The Pilot and the Puck-Up: A Hockey / One Night Stand / Virgin Romantic Comedy

by Pippa Grant

  “There’s nothing easy about you, princess.” Fuck fuck fuck again. “And I respect that about you. I do. You got balls. Not that they take away from your tits. I mean you got girl balls. The tough kind. I like girl balls.”

  She’s staring at me, which, yeah. Of course she is, because I’m babbling like a fucking fourteen-year-old girl swooning over fucking Prince Manning.

  But this is Fireball, and you never know what she might be thinking. So I cut a glance at her to see if it’s an I’m considering it stare or if it’s an I’m letting a loony bin drive me around on a golf cart stare, and—“Fuck!”

  There’s a fucking spider.

  It’s a foot wide if it’s an inch, dangling in the cart between us.

  I swerve, and the fucker swings toward me, its giant legs reaching out to grab my face. I scream and swerve again, and now it’s fucking going to eat Joey’s head.

  “Fuck!” I yell again.

  Joey’s yelling something too, but I can’t hear her for the rushing in my ears. That fucking spider is laughing. It’s laughing like a cartoon villain and shooting poison out its webhole, covering us with horrific spider venom, swinging and hollering some Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker! while I try to clobber it with a club that I don’t have a good grip on because there’s a fucking spider trying to steal my golf club.

  “Kill it! Kill it!” I holler at Joey.

  Sweat drips down into my eyeballs and I can’t fucking see and there’s a spider and—

  And we’re suddenly lurching to a stop, and Joey’s diving out the side, and there’s a splash, and the spider’s gone.

  It’s fucking gone.

  I launch myself out of the cart and stumble into water and mud up to my knees. “Get it off! Get it off!”

  That fucking spider’s on me. I can feel it. It’s there.

  So I do the only thing a man in my position can do.

  I dive into the lake—head, shoulders, knees, and dick all going under the water—with a manly shriek of terror.

  Because it’s a fucking spider.

  Those fuckers are assholes. And they can kill. And there’s nothing normal about an animal that spins fucking yarn out its ass and catches other animals in its ass-yarn so it can fucking suck their blood out.

  That’s wrong.

  And—oh, fuck.

  Joey.

  I sputter back to the surface of the lake and spin in a circle. “Joey? Joey?”

  She’s hip-deep in water on the other side of the crashed cart. People are yelling and running for us. Her white T-shirt is smeared with mud, breasts dripping wet, nipples straining the fabric and showing off their natural, dark rosy glow. Her skirt’s hitched up to the top of her legs, and fuck me, those legs, the angle of her elbows as she stands with her fingers on her hips, aviators bent and finally showing those dark, exotic eyes.

  “Is it dead?” she asks.

  All business.

  All you’re a dumbass business.

  Okay, maybe that wasn’t her calling me a dumbass. Maybe that’s me.

  Because I am definitely a fucking dumbass.

  Something lands on my neck. I slap it. Something else brushes my bare calf, and I twitch.

  She pinches her lips together for a second before opening them again with a pop that makes my dick twitch too. “Excuse me. I need to find a phone.”

  And that’s the last I see of Joey Diamonte.

  The badass pilot golf queen who very well might be the woman of my fucking dreams.

  14

  Joey

  My phone is dripping wet.

  Peach was texting that Meemaw’s surgery was taking longer than expected, my flight engineer was texting about a potential problem with Luna, and I haven’t heard from Gracie in over an hour.

  She went hiking by herself in an unfamiliar mountain range and she hasn’t texted in over an hour.

  The logical, rational part of me knows that Gracie’s probably fine, there’s not a doggamn thing I can do to fix Meemaw’s hip, and my flight engineer is more than competent, as is our mechanic. Luna’s delayed, not done for.

  And I’m pissed.

  I’m pissed that Zeus Berger keeps taking me by surprise. I’m pissed that his offer was intriguing. Again.

  I’m pissed that I want to turn around, march back to the lake, and make sure he’s okay.

  He’s ten feet tall, six feet wide, and weighs as much as a freighter. He doesn’t need me saving him from a spider.

  Still…the only good spider is a dead spider. And don’t give me that shit about spiders eating bugs. The only thing worse than a spider is a spider dressed up like a clown. Or a clown dressed up like a spider.

  I shudder.

  Can’t beat that fucker to death with my shoe. But you’re damn right I’d try.

  I’m squishing up to the clubhouse when two people rush out the back door.

  I bite back a curse. Jett on his own is a mild annoyance, because I’m warming up to him. Do I want another partner at Weightless?

  Not really.

  But Peach and I can’t get a business loan for the type of money we need to expand and make us competitive for NASA contracts, government research grants, and to fulfill demand for more tourist flights.

  So we need a private investor.

  Who can tolerate me.

  And Jett’s best friends with Zeus Berger. Which means he probably has a high tolerance level for nearly any kind of bullshit.

  And with him?

  His girlfriend. Aka Ambrosia Berger, sister to the twin brutes.

  “What happened to Zeus?” Ambrosia asks.

  Too many shots to the head with a hockey puck? Second-hand helium exposure? He used up his ration of intelligent brain cells for the day and had to dip into his ration of Cro-Magnon brain cells instead? “Baby bunny dashed in front of the cart,” I lie.

  No, I don’t know why I’m lying for him.

  And no, I don’t plan on thinking about it anymore.

  They both stare at me for half a second like I’ve proposed letting a bag of okra fly an airplane. “A bunny,” Ambrosia repeats.

  I don’t blink.

  Good life skill to have. And I practice all the fucking time.

  Ambrosia’s lips twitch as though she’s trying not to laugh. Chase isn’t as successful at hiding his amusement. She thumps him on a back a few times as he breaks into a coughing fit.

  “You mean a daddy longlegs?” she asks, which sends Chase into more choking spasms. “Because that was a classic Zeus-seeing-a-spider reaction.”

  “Definitely a baby bunny,” I say.

  I’m a complete moron. I’m trying to save face for Zeus Berger by lying to the man who might possibly be the only billionaire in the world I could tolerate doing business with.

  “A baby bunny,” Chase repeats, still snickering. “Must’ve been some bunny.”

  I didn’t get a good look at the thing, because first of all, it dropped from the ceiling right on the heels of Zeus’s proposal of him letting his beefy tongue loose on my pussy again, which she was fully in favor of from the minute the first syllable passed his lips. Second, I almost got whiplash when he suddenly jerked the cart around—I’m going to be so pissed if there’s any reason I can’t get in my cockpit tomorrow—and third, because when I see a spider, I don’t fucking stop and wonder if it’s some impressive spider, like Jett’s implying.

  I either hit it with a shoe or get my ass as far the hell away from the fucker as I can.

  Apparently not with the same finesse as Zeus, however.

  No one on the whole entire planet can do anything with Zeus Berger’s style of finesse. Except perhaps his twin brother, who’s now down by the scene of the spider crime as well, patting Zeus’s shoulder.

  The gesture doesn’t appear to be appeasing the big oaf, who jerks away, grabs the half-sunk golf cart by the back poles holding the roof on, and lifts the thing out of the lake.

  He lifts. The golf cart. Out of the lake.

  By himself.r />
  My jaw slips.

  “You should’ve seen him take on the world’s largest ball of twine,” Ambrosia says. “He was sixteen then. Before puberty. The twine won. Still does, actually. He and Ares don’t know we know they go back and try once a year or so.”

  I eyeball the woman again. She’s normal sized, with dark blond hair, light eyes, and if she had three lumps in her nose, I imagine it would be a miniature version of the schnozz her brothers sport. Their curvy lips are oddly similar—though hers are also of a more normal size—and I can’t help but wonder the kind of defense mechanisms she must’ve learned to survive growing up with her brothers.

  “He didn’t hit puberty until sixteen,” I repeat.

  She grins. Mischief takes corporeal form and dances naked across the country club lawn, and yep.

  That’s how she survived.

  By being smarter, quicker, and funnier. And while yesterday I would’ve said it probably didn’t take much, spider incident excluded, my suspicions are growing that Zeus Berger is hiding some brain under that brawn.

  Also?

  When Zeus Berger went through puberty and why he’s afraid of spiders isn’t my concern. Zeus Berger isn’t my concern.

  But business isn’t at the top of my brain like it should be, and I’m thinking of scoring some anti-gravity time between my legs.

  “You need a towel or something?” Jett asks. “Bathrobe?”

  A breeze kicks up, and I belatedly remember that I’m soaking wet and slathered with mud. Yet my lady brain is deciding that manly shows of strength are what get her jet engines fired up, and she’s taking more headspace than anything.

  I tell her to shut up.

  She’s usually good about listening. Not today though.

  I shake my head at Jett. “No.”

  “Beer?”

  Ambrosia cuts a glance at him.

  “No,” I echo.

  “We haven’t met,” Ambrosia says to me. “I’m Ambrosia Berger.”

  “Joey Diamonte. Call me Fireball.”

  “You’re with…?”

  “Weightless. We’re a private aviation company specializing in simulating a zero-gravity experience for the casual space enthusiast.”

  “Like you’re floating in space?” she asks.

  I nod.

  She gives Jett a playful shove. “Why haven’t we tried that yet?”

  “I don’t like you that much,” he replies with a broad grin.

  “Know why they call it the zero-G club?” I say, because there’s absolutely no doubt what they’re talking about. I’m not the business brains in our operation, but I can still sniff out a high-paying customer willing to pay extra for some perks.

  These two want my weightless cabin to themselves.

  Ambrosia tilts an interested brow toward me. “Why do they call it the zero-G club?”

  “Because there’s zero chance he’s getting to your G in the thirty-second bursts you’re weightless.”

  Part of me wants to kick them both for the sexual tension nuke that just sparked off the heated look they’re sharing. Because you know what happened the last time I got turned on?

  Yes. Yes, you do know what happened. Or more precisely, what didn’t. Both times. So you know exactly how irritating it is to be waylaid by two people who might’ve just gotten each other off with a look.

  “She’s right, you know,” Ambrosia says. “You couldn’t do it.”

  Chase’s grin is growing by the minute. These two are clearly warped. And I’m so fucking jealous my pussy hurts.

  “I could do it twice,” he replies.

  “I can almost guarantee I’ll make at least one of you puke,” I say. That’s right. I’m the wet blanket. The wet part literally, the blanket part more metaphorically. And odds are good they won’t puke, despite my plane’s name and my love of its reputation. Too much puking is bad for repeat business. “Also at least one staff member is in the cabin at all times, even on private flights.”

  “What’s it cost to get trained to be that staff member?” Chase asks.

  “Couple hundred million dollars.”

  He’s grinning even bigger now as he takes stock of me.

  I don’t twitch a single muscle. I’m not bluffing, so he can’t call me on it. He wants my jet to himself, he’s going to fucking pay for the privilege.

  His grin gets wider.

  “She’s almost as devious as you are,” he says to Ambrosia.

  “You wish.”

  A giant shadow darkens our table. I look up, and there’s Zeus, leaning over us. Me, specifically, his blue eyes flaming hot, his chiseled jaw ticking, his biceps bunched as though he’s barely keeping himself from grabbing a golf club and snapping it like a toothpick, and I have the craziest desire to ask him if he’s named his biceps like he named his cock and his coconuts.

  “I bet you a date I don’t puke in your fucking airplane,” he growls at me.

  Any sane person being treated to Zeus Berger’s Brute Stare would flinch at least a little. Even half the military guys I used to work with. But I don’t want to flinch, I don’t want to blink, and I certainly don’t want to let anyone think dinner and a movie is the equivalent of a two-hour trip on my plane.

  Because it’s not.

  But his bet is still tempting. I want to know how far he’s willing to go to prove himself. If it’s about his ego, or if it’s about my satisfaction.

  Although the bigger part of me doesn’t care, because that slick heat gathering between my thighs is begging me to accept.

  She knows what she wants.

  Since the minute I set foot on the Georgia Tech campus to pursue an aerospace engineering degree, I’ve been one of the guys. I talk shit, I participate in big dick contests—don’t ask, you don’t want to know—and I don’t apologize for anything.

  Flight training in the military made me even more hard-assed, and there’s no room for feelings in ninety-five percent of my life.

  But there’s something here between us.

  There’s a yearning, deep in my core, and it’s howling out an answering call to his proposition, coming from parts of me that have never known a real man. My pussy’s offering herself as tribute. My mouth is dry, my nipples are tightening impossibly harder, and there’s not a meteor shower in the entire galaxy that could match the stars streaking through my center.

  “You’ll have to call the office and see when we have availability for the next flight,” I say coolly.

  Like I’m not four seconds away from grabbing him by his muddy collar and dragging him into the locker room to see if he can finish the job he started last night.

  Any of them.

  There’s only one way to know if his rocket misfiring last night was a fluke or standard operating procedure.

  And I probably have heatstroke and whiplash if I’m seriously considering giving him the chance without making him earn it.

  But he has to earn it. Yeah, I’ve got six open spots on the run tomorrow out of the Copper Valley airport. Got the report from my office manager thirty minutes ago. However, if he’s not willing to make the call to find out, he’s not getting in my pants.

  “You get your mitts away from my sister before I twist your ears all cattywampus and tell your mama on you.” Gracie pushes her way between Zeus and me like she’s bigger than five-four and a buck ten. She gets right in his breastbone, poking his stomach and letting her temper fly. “Just because you got the size of an overgrown boar doesn’t mean you get to use the manners of a pig. Were you raised in a barn, you big ol’ doofleschnitzel?”

  And there’s Dad’s half-German heritage coming through along with our backwoods raising. I’m torn between wanting to hug her and wanting to demand to know where she’s been that she couldn’t text me back for the last hour.

  “Gracie. Down girl. I’ve got this.”

  “Shut up and let me have my moment,” she replies.

  Yes, this is the same woman who accidentally stuck her finger in a beer bottl
e while trying to tell a pop star how much she loved him yesterday. Don’t mess with her family.

  And honestly, it’s fun to watch the bafflement flash over Zeus’s solid brow line and rigid jaw. She’s a bunny rabbit nipping at a horny bullmastiff’s ankles. And she shouldn’t be underestimated when she’s spun up like this. Ask me later about the chicken dumpling incident the one and only time I ever entered anything in the county fair.

  “Gracie,” I repeat, “let him go. You know I like them healthy before I make them toss their cookies.”

  “Is he paying you for the privilege, or is he making that old rookie mistake of offering to do unspeakable things to your private parts in exchange for a joyride?”

  “Rookie mistake?” Zeus growls. “How many fuckers—”

  Behind him, Ares snickers. “Pay the girl, dum-dum head.”

  Zeus is going a shade of purple in his cheeks.

  He slants those crystal flame eyes at me. “Of fucking course I’m paying for the fucking privilege. In case it wasn’t fucking clear.”

  I belatedly realize that weird noise is Ambrosia clucking her tongue. “Three fucks? Zeusy-boy, your temper’s showing.”

  He doesn’t break eye contact with me, and truth be told, that hard, determined glare is sending interest spiraling harder and hotter through my pussy.

  He’s as big as two linebackers. His size alone would enable him to push and bully his way through life, but that glint lighting in his expression isn’t I get what I want because I’m the biggest badass.

  It’s I get what I want because will is stronger than power alone.

  Got a hell of a lot of respect for will.

  I jerk a thumb at Jett and take Gracie by the arm without blinking in this stare-down I have going with Zeus. “Your buddy has all the numbers. Excuse us. I have an important appointment.” With a shower. And probably a mechanical special friend.

  You want me, his gaze says.

  Yeah, but you have to earn me, and dumping me in a lake ain’t gonna cut it, buddy, I reply.

  Because he might be more than he seems, but I’m still trying to not do something stupid.

  15

  Zeus