Fly With Me (Wild Aces #1) by Chanel Cleeton
Thank you to my wonderful agent Kevan Lyon, editor Kate Seaver, publicist Ryanne Probst, Jessica Brock, Katherine Pelz, and the entire team at Penguin and Berkley for making this book possible.
I’m so grateful to Roni Loren and Laura Kaye for reading and blurbing Fly With Me.
Thanks to my awesome Facebook Reader Group and the members of Our So-Called Group for making my days more enjoyable.
And to all the readers and bloggers who have supported my work throughout the years—THANK YOU! I couldn’t do it without you.
Big thanks to my family and friends for their love and encouragement, and most of all, thanks to my husband, my real-life hero and inspiration.
This book has been ten years in the making, and I’ve loved every single one of them. Thanks for asking me to dance.
ONE
JORDAN
There was a time in a woman’s life when she had to accept that wearing a headband made of pink—glittery—illuminated penises was too much. I couldn’t put my finger on the number—and I definitely couldn’t do it after my fourth tequila shot—but I figured that at thirty and still single, bachelorettes had ceased to be a fun rite of passage, and had instead become a wake-up call that if Prince Charming wasn’t coming soon, I’d have to start exploring my options in the amphibian variety.
Of course, it didn’t help that this was my sister’s bachelorette—my cute-as-a-button, too-young-for-wrinkle-cream sister’s bachelorette. Or that she was marrying my high school ex-boyfriend. I didn’t care; I mean we hadn’t been together in over a decade, but the fact that my future brother-in-law had once seen me topless added to the surreal feeling of the whole thing.
I took shot number five like a champ.
“I’m getting married!” Meg screamed for what might have been the fifteenth time that night. Somewhere between dinner at Lavo and partying at Tao, this seemed to have hit her with a vengeance. On anyone else, it would have been annoying; on Meg, it was somehow still adorable.
At twenty-five, she was the baby of the family. A good five inches shorter than me, we shared the same blond hair and brown eyes. We both had curves, but on her, they were bite-size. I was a king-size—tits and ass that could put your eye out—not to mention the pink phalluses bobbing awkwardly on my head.
It had been Meg’s idea to dress up, and I hadn’t been able to disappoint her. So here I was, thirty years old, terminally single, wearing penises on my head, a hot pink barely there tube dress, and f*ck-me Choos that topped me out at six feet. If I ever got married, I was so not doing a bachelorette. Or bridesmaids in hideous dresses. Or arguing with my fiancé over whether we’d serve filet mignon or prime rib. I loved meat as much as the next girl, but the drama surrounding this wedding had my head spinning, and I was just the maid of honor. If I were the bride? I totally got why people eloped.
My parents could do the big wedding with Meg. At least they’d get the budget option with me—if I ever got married at all.
Shot number six came faster than a virgin on prom night.
I wasn’t really even tipsy. I could definitely hold my liquor, but this was Vegas, and everything about tonight screamed excess, and as depressing as it was to be the eldest, even worse, I felt like the mother hen to the group of three Southern girls ready to make the Strip their bitch. It was time to up my game.
I rose from our table and headed over to where Stacey and Amber, my sister’s friends from college, were dancing, determined to kick this feeling inside of me’s ass.
When I’d look back on this evening, and it would play in my mind on repeat for months to come, this would be the moment. Freeze it. Remember it. How often could you say that you could pinpoint the exact moment when your life changed?
I could.
If I had anyone to blame for the wild ride that came next, it was Flo Rida. Because as soon as “Right Round” came over the club speakers, my tequila-fueled body decided it needed to move. It was the kind of song you couldn’t resist the urge to dance to; it made normal girls want to grab a pole and let loose. Okay, maybe just me. But it felt like kismet, like the song played for me, to breathe life into my sad, old self. So I danced, pink penises gyrating and flickering, hips swaying, hair swishing, until my world turned upside down.
NOAH
“Dibs.”
I took a swig of Jack, slamming the glass down on the bar.
“You can’t call dibs, *. There are four of them.”
Easy shrugged with the same nonchalance that had earned him his call sign and made him lethal behind the stick of an F-16. He lulled you into thinking he was just f*cking around. He never was.
“Are you saying I can’t handle four chicks?”
“I’m calling bullshit on that one.”
The guy got more * than anyone in the squadron, but a foursome was ambitious even for him.
“Fifty bucks,” he offered, knowing my pathological inability to back down from a challenge.
“Fuck you, fifty bucks. You can’t bang four chicks.”
Easy’s eyes narrowed in a look I knew all too well.
“Watch me.”
We all gave him a hard time for being a princess because his face was a panty dropper, but he could throw down like nobody’s business. Lately, though, this shit had been getting darker and darker. We’d broken off from the rest of the group, Joker had gone back to the hotel to call his wife, and now Easy was drinking like he wanted to die.