Chapter 9
Reed
Daniel had recovered and was back to his calm-headed self. He looked out the window and stole glances at me between monitoring the radio and the flight path. Though he still looked the same, there was something about him that had changed in these past minutes.
I studied him, keeping my eyes on the horizon, but the weather was clear, and there was not much to do, so my attention kept drifting to his profile.
“Hey,” I said.
He turned his head to look at me. It hit me then what had changed about him. His eyes. It was like they had come to life. He was still the mild doctor behind his glasses, and maybe it wouldn’t be apparent to others, but my stomach flipped at the way his eyes shone with a deep inner joy.
“Why are you staring like that?” He tilted his head, a small smile playing on his lips.
The enormity of everything crashed down on me.
The odds of meeting a man like Daniel in this lifetime, and then him actually returning my feelings, the effortless connection we shared, the impossible odds of finding him again in Antarctica, and realizing we had both never moved on. My breath came out in a shudder.
I had seen so much of life and death. My childhood was shaped by the Australian outback, the harsh reality of nature, the brutal summers, and the long winter months.
My Pa was a station hand, just like his father and his father before him.
Mustering cattle had taught me a lot about life and about myself.
You didn’t get second chances in life easily. I was a lucky bastard and had somehow won the fucking lottery with Daniel. He was everything I liked in a man. Stable, mature, intelligent, and beneath it all, a spine so strong that it didn’t bend for anyone.
His smile widened. “You look star-struck, Major Harmon.”
My stomach did crazy somersaults at his use of my military title. When we had first met, before he knew of my massive crush on him from day one, he had said this exact same line inside the one-story rundown building we were using as a makeshift clinic.
What I didn’t tell him that day was that he was spot on. So I told him now.
“I am, sir. You’ve stolen the wind right out of my sails, Lieutenant Colonel Park.”
Daniel’s eyebrows rose, and he laughed in delight. Seeing him this happy messed up my head so badly.
I quickly checked the horizon, the instrument readings, and confirmed everything was A-okay. When my gaze turned to him again, his smile was gone. He wasn’t even looking at me. He was looking at my crotch. I got hard so fast that I had a moment of light-headedness. My grip on the cyclic slipped.
Daniel’s eyes snapped back up to my face. “Reed?”
I half chuckled, half groaned. “I’m fine. Blood rushed south too fast.”
“Shit. Sorry.” He changed his position and looked away. “Please focus on flying.”
I blew out a breath. “I can’t.” I adjusted myself with one hand, but the brief touch only made me more desperate.
“What do you mean?”
“I…I’m wound up too tight. We didn’t get to finish what we started, and now… you’re right here. How can I focus?”
He swore under his breath. “Just ignore me.”
I laughed.
Below us, the dark waters of the Southern Ocean flew past. On my right, through the window, the midnight sun hung unnaturally over the horizon, blotting out the moon and stars with its brightness.
The altimeter read 350 feet. Over open water and flat ice, there was no terrain to clear.
I was not used to flying this low, but it improved visibility of the surface and reduced exposure to upper wind layers, which were reasons enough to do so.
My pre-Antarctica training had gone over all of this.
Two birds flying in tight parallel caught my attention.
I watched them as they flew side by side, so close that their wingtips touched.
One led, the other mirrored—banking together, riding the same thermal, adjusting simultaneously without visible signaling between them. It was absolutely breathtaking.
They moved as a single unit, matching each other’s altitude and direction with precision.
My brain must have really gone off-kilter because the thought that came unbidden to me was Daniel riding on my hard cock.
How we would move in tandem, like in everything else in life, just like that mated pair of birds.
I would drive into him, and he would slam down on me. The sounds of our skin, the sight of him losing all composure… fuck. We had never been together in peacetime. Never had access to a bed. Suddenly, I desperately wanted it.
The chopper tilted.
“Shit! Reed!”
I blinked and hastily brought us back to level.
Daniel was leaning over and staring up at me. “You look… red.”
I swallowed. “I can’t last, Daniel. I’m going crazy. I want you so bad, I think I’m about to lose my mind.”
He stared at me, glanced out through the windshield, and back at me. I could see the cogs in his brain turning. This wasn’t some road trip where we could just pull over. It wasn’t even like flying anywhere else in the world. I couldn’t land. I had to keep flying.
His eyes dropped to the straining tent in my flight suit. “Fuck. You’re… leaking.”
I didn’t dare look down.
“Ignore me.” I attempted a smile, but I don’t think I managed it. “Sorry. I am trying. I’m fighting to focus.”
I heard his sharp intake of breath. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this compromised.”
I stole a quick glance. “No one but you, my prince. You’re the only reason I am compromised. You… you make me…” I trailed off, ending on a ragged moan, because saying all this aloud was making it worse.
The sound of a latch unbuckling hit my senses. That was not a good sound mid-flight. “What are you—”
“I just need the med bag.” Daniel twisted and awkwardly reached between us to the cabin space behind our seats.
“Are you going to pump me with some anti-horny drug?”
Daniel’s body shook with laughter, and because he was pressed against me, the vibrations ran through me as well. My cock head brushed against the lap belt. I bit down on my lip to stop myself from making more noises.
Daniel sat back down and clicked his seatbelt immediately. I kept my eyes on the front. “What’re you doing?”
“Wipes, dumbass.”
“Oh?”
“I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but Reed, I’m going to give you a hand job in the cockpit of a chopper mid-flight over open water in the goddamn South Pole!”
Hell, yes! My heart rate spiked. I grinned. “Don’t do it on my account.”
“Oh, I’m not. I can hardly think straight myself with you all…” He grumbled and leaned toward me. I took a peek at his face. He was flushed all over. “Annoying sexy Australians,” he muttered as he slowly unzipped my flight suit all the way to my crotch.
My weeping cock sprang free, the cool air giving me shivers.
Daniel made some kind of whimpering sound. “Why are you… going commando under the flight suit?”
“No time,” I grunted.
“So hot.” I felt a hand settle on my thigh and his weight shift as he bent down as far as he could in the small confines of our cockpit. “Keep your eyes on the horizon.”
“Yes, sir.”
As soon as Daniel’s warm hand closed around my shaft, I was gone.
A string of curses dropped from my lips as he stroked me slowly.
He alternated between long pulls and squeezing my cock.
His fingers slid down and cupped my balls.
An obscene sound tore out of me. I widened my legs as best as I could to give him access.
“I’m about to… fuck, fuck.”
“I’ve got you.” I felt his hand push mine away from the cyclic, and he took control of the chopper.
He flew us safely while I came apart in his hands, thick ropes of cum jetting off my cock, my hips rising from the seat under the assault of my orgasm.
The next few moments had to be the best of my bloody life. Even in my wildest dreams, I had never imagined that my Daniel would be bringing me to a climax while we flew over Antarctica.
I was the luckiest man alive.
When my vision cleared again and my brain returned to functioning, he was cleaning me up with a wipe. “That’s a new Guinness record I set. Again. But this time with you.”
Daniel paused in his cleaning and looked at me with murder in his eyes. “Don’t you dare speak about this to anyone.”