left and right, he had to nudge around an irate man, with a hand on a Delta passenger aide, complaining about a missing wallet while the aide was trying to explain she was there to help an arriving passenger.

The arrivals area Ricky and the other passengers were being spewed into was mobbed with confused and frustrated people. He was just another one of those trying to work his way to the airline desk when he heard a voice behind him and turned to see the copilot who’d said he’d help him between LAX and Chicago.

“There you are. I’m Neal, remember?”

“You here to help me with this?” Ricky asked, suddenly feeling like maybe he wasn’t more than fourteen. The snow was falling so heavily beyond the big windows that he hardly could see the planes nosed up to their gates.

“I’m your guy. Ricky, isn’t it? Are you hungry? You might as well wait for the crowd to clear at the rescheduling desk. I don’t think anyone’s flying out of here today. And the restaurants will quickly fill up.”

“Uh, I guess eating would be a good move then,” Ricky said. “Won’t people be rushing to the restaurants while they can? They told me to go to the desk first to find out what to do.”

“The flight crews have their own restaurants tucked here and there, Ricky. You can come with me and we’ll find someplace to eat. Then I’ll help you with what’s next.”

Ricky was hungry—and a bit scared and overwhelmed. And this Neal guy was really squared away. Ricky wouldn’t mind spending some time with him. It wasn’t just a convenient plan; it was a godsend. The boy wasted no time in accepting the offer. As they turned to leave, the focus of attention in the area being split between the mobbed airline desk and the mouth of the tunnel where a man was still demanding help finding his lost wallet and a female airline customer services representative was still trying to disengage to get to her own assignment, Neal’s arm brushed on the boy’s and his hand glided down to the boy’s waist. He felt the boy shudder.

Just like that Neal was putting Ricky under his control and they been knew—and accepted—that.

As they were eating in a place halfway between cafeteria and table-cloth restaurant that was so calm in atmosphere they’d have no idea of the panic and frustration running through the O’Hare terminals if there wasn’t a huge window overlooking the frigid blizzard conditions outside on the deserted runways, Neal and Ricky became better acquainted and more comfortable with each other. It was pretty clear that Neal wanted to dominate the boy and that the boy was good with that.

Suddenly during the conversation, Neal paused. “I got to be honest with you, Ricky. I know who you are. I’ve seen some of your movies. You turned me on from the moment I saw you getting dumped by that man at LAX. Did he make promises to get what he wanted and then abandon you?”

That erased any pretense for Ricky on what the deal was here. “That was my agent. We have business in New York, but he couldn’t make it.”

“But he’s more than your agent, isn’t he? He does make it with you, doesn’t he? Come on, I want to help you here. Maybe we can help each other. I think you’re really cute. You turn me on. Does that disturb you or turn you off?” he asked, his enticing, hopeful puppy-dog gray eyes locked onto Ricky’s. He was taking a risk here, going for broke. But that’s what Neal did. He took bold risks.

Ricky remembered the chill of arousal he’d had when Neal’s arm brushed his back at the arrival’s gate. “No, it doesn’t turn me off,” he answered. “I hope you don’t think I’m easy, though.”

“But with a little effort, you could be had?” Neal asked. His knee was nudging the boy’s under the surface of the table. Ricky had his thighs together and he, almost involuntarily, spread them. Neal, sitting close in across a small table, pressed his knee in against Ricky’s inner thigh. Ricky lowered his head, which Neal had always seen as a mark of submission in the fourteen-year-old boys he’d successfully pursued before. His fingers reached over and touched the boy’s forearm, and Ricky shuddered.

A terminal announcement came over the public address system announcing that the airport was now closed until the blizzard was over and the runaway cleared again. No planes would be arriving or departing in the interim.

Neal was about to say something else, when he stopped abruptly and said, instead, “We’ve finished our meal and I see other flight crews have decided they’d better eat and this table is needed. Another perk we have is access to the VIP lounges. I have a room here at the terminal Hilton too. The airport’s socked in now. You otherwise would have to sleep in the departure area tonight. Would that be enough effort to get you in bed?”