“A different choice? Other than flying?” Panther’s eyes narrowed a fraction.
“Yeah. I mean, flying would have to be part of it—can you really imagine trying to ground me?”
Panther shook his head and laughed. “Not in a million years. Wouldn’t want to, either. Flying is in your blood. It’s who you are.”
“It is, but the missions? The kills? They get harder every time.”
Panther’s expression turned serious. “Have you had many of those?”
“Four.” I kicked the sheet down from our waists and rolled to my stomach.
Panther reached out to run his fingers over the star tattoos decorating the back of my thigh. “That’s what these represent?”
I nodded as Panther traced one of the stars from one point to another. “I got them so I would never forget, but they’re painful to look at, so—”
“You put them back here.”
“Right.”
Panther leaned over toward me, and I craned up to meet his lips. The kiss was gentle, almost reverent, and when he raised his head, the wonder in his eyes made my heart thump.
“You constantly surprise me, you know that?”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” Panther pressed another soft kiss to my lips and then propped his head up on his palm. “Actually, I’ve been feeling a bit of a disconnect myself lately.”
“Really?”
“Mhmm.” Panther started to fiddle with his dog tags. “I mean, like you, I can’t imagine not flying in some capacity. But the idea of being shipped off somewhere you’re not? I…I hate it. God, is that crazy? That after a handful of weeks with you I can’t imagine even a day without you?”
“Grant?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s about the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” As a blush bloomed on Panther’s cheeks, I chuckled and scooted over to kiss him. “And guess what?”
“What?”
“I want to be where you are too. So…now what?”
Panther shifted to his back. I moved into the crook of his arm and placed a kiss to his chest, and he smiled down at me.
“Now we think. We finish out our training, and then we look at our options.”
A silence fell, heavy but not uncomfortable as we each thought about what the other had said. This was big. As in life-changing. Here we were, two guys who came into the Elite Academy with one goal in mind: to come out on top. We wanted to rule the air, be crowned the king of the sky, and walk away with every opportunity such a prestigious title would afford.
Now? Now we wanted all of those things, but so we could choose what we wanted next with each other, and that was huge.
“You okay?” Panther’s voice was a whisper in my ear.
“Yeah, I’m good. Was just thinking.”
Panther’s arm tightened around me, and I felt his lips in my hair. “About?”
“About how quickly things can change.” When Panther tensed, I pressed a kiss to his chest. “In a good way. How quickly they can change in the best possible way.”
He let out a sigh of relief and shut his eyes. I pushed up so I could look down at the face that had captured me from the second I’d seen it.
