“I’m not scared of you.”
“Oh, so just yourself, then.”
Panther’s jaw twitched and his fingers flexed in my suit. “Can you for one second in your life try to act like this means something to you.”
“You getting all up in my face? Oh, trust me, that definitely means something to me.”
Panther shoved me away and pointed his finger at me. “You’re impossible.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“Why am I not surprised.” Panther turned on his heel, and as he began to storm away, I quickly followed, letting my eyes trail down over his broad shoulders and trim waist.
“You know, maybe if you loosened up a little you wouldn’t find me so—”
“Infuriating?”
My lips twitched as he stopped in front of his locker and yanked it open. “I was thinking more…distracting.”
Panther gripped the metal door of his locker and aimed a fierce glare in my direction, and if I’d been anyone else I might’ve felt intimidated. But that was the last reaction my body was having. I was one hundred percent turned on by the anger radiating off him, which wasn’t all that surprising.
I totally got off on the rush of danger, and right now Panther looked like the kind of danger a person would be smart to back away from.
But where was the fun in that?
“You know, I’m trying to decide what it is about me that seems to piss you off the most. That I can match you in the sky, that I know how to have fun and you clearly don’t, or the fact that even though you seem to loathe everything about me, you still totally want to fuck my brains out.”
Panther pressed his fingers so hard into the metal of the door that the tips turned white. I could see a vein pulsing at the side of his temple now, and honestly, I was shocked he hadn’t slammed his fist in my face. At this stage, we both knew I deserved it.
It was like the guy was made of stone, and hell if I didn’t want to grind up against him.
“Did it ever occur to you that not everyone here thinks with their dicks? That some of us are here because we are proud to serve our country and not just to have some hotshot job that’s guaranteed to land us some ass whenever we talk about our occupation?”
Panther then looked me up and down, and when his eyes came back to my face, there was nothing complimentary in his stare. He looked unimpressed and unaffected, and if it hadn’t been for the white-knuckling still going on, I might’ve bought into his uninterest.
“I got here through hard work and determination. I’ve had to prove myself ten times over to both my instructors and father to earn the right to say I belong here. And now I’m stuck babysitting some reckless, immature little boy who can’t prove himself unless he’s talking about his cock or how big it is. Do you know how unappealing that is?” Panther leaned in and added, “I might’ve wanted to fuck your brains out last night. But ten seconds into class this morning, I was happy to know my instincts about you had been right. That’s the difference between going with your gut and playing it safe. Now unless you’re going to apologize for fucking up my first day here, get the hell out of my way.”
9 Panther
I’D NEVER BEEN so angry or humiliated in my life. First day at the most prestigious aviation academy in the world, and I’d been called into my commander’s office and been reprimanded for something I didn’t do.
Great. This was just fucking great.
As I threw my gloves into the locker, I was happy to see that Solo seemed to have finally gotten the picture and fucked off, because I swear on all that was holy I’d been about two seconds away from planting my fist in the guy’s face—something that was totally unlike me.
But God, there was just something so damn infuriating about him. Whether he was jerking off and using seventy-million-dollar planes as crayons in the sky or running his mouth about things I wish I could forget, Solo knew exactly how to push my buttons.
“Holy shit, that was the most epic thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Gucci said as he strolled into the locker room, followed by the rest of the guys. He fist-bumped Solo and they both began to laugh, shooting the shit like what he’d done hadn’t almost cost us our spots in the program.
“It’s all over social media, dude.” Phantom scrolled through his phone and then showed the screen to Solo, whose smile grew even bigger. I glared his way, and when he looked up at me, his smile hesitated. Then he shrugged and began to regale the others with his “epic” adventure, but I wasn’t about to stick around for it.