by Michael Todd
He’d lived through worse, he recalled. There was a time when popcorn and ramen noodles had been his food of necessity rather than choice. It felt like a lifetime ago, even though it was less than six months.
He wondered who would recognize him back home after only half a year. He caught a glimpse of himself in the bedroom mirror. He had put on weight during the months there, but it was almost entirely muscle mass. If the truth be told, he had been rather scrawny when he first arrived. Kennedy had to have been insanely drunk to even consider getting into bed with him.
Literally and metaphorically, Sal thought with a smile.
They’d given them an apartment with two bedrooms, both with queen-sized beds which took up virtually all the space. They looked comfortable, even though the place had a motel vibe which extended to the generic art that hung from the walls.
He would never have thought that Russians would even put art, generic or not, on the walls of their accommodation. It was like they actually expected people to live here.
Ten minutes later, the lock turned on the bathroom door and Madigan stepped out of a very steamy bathroom wrapped in a clean white towel.
“Ten minutes?” Sal asked, with a small smile on his lips. “Your control is slipping, Kennedy.”
She smirked, clearly in a better mood than before. “Get in there, Sal. The water’s nice and hot for you. Oh, and there’s an extra towel hanging in there.”
“Thanks.” He closed the door but didn’t bother to lock it as he stripped down, placed his clothes on the lowered toilet seat, and stepped into the small shower stall. The water was scalding, exactly the way he liked it. He let it wash over him for a full ten minutes before he actually scrubbed himself.
The steam was almost impenetrable by the time he stepped out to shave and brush his teeth.
“Thirty minutes,” Madigan said with a grin. “And you have the gall to criticize my time? For shame.”
“Hey,” Sal said and secured the towel that wrapped his midsection as he joined her on the living room couch. “You’re the military woman here. You’re a sergeant. I’m not even a doctor. You need to be held to higher standards than I am. It’s the way of the world.”
Madigan grinned. “Former sergeant, remember? I turned my papers in when I decided to sign on with your sorry ass.”
“You didn’t think my ass was sorry that long ago,” Sal said. “Or is that why you insist on grabbing it so much while we have sex?”
She smiled and tilted her head as she looked at him with an odd expression. It was similar to what he’d seen when she had stared at him before.
“You’re wondering if Courtney and I slept together, aren’t you?” Sal asked. It was a blunt way of going about it, but if she wouldn’t do it herself, damned if he would beat around the bush with her.
“Well…yeah.” Madigan looked confused for a second but quickly came to terms with the fact that they were having this conversation. “I mean, I don’t judge you for it. Believe me, I know that the fact that we live out here and risk our lives almost every day makes all the societal rules that would usually surround us a little warped. But I’d have appreciated it if—if you did have sex with her at all, of course—you had simply come out and told me about it.”
He nodded and chewed lightly at the inside of his mouth. To be honest, he had expected her to be a lot less understanding. Her candor caught him off-guard for a second, but he regained his composure quickly.
“I’m not the best when I have to express myself,” he said and created a metaphorical net for him to drop into if needed. “I think I’m even worse at it when it comes to all this…” He wasn’t sure what “this” was supposed to be, so he merely made a hand gesture and was relieved when Madigan nodded. “I’m not any kind of player. Honestly, I didn’t have much of a sex life before I got here, so when it comes to knowing the rules and stuff…well, I don’t.”
“Get to the point,” Madigan said with a laugh.
“Right, sorry,” he said quickly. “The point is that while it’s more complicated than that, the short of it is that…well, yes, Courtney and I did sleep together. Well, we had sex. Not much sleep.”
She nodded, and an odd smile touched her face. “Well, thanks for being honest with me, Sal, I really appreciate it. I don’t suppose I can persuade you to share what about the whole situation makes it more complicated than simply two people who have a lot in common having sex? I mean, she told me that she had something of a crush on you, so it’s not really a surprise that you’d have one on her too.”
Sal shook his head. “I’m sorry. Again, all the unspoken rules aren’t that clear to me, but I feel like whatever needs to be said about the situation shouldn’t be said by me. She should probably tell you about that.”
Kennedy leaned back in her seat and shoved a strand of wet hair out of her face. “Okay, but if you think that the fact that I have to wait until we see Courtney again means I won’t dig into this stuff, you’d better have another think coming, and fast.”
“Why are you talking like you’re in a standoff in a Western movie?” he asked.
“Shut up,” she retorted with a grin and pushed to her feet. “I need to get some sleep. The bouncy ride in that vehicle last night did me no favors, I’ll tell you.”
“Hey, Madigan.” Sal stood and caught her attention before she disappeared into the bedroom on the right side. “Are we okay? Did this talk help?”
“Yeah, we’re good, Sal,” she said, and her smile was genuine. “I merely need a second to collect my thoughts is all. Thanks for being honest with me. You know, eventually.”
He grinned as she vanished behind the closed door. For a moment, he wondered if he should go in after her, but the moment passed, and he slipped into the left bedroom instead. He needed a nice long nap too.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sal muttered unintelligible curses and yanked the soft, thin pillow over his head in the hope that the knocking would go away. It was too soon. He needed his sleep. Honestly, it didn’t even need to be beauty sleep. Ugly sleep would work as long as it was uninterrupted.
He finally popped his right eye open when the knocking resumed for the third time. He would have thought that people would take the hint by now, but apparently not.
“Fucking hell,” he grumbled under his breath. The pounding on the door sounded like drums—those in the deep that he used to have nightmares about. Unfortunately, there was no way to wake from this nightmare. He would have to get up and answer the door if he wanted to silence the noise.
There was the random and somewhat confused consideration about whether he would prefer to face a room full of goblins and a cave troll instead of getting out of bed. It was quickly settled when he slipped out from under the covers in only a pair of boxers and stumbled around the tiny room to the door. He stifled a massive yawn with his hand. The knocking resumed, more insistently now.
“God damn it. I’m coming, I’m coming.” He yanked the door open and immediately regretted his choice of words when he saw Madigan waiting on the other side. A grin spread across her face as she stepped into his room without waiting for an invitation.
“I hope you’re ready to go again soon, Sal,” she said with a teasing grin and brushed her fingers across his lean stomach as she passed him. “Although this has to be some kind of record. It’s the first time I’ve ever gotten a guy to come before he even saw me.”
“Ha ha.” Sal laughed sarcastically. “Very funny. There was a time when people would have simply said ‘phrasing’ and moved right on.”
“Was this time recent, by any chance?” she asked. He realized that she still wore the towel that he’d seen her in last and nothing else. When she sat, it rode up higher on her lean legs.
“Not particularly,” he replied, effectively distracted at the suddenly very disturbing woman on his bed. Madigan noticed his stare and smiled as she crossed her legs coyly to push the towel up further. “You know me, though. An absolute sucker for the classics.
”
“I do know you,” she said and smiled even wider at his dumbfounded look. She liked that she still had this effect on him, despite all the time they had spent together. “Although, knowing you, I would have expected you to be down and out right now.”
“Is that why you tried to break my door down?” Sal asked, sidetracked once again when she leaned back on the bed. Invitations for him to join her on his bed didn’t come much clearer than this.
“A girl has needs,” Madigan responded, and her full lips pouted. “Do you think you can recuperate?”
“As you like to point out, I’m still young.” Sal moved in closer so that he now stood over her. “My recuperative powers are impressive.”
“Oh?” she asked and raised her right eyebrow. “How impressive?”
“Not to be competitive, but much better than yours,” he said with a smirk.
Madigan chuckled and pushed herself to a sitting position once again. Sal could tell that she wanted to stand and stare him down, but he was too close for her to do so. She elected to remain on the bed and looked up at him while she bit her bottom lip.
“If you’re trying not to be competitive, you’ve failed pretty miserably,” she said finally, and her eyes drifted to where there was little left to the imagination by the boxers he wore.
“It’s a good thing I didn’t try to not be competitive, then.”
“Just to be sure that we’re both on the same page…” She moved closer to where Sal grew rapidly larger and let her towel fall open. “You’re saying that you can outfuck me here, right?”
Sal tilted his head and pretended to take a moment to think. “I’m saying that I can outlast you and keep going until you beg me to stop—and until you can’t take it anymore.”
Madigan smirked and ran her fingers over Sal’s growing cock through his boxers. “Nobody, and I mean nobody, has ever been able to outlast me when it comes to fighting, drinking, or fucking. I’m not bragging, by the way, but I think you ought to know what you’re claiming here.”
“I’d never think that I could outdrink you,” he said honestly. “And I’ll wait for a while before I think I can outfight you. But I do think that I can leave you walking bowlegged like a cowgirl after a long ride. A very long ride.”
Sal wasn’t sure why he’d become this cocky. He figured that if he had to brag, he might as well go hard—pun intended—or go home. He simply wasn’t sure that he could live up to his claims. And if he didn’t, she would never let him live it down.
Unless he actually managed to fuck her to sleep. It was the best way to prove her wrong, he supposed, although he somehow had difficulty focusing on the thought.
“Do you want to make this interesting?” Madigan asked and yanked his boxers down to lean in to press her lips to the heavy head directly at eye-level.
He needed a moment before he answered and his eyes fluttered shut as she teased him. Driven by pure instinct, he ran his fingers through her hair.
“Bragging rights are in there,” she said and held her mouth close enough that he could feel her hot breath on him. “Let’s say that if you fall asleep or take ten minutes or more to get going again, you forfeit.”
“Well, that’s hardly fair,” he growled.
“It is a game rigged in my favor,” Madigan admitted with a teasing smile. “But it’ll make it so much sweeter if you win.”
“When I win,” Sal growled in response. He placed his hands on her shoulders and pushed her roughly onto her back. She squealed with delight. “And you never said that I can’t rig the odds in my favor either.”
He tugged her towel free and left her completely naked on his bed as he dropped to his knees between her spread thighs and leaned in hungrily to kiss at her lower lips. While he had a certain confidence in his stamina, that didn’t mean that he would simply go for it without tipping the scales in his favor.
“Oh…fuck!” Sal gasped and ran his hands over her back as his hips bucked against her again and again. He’d left a couple of handprints on her ass and they were still red, so he might as well give her a rest there. A light sheen of sweat coated his skin, which was a sight better than the sweat that dripped from Madigan.
She was thoroughly drenched, he thought, and pulled out of her. She dropped to the bed, and her thighs shuddered as she rolled onto her back.
“Five,” she declared and looked at him with a determined expression on her face. “Is that…” Her voice trailed off as an aftershock from her last orgasm rippled through her body. “Is that all you got, Jacobs?”
Sal grinned. She looked like she was a bare step-and-a-half from done, but then again, he was the one who did most of the work, at least after her second orgasm. After she’d coated his cock with her cum, she had been more than willing to let him take the reins in their time together.
“Where have you hidden all that?” she asked when she saw he was still hard and even now, simply watched while he waited for her to recover instead of the other way around.
“I’m a geek, remember?” he said with a grin, only slightly out of breath. “All I think about is sex and science, and not necessarily in that order. Ready to go again?”
She grinned and gritted her teeth as he took hold of her ankles, dragged her back toward him, and spread her thighs for his hips.
“I haven’t conceded yet,” Madigan panted, and her eyes closed momentarily with a sweet feeling of relief. She looked at Sal, who had withdrawn after he rode her from behind in her prone position on the bed. It was obvious that she had long since given up on her ability to take any kind of control for now. Sal had felt her go limp a few times, but she simply insisted that she’d needed a moment to recover.
“Well, we are in double digits now.” He grinned. A healthy burn started in his muscles, and he’d lost count of how many times she had climaxed as he’d had a hard time staying focused himself. “Nobody would blame you if you called it.”
“Nope,” she retorted and pushed away from the bed. “I only need a quick…break.”
“The ten-minute rule applies to you too,” Sal said. “Remember that.”
He allowed himself the pleasure of watching her leave. She had a fantastic ass, toned and muscular and yet with a delicious amount of give that he’d tested more than a few times tonight. Even so, his eyes were drawn to the way she walked for the first few steps—like she ached between her thighs. She paused and realized that he was watching, straightened, and now walked normally though significantly slower.
It was tonight by now, he realized. The shades were drawn on the windows, but no light penetrated anymore. He’d left his watch and anything else that might tell the time on the other side of the room, and right now, he needed to conserve his strength.
“I just might have this,” Sal said aloud and smirked as he tucked his hands under his head.
“It’s…not…normal,” Madigan gasped, her words broken with each thrust as Sal pushed himself inside her. He had begun to flag, he knew. There were other matters to consider aside from his sexual stamina, among which—and probably more importantly—was his physical stamina. He was still rock hard, he realized, even after going two more times, but there was a price to pay for fucking for…however many hours that they’d been at this. He still wasn’t sure. It could be hours from sunset or minutes. All he knew for sure was that the sun had been shining when they’d started.
“I can keep going for hours,” he said and decided he would no longer give her the usual pause between orgasms. He would keep going until she gave up or he dropped. In all honesty, he thought he had at least one more round in him, but she didn’t.
Finally, she patted the bed and then his arm, which he had pressed into the sheets beside her shoulder. “I’m tapping out, Sal.”
“Say what?” He kept going.
“Please…just…enough…” Her eyes closed and her hand fell back on the sheet as he slowed gently to a halt.
Sal grinned and leaned forward to place a light kiss on her lips. “I won
’t stop until you say it.”
Madigan shoved her hands between them to push against his hips in an effort to prevent him from thrusting inside her again. “Please…no. You win, you win. I…can’t. Fuck…”
She called it, he thought as he pulled himself from her drenched pussy and brushed her clit gently with his thumb. Her thighs closed instinctively and a shudder ran through her body.
“Holy fuck,” she gasped, her eyes wide as he moved across and dropped onto the bed beside her. She lay there for a few moments and stared at the ceiling, her arms stretched above her head and thighs as he’d left them like she didn’t have the strength to do anything for the moment.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said.
She glanced at him with something between amazement and annoyance in her eyes before she groaned and turned on her side to face him.
“What the actual fuck?” she protested, her voice rough. “What did you eat for breakfast today? Viagra-frosted cornflakes?”
Sal smirked. He’d actually never even seen one of those pop-culture famous blue pills, and considering that they’d both eaten the same breakfast in the Russians’ mess hall that morning, it was a moot point, but still. His scientific mind told him that it wasn’t even a possibility—unless the Russians sprinkled it into everything they served—but he did suspect that another blue substance was to blame.
“If you think I’ll give you the satisfaction of walking out of here bow-legged, you have another think coming,” she added and leaned in to kiss him gently on the lips. “I’m spending the rest of the night here, Super Sex Man, and if you’d rather not sleep with me, you can go ahead and use my room. The sheets are probably less…messy there anyway.”
“I’m fine here,” he said with a smile, but she didn’t wait for an answer. She merely rolled over and pulled the covers from the floor where they’d been pushed off the bed in their throes of passion. After a second, she shared them with him.