A/N – This is my first attempt at writing fanfiction and I do hope that everyone enjoys it! I am hoping to update at least once a week. I currently have five chapters written, and the story will most likely be at least 15 chapters. Since I do have some chapters already finished, updates will likely be a little faster for the first couple of weeks.

This story is unbeta'd, so any and all mistakes are solely mine.

Disclaimer – Twilight and the characters belong to SM. I am just borrowing them.

BPOV

Chapter One

I really hated flying. I was deathly afraid of heights and being thousands of feet in the air in an airplane was definitely not my cup of tea. I tried my hardest to fly as little as possible, but since I lived in Seattle and my parents lived in Florida, I didn't have much of a choice when I was ready to visit them. Luckily for me I only had to fly there once a year since they often flew to Seattle to see me. But that once a year was enough to have me in a panic attack.

It was mid-August and classes would be starting back in another week. As a professor at the University of Washington I was required to be back on campus getting things ready the week before classes officially started. It was especially important this year that we all be there because we were getting a new department head and we all needed to be there to greet him. I had flown out of Seattle in July to visit my parents and I was currently waiting in the Dallas airport on a layover to catch my last flight back to Seattle.

I was in the bar waiting for my flight. Normally I took some Valium before flying so that I would sleep, but I forgot to repack them after taking them before flying to Florida. I was really hoping that the alcohol would make me sleepy, or at least relaxed, so that the next few hours wouldn't be completely unbearable for me.

By the time they called my section to board the plane, I was pleasantly tipsy. I found my seat and was glad to see that it was not next to a window. I hated being able to see outside when I was flying. I was looking down at my phone trying to send a quick text to my best friend Alice when I heard the sexiest voice beside me.

"Excuse me, miss, but could I get past you? I believe I'm in the seat right next to you."

I looked up and my jaw dropped. The most gorgeous man that I had ever seen was standing next to me with a polite smile on his handsome face. He had the most unusual shade of copper hair that I had ever seen and it was a complete mess. Normally I like the clean cut look on guys, but this man's messy hair was a major turn on, probably because it made me think that it would like that if I was tugging on it during sex. But it wasn't just the hair. He had bright emerald green eyes and a perfectly chiseled jaw. His lips were perfect. I could only imagine that they would taste perfect as well. I let my eyes wonder down his body and I was not disappointed by the rest of the package. He had on a tight fitting black t-shirt and jeans that hung low on his hips. Both did an amazing job of showing off his lean body. I bet he looked great naked.

I didn't realize that I was staring until he cleared his throat and my eyes shot back up to meet his. He had a little smirk on his face that was so sexy I wanted to kiss it right off of him. But even in my slightly inebriated state I knew that I was being beyond rude and bordering on creepy with my staring, so I quickly looked away from him and started to move so that he could sit down.

"I'm sorry, you caught me off guard," I told him as he slid in to the window seat.

He gave me that smirk again but didn't reply. I really should have been mortified at the way I completely eye-fucked this stranger, but I just couldn't bring myself to care. He was just that, a stranger, and I would never have to see him again. Well that and the fact that the alcohol was causing me to not really care what I did.

It wasn't long after that that the plane began to take off. I pulled a book out of my bag and tried to read, but really I was just using it as a cover so that I could glance over at his hands. He was writing something in a notebook and I was admiring the way his long fingers moved. I just bet that he could do lots of fun things with those fingers.

Apparently I wasn't being as sly as I thought with my glances because he suddenly shut his notebook and turned to look at me.

"You know that Ms. Bronte deserves much more attention than you are giving her right now," he said to me and my eyes snapped up to his while I wrinkled my brow in confusion. He pointed to my book and I looked down, realizing that I had pulled out my worn copy of Jane Eyre. I was so wrapped up in trying to sneak glances at the hottie next to me that I didn't even realize that that was what I had pulled out of my bag.

"You know Bronte?" I asked him and he smirked at me again and said "I do indeed know of Ms. Bronte. All three of them in fact. Though this is probably pretty cliché to say, I must admit that Jane Eyre is my favorite of all Bronte works."

"You're hot and smart!" I exclaimed before I could stop myself.

The minute I said that his eyes got wide and I slapped my hand over my mouth.

"I'm so sorry!" I finally said to him. "That was so unbelievably rude of me. I've been drinking. I have no brain to mouth filter. I didn't mean it. I mean, of course I meant it. You are hot and you are smart. But I didn't mean to say that out loud. Because it is kind of weird and you don't know me and I don't know you. And I'm still talking and being weird. Ok, I'm shutting up now."

By this point he was chuckling at me. "It's ok that you said it out loud. And that you said all of that out loud. You didn't weird me out at all."

I turned my head back down to look at my book and let my hair fall over my shoulder, trying desperately to hide my burning face. I was mortified!

I had been staring at the same page for a few minutes, praying that the floor of the plane would just open up and swallow me whole when I heard him speak again.

"Most guys enjoy having a beautiful women compliment them."

My head shot up again and I looked at him. He smiled at me and continued "And I'm guessing you are probably smart as well. Or at least well read. That copy of Jane Eyre looks like you've read through it more than once."

I smiled back at him. "I love to read. I've always read the classics. I remember in high school that my copy of Pride and Prejudice completely fell apart from me flipping through it so much. So of course when I got to college I majored in English and now I am a professor."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "A professor that's afraid of flying and doesn't stop to think before she speaks. Interesting."

"How did you know?" I asked him. "About me being afraid of flying?"

He shrugged. "I didn't really know, but I assumed. It's barely noon and you said that you had been drinking. I figured you were either an alcoholic or trying to calm your nerves. And since you didn't really seem as though you had a drinking problem, I decided on the nerves."

I sighed and ran my hands through my hair. "You are right, of course. I drink, obviously, but I don't have a problem. I rarely drink during the day, but I usually tend to freak out on flights and I was hoping that the alcohol would calm me down. Although even if I wasn't a big baby when it came to planes I still may have had to drink after the week that I've had," I said to him.

"A bad week, huh?" He asked. "And what exactly could be so bad as to have a pretty lady like yourself resort to alcohol?"

I blushed at his compliment and just shook my head. "It's nothing. I'm sure you have better things to do than listen to a stranger talk about her problems."

I once again got that sexy smirk from him. "We are on a plane. I don't think that there is much else for me to do."

"I guess that you do have a point," I said. "So, where to begin with my shitty week? How about the fact that I found out that my asshole ex-boyfriend is getting married next month to the girl that he cheated on me with. Don't get me wrong, I'm beyond glad to be rid of him. He was a complete loser. But we were together for 5 years and he never even talked about marriage with me. Now four months after we break up he is marrying the whore that he was screwing behind my back. I wouldn't take her place for anything, but it does kind of hurt my pride a little bit."

The hottie ran his fingers through his already unkempt hair and shook his head. "Man, that's pretty messed up," he said. "But you shouldn't feel bad. If he is that much of an ass then I'm sure he didn't deserve you. Instead of letting that make you have a shitty week, you should be celebrating the fact that you are rid of him and that the whore he is marrying will probably find him in bed with someone else before the ink is even dry on the marriage certificate."

I laughed. "Well you are probably right about that. If he wasn't faithful to me then I doubt he will be faithful to her. And I should probably be celebrating the fact that I have him out of my life. Honestly I don't know why I stayed with him for as long as I did. I have a PhD and a steady job and he could barely hold a job working for his parents because he liked to go out and party too much. Man, I was dumb."

"No you weren't dumb. But you are probably better off without him. So cheer up and tell me about your job. You said that you are a professor?"

I nodded and rolled my eyes. "Yes and that's another reason that I'm having such a crap week. I love my job, but the politics of academia really suck sometimes. The university that I'm at just hired a new Head of the English Department and I am so pissed. The university hired some douche bag from another school to come in and take over the department. They said it was because we needed new ideas or some shit like that coming into the department. That sounds all fine, but I heard through the grapevine that this guy's parents donated a ton of money to the university right before he was hired. Apparently this guy wasn't good enough to get the job on his own so he had his mommy and daddy write a check for him. I'm worried that he is going to be a complete idiot and ruin all the effort that we have put into our department. It just frustrates me, you know?"

I finished my rant and looked over at the man next to me to see that he was just staring at me. I blushed again because I apparently took his polite conversation about my job a little too far. Again, no brain to mouth filter. But I did have to admit that it felt pretty good to get that off of my chest. I had just heard about everything that happened the night before in a brief e-mail so I had not had the chance to actually talk about it to anyone.

"I'm sorry," I said. "You don't even know me and I just dumped all of that on you. Please forgive me."

"No, it's ok," he said. "I can understand why thinking something like that would be frustrating. If you don't mind me asking, what university do you teach at?"

"The University of Washington," I replied.

The man looked at me for another minute and then slowly smiled. "Well, I do hope that your work drama turns out better than you are expecting. I would hate to think that you are worrying yourself over this when you should be cultivating young minds and all of that fun stuff."

I nodded and smiled. "Thanks for listening," I said to him. "I think that I just needed to get that out. It's dumb work place drama and I really don't need to be worried with it. As long as me and the other professors continue to do what we were hired for then I'm sure everything will be fine. I don't have to like the new department head but I can be nice for my job's sake. And I can always just think about what a hopeless momma's boy he must be if he starts to bother me and that should cheer me right up!"

He laughed and shook his head but didn't say anything else about my job. I'm sure he was glad that I wasn't going into any more detail about my dull life. Ok the part about my ex probably wasn't dull, but who really wants to hear about work happenings of a complete stranger? Absolutely no one.

He and I talked about random things for the next little while, but nothing too heavy. I started getting sleepy in the last hour or so and I must have dozed off because I woke up with my head on the hottie's shoulder. When I realized what I was doing I jumped away from him.

"I'm sorry!" I exclaimed to him. "You should have just pushed me off of you. I'm sure you can't wait for this flight to be over so that you can get away from the crazy lady on the plane."

He smiled the most adorable crooked grin at me. "It's no problem, and I don't think that you are crazy. Entertaining, but not crazy. Besides, you talk in your sleep. It was pretty interesting to listen to."

My face once again flamed red. I knew that I sometimes talked in my sleep, but that didn't mean that I wanted a stranger to hear me. I couldn't even bring myself to ask him what I said for fear of further embarrassment. Instead I flipped through my book some more until we landed. I quickly grabbed my carry-on bag and said good-bye to the man that I had sat next to for the last few hours. I then hurried off the plane with the hopes of putting that experience as far out of my mind as possible. As hot as the guy was, I was glad that I would never see him again. I didn't think that I could handle any more embarrassment in front of him.