Solo turned his head. “It’s not. But today I had to leave for a good reason.”
“No reason is a good reason.”
“No? Not even if it was to get you a graduation gift?”
I loosened my hold on Solo and shook my head. “We said no gifts.”
“Yeah, I know,” Solo said, turning and looping his arms around my neck. “But I ignored you.”
I blinked and leaned back to get a better view of his devilish grin. “You ignored me. Nice to know.”
Solo nipped at my jaw. “What? You didn’t think I’d become all sweet and compliant now that I admitted I loved you, did you?”
That made me laugh. “Hell no. But now I feel shitty because I didn’t get you a gift.”
“Well, don’t. This one’s kind of for the both of us.”
“The both of us?” Okay, now I was intrigued.
“Yep.” Solo gave me a quick, hard kiss, let me go, then took a step back and reached for the button of his shorts.
“Your gift is in your shorts?” I laughed, and Solo raised an eyebrow.
“Are you saying what’s in my shorts isnota gift?”
“I mean, don’t get me wrong, what’s in there is definitely something special, and what you do with it a total fantasy. But—”
“But what?” Solo asked as he kicked out of his flip-flops, flicked open the button, and slowly drew down the zipper.
“But you don’t need anything extra to impress me.”
Solo licked his lips and slowly drew his shorts apart. “Oh, I already know that. My cock is a gift from God, Panther. This gift is frommeto us.”
36Solo
PANTHER’S BOOMING LAUGH made everything in my world make sense. Humor lit his perfect features and joy radiated off every inch of him.
Yesterday had been one of the best days of my life. Not only had Panther and I won our final hop together, we had—by some kind of miracle—ended up scoring the exact same on the leaderboard, securing us the top spot. Something that had never happened before in the history of the Elite, ever.
If that had happened to the Solo of twelve weeks ago I would’ve had a shit fit like no other, and no doubt demanded a rematch or some kind of face-off dogfight. But sharing this moment with Panther had only enhanced the victory. It had made it all the sweeter knowing that the guy at the top with me was not only one of the best pilots I’d ever seen in my life, but he was also one of the bravest men I knew.
All I’d had to do was get my ass up in the air, fly the jets, and try to keep my mouth from getting me thrown out of the course. Panther? He’d had to overcome the expectations of every instructor in the course, along with his father’s, and do it all while trying to get past the trauma of being ejected from a faulty Hornet.
Standing with him yesterday had made me proud as hell. There was no one I respected more than Panther, who was currently eyeing me like I was his meal for tonight instead of the pizza, and I hoped like hell he liked the “gift” I’d gotten for him.
“Okay, tease. How long are you gonna make me wait for this gift?” Panther asked, his eyes glued to my hands that were holding my now-open shorts.
“I don’t know. It might be fun to make you wait.”
“Remember, payback is a bitch.”
“Hmm, yeah. But maybe it’d be worth it.”
“Solo…” Panther growled, and the frustration in his voice finally made me inch my shorts lower. As I cleared my tight black boxers, the tension in the room became palpable, and when I let them go and they hit the floor, Panther cursed.
I waited for him to catch up and get past the erection I was sporting courtesy of his scorching once-over. His eyes finally latched on to the clear wrap around my left thigh then quickly flew back up to mine.
“You got a new tattoo?”
