Mayday

Don't Think

XxxX

"She handles like a dream, Mae,"

"So I've been told! Hubby was always paranoid about this thing—I think her last tune up cost more than my first pickup when I think about it!"

Her voice over the comms unit touches him in ways that Pete Mitchell hasn't felt in years. Didn't think he could feel, again. His entire life this feeling had slipped through boneless fingers, unattainable as he'd pursued loftier goals in the air. Goals that have nearly killed him, have butchered his reputation.

A brief pang of guilt hangs low in his gut—he's not worthy to feel this way, not really. Not after the things he's done and the people he's hurt. Rooster, Penny, Charlie—they were names on a long list of those who stood in the way of him and his career, of everything he'd ever dreamed of. And subsequently, he'd hurt them.

But, now as age has reared its ugly head—priorities have shifted. Just a hair.

Again he thinks of Rooster, the man's eyes in the back of his mind, plaguing him like some distant shadow that's really not that distant at all. A pang of guilt rockets off behind his ribs like a cannon.

He shouldn't get to feel the way he does right now, not again—not when Rooster daily pays the price for his meddling. Mae shouldn't make him feel this way. She should be making men like Rooster, like Seresin, feel this way.

She's so young. Beautiful. With an entire life to live and spread her wings. And he….

His wings are getting clipped if he so much as stumbles on Cylcone's tightrope.

And, something tells him that Ice wouldn't be there to catch him this time. Why, he doesn't know, it would be the first time Tom Kazanksy wouldn't bail hot water out of his sinking ship. But somewhere in the back of his mind, he senses—no, fears—that Ice can't, and won't, be there to back his play.

Which, the more he thinks about it, is ludicrous.

But in all honesty, Pete can't rely on Tom forever. He knows this about himself, his career. But the more he thinks about it, the worse he feels. It isn't Tom's job to catch him. It isn't Ice's responsibility to back him up and stick commendations into his file, either.

He has bigger things—things in his private life—he has to face. A wife who loves him, children who need him. For thirty years Iceman has been catching him when he falls, putting his own career on the line to clean up another of Maverick's messes, and it shouldn't be that way.

And Maverick is a grown man, whether he feels like it or not. He should be either cleaning up his own messes, or alternatively–preferably—stop making them altogether. He's long passed mistakes being excusable, they aren't cute anymore, and they certainly aren't just part of the learning curve. Not in his fifties, not when he's an old hat at this.

Pete has missed whatever Mae has giggled over the headset to him, something that he immediately regrets. He wants to listen to every word that splits from her lips–wants to know what she's thinking, if it's the most rudimentary thought. And, that's quite the feat, because he hasn't really wanted to listen to anyone in a long damn time.

Beginning landing procedures, the ranch's small airstrip lines up perfectly, like he's landed here his entire life. The horizon is stunning with bright sky and cumulus clouds that roll by at the laziest pace, and there the earth meets sky, he swears to God he's never seen anything more beautiful. Stretched open before him like the blank canvas of a lover, the world below calls to him, but the sky—God, the sky. It sings to him like a siren, skips through his blood like molten heat.

Mav is pretty sure he can stay here, in this Mustang, with this view before him, forever.

But forever comes to a bouncing halt when they touch down on the rough gravel of the runway. Thirsty dust leaps up from earth as the propeller kicks off wind, shrouding them in a dry veil of desert earth that swirls and bends around the plane as they slow to a creep. Exaggerated sounds of the engine consume the cockpit, and he can feel Mae rustling in the seat behind him, humming softly as he navigates the P51 back to the hangar.

By the time they stop, canopy open to the heat of the afternoon, fuel and dust is all he can taste. The back of his mouth is dry when he swings easily over the side of the plane, onto the wing, glimpsing the horizon they'd cut across just minutes before through the open mouth of the hangar. Even behind the aviators the sky is a shockingly crisp blue, cascading weaves of golden sand and red clay of the earth rising up to the line where earth stops, and forever begins.

His blood still sings, burns with speed and altitude and the high of flight when he turns to offer Mae a hand out of the cockpit. She takes it, though she doesn't probably need his help, and he drops off the wing. Boots colliding with the pavement of the hangar, he reaches up and offers her a hand as she sinks to sit on the wing, booted feet dangling over the side while she smiles down at him. Sparkling eyes hidden behind her own aviators, she may as well have stepped out of a dream.

Taking his hand again, she hops off the wing, gently knocking against him as she finds her feet. Batting a curl away from her face, her lips split into a wide, glinting grin, as she tips the sunglasses up into her hair. Sapphire eyes settling on him with a wild sparkle not all that far removed from wildfire, Pete feels his pulse skip in his veins, for a second wondering if his heart has stopped behind his ribs.

He can feel the energy of her body, the heat rolling off of her like a locomotive even with air between them. "Well, I'd say that's a successful run, Captain Mitchell," her nose scrunches at him as he climbs back onto the wing to secure the canopy, her watching him from below.

He doesn't realize his palms are sweating until she's walking around the rig, strolling to a lazy stop to meet him at the same wing. Dropping over the side of the wing, he skims his slick palms over the front of his jeans, trying to control the warmth creeping up the back of his collar when she smiles at him, lips pursed adorably.

"Thanks for the ride," he doesn't miss her eyes skipping over him—a man would have to be blind—and the air empties out of his chest when her eyes track up to find his again, "I really enjoyed it, Maverick. I haven't been up in a long time."

What she says isn't inherently sexual. Not in the slightest. But, the way her body language changes—her arm brushing against his, the way her eyes skip first to his mouth and then to the rest of him, the slightest way the curve of her hip extends as she shifts her weight sends him into a fleeting tailspin, as if he's been doused with fire.

The best kind of pain, the burning, achingly beautiful kind, knocks behind his ribcage, reminding him that he's alive—that it's been nearly two years since he'd been with a woman. And, when her gaze holds firmly to his mouth and he feels her intake just the right little breath, he knows—it comes singing back to him like a siren's call, all the times before. The bite she gives her bottom lip screams out to him like a warning bell.

The hangar is silent, save the whistle of whatever California air curls against the outside of the hangar. Pete's pretty sure she can hear the blood in his ears, because it's all he really is able to think about at this moment, with the heat of the day boiling between them like an upset pot. Glistening sweat on her forehead gives her the most aetherial, glowing look—like a goddess, stepped from the sun, here to deliver him. He feels like he's Christ in the garden, sweating blood, wondering what to do.

She edges just a little closer, her arm resting against his, now. He can't deny the bolt of electricity that shoots through, the weight of her presence lingering in the point of contact. Sure he's felt it before, with other girls, but never so strongly. Or clearly. It becomes the only thing at the forefront of his mind, like the focused concentration of a child watching the ball of a pinball machine.

He swallows the heavy breath hanging in the back of his throat. "You're welcome," he blinks, taking in the curve of her face. The strength of her jaw, the way her skin naturally just glows. Everything about her is like porcelain, fine and detailed. "It was a beautiful flight." He isn't talking so much about the journey as he is the passenger who'd accompanied him, but, he fails to articulate that detail appropriately.

She giggles, her smile growing. Somehow, she knows. They always know.

"Glad you think so, Maverick," his callsign on her lips unravels him in the deepest possible way, and he lifts a hand to rub one of her curls between his thumb and index finger. Her eyes move to consider the action, before her head tilts into the action, her smile soft.

He's overcome, overwhelmed, overjoyed with the sudden idea of kissing her. It's wrong and right all at the same time. For a moment he thinks he's losing his touch, but then he remembers that Mae is a woman not more than half his age. She's young enough to be his daughter. This should be scandalous, the entire moment shouldn't exist. He should walk away. Be the bigger person, the better man, and leave her here in her desert paradise, for someone better to find her.

But the crux of the issue is this—Pete is selfish. He always has been. He always wants what is either denied him or isn't his to have. Which is probably why he's at this place of his career that he is, though that he can attribute more to Tom than anything else.

His fingers release the curl of her hair, which is nearly perfect, and move to softly skip over the curve of her cheek. She's warm. Nearly burning. But he isn't sure if that's from the heat, the flight, or whatever electricity cracks like a whip between them.

Pete hesitates, but again, somehow, she knows. The corner of her lip ticks up in an amused smirk, her eyes scanning his softly as she leans into his touch, and rests her hand on his arm. He can't ignore the fact that her own palms are damp–can she feel his sweaty palms?-but it throws him. She doesn't seem nervous. Pete doesn't think Mae possesses a nervous bone in her body.

"Go ahead, Mitchell," she says out of nowhere, her tone so unlike any other time he's listened to her speak, "I want you to."

It resounds in the hollow of his gut, shooting through every vein. Bouncing off his tendons, ricocheting off every bone. His tongue is within inches of bleeding, he's biting it so hard, and his toes are on fire, curled deep within the confines of his boots. Able to taste whatever sharp scents of perfume lingers from her, all he can feel is the swell of his gut rising up to the base of his chest.

"Don't think, Pete. Just do."

Without any form of hesitation, she kisses him first.

Nothing about it is exploratory or discovering, instead, it is hard, certain, and determined. His arms find her waist like they'd been finding it forever, and her arms loop perfectly around his neck like they were made for it. Mae is tight and hot and perfectly pressed up against him—the world sinks into slow motion, nothing more than a haze of color and distant sound as they exist in this universe together, alone, never alone.

Mae kisses with her entire body, the full force of her jaw, which sends him reeling to places Pete Mitchell hasn't been in well over a decade. Heat and pressure and sex pulls low in the depth of his gut, singing the song that men have been singing since the dawn of humanity, and she seems to respond in all the perfect ways, the ways women have been responding to men since God formed Eve from the rib. Pulling at his bottom lip, tasting him, the moan that escapes him when she takes his hand and guides it to her hair is sinful.

Fisting her spiraling locks, he tips her head back just enough to break their kiss. Panting, sweating, pupils blown wide with the desire he didn't think he'd ever see in a woman again, her eyes track him from beneath her lashes. The column of her throat is bared, milky and sweet, and he can't think beyond the idea of lathing his tongue across the glistening sweat at the hollow of her throat.

The muscle in his jaw twitches with restraint, and he tries, with every mature bone in his body, to remember to breathe. Once the fire has dissipated from the twisting knife between his ribs and he can think beyond the blood rushing beneath the belt, he notices that she's grinning at him, her arms still hooked around the back of his neck in a way that isn't unpleasant.

She chuckles and he can't deny that it lights up her eyes. She's glowing, almost. Nearly. "Well, my my Captain Mitchell," her nose wrinkles playfully, "anyone ever tell you that you're a terrific kisser?"

He can't help but snort. "Can't say that I have,"

"Well then I'll be the first. I may require you to kiss me like that again, Mitchell," she releases him and slips from his arms, but her hand finds his expertly, gently tugging him from the shadow of the Mustang, "if it's alright with you." The glance she shoots over her shoulder is whimsical but calculated, designed to elicit a response.

"I think I can manage it," his brow lifts suspiciously, which makes her laugh loudly. Free of the four walls of the hangar and now beneath open sky, she's guiding him on a steady path towards the massive ranch house, their feet grinding beneath the gravel of the desert floor.

"Where are you taking me?"

She slows to allow him to come up beside her, slipping her arm through his as she nods to the house.

"What kind of hostess would I be if I didn't invite you in for a drink?"

"One from the 21st century?"

That made her ring with laughter, again. "Not all of us millennials are uncultured swine, I'll have you know," she playfully swats at him with her ringed fingers, "broad strokes there, Mitchell."

"Broad strokes."

"I'm doing my best to prove a point, here," their feet find the first step of the porch, and she guides him across the aged planks easily, her hand intertwining with his. "Now, come inside. I think there's some tea left over from last night, or a couple beers, d'pendin' on what you want,"

He can't deny the elation he feels when she guides him into the house, kicking off her boots as she sinks further into the darkness of her grotto.