Panther was making me work for it. Shit. It was hard as hell to determine any kind of accurate position while doing these maneuvers, and it was even harder to lock in on the one pursuing you. He had me on the run, in the defensive position, and knew it, but as I made the third high nose turn and dove toward him, everything changed. My turns were faster than his by mere seconds, and what had started as a one circle fight soon turned to a two, giving me the advantage and forcing Panther into my 3/9 line.
Now in a full-on tail chase, the two of us continued to try to outfox the other with a series of barrel rolls, but nothing was shaking me now. Panther had one of two choices: he could either wave the white flag and disengage or—
“Motherfucker.”
—he could do this the hard way.
Oh well, he hadn’t left me much choice, and with each roll we made, we got closer and closer to the ground until we were precariously close to the danger zone. But I wasn’t backing down. Iwasn’tabout to lose this.
“Come on, Panther. Disengage, you stubborn fucker.” But as we hurtled toward the earth, our altitude seriously dropping, the barrel rolls became unachievable and it was time for that final decision. I either disengaged and lost by default, or I forced him closer to the ground, to where he’d have to transition into the flat scissors and level out—or smash his jet face-first into the desert, which I was gambling he wouldn’t do.
Decision made, I went in for the kill—well, the mock kill—and as Panther seemed to realize this was all over for him and I wasn’t about to let up until he did, he flattened out and pulled off to the right at the very last second, surrendering and handing me this one.
As I shot off over the top of him, I knew Panther would be fuming at the way things had gone down—namely him.
He’d come at me hard, and I’d retaliated. Maybe I should’ve let it go when it was clear I had a lock on him, but when he’d decided to keep on instead of surrendering, my competitive side had come out to play.
Plus, no one had gotten hurt, and in the end I’d completed the hop. If Panther was pissed, I’d deal with it, but for now I wasn’t about to let that get me down. I’d just beaten the golden boy of NAFTA, and hell if that didn’t feel damn good.
Panther was out of his plane the second he parked beside me, ripping his helmet off, that gorgeous face of his red and furious.
As I stepped out of the plane, I shot him a grin. “Gotcha.”
“Are you fucking out of your mind? Were you trying to get us killed?”
“That would hardly be fun. No chance for a rematch.” I climbed down the stairs, helmet in hand, and had barely stepped onto the pavement when Panther stabbed his finger into my chest.
“That was stupid and dangerous. We’re not up there to play chicken, you dipshit, not in a seventy-million dollar fucking plane.”
“Calm down. It’s not coming out of your pocket.”
“That’s what you heard from what I just said? You almost got us killed with those final rolls—”
“That you didn’t have to engage in,” I said, brushing by him, not at all bothered by the fact that he was pissed as hell. The high of winning felt gooood.
Panther grabbed my arm, jerked me around, and then gave me a hard shove. “You know what your problem is? You think you’re the only one up there. That your life is the only one that matters.”
“Is that my problem? What about your problem?” I said, moving forward so we were toe to toe. I wasn’t about to back down, not in the air and certainly not on the ground. “You’re just mad you lost. I get it. It sucks. Get the hell over it.”
“You think I’m mad because you pulled a shady-ass move to win? I don’t need to cheat to win—”
I ground my molars together and pushed him back. “I’m not a fucking cheater—”
“Gentlemen, knock it off and get to debriefing.” Commander Levy’s voice over the hangar’s intercom echoed around the base, and I looked up to see the entire training class staring down at us from the viewing area.
Panther’s eyes were narrowed as he looked at me with unveiled contempt, and then he slowly backed away, shaking his head. He turned on his heel and headed to the bay to change, but I took my time going that way, giving myself a minute to cool off. When a minute didn’t do it, I said to hell with it and joined him in the bay, but this time he didn’t say a word, didn’t even look my way.
The tension was palpable, and so was his anger by the way he slammed shit around, and it only got worse as we sat through debriefing with the rest of the trainees, all of them looking between us like they expected a fight to break out at any moment.
But I didn’t want to put my fist in his face. I just wanted to put him in his place, and beneath me seemed like a good spot.
After getting admonished by the instructors in a more civilized way than Panther had gone at me—though I’d technically done nothing wrong or illegal—we were dismissed, and Panther tore out of there like hell on wheels.
I found myself following him, because apparently my weakness had become a pissed-off Panther. All that passion aimed at me was like an electrical jolt to my cock, and I couldn’t let him get away that easily.
Stepping in front of his bike as he kicked on the engine, I placed my hands beside his on the handlebars and shouted over the roar, “You still mad? How about a rematch?”
Panther flipped up the visor on his helmet. “Move.”
