Page 42 of The Mercenary's Guide to Mishaps and Romance

“Damn, that was Fine with a capital F for I’dfffffuckthat man,” I say.

Cassel gags—he’s obviously jealous.

“Let’s go,” Jackson says. “By the time we’re finally out there, they’re going to be off the plane and gone.”

I realize that he’s possibly right and step it up a bit. It’s not my fault, I’m easily distracted by my beautiful husband.

Once through the gate, we don’t have many areas to hide. Besides the buildings and the hangars, the runway is practically empty and providing no cover.

“What exactly is our plan?” Jackson asks.

“Plans are for the weak,” I announce.

Cassel nods then finger-guns me, and the two of us take off for the plane without hesitation. We rush across the runway just as the door slides open. The man who hops out is not expecting an arm to the jugular and is flung down onto the runway.

“What the fuck?” the large man yells as he wallows on the ground a moment before trying to get up. That’s when I see thepilot give us a look of horror and lunge back toward the front of the plane.

A guy inside immediately slumps down and plays dead, and I decide that’s the one I want.

“Grab him,” I say as the plane starts moving.

“I’m a bit preoccupied!” Cassel growls while he rides the big man like a bucking bronco.

“Hey, fucker! Where are you going?” I yell as I leap into the moving plane.

“Leland, get your ass out of there right this minute!” Jackson shouts, but I want the guy who’s playing dead. Would he really deprive me of this? Just as I snatch up the collar of the guy playing dead, another guy comes out. He just…lookslike someone I want to brawl with, but the plane is picking up speed, and I know Jackson would be absolutely pissed if it took off with me in it.

“Wait, wait, wait!” the guy I have a hold of screams as I haul him out of the plane and leap out. I hit the ground on my feet, stumbling a bit to keep myself upright, but he sure doesn’t. The second he lands, he slams down on his front before doing a fancy little flip, limbs going every which way as he howls like a coyote.

That’s when I hear a gunshot coming from the plane and find myself rather uncertain whether the guy on the plane is atrocious at shooting or he was trying to shoot the other guy. The look of horror on the man’s face as he eyes the mark inches from his dick, left behind by the bullet, amuses me.

I duck back as the plane lifts off, the pilot apparently too paranoid to deal with me for some reason. I mean… maybe it had to do with Bubblegum, the high-caliber rifle strapped to my back, or the fact that I’m able to fuck up the plane enough that it doesn’t even get a few feet up in the air.

The plane makes it over the fence before it nose-dives and hits the ground, bouncing its way down a field. Patiently, Iwait for someone to stick their head out when my new torture volunteer jumps up and takes off running.

“Hey, come on, dude, I’m clearly having fun here and you’re going to ruin it with a race?” I call, forced to leave my beautiful baby Bubblegum behind to chase this guy!

The man looks back at me in horror. “No! Please! I don’t wanna die, man. Come on, man. Go focus on someone else, man,” he pleads as he runs. I rush after him before realizing that this guy is pretty damn fast! I’m not a slow runner. At nearly six feet tall, I have decently long legs and keep in relatively good shape, and while my expertise is definitely in shooting, I’ve been known to fuck up a man or two in a good old-fashioned foot race.

But not this guy.

He’s running like his life depends on it… which it does.

“Jackson, he’s heading right for you!” I shout as the man races toward Jackson, who I can only assume the victim didn’t see since he chose to runtowardhim, instead of anywhere else in this giant open area. Then again, Jackson’s a fucking sex magnet—even with his mask on—so I can’t blame the guy for being drawn to him like a bug to a light.

Realizing his error, the runner veers hard, but he’s closer to Jackson now than I am to him, and I realize that he’s not going past him, he’s going for the fence.

The fence is like one of those ten-foot-tall fences meant to keep people from climbing over but boy, does that man climb. It’s impressive how fast he is all the while screaming, “Come on, man. Please, man.”

Jackson leaps up, snatching the man’s shoe and ripping it off before he looks back at me. I feel like he’d be doing a hair flip right now if his hair was showing, and it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.

Our victim leaps up into the air once more, his fingers sinking into the holes of the chain-link fence as my sexy manscalesthat motherfucking fence, hot on his trail.

I’m so blown away that I can’t even find the willpower to move. All I can do is watch with bated breath as Jackson nears the top of the fence and grabs a hold of the man’s pants. The man flips over the top, releasing his pants before he crashes down on the other side. His landing is as graceful as his plummet from the plane. He hops up with one less shoe and a little less dignity since Jackson’s still holding his pants.

And as my one true love who had once lost a pair of pants to a fence acquires some new pants, Cassel simply sticks a taser through the fence and shoots the fleeing guy. The moment the prongs hit him, there’s a strangled cry of “Maaaan—” before it puts his ass to the ground.

“I could have just shocked him at any point,” Cassel says. “But you two were very much in the way.”

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