by Emmy Curtis
Lights prickled his peripheral vision. She rode him long and slow, and then faster, seemingly anticipating every nerve ending’s demand, until his fists were wound in the bedcover as he strained into her. His balls tightened almost painfully as he exploded inside her. His brain fritzed as if he were concussed. But there was no pain, just amazing release…as if everything in him was reaching out to be a part of her.
“Jesus. Jesus,” he said, gasping for air.
She released a small exhale of a laugh before collapsing onto him, with her head on his chest. He stroked her hair and closed his eyes. Her breathing became steady, and he let go, once again, to heaven.
CHAPTER FIVE
It was late—or maybe it was early. Missy rolled over in the darkness and stretched. Then she snapped her arms back in to her body as she realized where she was and who she was with. Shit. The night came flooding back. She looked at his sleeping face. The face that until last night had been that of a colleague. Now everything had changed.
She wanted to smile, but her face wouldn’t let her. It was a sadness that descended through her bones. This was illegal. They could both get fired for it. Their careers would be ended—just because they couldn’t keep it in their pants.
But also, could this be her closure? She knew him well enough to know that she was just Tuesday’s entertainment. He would be on to someone else tomorrow, or maybe the next day. She knew that. And she wouldn’t let it hurt when he did.
Casual and breezy, that’s what she had to show him.
This was it—closure. She would just have to make sure her transfer paperwork was finalized. There was no way she could let what had just happened influence her decision to stay. And she knew just how persuasive Conrad could be.
But right now? She had to get out of the lodging while everyone was still asleep. How could she look in his eyes again? See him without remembering?
Damn, girl. You’ve got to get your shit together. She slid out of the bed, grabbed her clothes, and took them to the bathroom.
She switched on the light and checked her phone. It was 4:00 a.m. Just time enough to get back to the barracks before Eleanor awoke. Conrad had virtually fucked away her brain power, enough that she couldn’t quickly come up with a reason she’d been out this long. Especially dressed the way she was.
Fuck! They were supposed to have been in the hangar last night. Shit-fuck. Briefly she contemplated waking Conrad and getting them both the hell down there. But she didn’t want to talk to him about this shit yet. Hell on wheels.
She made up her mind. She’d slip out of lodging, head to the hangar, ruffle up their cots, and then run back to barracks in time to get in the shower before Eleanor awoke.
She walked through the reception area with her head down, in case anyone she knew from the other squadrons was there. But it was deserted, thank God.
As soon as she hit the street, she ran along white lines in the center of the empty road as she always did. That was the beauty of the base here. They redirected traffic in the mornings so troops could do their PT without getting run over.
She banked right onto the flight line and kept running until she reached the F-15 and F-16 hangar. The door was unlocked, of course, so she slipped right in. It was completely dark except for the ambient light coming from the mechanics’ office on the mezzanine level. Someone had left a computer running probably.
She found their cots on either side of their F-15. She stopped and steadied her breath. Was there someone there? She spun around, only to see the shadows of the aircraft pulled into the hangar, nose to tail, wingtip to wingtip. She held her breath to see if she could sense the air moving around an intruder.
But no. There was no one. She mussed up her own cot, scrunching the pillow and pulling the blankets back, and was about to do Conrad’s, too, but, with an evil smile to herself, decided to hang him out to dry and see what excuse he’d come up with when the crew asked him why he hadn’t slept in the hangar. The thought of him struggling to find a good answer made her giggle to herself. Poor Conrad. Of course, he didn’t have to explain himself to anyone, but she knew the crew would ask. She just hoped she’d be around to see him blush.
Looking around one more time, she picked her way carefully around the aircraft, ducking under their wings. There was no one there. She was going mad. She blamed Conrad for her brain being on the fritz. Taking one last look around, she bailed, closing the door quietly behind her and running back to her barracks.
“Well, well, well,” Eleanor said as soon as Missy opened the door to their shared quarters. “I never imagined to catch you doing the walk of shame at this hour. Don’t you know you’re supposed to be in the air in a few hours?”
“Shhhhh!” Missy said, closing the door quietly behind her. She figured no one else on their floor would be waking up for another hour or so.
Eleanor was sitting in the one armchair in the room, with her PC on her lap. “Help yourself to a cup of coffee.” She nodded toward the pot on top of the small fridge.
Missy dumped her bag on her bed and went to pour the coffee.
“Oh my God, you totally got laid,” Eleanor gasped, closing her laptop.
“What? How do…Why would you say that?” Missy stumbled unconvincingly over her words.
“You just sashayed across the room. And unless you’re doing it for my benefit…”
Missy went on the offensive. “Well, what are you doing up so early, wearing the same clothes—” She broke off. “Oh my God, so did you!”
They stared at each other for a second, then burst out laughing. Missy raised her coffee cup in a salute.
“Here’s to deepening international relations with our NATO partners,” Eleanor said with a grin, lifting her own cup in response.
“Really? With a foreign national? You rebel!”
Eleanor just raised her eyebrows lasciviously and tucked her feet under her. “Are you going to tell Conrad?” she asked.
Missy winced.
“Oh my God!” Eleanor shouted before clapping her hand over her mouth. “Seriously? That’s…I don’t know what that is. Wonderful? Career-ending?”
Missy took a deep breath. “Closure. That’s what it is.”
“Are you sure? Are you still requesting your transfer?” she asked.
“Now more than ever,” Missy replied firmly. She was completely convinced that she’d made the right decision. Getting out from under Conrad’s career path and forging her own and doing it with at least three states between them sounded like a good plan to her.
“What does Conrad think?”
Missy took a deep breath, trying to suppress the rage she’d felt earlier. “He feels that I should stay with him until he’s reached his own personal career goals.”
Eleanor nodded thoughtfully.
Missy was a little pissed that she wasn’t more outraged on her behalf.
“I can’t honestly say I blame him. You’re the best weapons officer in his squadron. You read his mind, can anticipate his every operational need, and if I flew an F-15 and needed someone in the backseat, I’d want to hold on to you as long as possible.”
“No. I’m sorry. You can’t bring your reason and stupid pilot-logic to a personal grudge.”
“You’re right. He’s an arrogant prick, and I hate him. But all pilots are, you know.” Eleanor shrugged and gazed at her cup of coffee.
“You’re not,” Missy said.
“Yes, I am. You just haven’t flown with me. I’m the worst, but I have to be. Otherwise those flyboys will stomp all over my mad skills, even though I’m a much better pilot than they are.” She grinned.
“You are right—you are an arrogant prick.”
Silence fell between them for a second. Missy hoped they’d have time to go out on the town while they were there. Eleanor was stationed near DC—which was fairly close to Langley Air Force Base, where Missy was stationed—but it was hard to find the time to catch up when they were working all the time and exhausted on their days off.
Flying every day took its toll.
Then she realized she hadn’t been nearly as nosy as Eleanor had been. “So who made you do the walk of shame?”
Eleanor gave her a cat-who-ate-the-cream smile. “Have you seen that Typhoon with the traditional camo paint job?”
“No way! That’s the most beautiful aircraft on the field. I even asked Conrad if he’d find out if the pilot was single.”
“I bet he loved that! Well, he is. At least, I assume he is.” She frowned for a split second.
Missy wanted to reassure her, but experience had told her that there was a certain type of pilot who thought they could have every woman who had a pulse. Her heart lurched. Conrad was one of them, wasn’t he?
“You want to go out tomorrow tonight?” Eleanor asked.
Missy looked at the time on her phone. “You mean tonight?”
“Shit. Yes, I do. Today will be a struggle with so little sleep. But I’m a fierce napper, and we should be back from our mission around twenty hundred hours. Which is way before the festivities kick off in Vegas. Have I ever taken you to Bipartisan Measures?”
“Is that a show?” Missy was confused.
“No, it’s a bar. I had my first sexual encounter in the one in DC.” She cocked her head. “And one of my most recent.”
Missy gave a shocked laugh. “How do you do these things and never get caught?”
“I don’t do these things. Well, I guess I did…but…” Her voice trailed off, and her expression grew serious.
“What’s the matter?” Missy leaned forward on the bed. Eleanor looked worried. She’d never, ever seen her look worried—about anything.
Eleanor seemed to force a smile on her face. “Well, he has a British accent, so you know, all bets were off.” The smile became more natural.
Missy leaned back again and fanned herself with her hand. “Be still my beating heart.”
“I know, right? So tonight?”
“Hell yeah. I want to see the scene of the crime. Take photos, hear details…”
Missy’s thoughts turned to the mission. “We took out the Aggressor Squadron yesterday,” she said, trying not to look too triumphant.
“Not my team,” Eleanor scoffed.
“I knew it! I knew you’d made the Aggressors!” Missy crowed. She’d guessed that there was no way the Aggressor Squadron would take formation without Eleanor in their ranks. But she never expected her to admit it so readily. Eleanor was right. She did indeed have a true pilot’s ego.
“Don’t tell anyone. Not even Conrad.”
Missy held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
“Don’t forget—I’ve known you for longer than anyone here. I know you’d only set foot in the Girl Scouts to steal their badges.” Eleanor raised her eyebrows meaningfully.
Missy choked on her mouthful of lukewarm coffee. “Okay, okay. Deal. My lips are sealed.”
A door closed in the corridor outside, and people started moving around. Missy groaned. “I guess a nap’s out of the question now.”
“No rest for the wicked,” Eleanor said, jumping up from her chair with amazing energy.
“Did you sleep at all?” Missy asked.
“I don’t need sleep to be awesome!” she said as she disappeared into the bathroom.
Missy longed to be Eleanor. Just for the day. Endless energy, a hot British guy, and an unshakeable knowledge that she was a winner.
Eleanor also didn’t have to fly with Conrad or have to confirm her transfer before he could talk her out of it.
CHAPTER SIX
TechGen-One security consultant Chris Grove stood up from the crouch he and the two mechanics had assumed when Major Missy Malden had started running in their direction. He’d been tracking her since he’d placed a tiny sticker on the back of her sweatshirt in front of the base lodging, and thank God he had. Killing her in front of the mechanics would have been messy.
Not that he hadn’t planned out exactly how he’d do it. In the few minutes that he’d known she was on her way, he’d decided that he’d snap her neck and then move a set of aircraft steps next to her plane and leave her at the bottom, with a foot between the rungs. Before anyone would have conclusively determined that it hadn’t been an accident, they’d be long gone.
“Come on, let’s get this done. We’ve taken too much time already.”
The senior tech guy stood up in the office, too, looking angry. “That wasn’t our fault. Gallagher wasn’t used to the schematics on the Eurofighter Typhoon. He did fucking well for never having installed the PreCall device on one before.”
“I don’t care. If he couldn’t do it, he should have told the boss he couldn’t do it. But he didn’t, so that’s on you, and him.” Jesus. All he was there for was to manage security while they installed the software that General Daniels had been forced to permit. And tweak it a little for Major Daniels and Flight Lieutenant Dex Stone from the Royal Air Force.
Major Daniels had overheard a sensitive conversation between her father and Grove’s boss, Mr. Danvers. A very sensitive conversation. One that would expose TGO’s illegal dealings, bribes, and kickbacks to government folk, right up to the most important people in the White House.
Danvers didn’t like loose ends. Or loose lips. They had to get rid of her—and given that she’d been spending plenty of time with the British pilot as well, it was safest to take them both out. Cauterize the wound before it spread.
The new technology had been designed to enhance an aircraft’s maneuverability. It took about two hours to collect data from the pilot’s manner of flying, and then it would anticipate the pilot’s every move. It was a good product that the TechGen-One CEO had already presold to the Russians. Secretly, of course.
This sneaky software shit wasn’t exactly the way Grove was used to operating, though. His style was doing things out in the open. In the military, you had carte blanche to kill people whenever you wanted to, really. No one questioned you; no one minded a bit of torture. That was what he had told himself, anyway. But he’d been wrong—and then dishonorably discharged for behavior unbecoming. He hated the fucking military now, and he loved TGO.
Danvers had taken him off the street, virtually. He had valued the things about him the military hated. He didn’t judge Grove; he directed him. And Danvers needed people he could rely on. Loyalty and the ability to do the job, no matter how hard, without question. And Grove got paid handsomely for it.
All this scavenging around aircraft, uploading sketchy software, and stuff like that? It wasn’t his scene. A shot straight into the forehead was more his style. But here, on the military base that he swore he would never return to, he got a kick out of targeting these fresh-faced, naïve officers.
The kind of officers who used to look down on him. The kind of officers who’d judged him and had sentenced him at his court-martial. They had no idea what it was like outside the wire. Few officers did.
But Danvers paid him to follow orders, and if that meant babysitting two engineers who could upload something fast—well, it was supposed to be fast—then that was what he would do.
It never ceased to amaze him how easily a mind was focused when a muzzle was applied to a temple. It’s funny how quickly the muzzle gets warm, blends to the skin’s temperature. He knew how that felt. Every day for a week after being fired from the military, he’d pressed the muzzle of his revolver against his temple, angled slightly backward to ensure a clean shot. But that was before Danvers.
Before TGO.
Now he had a new job, money, and the ability to scratch an itch every time Danvers wanted someone to disappear.
And God, he hoped Danvers wanted to do away with Major Missy Malden. When she’d looked in his eyes, the brief flicker of fear had turned him on. As it always did. But she was not his to take, unless Danvers ordered it.
He was looking down at the engineers working on Major Daniels’s aircraft. They knew what to do, how to get in to the airframe’s system, without a scratch on a screw or den
t on a rivet. That’s why they paid them the big bucks.
“Are you done yet?” He could see a trickle of morning light eat through the windows at the top of the hangar above the sliding doors. He felt no fear, though; he would take out anyone who came between him and his mission.
The head engineer rose and nodded at him from beneath the wing of the F-16 that was going to kill Major Daniels. If anything would keep her father in line to deliver the rest of the military to TGO, it would be showing how easily they could get to his family.
So now they were done. Between the three of them, they had killed two pilots, even though the pilots didn’t know it yet.
He felt like God. Or maybe Jesus. Maybe Danvers was God. All he cared about was doing his job well so he could keep on getting paid to do what he loved the most—taking lives and making people scared of him. Danvers had given him power over the very people who had tried to wreck his life. He loved his fucking job.
He closed up the engineer’s laptop, tucked it under his arm, and climbed down the stairs to the hangar floor. “Let’s go,” he said to the two engineers. It worried him how nervous the younger one looked. He wasn’t used to TGO employees looking nervous about anything they were told to do. He would have to report that back to Danvers.
“Good job, guys,” he said with a smile. “You work well under pressure.”
The young engineer became more relaxed at his words. He smiled and nodded. They left the hangar through the back door, which led directly onto the taxiway; this meant no early-rising troops would catch them on the flight line.
“So, have you been working for TGO a long time?” he asked the younger of the two engineers.
The older, grizzled engineer gave him a long stare, but he ignored it.
“No, sir,” he replied. “Just for a few months.”
That was bad news. But I guess they would find out in a few short hours whether or not he would be able to keep his mouth shut. If he was the type just to appreciate his salary and the fact that he got to work on an F-16 today, or if he was the type to report Grove for holding a gun to his head. He hoped it was the former. Only because Langton, the older engineer, was a tough Vietnam vet, not known for taking shit from anyone. He wouldn’t put it past him to make a play for him if Grove tried anything with the new guy.