The Drop Zone (Thrill Seekers Book 1)

by Shandi Boyes

  Sometimes the game is just too easy.

  Jamie removes her hand from mine before dragging it down her skirt like the sticky situation is coming from my side of our duo. My heart is beating a little bit faster, but that’s only because I’ve got my game face on. It has nothing to do with the jasmine smell vaping off her skin.

  Okay, maybe a smidge of my increased pulse is compliments of her scent, but it’s only the teeniest tiniest bit. She’s too goody two shoes for me. I like my girls with frayed edges. Ones not afraid to express their wickedest desires. You don’t have to go down on me in a packed cinema, but I’d rather you not have any qualms about doing it in the back seat of a limo after a movie premiere.

  Jamie doesn’t just give off vibes that she’s not a limo-fucking nympho. Her whole composure reveals she’s most likely never sucked a dick in her life, much less any place she’d get busted for it, but it doesn’t mean I can’t use her naivety to my advantage, though. This is my business. I’ll suffer any injustice for it, even wooing a fully buttoned-up brunette out of her no-doubt cotton panties.

  “Did they step you through the process okay? Disclaimer? Weight?”

  She peers up at me with big, panicked eyes. “I’m not jumping.”

  I flash her my trademark smirk, cocky dimpled-blemished top lip and all. “Ah, yeah, you are. Metrics Insurance thinks what I do is unsafe. I’m determined to show you it isn’t.” And perhaps give you a thrill as you’ve most likely never been given.

  After removing her leather satchel from her hand and dumping it onto the pamphlets she was pretending to peruse while eavesdropping on my conversation with Tyrone, I guide her into the locker room to our right. She comes willingly, although she’s a little heavy-footed.

  Her eyes adopt the look of shock when I shrug off my shirt. I could have kept it on, but this is more fun. The tight-ass bumps in my midsection will drop her defenses as well as her jaw which just hit the floor. She’s practically eating out of my palm—just as planned.

  After putting on a jumpsuit all the instructors wear, I move to the harnesses and rigs in the secure cage of the locker room. She’d be lucky to weigh one twenty, but I bump it up to one thirty for the heaviness of her backed-up orgasms. I didn’t realize how much those fuckers weighed until I stopped a blowjob mid-blow. I’m feeling all types of heavy.

  “Do you want to jump in that?” I nudge my head to her stick-shoved-up-my-ass outfit. “Might get a little awkward when I harness you up.”

  I grit my teeth, telling my voice to step the fuck back. It was all hot and virile like I’m strapping her to a St. Andrews Cross to have my way with her, not the harness that will strap her to my body with her clothes still on. Don’t misconstrue. Naked skydiving is a thing—just not a side business The Drop Zone hasn’t ventured into yet. I never say never, so one day it could possibly steer that way.

  Imagine the lawsuits then?

  Ms. Prim and Proper pushes her glasses up her nose. “As I stated earlier, I am not jumping. I’m here to discuss a fair and responsible solution for the… w-w-what are you doing?”

  The switch-up in our conversation is my fault. Dropping to my knees in front of her to forcefully place her foot into a jumpsuit opening is already stuttering material, not to mention the way my hands flutter along the silky-smooth skin on her thighs when I raise it to her curvaceous hips.

  When she glares at me, waiting for an answer, I say, “Getting you ready for our jump… duh.” I blame a lack of brain cells for my last words. I didn’t get much sleep last night, so my mind is still on the head between my legs. The statistics about men having sex on the brain ninety-nine percent of the time is true. I’m living proof of this.

  Once I have her zipper in place and the brunette’s freshly shampooed hair pulled out of the collar, I grab a harness from the bench at my side, then once again fall to my knees in front of her. I’m not a guy who takes no for an answer.

  Don’t get your panties in a twist. My statement doesn’t include the bedroom. If you say no there, I’ll be out the door quicker than I was outrunning the four-button clinger ten minutes ago. I don’t have to coerce you between my sheets, just as you sure as hell don’t have to tell me no twice, but this is different. The anal pricks sitting in the Ivory Tower at Jamie’s firm think The Drop Zone would be better run without me behind its helm. Their pretty darn close, but since they forgot to include Tyrone in their assessment, they’re not one hundred percent accurate.

  I can’t take no for an answer this time around. I have to show Jamie all my skills, and since I’ve just spotted the big-ass diamond on her ring finger, it will need to occur with my clothes on. I don’t mow another man’s turf—ever. Tease them about it, pretend I’m considering it, but if he’s spent enough time watering it to put a ring on her finger, you can sure as hell be guaranteed I am not cutting it.

  “This isn’t necessary. I’m here for a face-to-face consultation, not lessons on being a moron without a brain.”

  Her last word comes out somewhat purr-ish which is from me tugging on the straps of her harness right near the band where her lace panties commence. Yeah, I caught sight of the sexy lace combination she’s wearing when I forcefully shoved her feet into her jumpsuit. Sue me.

  Actually, don’t. A lawsuit is the reason for Jamie’s visit. I sure as hell don’t want another one.

  “You good? Not too tight or restrictive?” I stop myself just before asking, Have you ever been tied up like this before?

  If her inflamed cheeks are anything to go by, I highly doubt it. Ms. Preacher’s ringtone doesn’t match her mannerisms. She’s so stiff, I’m beginning to wonder if her husband-to-be proposed with the hope to mow her lawn on their wedding night.

  “I’m good. I’m fine.” She doesn’t sound it. “But I’m still not jumping out of a plane.”

  She follows me into the cage where I switch out my dual parachute for a single one, my plan altering when I realized it will most likely get me sued. My second proposal isn’t any better than my first, but since it doesn’t involve the aircraft we’re trying not to get grounded, it’s more plausible.

  “Hugh…” she stops, screwing up her nose. “Mr. Barnett believes it’s best for all involved to settle with Mr. Celest out of court. It will increase your premiums, but with the costs spread out over the lifetime of your policy, it will impact your business less, thus allowing it to continue operating at its current capacity, although more stringently than it is now.”

  While shrugging on my parachute and securing it at the front, I shake my head. “Fabian isn’t suing us—”

  “You,” Jamie corrects.

  I give her a look, one that warns I’m about to throw her out of a plane without a parachute. “Fabian isn’t suing me. It’s the insurance company of the holiday club where he purchased his travel insurance. He jumped. He loved it. Then he had a fucking heart attack.”

  “He had multiple coronary artery failures that resulted in a triple bypass, four weeks in the hospital, and a rehabilitation bill in the millions, all of which Metrics Insurance is footing the bill.”

  “Because he had one hundred pounds of fat strapped to his midsection. How the fuck is that my fault?” When my raised voice gains me the attention of the nuns milling in the hallway, I lower it. “This isn’t about Fabian. It’s about the hierarchies so far up Hugh’s ass…” I say Hugh’s name like he’s a pedophile, “… they aren’t seeing the whole picture. I’m The Drop Zone. This is me.” I wave my hand around the locker room. “Without me, it will fail. That’s why those stringent measures…” I air quote my words like a man without a cock, “… you’re attempting to bring in before approving our coverage will never happen.”

  Needing some air before I dig my hole deeper, I make my way outside. It may also place Ms. Jamie Burgess into the trap I’m setting. Tyrone is loading the nuns into an aircraft on my right, so I veer to the left. Jamie follows me like she’s a tick, and I’m a dog in desperate need of a bath. I am, but we’ll save that for
another day.

  “I understand your frustration, Mr. McGregor, but can you take a moment to see it from our perspective?”

  She stops within an inch of my back when I pivot around to face her. She’s so close, the angry breaths pumping out of my nose fog her glasses. “Have you always been a number cruncher?”

  She pushes her glasses up her nose when its scrunch drops them half an inch before nodding.

  “Is it what you’ve always wanted to do? Did you dream about facts and figures and insurance premiums until your panties got moist?” When her brows furrow, I snicker under my breath, “Figuratively. I get it, Prim, you’re untouched and pure. You don’t need to spell it out for me.”

  She’s taken aback by my nickname, but she nods all the same.

  “Then imagine being told you can’t do it anymore. Take off that fitted skirt that showcases your curves in a way your low shoulders are trying to conceal. Remove your silky blouse that can’t hide how erect the cool breeze blowing off the coast makes your nipples, then do something else. Something that doesn’t make your blood pump and your pussy wet. Go be… meh. Plain. Boring. Unlike you. That’s what your company is trying to do to me. They want to muzzle me with bureaucratic tape all because a man got so excited, his heart couldn’t keep up with the thrill.”

  “That’s not entirely true, Colby.” I’m as shocked by her informal salutation as she was when I mentioned her erect nipples. “You broke your ankles… both of them. That makes you a liability.”

  “How?” I give her a look that makes it seem as if I said a lot more than I did. “I landed safely, administrated CPR, and brought my jumper back from death with both my ankles fractured from my boots up, yet I’m standing before you now, ready and capable to jump.”

  “But legally incapable. We can’t insure you to jump—”

  “I’m already insured.”

  “Until December. But after that, there are too many risks… risks Metrics Insurance isn’t willing to take.”

  “Metrics Insurance or you?” I step closer to her, so close, we share the same air. “I’ve been cleared from doctors across the country. I’ve undertaken endurance test after endurance test. I even jumped with the supervisor of your division strapped to my chest, yet those still aren’t enough hoops for you, are they, Ms. Burgess? You still want me out on my ass.”

  “This isn’t about what I want. It’s merely protocol.”

  “Protocol?”

  When she nods, I glare at her. She’s full of fucking shit, and I’m about to rat her out as the conniving vermin she is. This has nothing to do with protocol. It’s the butt-sniffing stiffs who don’t understand what I do. The ones who think a thrill is cracking open a bottle of wine before five o’clock or sneaking a sniff of their wife’s dirty panties when she leaves for her bi-daily church sermons. The butt-clenching motherfuckers who want society wrapped up in bubble wrap to ensure we don’t get any boo-boos. Protocol my ass. I’ll show her protocol.

  “W-w-what are you doing?”

  Her stammer is just as cute the second time around as it was the first. Pity I’m too frustrated to let it calm me down. “You’ve got a bee in your hair. Quick, spin around before it stings you.”

  Squealing, she pivots, her hands shooting up to her hair as quickly as I hook my harness into hers. I roll my hips upward, hoisting her feet from the ground as if my crotch is a big crane. It is, but I figured you’d already know that by now, so I didn’t need to spell it out for you.

  I shouldn’t like the meow that purrs from her mouth when her backside gets friendly with my crotch, but I do. It never gets old, no matter how often it occurs. “You don’t believe my ankles are capable, so how about I show you they are?”

  Jamie tries to dig her heels into the sandy soil beneath my feet when I commence moving. It does her no good. I’ve got eight inches on her in height, let alone the fact I’m clutching her thighs like my crotch is attached to her front instead of her back.

  When her physical endeavor to stop me fails, she resorts to words. “Colby. No. Don’t. Please. I’m scared of heights.”

  Her words are separated by the big pumps my legs do when I break into a sprint. She thinks I’m running for the plane Tyrone is in the process of filling with willing participants. She’s dead wrong. I’m wearing a single parachute, meaning we need to stay close to the ground to get her rocks off.

  “Colby, Jesus Christ, don’t!”

  This plea didn’t come from Jamie. They’re Tyrone’s frantic begs for me not to siphon our business down the gurgler. He’s spotted the direction of my sprint. He knows I’m charging for the sheer cliff edge that borders The Drop Zone. I’ve told him for months its ideal for base jumping, so Jamie isn’t the only one learning a lesson today. Tyrone is as well.

  “Oh my God. I’m going to die before I’ve even lived. I wanted a puppy and kids with hippie names and dirty faces. A house with a plunge pool, and a car that doesn’t overheat once it hits forty. I haven’t achieved any of those things yet. So, please, God, don’t kill me.”

  The fact Jamie missed mentioning her fiancé during my sprint should slow me down. Unfortunately for all involved, I’ve been accused more than once of having more than a screw loose.

  “Open your eyes, Prim, because this is as close to heaven as you’re going to get for another sixty-plus years,” I say a mere second before leaping over a three-thousand-foot rockface with a screaming insurance assessor strapped to my chest.

  Chapter 4

  Jamie

  I scream the first thousand feet of our jump where we tumble like a tennis ball in a dryer. Then I curse blue murder for the next thousand feet where we soar like eagles. Now I’m summarizing how I’m going to kill Colby McGregor in my mind. It will be a slow and painful death occurring after I’ve ensured his insurance coverage has only one beneficiary—me. The millions of dollars he’s in the process of draining his bank account will make a nice indent in the counseling I’ll need after this ordeal.

  First, I had to act nonchalant to his hands running up my inner thighs like he was a gynecologist about to give me a pap smear with his tongue, then I had to sidestep his interrogation knowing everything he was saying was true. Now, I’m gliding in the air, struggling to ignore a girth the world’s biggest belt buckle couldn’t detract from.

  Today has been a horrible day, and it’s only just beginning.

  “Land or sea landing, Prim? I’ll let you pick.”

  “For one, stop calling me Prim…” I pause to wipe away the dribble I wasn’t expecting since my lips are flapping more than Mick Jagger’s would if they got stuck in an air vent, “… my name is Jamie or Ms. I’m-going-to-sue-the-pants-off-you Burgess.” I stop again when Colby snickers so I can curse my stupid adrenaline-thick blood for mistaking his witch-like cackle as sexy. “Two, land wherever the hell you like. It won’t change anything. I’ll murder you whether you’re on the land or in the sea.”

  “Wow, Ms. Prim has a personality. Where do you hide it? Behind those hideous glasses that slipped off your nose during our first tumble? You should wear contacts. Keep those pretty eyes uncovered for the world to see.” I peer back at him over my shoulder, wondering how the hell he can see my eyes from his vantage point. I fall straight into his trap—again. “Ah, there they are. I was right. Much better without the glasses.”

  I roll my eyes as he tugs on the tethers of the micro-strip of material between us and the beautiful, yet equivalent of concrete if-you-land-on-me-the-wrong-way beach below. “You’re buying me a new pair.”

  “Of balls? Or…”

  I fold my arms across my chest with a huff, giving Colby the response he wanted. After securing his arms around me in the same manner, he discharges the parachute saving us from rejoining God’s dirt in an unpleasant manner.

  “W-w-what are you doing?”

  I swear my vocabulary is usually more extensive than this. Unfortunately, I’ve got too much adrenaline surging through my veins to think of better responses. And ye
s, I had it before Colby threw us off a cliff’s edge like a deranged man. I’m also panicked out of my mind. I wasn’t joking when I said I’m afraid of heights. I am reasonably sure I left my heart somewhere back at The Drop Zone because there’s no way it’s with me right now. If it were, I’d be flapping my arms like a beheaded chicken before saying my final goodbyes. I guess you can’t really fear death when you’re halfway there.

  “You seem hot. Figured I’d cool you down. Plug your nose, Prim, or you’ll have more than horniness as an excuse for the wetness of your panties.”

  “I swear I’m going to kill you.” My last two words are muffled since I plugged my nose with a scream.

  “Now straighten those sexy legs of yours. Keep them nice and still.”

  I go as straight as a board, not because he asked me to but because of how close his lips are to my ear. Is it just me, or is it odd he smells like pepperoni and cherry lip gloss?

  “When we land in the water, I’ll swim us to the surface before untethering our harnesses. You don’t need to swim. Leave the leg kicking to me. I like my nuts where they are.”

  If you push aside the sexual ambiguity in every comment he makes, he’s treating our jump as if it’s something particularly uneventful. It’s as if this is something he often does. If it is, we’ll have more issues than we already do. He didn’t just step over the line today—he’s broken rules I haven’t even thought up yet.

  “Here we go, Prim. We’re about to hit the water. Remember… no kicking.”

  I nod a mere second before the surprisingly refreshing water of the California coast swamps my ankles, surges up my body, then drenches my hair. We pierce through the water so deeply, my legs instinctively kick out, praying I’ll reach the surface before the minute bit of air in my lungs runs out.