“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do,” Max insisted. “Drifting over the countryside in a hot air balloon. The view. The fresh air. You!”

“Me!” Cassie said, half surprise, half scoff. “You know I’m not crazy about heights. I think a tippy balloon would...”

“Now, now,” Max assured her, his hand making slow circles on her bottom. “I’d be there with you. I’d protect you. I’d...”

“Yes?” Cassie asked, feeling his hard-on’s pressure on her mound. “What would you do with me, up there in the sky?”

“I’d fuck you,” Max declared.

“Oh my. But what about the other passengers? What about the pilot?”

Max harrumphed and turned away.

“Don’t be that way,” Cassie asked, her heart softened, her sex moist. “Can’t we just go for a ride in my bed?”

Max bought the tickets on-line. $225 each for ninety minutes. “I don’t know about this,” Cassie said, as they drove up to the scruffy airfield. The morning was gray. Earlier had been a spattering of rain. “With all these clouds, we won’t be able to see anything. They probably won’t even go up.”

Max pointed to the horizon. “Look, it’s clearing.”

Cassie stayed in the car while Max went to check things out. Fifteen minutes later he was back. “Good news,” he reported.

“I was afraid of that,” Cassie said.

They were the only ones. The pilot, Andrew, spent ten minutes going over the instructions. “Nothing to worry about, ma’am,” he told Cassie. “The first hint of lighting and we come down.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Cassie said. She squeezed Max’s hand.

Lift off was like sex—the moments before penetration. The burner whooshed. The rattan basket, bound to earth with ropes, wobbled and rocked. Andrew released the catch. The balloon eased upward. Legs weak, eyes squeezed shut, Cassie clung to Max. “Darling,” he whispered in her ear. “Darling, we’re doing it.”

“I hate you,” Cassie declared. “I hate you for making me do this.”

“I love you,” Max said. “Now relax and look over the side.”

“You can’t make me,” Cassie growled.

“Now, folks,” the pilot said, taking off his heavy gloves. “We’re almost to cruising altitude. If you’ll notice...”

Cassie shut her ears. She let herself be hugged by Max. She dared to open her eyes. The balloon seemed to be streaming through the mist.

“Oh, darling,” Max whispered. “I wish I could fuck you up here.”

“What about the pilot?”

Max chuckled. “Maybe he wouldn’t mind.”

“Yeah, but I’d mind.”

“Okay,” Max allowed. “We’ll just toss him overboard.”

“Yeah, right,” Cassie said. “Like you could land this thing.”

Just then the balloon lifted free of the clouds. Bright blue sky and warm sun above. A bed of fluffy white below.

“Wow!” Cassie exclaimed.

“See!” said Max. “What did I tell you?”

Cassie caught the pilot’s eye. He nodded. Together they had little trouble tossing Max overboard.

Ninety minutes later they were still making love, now Cassie standing at the basket’s edge, soaring through the fresh, endless blue, with Andrew fucking her hard from behind, his big dick like a rudder guiding her to yet another orgasm.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop,” Cassie gasped.

“No problem,” Andrew said between thrusts. “You paid for two tickets. You got extra time.”

It was the ride of a lifetime.