by Emmy Curtis
Besides which, she would probably need a drink after the conversation she had to have with him later. Eleanor would understand, and join her.
But for now, Missy had to keep her laser focus. It had become harder and harder to compartmentalize. Conrad was a work colleague. Nothing more. She just had to complete this Red Flag, and she would have a new life and a fighting chance at a real future.
She suited up and made her way to the flight line, where all the U.S. Air Force planes were chocked, awaiting departure. She instantly recognized Conrad in the distance. Not that she could see his face, but she knew the way he walked and how he held himself: head up, one hand trailing on the aircraft’s fuselage, and one hand tapping against the outside of his thigh. He tapped his leg every time he checked something. She wondered if he was mentally reciting a mnemonic but had never asked.
“Everything look okay to you?” she asked, switching her helmet from one hand to the other as she grabbed the ladder to climb into her seat.
“Everything looks fine. No dings, no scrapes—she looks as beautiful as she always does.”
She smiled. “Good.” She’d been a little worried since the previous night. But if Conrad said it was in working order, she 100 percent believed him. Damn stupid civilians with their stupid golf cart. She cursed under her breath at the thought. Just a tiny ding could damage the airworthiness of a plane…and cause unspeakably bad crashes.
Missy took a deep breath and got into flight mode. She slipped a bandana around her hairline to stop sweat from dripping into her eyes or onto her instruments and fastened her helmet securely in place. Her heartbeat flicked up a notch, and she smiled. She’d always told herself she’d give up the job when she failed to feel the small shiver of preflight excitement that tickled her spine every time she slid into her seat.
She couldn’t, however, bring herself to avert her eyes as Conrad slipped into his. His ass was a work of art. It would be virtually rude not to admire it. At least that was what she’d been telling herself for years now. Shaking her head to herself with a private smile, she checked her instruments and her comms.
“Do you copy?” she said
“I certainly do,” Conrad replied with an audible smile and an exaggerated Southern accent. Ah certain-lay do. The boy was from Savannah, Georgia, and his redneck charm was what they said made him so popular with women. She couldn’t disagree.
She let him run through his preflight check, affirming each question that pertained to her. It was such a routine that she had to totally focus to ensure she wasn’t just going through the motions. She snapped a rubber band against her wrist as she checked her own instruments and weaponry. It kept her focused, and thankfully, no one could see her doing it and imagine that she was trying to distract herself from what voices were telling her to do. She grinned at the thought. Conrad would crap himself if someone told him that the woman sitting behind him at twenty thousand feet was snapping a rubber band on her wrist.
In truth, it just made her focus and helped take away any distraction or her predisposition to think ahead. It was a part of her flight routine that one of her instructors had passed on in her training. She had started her weapons officer training trying to think three steps ahead until the trainer had told them all that they had to stay utterly focused on the one thing that was happening at that moment. Her rubber band had become like a talisman, and a reminder that her training was all that mattered.
Conrad started the engines and they awaited the crew sergeant on the ground to give the signs that the chocks had been removed. There was a momentary engine whine as he throttled forward, and she nodded to the sergeant who saluted them as they left the stand.
Soon enough they were accelerating down the runway, through the heat waves hovering above the tarmac. One day maybe she’d be able to just sit and enjoy the ride, but as always, she was swiveling her head to get a visual on other aircraft in the pattern and inputting coordinates for the mission.
“We’ve got Stone Man on our six. Suggest we hold in a pattern over Guardian Lake for the others to catch up,” she said.
Conrad was banking left toward the lake before she’d finished her sentence. They needed to fly to their target in formation. It was a good place to await the other pilots, especially if there was a delay in takeoff.
As they were circling the lake, she watched as a beautiful British Typhoon soared into the sky. “Look at that,” she said with a sigh. As Conrad’s head swiveled, the plane banked to the right, away from them, giving them a spectacular view of its undercarriage with its camo paint and Royal Air Force target-shaped roundel design on its wings. “She’s beautiful.”
“I’m hurt. So is Lana. Don’t let her know you’re ogling another aircraft,” Conrad replied. Only he would name his aircraft after a sexy cartoon spy.
“Lana can take the hit. I’m not sure your ego can, though,” she replied with a laugh. “Maybe you can introduce me to the pilot when we’re on the ground?” she said, not meaning it at all. This was the game they played. Or she played at least. It made her feel better about all the gymnasts, exotic dancers, and nurses Conrad spent his off-duty hours with.
“I don’t know every pilot at Red Flag, you know.” His voice had taken an edge of outrage that made her grin.
“Well, if you cared about me at all, you’d be scoping out all the single pilots and screening them for me.”
He was silent, and she scanned her instruments and the sky around her for a reason he wasn’t replying to her. There was nothing out there except another French pilot joining their holding pattern. “Well?”
He cleared his throat. “If you want me to pimp for you, I’m certainly happy to. I’ll go find him after our chat.” His voice had put air quotes around the word chat, making it seem like an imposition.
“Thank you,” she said, wondering why she’d pushed him. Hopefully the British pilot was married.
This. This was what her life had become. They’d chitchat until one of them said something that would give the other ass ache; then it would be weird. She swore that she spent half the time trying to figure out what she’d said to make him clam up or straight-up get annoyed at. It wasn’t natural—especially since from day to day he was often the only man she spent any time with. It was unhealthy. Hell, the whole thing was unhealthy. And that’s why she needed to get out of Dodge.
His head flicked to the right, and that coupled with a change in the engine vibration told her they were ready to go. Before he’d even said anything, she was giving him the radar reading on their route to the target. “We’ve got turbulence between seventeen and twenty-one thousand feet,” she reminded him. “And our fastest way there is skimming around Mount Irish Wilderness, keeping Bald Mountain on our port side.”
“Copy that,” he said, repeating the route on the frequency for their sortie. All the other pilots clicked in, acknowledging the instructions.
She propped her left arm up on the small ledge where the canopy met the airframe to give herself a little more space. She watched the radar for other aircraft movements and checked and double-checked the missiles they were carrying below them. They weren’t dropping real missiles until the last few days of Red Flag; they just had flares loaded for now.
Missy could close her eyes and tell immediately who she was flying with. Some pilots embraced the turbulence, some tried to avoid it for her sake—because it was bumpier toward the rear of the aircraft—and some accelerated and decelerated, trying to get the perfect vector on a target, making her head bob back and forth.
Conrad embraced the turbulence. Which meant that she had to as well. And sometimes she wished the rattling would shake some sense into him, but it never did. The turbulence kept him sharp, and she always wondered if that’s why he fought stability in his personal life too. Entanglements dulled the instincts, as common wisdom held.
He called out direction to their sortie. “We’re coming in north, northeast. Aggressor Squadron is directly ahead on the radar, so let’s take fl
anking positions on the target to spread them out.”
Conrad dipped Lana’s wing, and the engines roared as he punched forward toward the fight. That’s what he always did. No strategizing, no hiding, just jumping right into the fray.
CHAPTER THREE
The mission had been a success, but Conrad couldn’t figure out what was wrong with Missy. She’d been having some kind of tizzy since they’d arrived at Red Flag. She’d been different, standoffish—like he’d maybe done something to upset her. He just couldn’t figure out what.
He’d done everything he was supposed to. He could say that he’d pushed her away, but she’d never really got that close to him. Never given him the slightest impression that would have legitimized the need that burned inside him.
And thank God. Sometimes he knew that his rampant desire for her would have totally taken him over if she’d even looked at him a certain way. He needed to get his head back in the game. He’d missed her after their last flight of the day because the crew chief needed to speak to him. But he couldn’t just hang out and wait for her to be ready to tell him what the fuck was up.
He swung by the barracks to find her, but Major Eleanor Daniels, Missy’s roommate, told him that she’d gone to the gym. So be it.
He changed into his PT clothes at his lodging and headed down to the base gym. As he expected, it was virtually deserted except for a few guys doing weights and Missy punching a bag.
“Oh, come on. Today wasn’t that bad,” he joked as he took in the ferocity with which she was victimizing the bag.
She paused, blew hair out of her eyes, and put her hands on her hips. “Where did you go? I waited for you in the briefing room.”
He frowned. This sounded serious. “The crew chief wanted to talk to me about something they found on one of the F-16s. I came to find you right after, which is why I’m here.” He definitely wasn’t going to mention the lipstick graffiti that had been left for Eleanor on the side of her aircraft. He hoped it had just been a prank. In bad taste, for sure. Lipsticking Bitch was bordering on criminal. He hoped Eleanor hadn’t seen it. Something like that was designed to get into someone’s head, throw them off their game. Whoever had done it didn’t have the balls to compete on a level playing field. If Conrad found the bastard who’d written it, he’d be toast.
Missy nodded toward the punching bag and he took hold of it to give her a better target. She hit it over and over, as if she was shivving someone in jail. Hard and fast. Really fast. He planted his feet farther apart to counter the thrust on the bag.
“Dude. What’s wrong?” he asked.
She stopped and wiped sweaty hair from her forehead with the back of her boxing glove. “I’ve asked for a transfer to MacDill.”
His brain stuttered at her bald statement. “What?” She couldn’t just leave him and live on the other side of the country.
“It’s time.”
“It’s time for what?” he ground out, trying not to sound upset and failing miserably.
“I’ve learned all I can from you…and the other pilots I fly with. It’s time for me to press on, or I’ll be in this squadron for another year at least. No one wants that.” She smiled as if she was making a weak joke.
His brain couldn’t process what she was saying. In the years they’d been in the same squadron, never once had he contemplated being without her. Not being able to fly with her. Not seeing her every day. It had never even…even crossed his mind. Shit.
He laughed, unable to figure out what to say, and her face froze.
“Why are you laughing?” she said. The expression that had been on her face while she’d been punching the bag returned. He stepped back.
“I don’t know.” He held his hands up. “I’m sorry. It’s just so unexpected. I assumed you—”
“You assumed that I’d just stay flying with you until you decided to move on to another job, right?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I mean—”
She stepped back and took a breath. He waited for her to say something, his mind whirring…how could she not see that he wouldn’t be as good a pilot if she wasn’t sitting behind him? How could she not see that she was changing their lives without even consulting him?
She said nothing. But her face reflected some kind of recognition or understanding.
Relieved, he exhaled heavily. “You see? It’s okay. You can take back a request for transfer. I can ask Colonel Bailey to ignore it. It’ll be fine.” Thank God she realized her mis—
She punched him in the soft spot of his shoulder, just over his collarbone.
He rubbed it and grabbed the bag again. “You missed it.” He smirked.
She pushed him with both hands and he was propelled backward toward the mats.
“What are you doing?” What the fuck is going on?
She advanced on him again and pushed him, making him almost trip on the corner of the gym mat. He held up his hands in surrender. “All right, Missy. Calm down.”
She hung her head for a second, and he put both his hands on her shoulders. She looked up, forced his hands away from her, and grabbed one of his arms and pulled him toward her, while blocking his legs from moving with her right leg. Effortlessly she threw him over her left hip. Boom. He landed on the mat. Damn.
A couple of the guys doing weights sniggered. Awesome.
He propped himself up on his elbows. “Are we done now? Is this all sorted now?”
“Are you kidding me?” she asked. “You have no idea how to even be a human being. How to think about anyone other than yourself.”
Well that wasn’t true. He thought about her all the fucking time. About what he wanted to do with her, about kissing her—she just didn’t understand. He whipped his legs around to the side and tripped her. “What exactly is going on here?”
She fell to the left of him, but so close he felt the breath poof out of her as she fell. He jumped up and held his hand out to her. She ignored it, getting to her feet herself, and charged him from a crouching position, using her weight below his center of gravity to hit him back to the mat.
This time she landed on top of him. She held his gaze for a couple of seconds, and then scrambled to get off him. He held her firmly by the arms. “I’m not your punching bag. Whatever you have going on—”
“Then what exactly am I to you? Just some person whose only job is to make you look good up there? Your…sidekick?” She bucked against his arms, managing to get a knee to his groin, but thankfully missing all the important parts. He roared and spun her onto her back.
Before she fully made contact with the mat, she spun away and leapt to her feet. Crap, but she was slippery when she was pissed. He realized in that instant that he’d never seen her pissed. Or even sad or ecstatic. Around him, she’d always been in work mode. Professional, a little sardonic, occasionally lighthearted.
One of the lights went out in the gym, and he looked toward the weight machine and realized everyone had left, presumably to go party downtown, as most people did when they were in Vegas. In his moment of distraction, he had only a split second to react to a kick to his chest. Reeling from the impact, he still managed to grab her foot and hold it up.
“Well, I’ve got you n—” he started.
She bent her remaining floor-bound leg and sprung. A second foot caught him in his chest and he went down. As did she, gratifyingly.
He had no idea why they were fighting, but as he lay there, catching his breath, he realized that he’d never touched her like this before. Never held her arms, never laid that close to her. He took a breath, during which he pleaded with every ounce of willpower in his body to not get a hard-on.
“Get up,” Missy said. He’d been concentrating so hard on his dick that he hadn’t noticed that she was already on her feet.
What was going on? He needed to get the fuck out of here before…
“Get up.” He looked up. She was standing next to him, hands firmly planted on her hips.
“Are we still fighting?” he
asked, trying not to let the strain show in his voice. He rolled over and sat up, hiding the bulge in his shorts with a casually slung arm.
“You can. I’m heading for the shower,” she said, holding her hand out.
At that image, his self-control fritzed and everything in his life faded except the woman in front of him. He took her hand, as if he were going to get up, and pulled her down to him.
A cry of surprise echoed around the empty gym as she fell on him. Full-body contact. Full-body contact.
She wriggled as if to get up, and then she paused. And then wriggled a tiny bit more. “What’s that?” She pulled her head up and stared at him, a frown marring her beautiful face.
He hesitated, once again in the real world. He should push her off him. Apologize, and head back to his—
She pushed her pelvis against his hard-on. He closed his eyes and groaned. And then it was game over.
He opened his eyes and pulled her toward him, rolling so that he was on top of her. “Tell me to stop,” he said. “Just say the word, but say it now.”
She opened her mouth but said nothing. Her eyes trailed down his face and rested on his mouth. She took a shaky breath. He was afraid of what she was going to say, but she remained silent.
In that second, his body acted before his brain. He was going to say something—something clever, or cute maybe. Or sexy. But instead he pulled her to him and kissed her. She utterly yielded beneath him. Her mouth opened, and her tongue dueled with his. Heat—pure volcanic heat—rushed through him as he took what he had wanted for so long. What she was finally giving him.
It was wrong, so very wrong. But nothing could tell his soul that she was wrong for him. Nothing could convince his crazed need for her to fit neatly back into its flight suit. It was out.