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  “Jesus.” Everything about her was sexual. I’d never met someone so forward in my life. Some guys might have found her intimidating, but I found it hot as fuck. I was stoked about being with a woman who knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to get after it.

  I threw my leg over my bike, and she settled in behind me, pressing her boobs against my back while her breath tickled my neck. Hands roamed over my abs again, feeling me through the thin T-shirt I wore under my cut as she let out an appreciative moan. Her scent wrapped around me, driving me out of my mind. By the time I pulled onto the street, she was stroking my cock through my jeans and laughing at the curses that kept spilling from my lips.

  Half expecting her to undo my pants and give me a handjob on the freeway, I hauled ass, making it to the hotel in record time since a speeding ticket seemed slightly favorable to an indecent exposure fine. We slipped past the main desk and she attacked me as soon as the elevator door closed. Plump, soft lips mashed into mine, and hands were everywhere: behind my neck, tugging my T-shirt out of my jeans, stroking my cock, the broad was a goddamn octopus. I was unprepared for her onslaught, but I welcomed the hell out of it. Our tongues danced as she rubbed her core against mine while unbuttoning my jeans.

  The elevator doors dinged open.

  She slowly pushed herself off me and grabbed ahold of my cut, towing me down the hall. Halting in front of a door, she flashed a keycard and let us in. As soon as we crossed the threshold, she shoved me. My back hit the wall and she followed, attacking once again. As we kissed, her hands slid under my cut long enough to tug it down my shoulders. She caught the leather vest before it hit the ground and tossed it on the sofa before ripping my T-shirt over my head. Her hungry gaze drifted down my exposed torso as she undid my zipper and shoved my pants and boxer briefs down over my ass to free my cock.

  She’d gotten me mostly naked in less than a minute, and she was still fully dressed. Needing to even the score, I grabbed the hem of her shirt and tugged until she broke our connection and raised her arms. Tossing her shirt aside, I studied the lacy light pink bra she wore beneath it. The contrast against her dark skin was sexy as fuck. “Beautiful,” I breathed.

  “You just gonna stand there and stare at me?” Her deep, breathy voice was made for phone sex. It had my cock aching to be inside her. “Beauty should be touched. Fondled. Shoved into the mattress and fucked hard.”

  Her foul mouth made me impossibly harder as she removed her bra and revealed the perfect tits beneath it. I palmed them, pinching the nipples, and she threw her head back in response. Lowering, I sucked on a nipple and she moaned her appreciation. Rolling her flesh between my teeth, I gave her a gentle nip.

  “Yes,” she breathed, running her fingers through my short hair. “Just like that.”

  As I switched nipples, she put her foot on my jeans and boxers and kicked them the rest of the way down my legs. Then she froze and her gaze landed on my artificial leg. Her eyes widened for a fraction of a second before the surprise wore off and she unzipped her shorts.

  Clearly, she didn’t give a fuck about my missing leg, which was the best reaction I could have hoped for. Thankful for the lack of pity or questions, I let her tow me toward the bed.

  “Lay down on your back,” she commanded.

  I damn well did as I was told. She looked over my body. Ignoring my prosthesis, she ran the tips her fingers from my other ankle up to my cock. She stroked it a few times before continuing her trip up my chest and neck to circle my lips.

  “You have nice lips. I bet they’d look amazing attached to my pussy.”

  I sat up far enough to kiss her. Wrapping my arms around her back, I brought her down to the bed with me. “You have nice lips. Soft. Plump. Bet they’d look incredible wrapped around my cock.”

  She laughed. “Only one way to find out.” Turning her body around, she hovered above my face, facing my feet. Crotch poised inches above my lips, she said, “Let’s see what you can do with that tongue.”

  Her bare, dark pink pussy looked inviting as hell, so I licked her from clit to ass. She moaned, settling herself against my lips and encouraging me to do more. Rolling my tongue through her folds, I feasted on the taste of her as she bent forward and slid her lips over my cock. She did her best to take me all in. I hit the back of her throat and stars exploded behind my eyes.

  “Fuck,” I hissed.

  She pulled off. “More licking, less talking. Winner gets to choose the next position.”

  “Winner?” Her taste on my tongue and her lips wrapped around my cock felt like winning to me. The words ‘next position’ sounded encouraging as hell. “You plannin’ some sort of marathon?”

  She swiped her tongue around my shaft and palmed my balls. “Absolutely. Think you can keep up? The first person to come, loses.”

  That was a competition I could handle. Chuckling, I went back to the task at hand, and so did she. We both licked and sucked for all we were worth. When she brought her hand to the party—stroking down my shaft as her mouth sucked the tip—I gritted my teeth and buried two fingers inside her pussy, curving them toward her G-spot. She muttered something incoherent and squeezed her channel around my fingers before sucking me into the back of her throat again.

  My vision went white and my balls drew up, but I refused to come. Still attacking her G-spot with my fingers, I sucked her clit into my mouth and massaged the hell out of it with my tongue. She exploded on my face, swearing like a sailor.

  I’d won.

  I licked off every ounce of my victory before sitting up and bending her over so I could claim my reward. She did say that beauty should be shoved into the mattress and fucked hard, and I intended to show her just how beautiful she was.

  As I reached for my wallet, she jerked away from me. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  Flipping it open, I grabbed the foil packet within and held it in the air for her to see.

  “Hell to the no.” She scooted off the bed to reach inside her purse. “I don’t know what sort of super sperm you have up here in Seattle, but one of your boys already grounded my girl, and I am not losing my wings to anyone. I brought my own jackets.” She tossed me a condom. “Wrap it up with that.”

  Chuckling, I opened the packet and rolled it on. “Any other requests?”

  Letting her gaze drift down, she said, “Your tongue was all right. Now show me what you can do with that cock, biker boy.”

  Determined to make her eat that challenge, I lunged, grabbing a hold of her nice, round ass. She squealed as I held her still and buried myself deep in her pussy with a swear. She felt so damn good, better than anything I’d ever had before. For the first time since my accident, I wasn’t thinking about my leg or stressing about all the plans it had ruined. I finally felt free, no longer grounded by the reality of my situation. She dropped her head to the bed and held onto the sheets as I enjoyed the wildest, craziest night of my life.

  Monica Johnson was a game changer. Just when I’d made peace with defeat, she rushed my court, rocked my world, and breathed life into my future. By the time she left the next morning, I wanted more out of life and was determined to get back in the game.

  Monica

  Four Months Later

  I’VE BEEN OBSESSED with flying for as long as I can remember. While most kids spent their weekends binging cartoons or playing video games, I grew up watching History Channel documentaries on famous pilots. By the time I hit middle school, I’d heard every theory about Amelia Earhart’s disappearance, and knew James Doolittle crashed his first glider at fifteen. He was also the pilot who discovered that negative G-forces made blood pool in your head. I’d read all the reasons Robert Hoover was considered the greatest stick and rudder man who ever lived, and the ways he’d captured German and Japanese aircraft during World War II.

  The idea of flying fascinated me like nothing else ever had.

  Despite my long hours of curiosity-driven research, a fictional movie was what made me realize I wanted to be a p
ilot. When I was ten, my dad rented some 80’s movie named “Top Gun,” that set the course of my life in the clouds. From the moment Tom Cruise, as Maverick, turned his jet upside down to fly on top of another jet, I knew I would be a fighter pilot someday.

  I didn’t give a damn about statistics or difficulty, I was determined to make it happen.

  Needing to fly like I needed air in my lungs and blood in my veins, I spent the next few years devouring every ounce of knowledge I could about the Air Force, jets, and pilots. None of my friends or family members understood my obsession. They were all annoyingly indecisive or apathetic about their own career paths, and they found me too intense… too driven. People told me I needed hobbies or other plans for my future in case I didn’t make it in the Air Force, but I didn’t let anyone throw shade on my dream.

  The first time I throttled up an F-16 and rocketed down the runway, I knew I was finally home, in the life I’d been born for. Every time I’ve settled into the cockpit since, an overwhelming sense of belonging reinforced that knowledge. My hard work and determination had earned me my wings and I would fight like hell to keep them.

  Second Lieutenant Gordon waved as I entered the hangar. He was one of the newer pilots that I’d been helping train.

  I gave him a nod. “Hey Jagger.” The young captain did all right in the air, but on the dance floor, he had the unfortunate moves of an aging rock-n-roll icon, earning him his call sign. “Moves like Jagger” was definitely not a compliment.

  “Hey Queen M.” My call sign had come from an old instructor’s attempt to mock me, but I claimed the hell out of it. By God, I was a queen, my crown was an F-35 Lightning II, and the sky was my kingdom. Any little bitch-boys who tried to dethrone me could eat my vape. “How they hangin’?”

  Joking was necessary to ease the tension of the position. I’d learned long ago I could either get offended by their vulgarity or play along. Playing along was a lot more fun. “Long, hairy, and hard to carry. You?”

  He grinned like an idiot. “Long, loose, and full of juice.”

  Laughing, I shook my head. “Sounds like your girl needs to get on her J-O-B.”

  “That’s the problem; she’s working too damn much. I’m all pent up and we’ve got this training today.”

  We were stateside, and I was scheduled to fly as Jagger’s wingman in an air-to-ground drill. “You got this shit, Gord,” I reminded him as we climbed into our cockpits and strapped in. Today we were both flying F-35s and I couldn’t have been happier about it. It had taken some time to convert me from the F-14, but nothing beat the situational awareness of the newer jets. “You’re a damn good pilot, ready for the next step in your career.” I had every faith he’d get the job done. We were in for one hell of a good day. “Stick with your plan, and it’ll be a piece of cake.”

  “Copy. This shit is mine. Then we eat cake.” Nerves added strain to his voice, but that was normal. The threat of death—or even worse, failure—clung to the fighters like a bad odor. This was only a training mission, but we were far from safe. Pilots with more flight hours than me and Jagger combined had died in training accidents. Sometimes shit went sideways and no amount of experience or skill could set it right again. Flying a fighter was a gamble, and we knowingly rolled the dice each time we strapped in.

  But I wouldn’t have traded it for the world.

  Today’s training op was a typical fly in and drop. We took off, but stayed low. Nothing gets the adrenaline flowing like a little race through the weeds, and I was following Jagger at about 120 feet above the ground and clocking a little over 800 mph. The increased turbulence from our low elevation bumped me around as I watched Jagger’s six, anticipating the attack we knew was coming.

  We reached the coordinates without getting bounced. Popping up to the appropriate altitude, I continued to scan the area while Jagger got a lock on the bombing parameters.

  “Command, this is Jagger,” he said in my ear. “Target is acquired. Requesting permission to drop.”

  “Copy. Permission granted.”

  Jagger hit his mark like it was a magnetic bullseye. “Hit confirmed.”

  Two F-16s appeared, flying in high and headed straight for us. “Tally two bandits, five o’clock high,” I reported. This was it; time to see how well Jagger’s plan worked.

  “Copy.” He dropped back down into the weeds and I followed, banking right as he flew straight. Pushing the throttle to take me closer to 1,000 miles per hour, I led my pursuer away from Jagger and the bird on his tail. I was good at busting out of dogfights and could most likely outmaneuver and lose my bandit, but that wasn’t the plan. Jagger had chosen for us to attack rather than evade.

  Flying at only about fifty feet above ground, adrenaline pumped through my veins as I watched all directions at once. Buzz Aldrin once said, “Fighter pilots have ice in their veins. They don’t have emotions. They think, anticipate. They know that fear and other concerns cloud your mind from what’s going on and what you should be involved in.” Flying so close to the ground, I had to agree, but this was where I excelled. This was where my reflexes kicked in and I learned to rely on my instincts.

  Dipping a wing to evade a patch of tall trees, I sucked in a breath and squeezed between two evergreens before raising my nose to get to a safer altitude. When I was in this seat, everything was trying to kill me; the weather, the terrain, the mock enemy on my tail, the change in G-forces, the turbulence, my quickly dwindling fuel supply. I had to be better than all of it to survive.

  The life wasn’t easy, and it sure as hell wasn’t safe, but I lived for the thrill.

  This was the seat my royal ass was born to occupy.

  “What’s your situation, Jagger?” I asked into my headset. My fuel was dwindling, and it was time for the second part of our plan. “Ready for me yet?”

  “Yes ma’am. Let’s do-si-fuckin’-do.”

  We verbally swapped coordinates. I banked left, narrowly squeezing between two high trees again and almost losing my tail. Slowing to give the bandit time to catch up, I set my course to intercept Jagger. Once he was in sight, I targeted the bird on his tail while he targeted mine.

  “Locked,” I said as soon as I had his enemy in my sights.

  “Locked,” he replied.

  We’d officially switched dance partners and were prepared to fire. If this was an actual combat situation, we would have toasted the bandits. Jagger had passed his training.

  “Good job,” Colonel Norman said in our headsets. “Red Team, you have been targeted. Drill’s over. Wrap it up and come home.”

  All four of us turned our birds toward the base.

  It was the first air-to-ground training Jagger had taken the lead on, and he’d crushed it. Congratulations were in order, so after the workday, our crew headed to a favorite watering hole. We took turns buying him drinks as we threw darts, shot pool, talked all sorts of shit, and he embarrassed himself on the dance floor. The guys I served with were ridiculous, but they were damn good people. I loved nights like this where I could relax and unwind in the midst of those who understood and shared my love for flying.

  These motherfuckers were as crazy as I was, and I adored every last one of them. They were my tribe.

  Our days started at the butt crack of dawn and I wasn’t a glutton for punishment, so I limited my drinks and stayed hydrated as the fools around me indulged. Jagger, on the other hand, was sloppy drunk. He’d be feeling every one of those victory drinks in the morning. His back had been thoroughly patted and the impromptu celebration was dwindling down, so I sidled up next to him at the bar. After ordering a glass of water to help him sober up, I gave him a hug and reached into his jacket pockets to find his keys.

  “You tryin’ to cop a feel,” he slurred, dragging out the “E”s until they had their own zip code. “Don’t take this wrong, Queen M, I like you, but not like that.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself, you can barely stand.” Finding what I was looking for, I tugged them out and twirled the keyring
around my finger before popping them into my pocket. “I’ll drive you home. Then I’ll pick your sorry ass up on my way in tomorrow.”

  His brow scrunched up, and I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. “I’m not on your way,” he said like he’d uncovered the greatest mystery of the world.

  “No shit, Sherlock.” Jagger and his girlfriend had just moved into a nice new apartment complex on the northeast side of Clovis, whereas I’d bought a small house on the southwest side, much closer to Cannon Air Force Base. But since the town’s population of 40,000 was stretched out over about twenty square miles, school buses were the number one cause of traffic problems. He was out of my way, but picking him up would only add about fifteen minutes to my morning commute. Sometimes it wasn’t so bad living in a small town. “Think I’ve forgotten about that housewarming party you and your girl threw? You guys sprung for the good food, and I never forget a tasty appetizer. Those crab cakes were bomb.”

  He grinned. “Candice comes from money. She says she’s my sugar mama. You need to get you one of those, Queen M.”

  The bartender delivered my glass of water and I slid it in front of Jagger. “Drink that. And what the fuck you mean, I need a sugar mama?” I stood straighter, mustering up all my mock offense. “Oh, you think because I can fly I must be a lesbian? Let me assure you, this girl takes in a steady stream of vitamin D.”

  Jagger laughed, draping an arm across my shoulders. “Calm down. Nobody’s questioning your sexuality. You know full well that’s not what I meant.”

  “What, then? You think I need someone to pay my bills? I got this shit on lock.”

  He swayed a little too far to the left and bumped against me. “No. But the compan… companionion… companionionsh…

  Clearly big words were a problem in his state. Working through the pronunciation, could take him all night, and I was beyond ready to turn in. “Companionship?” I provided.

  “Yeah. That shit. It’s nice having someone to come home to every night.”