“What?” he said, as I stared at him like he’d grown a second head. “You got nothing to say for yourself? You just whipped my ass up there.”
Okay, that made me smile.
“Uh huh. Want to know when that last happened?” As we walked back toward the hangar, he leaned in and said, “Never.”
My legs almost faltered under me, but somehow I managed to keep upright. I’d known he was the best in the program—hell, in the Navy—but I hadn’t known he was undefeated.
“Seems fitting to me that the one to do it was you.” He dropped his arm from around my shoulders and came to a stop, and when I turned to face him he pulled his shoulders up tall, puffed his chest out, and inclined his head. “You flew a hell of a hop today, Lieutenant Hughes. As a fellow pilot, and more importantly, your father, I have never been prouder to call you my son.”
The sting of tears in my eyes made me swallow around the lump in the back of my throat, and as I stood to attention and saluted him, I realized I’d never been prouder to call him my father.
“That’s enough of that,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Now, go and celebrate.” When I merely stood there, he added, “That’s an order.”
He walked off across the empty hangar, and when I turned to watch him go, I spotted Solo standing over by the door to the changing bays. His arms were crossed, his back and one booted foot was resting up against the wall, and as I headed in his direction and a wide smile split his full lips, I decided to do exactly as my father had just instructed—celebrate.
30Solo
“SO WHAT’S IT gonna be? Burgers? Pizza? Or you want something a little less—”
“Pizza!”
Panther’s quick reply made me laugh as I sat down on his bed and pulled my phone out. It’d been a long day, and a fairly momentous one for the man in the bathroom toweling off after his shower. So we’d decided we deserved a celebratory meal.
As I pulled up the local pizzeria—Mo’s Pizza—I hit the delivery option and started building the two of us a meal fit for champions.
“Hey, hotshot?” I called out, and when Panther stuck his head around the bathroom door, I chuckled. “Good to see you’ve embraced your celebrity status and are responding in kind.”
Panther shrugged, but his smug smile told me he was pretty pleased with himself, and why wouldn’t he be? It wasn’t every day you beat Captain “Razor” Hughes in the air, and I had to believe it was a day Panther never saw coming.
As he pulled open the door and sauntered out in nothing but a towel, the confidence oozing off him almost made me throw my phone to the floor for a different kind of celebration.
“Nah,” Panther said as he headed for the closet. “I mean, it felt pretty damn good up there today beating my dad. But it’s just part of the job. I’d feel the same way if I beat you or Levy.”
I scoffed. “Bullshit. You just did something nobody else has ever done in the Navy. You beat the top instructor—”
“Ex-instructor,” he pointed out, turning to grab a pair of shorts and a shirt from the closet.
“Fine. You beat the top-ranked ex-instructor, a scary-ass motherfucker in a cockpit. I don’t care what you call him.Youbeat him. And on top of all of that, he’s your old man.” I got up on my knees on top of his mattress. “If your chest ain’t puffing out and you aren’t feeling like you’re the biggest badass at NAFTA tonight, then maybe I need to go track down the guy who does feel that way, ’cause I wanna fuckhim.”
Panther glanced over his shoulder, and the look in his eyes made my cock throb in response. Then he turned, tossed his clothes on the bed beside me, and reached for the knot at his hip.
“You want to leave this room?”
My eyes roved over his wet hair and chiseled jaw, and followed a stray droplet of water that trickled down the side of his neck. “No. But if—”
Panther stepped up to the bed and tugged the knot of his towel free, and my words got caught somewhere in the back of my throat.
“But if…what?”
I licked my lips and let my eyes wander over his built chest and rippling abs, then got fixated on the dark treasure trail that led to the holy ground below.
“Solo?”
“Huh?”
“But ifwhat?
Fucked if I could remember. All I could think about now was how close he was, seeing that towel on the floor at his feet. “I have no clue. But for the love of God, can you drop the fucking towel?”
