“Fine. I've got my own contacts in DIA.” Defense Intelligence Agency. He kept his eyes on my face the better to study my reaction.

  I had none, especially since I had no idea if he was telling the truth or running a mind game.

  “Tell me about your Air Force Cross,” he said.

  Chapter Three

  I went completely still. The ice cubes in my glass no longer made a single, solitary tinkle against the crystal glass.

  The fact I'd been awarded the Air Force Cross was as classified as the mission where I'd earned it.

  Which meant Shaun Saunderson's mind game was more than a bluff. He had insider knowledge he wasn't supposed to have.

  “I have no clue what you're talking about,” I said carefully.

  “Uh huh.”

  He waited, and I waited. It's an old trick. Leave an awkward silence so the other man will rush in and fill it. I'm US Air Force. Well, I was US Air Force. Fuck me if I'm going to be freaked out by an awkward silence.

  I sipped slowly. The mineral water had a stony taste. Much like my extended silence.

  Saunderson was at a disadvantage in our little waiting game. The movie industry rewards fast cuts, not patience. “Look, I already know,” he finally said. “Your bird went down, and you could have hiked out at that point, but you were tasked not to leave your aircraft in enemy territory.”

  If he already knew, the only reason to badger me about it was to test me for weakness. Fuck that. Fuck all his petty tests.

  I put down my glass and crossed my arms over my chest to let my body language do the talking.

  Somebody might be selling classified intel to the upper one percent, but I wasn't going to be that somebody. If he was hiring a pilot, I was his man. If he was hiring a spy, forget it.

  Again, he was the one to break the silence. “You go the extra mile to complete the mission. I like that in a guy.”

  Was that patronizing or what? If he thanked me for my service, I was going to have to punch him.

  Still, if you wanted to deal with nice, polite people, you'd stick to flying commercial, where you had the TSA on hand to drag off any asshole passenger who gave you too much attitude. Billionaires paid extra for the privilege of showing their ass. I got that.

  A little attitude, a little ego... fine, no problem.

  What I couldn't deal with was sharing classified military secrets. If that's what Saunderson was after, he was getting shut down hard.

  This interview wasn't just about whether or not he'd hire me as his go-to pilot.

  It was also about whether or not I'd hire him as a client.

  Giggling naked girls or no girls, the jury was still out on that.

  “You have nothing to say, Major Blount?” So he'd already dispensed with using my first name on the ground. Putting down his glass, he pushed himself out of the painted wrought-iron chair.

  Assuming the meet was over, I got up too.

  “Follow me,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

  Fine. I could humor him a step or two more, and that's about all it took. Now we were standing in a certain shady corner of the so-called garden room. Here, we had a better view through the hedge, to the point where our shadows must have fallen into the pool area.

  If the girls hadn't known we were there before, they knew it now. But they were too well-trained to betray any knowledge of their watchers. It was impressive, the way they managed to avoid glancing in our direction.

  “You know what it's really all about?” Saunderson modulated his voice, but only a little. The girls surely heard him.

  “What's what all about?” I lowered my voice only as much as he did. A pretense of being surreptitious, of playing the spy, but hardly the reality.

  “What we're fighting for,” he said. “Our war isn't some petty us against them squabble. It isn't mere tribalism. It's a fundamental clash of cultures.”

  Oh, boy. Here comes the fucking speech.

  Guys in Hollywood can't just get naked with slutty younger chicks because it's fun. They're doing it because they're freedom fighters for the American way.

  Yeah, yeah, yadda, yadda.

  I pasted an attentive expression on my face. Maybe it fooled him.

  “The primitive man is enslaved by tribal taboos and invisible idols who must be placated with needless self-denial.” Yeah, there it was. I was getting the whole lecture from that bold warrior for the cause of immediate gratification. “Whereas we as modern men accept we have one and only one life to live. It is our natural right to claim that life. To claim our right to pleasure.” He paused expectantly.

  And this time I took my cue. “You make it sound so noble.”

  “I make you smile, Major Blount. Don't bother to deny it. We need not waste our time on false politeness today. You think I'm a self-involved old fool. And yet you know I'm right, that I'm on the side of the angels.” He moved out of my way to give me a better view of the action on the other side of the hedge. “Women like this wouldn't be allowed to exist in the world the enemy wants to build.”

  Whatever else you might want to say about the bastard, he wasn't stupid. And he wasn't wrong.

  “This is true.” I searched for a tactful way to express myself. “The enemy is not a fan of high-spirited American women.”

  We both studied the poolside scene in front of us. The high-spirited Americans in question had progressed far beyond nude sunbathing. They had trendy names. Madison and Casey. And it looked like they were getting ready for some trendy games.

  Madison was the sultry, sulky blonde. The kind of girl who paints on heavy makeup to sit by the pool. Her hair was currently braided tight and piled up out of the way on her head, the better to frame the glamorous slept-in smear of her black mascara. Her long hands continued the goth theme with chipped nails polished with a twelve-dollar shade of purple midnight. Not too many tats, though. She wanted to keep her options open.

  Casey, the brunette, rocked a more classic look. Despite her poolside activities, her long hair looked soft and bouncy, like she'd walked out of the dry bar or the wind machine only moments ago. Her Coke-bottle figure was born to wear a Versace beaded gown on Oscar's red carpet.

  As for their tight flesh and jiggle-free thighs...

  Down, boy. This is not the time or place to consider the benefits of tight flesh and jiggle-free thighs.

  “Yes, indeedy weedy, that's what it's all about.” Saunderson was the very devil whispering in my ear.

  Where the girls sprawled on a towel, Madison curled her foot around Casey to pull her close. Her lips moved near Casey's ear, although I couldn't hear exactly what she said.

  Maybe it was, “Want to?”

  Maybe it was, “Ready?”

  Like the man said, the girls had one life to live and they intended to live it.

  Whatever Madison said, the two words kicked the action into high gear. Casey, giggling, turned to face her on the bright orange beach towel. Their naked bodies were now so close the erect peaks of their diamond-tipped nipples couldn't help but jab into each other. My view was somewhat obscured, but I'd seen enough to know they were both fans of that longstanding Hollywood trend, the Brazilian wax job.

  Saunderson chuckled.

  Did he really want me watching this? Was he a guy who got off on torturing people with what they could never, ever have?

  Chapter Four

  My vision blurred, then snapped into focus again. I couldn't look away from those twining bodies. The wax jobs were recent enough to leave the area pink and swollen. They'd be a little tender if they were touched too roughly. The good kind of tender, the kind that leaves tingles behind.

  My nostrils flared. Almost, I could smell the sweet musk wafting from the two girls' puffy folds.

  I was in hyper-focus. Every detail was heightened.

  Saunderson and I fell silent, the better to maintain the illusion we were spying on the girls. Madison flitted her eyes toward the gap in the hedge, and I could swear she winked. We weren't spying, we were watching, and they damn well knew we were watching.

  “My birthday in Vegas is coming up,” she said in a loud, giggly voice meant to carry. “Let's have fun, Casey. This is my last chance before I become a responsible adult. Old and gray and worrying about bills all the time.”

  I knew from her profile it was her twenty-first birthday. Casey had celebrated hers two weeks earlier. Not that a birthday was much different from any other day when you're the pampered pet of a billionaire. Life itself was a party. They must spend the bulk of their waking hours doing exactly what they were doing now. Grinding and humping, the better to rub together the swollen nubs of their nipples and clits.

  Madison rolled on her back, a practiced maneuver to judge from how easily she simultaneously pulled Casey on top of her. The whole weight of the brunette's body was now putting pressure on the place where their sleek pussy lips met to spread each other wide open. Madison's right leg came around the small of Casey's back to pull her down even harder.

  Casey's valentine-shaped buttocks were a thing of beauty, especially with the muscles working with such frank abandon. The palms of my hands itched to squeeze so hard the juices ran down the long golden columns of her inner thighs.

  “Ahhhhh, that's it, that's it, I'm there...” Madison could no longer choke back the little sobbing sex cries.

  My cock, already interested, wanted to rip down my jeans from the inside out. Maintaining a professional facade was one of the most difficult things I'd ever done, and I'm a guy who assisted with US Air Force extractions in Iraq and Syria.

  Casey too began to groan. Both girls were thrashing, long muscles visibly bunching in their legs as they spasmed again and again. Amazing how many muscle groups a mutual lesbian hump-off can exercise. The very soles of their naked feet seemed to twitch from their mutual release.

  Slumping, eyes half-shut, faces lifted toward the sun, the girls more or less collapsed. By that point, their golden tans could do zilch to conceal the pink blotches caused by their sexual heat. They knew we were watching, but this wasn't playacting. You can't fake the visible cramping in the sole of a foot or the sticky pink of the post-orgasmic flush.

  I shifted my weight from foot to foot. The bulge in my pants called to me, although I dared not acknowledge it.

  Self-control, buddy. This is a game being played on multiple levels. Keep it in your pants until you know where this is going.

  Saunderson's platinum phone vibrated, and he stepped away from the gap in the hedge.

  I kept studying the entangled women. Turning away now would be read as weakness. A man who trusted himself wouldn't look away.

  Tireless, the two of them were already in motion again. Madison's competent hands went to the toned hollows of Casey's exquisite hips.

  Saunderson stepped back another three steps.

  Some studio crisis, I assumed. Something he didn't want me to overhear.

  Hard to care when Casey was slithering on top of Madison in a classic girl-on-girl sixty-nine. She held the low-hanging fruit of her plump pussy lips a few scant inches above Madison's mouth. Madison, who evidently loved the tease, sniffed loudly, the better to express her enthusiasm for the scent of Casey's sweet muff.

  Slowly, teasingly, Casey bent her neck to thrust her long, easy tongue into Madison's welcoming hole. Did the spice of being watched add to their pleasure, or had they completely forgotten about me in the heat of the moment?

  It felt like I was being let in on a secret. One of the oldest secrets in the world.

  Madison's tongue lifted to Casey's pink depths to heat-seek her G-spot. Casey's tongue squirmed down to heat-seek Maddy's.

  “Fuck.” Saunderson was back at my elbow. When did that happen? “The plane better be fucking ready because we're leaving on that Vegas trip right fucking now.”

  The way he said it, he didn't mean Vegas.

  Chapter Five

  Not much later, the four-seater Cirrus SR22 was in the air. Told you the wife didn't get to tag along.

  Saunderson wanted me to fly lower than usual. The better to evade radar. General aviation flight plans tend to be more fluid than commercial, but Air Traffic Control still wouldn't necessarily be thrilled about our little deviation.

  The small plane was noisy, and everybody was wearing headphones. Hearing protection, mostly. We could save the chitchat until later.

  Anyway, the world wasn't going to fucking end, even if the powers that be insisted on walking right up to midnight. They'd back down, they'd find a way to negotiate. They always did. Blowing up the planet was bad business for everybody.

  We'd look back on this moment, Saunderson and me, and we'd laugh.

  The girls hadn't been informed it was a bug-out flight. They still thought they were going to Sin City for Madison's twenty-first. I was very aware of the two of them snuggled together in the back, Casey immediately behind me, Madison behind Saunderson.

  “That doesn't look much like Vegas.” Casey didn't realize I could hear everything she was saying over our headphones. She thought she was whispering to the girl beside her.

  Well, it was up to the boss when to tell the girls. I stole a glance to my right where Saunderson had slumped in his harness. Nap time. He was most of the scotch bottle into his wake for human civilization.

  I hadn't liked loading a drunk onto my plane, but what were you going to do? My plane was actually his plane.

  How many false alarms, how many bug-out jaunts, had he taken before? I had no idea. His previous pilot had signed a non-disclosure agreement, or so I assumed. He didn't seem to be available to answer questions about his former employer.

  The party girls, who preferred to sip hand-crafted drinks in trendy clubs, had deferred their own celebration until we arrived in Vegas. Alas, their clear heads and sharp eyes meant they were destined to notice when I turned north sooner than they expected.

  “The hell,” Madison said. “You think this is an abduction?” Like Casey, she wasn't aware their conversation was going out to everybody.

  For some time, we'd been moving over mountains that looked uninhabited from this elevation. As long as the ground looked like scrubby-ass desert and mountains, we'd been fine. But now I was getting over some greener area.

  Casey leaned forward and poked Saunderson. “Shaun? Shaun, you all right?”

  “Drunk as per usual,” Madison said.

  “Maybe it's some kind of surprise,” Casey said. “Like, he was always talking about that place in the mountains he's got.”

  “The fucking bunker? Why do we want to go to the fucking bunker on my fucking birthday? We better the fuck not be going to any fucking bunker. You only turn twenty-one once.”

  Yeah. Definitely not my secret to tell. He could handle the discussion once we arrived.

  According to him, there hadn't been time for a big-ass debate. If you believed his intel― not to say that I did― the missiles were already flying in the eastern hemisphere. It was only a matter of time before the Americas were invited to join the party. The sooner we got to his bug-out bunker, the better.

  There is, after all, such a thing as EMP. My US Air Force multi-million-dollar jets might be hardened against the electromagnetic pulse, but this single-engine Cirrus was another matter. It literally relied on a parachute to bring it down safely in the event of an engine failure.

  Not really my preferred way to land.

  Well, the whole war scare was just more bullshit. Hysterical billionaires egging on other hysterical billionaires to see who could buy the biggest bomb shelter.

  The plane sputtered.

  Come on, baby. Hold on.

  The instrument panel went dark. Come fucking on, I told myself.

  Not an electromagnetic pulse. Couldn't be.

  We'd seen no evidence of any bombs falling. Wouldn't we see something on the horizon at this height?

  The four-seater had begun to drop. My instrument panel was still dark. I had to make a decision about when and how soon to deploy the parachute. We were over high green mountains, but I could pick out a patch of bald in the fading light.

  “What's happening?” Madison asked. “The engines died.” The plane was much quieter now. Eerily quiet. She took off her headphones.

  Casey did too, her brunette hair bouncing like a shampoo commercial. “I'm scared.”

  “Everybody should check your seat restraints,” I said. “This plane has a parachute, and we'll be fine, but you need to remain in your seat.”

  Saunderson was taking it with a passed-out drunk's calm. He didn't move, didn't respond. The sudden silence of the engines hadn't waked him.

  The girls squealed.

  That didn't wake him either.

  Me, I was aware of everything, my consciousness expanded to take in the situation from every angle. Adjusting Shaun's seat restraints wasn't important. He'd survive or he wouldn't. The screaming wasn't important, it was only sound effects.

  I finally reached the altitude where I had to deploy the parachute. The plane jerked and then slowed. With any luck, we'd land in that high mountain meadow instead of the forest canopy.

  It seemed to take a long, long time to fall. The girls had time to stop screaming.

  We were all holding our breath.

  A bounce, a slight rise, and then we were on the ground, the parachute collapsing in slow motion behind our tail.

  Not a pretty landing, but I'd take it. The plane had its crumple zones, the better to protect the passengers inside. The bird's nose looked pancaked, so we wouldn't be flying out of here any time soon, but that was the least of our problems.

  Shaun Saunderson's bunker was at least a valley and a mountain away.

  “Everybody all right?”

  “Fine,” Madison said, her voice crisp.

  Casey was already popping off her harness, which spoke for itself. “Yes, fine, but uh... where are we?”

  I looked at Shaun. It was time for the billionaire boyfriend to man up and face the music. He was going to have to tell them sooner or later that the Vegas clubs weren't in the cards for Madison's big birthday.

 

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