Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Chief Warrant Officer 4 Mark Sheppard

I stared up at the ceiling, desperately trying to avoid making any sort of chit chat with the Battle Captain. Battle Captain. Another stupid and meaningless title the army invented. It just meant that he was an officer too inept to lead troops, so they made him a glorified secretary.

Staring at the PowerPoint slides in front of me, I curled my lip in disgust. This is what the army had devolved into. PowerPoint. Death by PowerPoint to be more accurate. As if we were a bunch of boardroom CEOs, talking about… whatever the fuck civilians talked about in meetings.

I was in the room with Artie and Brady, two of three other pilots that were my regular team. Laura, our captain and commander, was out showing the new MEDEVAC captain the rest of the base. That reminder was all it took and my head was filled with the sight of her. I hadn't even gotten her name, but her face was enough to fully invade my thoughts. I shifted, adjusting my hard-on.

It'd been fucking years since a woman had made this kind of impression on me. She was gorgeous. That, plus the fact that I'd had to escort the last crew to Bagram, had put me in a foul mood when I'd first met her. I hadn't exactly been welcoming. Too late to fix that now. I was stuck in this damn room. I'd happily eat some crow and apologize to her if it got me out of this pointless meeting.

We were in here with the Chinook pilots, the MEDEVAC co-pilot and that moron Ross, the current Battle Captain and former commander of the MEDEVAC.

It didn't matter that the briefing for tomorrow's mission was supposed to have started ten minutes ago. I was anxious to get out of here. I worked on stomping down my impatience. After almost two decades in the army I should be used to waiting. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm my irritation.

Laura was our commander for the Apache unit. But this being aviation, she was the commander when we were on the ground. On the missions, typically the senior pilot was in charge. It had nothing to do with rank, and everything to do with experience. This being my fourth deployment it left me in charge of all our missions. I respected her authority on the ground by giving her advice that came from years of combat time. Ultimately, we followed and supported her plans. In the air, she never questioned me. I reciprocated by making sure to never undermine her. It was a win-win for everyone.

Laura walked in with the new chick following behind her. I looked her up and down. Surveying a new soldier when they arrived wasn't unusual. It would have been easier on me if there wasn't anything remarkable about her. I already knew she was going to be a temptation for me. Those ocean blue eyes had threatened to pull me in when we'd met out on the tarmac in Bagram. She'd been silently listening to me, and I was getting lost in those eyes. I didn't need this distraction. I didn't need a woman invading my dreams. Didn't need to be constantly adjusting a dick that got hard just from thinking of her.

She was average height—that is, average for female pilots—about five-nine or five-ten. She had dark brown hair bordering on black, which could be an effect of the light. It was hard to tell. Probably black and not brown , I decided. It was tied back in a normal bun. Nothing cute or fancy like a braid or weird twists. Somehow that made it hotter.

The army had recently changed its rules about how women could wear their hair. The fact that she didn't have a ponytail said a lot. She was a professional. She had chosen the traditional look over comfort. Not only was this woman not trying to stand out, but she wanted to be taken seriously. That was a good sign. Of course, it had the sexy librarian effect. I wanted to watch her slowly let her hair down and shake it loose.

My fingers twitched, itching to reach out and mess her up a bit. I imagined what it would look like, the sight of all that hair framing her face as she rode me until I came. My eyes rolled back up to the ceiling as I worked to calm my overactive imagination. I should be making myself promises to stay away from her. It was pointless, so I just worked on getting the thought of her naked out of my mind. Shifting in my seat, I tried to ease the discomfort in my balls. It didn't take long before I was staring at her again.

She was thin, smaller in frame than Laura. Light skin, not quite pale. Freckles on her face. How far down did the freckles go?

For some reason MED units had a disproportionate number of females. Which meant that they would bring with them an above average number of hot females. There were always perky tits and tight shorts strutting around distracting everyone. Usually I ignored them all. For some reason this woman had caught my eye. From the moment I'd stepped out of my aircraft, my gaze had zeroed right in on her. I hadn't even noticed the other two women who'd walked up while I'd been talking. She had been all I could look at.

We were too damn busy for any of us to be focusing on anything but our missions. Yet here we were, three new women, and their leader was gorgeous to the point of complete distraction.

If they could do their job and stay out of our way, then they would be perfect. There was a time and place to chase pussy, and this was neither. The last was more of a reminder to myself and my aching cock than anything.

Laura took a seat next to me. The new captain sat down next to her co-pilot. Ned, or Nate. Something with an N. I usually just called him dickhead; he hadn't earned the right for me to remember his name.

"Sheppard."

"Yo." I sat up and looked at the Battle Captain as he called my name.

"You're up," Ross told me. Captain Ross Sullivan was a Black Hawk pilot. He had been kicked out of Air Assault and assigned to command the MEDEVAC. He quickly screwed that up and found himself permanently assigned to Battle Captain, something that was supposed to be a temporary duty shared by officers. Apparently, the Air Assault Black Hawks had the same opinion of him that I had. Meaning, they didn't have much use for him, either. I'd have rather seen him thrown all the way back to Bagram with the rest of his crew, but I don't get to make those decisions.

I looked up at the screen. It had a picture of a map and our route was drawn through the center of it. I pointed at it. "That's the way we're going to fly in, and once the Chinooks drop off the Beards we'll fly out the other way. Any questions?"

"Beards?"

Deep blue eyes, filled with curiosity, filled my vision and I had to work to keep my tone even. Fuck, she didn't even know what she was doing to me, sitting there looking neat as a pin. Her uniform would look much better on the floor of my barracks.

"Beards is our nickname for the Green Berets we work with. They all have beards." I shrugged when a smile tugged at her full lips. I never said we were creative with our names.

Her voice was silky and smooth and though I didn't mind answering her question, I should have known better than to ask if anyone had any. Always a stupid thing to ask in a room filled with non-attack guys. My fault. It opened the room up to the others and they had too many fucking opinions.

"You can't fly through that pass." This came from Dan Williams, the Air Mission Commander for the Chinooks. " We're flying through that pass."

"Nope," Brady responded, giving Dan a wide grin, "It's ours. We're flying out first, so we choose the pass. And that one is ours." He smacked his hand down on the table for dramatic effect.

I smirked when I saw the new girl jump at the loud sound. She'd get used to things being loud and fast with us around. Louder still when Brady was around. Much louder.

"But we don't want to fly through the same spot, if we come in after you, it gives away that route. We need you to fly further east."

"Then pick a different pass," I said. They scowled at that. I didn't care, I really didn't. I knew that Brady and Artie didn't either. Fly to the east, fly to the west, it was all the same to us. We just couldn't help ourselves. They took this so seriously that it was impossible not to fuck with them. Mission planning was their whole world, and it was just so easy to derail them. We were helicopters for fuck sake, we had the whole sky to ourselves.

Our mission planning came down to three simple things: Radio frequency, call sign, and grid coordinates. We needed to know how to get a hold of you, what to call you, and where to fly to. That was it. But these guys made it so much more complicated. To the point where this was now an actual conversation.

I was a Chief Warrant Officer 4. I had almost twenty years in the Army and to most in the service they'd swear Warrant Officers didn't exist. If you didn't work in aviation, CWOs were sort of like unicorns. They were never spotted and therefore their existence was often questioned. We were much more common in aviation, and the higher up the number after our letters the more experience we had.

I had a lot of it and I was sitting here arguing with another CW4 over who gets to fly through which mountain pass. It blew my mind that we had to do this before each mission, and the briefing was just starting. We were guaranteed to be stuck here for a few hours going over pointless, never-ending arguments back and forth. Irritation settled low in my gut. If I had to sit here and have stupid conversations that were a waste of my time, I was going to make sure the others in the room suffered as much as I did.

Artie jumped in on the game Brady had started. "If you guys aren't tough enough to follow in our footsteps then you go to the east."

We were nearing the point where Laura was going to have to stop us. Not that she wanted to, but since she was our Captain, being the adult in the room was her responsibility—for the moment.

I decided to get things moving along and save her the hassle. "Tell you what, we'll compromise. I'll fly in to the east, then I'll take the pass after you leave the area."

Ross snapped back at me, "It's the same problem. If you fly over their route after them, you might get shot at."

Sheep. All of them. There wasn't one warrior amongst them. It was slightly amusing, but also filled me with disgust. "And?" They all stared at me like I had a dick growing out of my forehead. "We're Apaches. If someone shoots at us, we shoot back. Where's the problem?"

They all sat back silently—minds blown. Our aircraft carried both high-caliber guns and missiles. We were made to be shot at. We reveled in it, waited for it. Getting into an altercation was addictive and we all looked forward to that next hit. It was well known that only certain types of people became Apache pilots. You had to be the type that ran toward danger, not away from it. The others were so used to flying in helicopters that didn't have any way of defending themselves, they seemed to forget our entire function was to return fire on the enemy.

"You shouldn't be complacent just because you want to kill something." Ross was trying to take the high ground. He wouldn't be this argumentative next time someone was shooting at him.

"If someone wants to commit suicide by Apache, I'm happy to assist. Remember, they are people, not things," I admonished him. Just like that I had taken the high ground from him. I snuck a glance over at the new girl and Dickhead. I really needed to learn her name. Then again, I really didn't need to be lusting after her, so keeping some distance might be better. They didn't look amused. I expected that from him. Judging by the scowl on her face, she seemed to share his lack of humor. I bit back a sigh. Despite not needing the distraction of her, I really couldn't have her hating me either. I wasn't looking forward to a repeat of what had happened last month between our crews. It was better if we could all get along as much as possible.

Ross scowled at me, then he clicked the mouse and moved to the next slide. I'd won that round and he was letting it drop.

"What the actual fuck am I looking at?" I asked. The slide was nothing but abbreviations. Laura laid her head down and rested it on her hands on top of the table. She knew I wasn't going to make this easy for her. I'd have to make it up to her later. The slide read:

2xCH TOT 20000202 W/EA 15xODA IOT INFIL IVO NAI2

ETA 2000 ETE 1+05

2xAWT TOT 1950000202 OH HLZ-A H-10

ETA 1950 ETE 1+15 TOS 1+20

"This is the mission. What? You can't read the slide?" Ross asked, with a frustrated look in my direction.

"There's not one actual word on the thing, we need a god damn decoder book to decipher it, and what size font is that? Four? If this wasn't blown up on an eight-foot-wide projection screen we wouldn't be able to read it. Jesus's leather sandals, couldn't you just use real words and maybe a second slide?"

"Just like an Apache pilot, too many letters and he gets confused." That came from Dickhead. It also got a smirk from the new girl.

So, there is a person in there. Game on.

A look of surprise flashed over her face when I gave her a wide grin. Laura glanced over at me, then at the new girl and her own smile spread across her face. I looked away from them both. I didn't need Laura riding my ass about liking her friend.

"We might get confused with big words and tiny letters, but at least we can find the Landing Zone the first time!" Brady quipped across the table, Dickhead's face went red at his retort.

"Enough!" yelled Ross. "Let's get through this already."

Laura gave a grunt, letting us know that fun time was over.

And so Ross kept the briefing moving along. Brady, Artie, and I behaved ourselves for the rest of the meeting, not out of respect for Ross, but because Laura had asked us to. "Any questions?" Ross asked, reaching the end of the slides.

"Do you get a special medal for PowerPoint arts and graphics?" Artie asked with a straight face.

"Anyone else ?" Ross asked, scowling, but ignoring Artie's question. Again, I watched the new girl. I wanted to know if she was as stuck up as Ross, or if she had a real sense of humor.

"Seriously, it's a legit question," Brady added, a dramatic frown pulling his brows low over his eyes. "You have all the colorful shapes and arrows and one even had a nice moving helicopter." Their tones were so peaceful you could almost believe they were being genuine. Almost.

Artie continued, "Yeah, you must have spent hours getting that masterpiece together."

Ross finally conceded, "I spent the better part of two days putting it together."

"Two days," Artie said, looking at Brady with a smug smile and a nod. "Two days preparing a twenty-minute briefing."

Here it comes . A glance around the room told me only the Apache guys knew what the men were up to. Everyone else was listening respectfully.

"I wish I was so under-utilized that I could spend two days coloring on my computer," Brady commented in an innocent tone, glancing over at Artie.

"Yeah, I wish I wasn't burdened with real work so that I could have that kind of time," Artie responded jovially. They were having fun.

I shared their resentment towards office work. We would spend all day flying with the Beards, getting shot at, and making sure no one would hurt them. The idea that making a PowerPoint was work was laughable. As far as we were concerned, if you didn't put your ass on the line, you didn't deserve respect. Ross deserved none. New girl would have a chance to prove herself soon enough.

"He even managed to work in the phrases ‘force multiplier' and ‘situational awareness.'" I laughed, those were such meaningless words yet every officer felt obligated to use them.

"Let's go check in with the Beards and make sure they don't have anything else for us," Laura interrupted, bringing an early end to what would otherwise be a long round of insults. She turned to me. "Come here, let me formally introduce you to Jen. Unless you'd rather go drag her to your helicopter." I couldn't stop the glare that I shot her. Laura was just a little too excited by the incident in Bagram yesterday.

I stood and followed her. She was right, I should have a real introduction, not…whatever the hell happened yesterday. I normally didn't lose my cool like that with anyone. Being in Bagram was never pleasant, too many high ranking staff officers. Add to that the fight with the old MED crew was still fresh, and then some asshole was grabbing her…Yeah, not my best moment. I should apologize and get to know the new girl and her crew, but my attraction to her was a problem. Guaranteed we'd end up flying together. I just hoped they weren't like the last crew that'd been out here. If they were and I gave her a pass because she was hot, it'd be my ass on the line with my guys. We moved our way around the table and she stood up as we approached.

"Jen, this is Mark Sheppard, our Senior Warrant Officer and Air Mission Commander. Mark, this is Jen. Try not to punch anyone this time."

"Jennifer Walker. Nice to meet you." She was blushing at Laura's last comment.

I grabbed her hand and she smiled at me when I shook it. Fuck. Me. I had been distracted and agitated enough at Bagram, I had missed many details about her. I was impressed then. Now I realized that I had missed so much. She was probably thirty, give or take. Old enough that the baby face of youth was gone, but there were no signs of aging on her smooth skin. It was that perfect level of maturity that separated her from girl to woman.

Her black hair had a shine to it that made her skin glow. Her skin wasn't so pale up close. It looked soft and it took all my control to keep from reaching out and running my fingers over her cheek. Her face and neck were dotted with freckles, and not the creepy ginger-kind but the eloquent sort; the kind that, when compared to her dark hair made the rest of her skin and eyes glow. And her eyes. They were blue from a distance, but right here, so close in front of me, they reminded me of the ocean. I had to look at her forehead for fear of getting lost in them. The smile she gave me was so warm and inviting, I had to swallow and think of Ross's shitty PowerPoint to keep my dick from misbehaving.

I held her hand, her skin was smooth and warm. Or maybe it was my hand getting warm while touching hers. Soft as it was, she had a strong grip for a woman. It left me with the distinct impression that she was no delicate flower. I let go of her and snapped back to reality.

Fuck, I'm in trouble. This is bad. She is not what I need out here. I couldn't afford any distractions and Jennifer Walker wasn't just going to be a distraction, she was going to derail everything.