Page 117 of Badd Love
"Not short enough."
"Shower with me?" I suggested.
"If you promise me an orgasm while we're in there."
"At least one," I promised, rolling off the bed.
She reached for me like a toddler asking for uppies. "My legs don't work. Carry me."
I scooped her up and carried her into the bathroom. Set her on the closed toilet lid and started the shower.
While it heated, she gazed at me. "Dane?"
I smiled down at her. "Linz?"
"I love you."
I smirked. "I know."
Epilogue: Tea
It took all my not-inconsiderable self-control to not fidget with my clothing—civvies. I was starched, pressed, and polished in a brand-new pantsuit…and nervous as fuck. I'd feel better if I were at least wearing service blues, or better yet, a flight suit, but this wasn't the type of function it was acceptable to wear a uniform to, so here I am in brand-new civvies, feeling like a poser, and nervous as fuck.
Which was kind of silly, considering the contents of my CV: Fixed-wing PPL at 17, helicopter PPL six months later; commercial pilot's license for fixed wing at 18, joined the Navy at 19, and flew just about every kind of aircraft, fixed wing and rotary, across a ten-year career. I flew dozens of combat missions in Afghanistan as a helo pilot, flew transports during the clusterfuck that was the evacuation, and spent the last couple of years flying helos in an elite SAR unit. I have extensive survival training, including cold weather, water, desert, and woodland environments. I've been shot down behind enemy lines and made it back to base, on foot, injured, and alone.
Yet I'm nervous for a fucking interview with some soft billionaire tech lord?
Get it the fuck together, Tay.
The environment wasn't helping. It reminded me of my grandfather's office, which was unsettling. My grandfather was an Admiral. My great-grandfather? Rear Admiral. My father? Commander, legendary Navy test pilot, a combat pilot with three kills during the Gulf War. Yeah, I'm a legacy brat. And my grandfather's office? It's where you went to get chewed out for subpar performance. Such as when I made a mistake soloing with Dad when I was ten. Or when I got a B- on a calculus exam sophomore year of high school. Or when I scored less than perfect on a written exam for Navy pilot school. Or…well, you get the idea.
In my family, less than perfect equals abject failure, as adjudicated by Admiral James M. Tiernan.
This office—or, the reception area thereof—was a spitting image of Granddad's office: dark wood panelled walls, plush crimson thick-pile carpet, bookshelves lined with dense hardcover tomes on weighty, serious subjects, low lighting, and above all,silence.
Oppressive, thick, heavy silence.
You didn't speak unless spoken to, here.
You didn't fidget.
Or cough.
Or sniffle.
You certainly didn't look impatiently at the dour receptionist who looked like she could swallow a lump of coal and shit out a diamond three days later.
I've been sitting in this wingback chair staring at the floor for twenty minutes. There are four other men waiting, each decades older with thousands of hours more flight experience than me. They're wearing expensive three-piece suits. Rolexes. Brogues and Oxfords. They're serious men with stolid names like Robert and Gregory and Thomas.
And then there's me.
Tea.
Five-five, with a feminine build, even my tailored pant suit can't hide. They'll look at me and forget my CV. Happened before, and I’m fully prepared for this dick—Linus Magnus Thorvaldsen, founder and CEO of LMT Enterprises, a tech R&D firm worth sixty billion—to dismiss me upon sight, even though I guarantee I'm at leastasqualified as anyone he's interviewed andmorequalified than most.
One by one, the men around me were called in for their interview. Thirty minutes passed. Forty. An hour.
Two.
