High-Stakes Playboy by Cindy Dees Page A

passengers or my bird, if I can possibly help it.”
    “Tell me about the scariest mission you’ve ever had.”
    If possible, his face went even more tightly closed against her. “I’d rather not.”
    “Fair enough. How about this? Rate today’s flight on a scale of one to ten in how scary it was to you.”
    “Pilots don’t think in terms of being scared. We are trained to believe we can fix any problem, survive an emergency, save any plane. I’m too busy doing my job when something like today’s mishap occurs to be afraid.”
    “Not even after it’s all over?”
    He grinned. “Ahh, well, that’s different. Then we go out with the prettiest girl we can find, get a little drunk and celebrate still being alive.”
    “There were a whole bunch of girls in that bar prettier than me, Archer Archer,” she declared.
    He grinned broadly. “Yeah, but I figured that after your scare today, you needed to get a little drunk and celebrate being alive, too.”
    No kidding. “Thanks. It was kind of you to think of me.”
    He shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”
    Hah. It might be no big deal to him, but it was a huge deal to her. “Do pilots ever talk to people after they have a really close call? I’ve seen a lot of stuff in the news about post-traumatic stress disorders. Do pilots get that?”
    He snorted. “Hell, yeah, pilots get PTSD.”
    “After a near-miss like today, is that the sort of thing you should talk to someone about before you fly again?” Oh, Lord. She was already back to doing the shoulder-to-cry-on thing. Would she never learn to shut the hell up?
    “I’m talking to you.” And he looked none too happy about it, either.
    She rolled her eyes. “I mean a counselor or someone professional.”
    “A shrink?” He sounded genuinely horrified. “Not if I want to keep my pilot’s license.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Any pilot who goes to see a shrink is automatically grounded. And it’s a bitch to get your ticket back from the FAA once it’s been pulled. You have to jump through all sorts of hoops. Pain in the ass.”
    “What’s the FAA?”
    “Federal Aviation Administration. Regulates all flying in America and by American pilots.”
    “It doesn’t make sense that they would prevent you from talking out your fears. Wouldn’t the FAA want pilots talking to counselors if they need to? Why wouldn’t they make it easy for you to do it?”
    He shrugged. “Government bureaucracy. Just the way it is.”
    “Well, it’s dumb.”
    “Amen.” He reached over to clink his beer bottle against hers.
    This was nice. Just sitting and talking with him. Maybe Tyrone had the right idea, after all. Maybe she should go for the mother of all flings with this guy. God knew, she was more than ready to be rid of her stupid virginity. He seemed pretty coordinated and not inclined to eating tainted shellfish.
    He leaned across her to adjust an air vent to blow warm air at her side window, and she gasped as his sleeve whisked across her thighs. Her hips wanted to rise to meet his forearm against her jeggings, and her pulse leaped as his palm skimmed across her knees on its way back to his side of the car. “There. Now your window won’t steam up no matter what we do in here.”
    No matter what—omigosh.
Excitement and panic wrestled for supremacy in her tummy. “Do you like flying?” she asked breathlessly.
    “Love it. I thought for a long time that I wanted to go fixed-wing and fly fighters—Mach two with my hair on fire shooting stuff down. But then I got a ride in a helicopter and was hooked. I loved being down in the weeds where the action was. And all the fighter jets are going to end up being drones flown by remote control before too much longer, anyway. Me, I get to work directly with the guys I support. I can change and adapt what I’m doing in the blink of an eye depending on conditions on the ground. I never know what’s going to happen next. It’s a hell of a rush...”
    He broke off as if