by L. A. Witt
“Yeah? How’s that?”
“Because it was the first time in my life something ever had real consequences.” He turned slightly so he was looking up at me. “You know, besides an ass-chewing or a threat for a punishment that never happened.”
“Your dad wasn’t strict?”
Dalton shrugged, facing the water. “I was the youngest of four being raised by a stressed-out grieving widower. Everyone felt sorry for us kids, especially me because I never knew my mom, so they kind of spoiled us. Or were just too exhausted or whatever to put in the effort, you know?”
I nodded.
“So when we screwed up, it didn’t matter. Or it didn’t matter as much as it should have. That was why I had to go into the Navy in the first place. My grades were so bad I only graduated by the skin of my teeth, and about the only thing I had going for me was that I had no criminal record and could run.” He gave a soft, sheepish laugh. “Those last two things are, uh, not exactly unrelated.”
I laughed louder than I’d intended and clapped a hand over my mouth. The mental image of a young punk version of Dalton running like hell to evade some small-town pudgy-ass Midwestern cop was a lot funnier than I’d expected.
He elbowed me playfully. “It’s not that funny.”
“Actually, it is. It really is.”
“Shut up.” He was chuckling too, though. After a moment, he went on. “So yeah—I spent my whole life convinced that rules were suggestions or outright challenges. Then I fucked up good and found myself standing at attention in front of the CO. And I mean, it’s one thing to get chewed out by your dad or the principal for the hundredth time. Especially when they’ve reached the point where they know you’re going to do it again so they’re just wasting their breath.” He lifted his chin so he could look at me. “You ever been glared at by a pissed-off captain?”
“Can’t say I have, no.”
“That shit is intimidating. Like . . . holy fuck.”
I chuckled. “I believe it. My last CO was intimidating even when he wasn’t pissed off.”
“Yeah, mine too. And the more I explained what I’d done and why, the more pissed he got, and the more terrified I was. And I remember standing there thinking, ‘Oh shit, there’s no getting out of this one. This guy literally has the power to kick me out of the Navy if he wants to, and then what do I do?’”
“So what happened?”
“I . . .” He sighed, and his cheeks turned a little pink. “I went from cocky punk asshole to scared little kid. I swear, I almost cried. And I think he saw it. So he told me in no uncertain terms that he could strip me of a rank, dock my pay for a couple of months, and put me on restriction so I couldn’t leave the ship when we were in port, but he understood that I obviously realized I’d fucked up, and he had faith that I would get my shit together.” He paused, smirking. “And then he stripped me of a rank, docked my pay for a couple of months, and put me on restriction. Because, as he put it, he didn’t have that much faith that I’d get my shit together.”
I laughed. “That sounds like a CO.”
“Yeah.” Dalton chuckled. “It sucked, but it straightened me out.” He sighed, and his humor faded. “Now if it would just stop biting me in the ass at every turn . . .”
“Shouldn’t something like that be off your evals by now?”
“Oh it is. And no one’s ever officially said that it’s hurt my chances at advancement, but come on—I’m not stupid. It’s just like how us being older and with more years of service without advancing shouldn’t hurt us, but we know it does.”
I grimaced. “Yeah. But still—how many people even know about what happened back then?”
“Too many. The MA rate is tiny and incestuous. People know about what happened, and they think if someone has ever gotten in enough trouble to lose a rank, they’re not fit to be promoted.” He shrugged tightly. “It is what it is. I just have to make sure my PT and exam scores are high enough to blur whatever bullshit comes through on my eval, you know?”
I nodded. It blew my mind, hearing him talk about that part of his past. It was hard for me to imagine the guy Dalton had been before. By the time we’d met, he’d already turned into the professional, focused Sailor he was now.
Sometimes I wished we’d met sooner, because my life was so much better with him in it. On the other hand, maybe it was for the best that we’d both been quite a few years into our careers before our paths had crossed. We might not have been friends otherwise.
Watching my fingers trail up and down his arm, I thought, We wouldn’t have been this either.
“You ever get in trouble since you’ve been in?” he asked.
I barked a laugh. “Oh, fuck no.”
“What? Never?”
“No.” I shook my head. “My whole life was the opposite of yours—I knew damn well if I got in trouble, I could fuck up my parents’ careers.”
Dalton snickered. “Did your folks use MAs to keep you in line?”
“You know they did.”
He burst out laughing. “Oh, man. I would’ve been so much less of a dick as a kid if my dad could’ve done that.”
“Yeah, but you wouldn’t be as fun.”
“Tell that to my dad. The man’s almost completely gray, and I’m pretty sure I had something to do with that.”
“Eh.” I shrugged. “My dad says he’s bald because of me and my sister.”
“Thought you didn’t get into trouble.”
“Not the kind of trouble that got teachers or cops involved, but that don’t mean we weren’t a handful.”
Dalton snorted. “Somehow, I’m not surprised.”
“Ass.”
We both laughed, and comfortable silence set in again. When his phone beeped, we both swore. Didn’t even have to look to know what that was about.
Dalton took it out, turned off the alarm, and sat up. “Guess we should go get ready for work.”
“Yeah. Guess so.”
He stood and offered me an arm. I took it. Once I was on my feet, I put my hands on his hips and drew him in. “You going to be okay at work?”
He sighed, chewing the inside of his cheek and looking away. “I don’t know. It’s . . . rough, you know?” His Adam’s apple jumped. “I have no idea how to deal with being afraid of the water. Part of me knows it’s just a reaction to what happened and I’ll get over it, but that part of me is fucking silent when I actually step out on a boat.”
“I believe it.” I smoothed his hair. “You gotta give yourself time, though.”
“I know. But the Navy isn’t going to give me much.” He huffed, then quietly added, “Lasby sure as fuck isn’t.”
“It ain’t his decision.”
“It’s his decision what goes in my eval.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and bit back some cursing. He’d told me about the shit Lasby had put in his head. And the fucked-up thing was I couldn’t tell him Chief was blowing smoke. Because he wasn’t.
Dalton ran his hand up my chest. “I know I’ll get over it. It’s just a question of when. I mean, my brother got in a bad car accident when he was twenty. He’s been driving since he was fourteen and never thought anything of it, but after that?” I shook my head. “Took him a long, long time to be comfortable on the road again.”
“But he got there, right?”
Dalton nodded.
“So will you.” I kissed him softly. “Just let yourself recover right now, you know? If you’re off the water for months on end, yeah, it might hurt your eval. But we’re probably talking a few more weeks at most. You’re already getting better, so don’t push yourself so hard.”
“I won’t. And . . . thanks. For listening. I’ll be bitching about this stuff for a while, guaranteed.”
“It’s okay.” I smirked. “If it’s too much, I’ll just shove my dick in your mouth.”
Dalton threw his head back and laughed, the sound carrying along the deserted beach. God, I loved when he smiled like that.
Eyes sparkling
, he met my gaze again. “Now I might bitch about it just to see how long it takes you to whip it out and shut me up.”
“Uh-huh.” I wrapped an arm around his waist and, as we started for the car, added, “I wouldn’t put that past you at all.”
He laughed and leaned into me, and we kept on walking.
We had the next day off, so when we wandered down to the beach again, there was no hurry and no alarms set on our phones to make sure we didn’t stay too long. If we ended up here until the sun went down, fine. I had Chris, a gorgeous beach, and nowhere else to be. It was perfect. There was a good chance we’d wind up in his bed later too—I hadn’t slept in my barracks room in days.
So why did I feel like shit?
Oh right—because the advancement exam was fucking tomorrow.
I shivered like a cold wind had suddenly smacked into me.
The exam. Tomorrow. Shit.
My concentration was improving. I had to fill out reams of paperwork as part of my job, and my brain was finally starting to level out enough to focus on those things. I could count out change without any problem. I could drive again. Chris and I had even started playing on the Xbox, and I could handle that as long as I stopped when I got a headache.
So in theory, I’d be fine tomorrow. I was just worried because so much was riding on it.
“Hey.” Chris elbowed me as we walked along the high-tide line. “You’re somewhere else today.”
“Yeah, I know.” I paused to scoop up a small rock, and I played with it, turning it over between my fingers like it might soak up some of this nervous energy. “I’m just freaking out about tomorrow, and I still don’t know what to do about my job.” I tossed the rock into the surf, before I stopped walking and turned to Chris. “I mean, I’m a Sailor and a coxswain. It’s what I do.”
He wrapped his arm around my waist. “We talked about this. You’ve got time. It hasn’t even been that long.”
“No, but . . .” I glanced warily at the ocean before looking up at him again. “I won’t lie—I’m scared.”
Chris nodded. He cupped my cheek and kissed me lightly. “Anyone would be. I’d be worried if you weren’t. Yeah, it’ll take some time to get used to being on the water again, but you’ll get there. I know you will.”
“And probably just in time for the Navy to show me to the door.”
“Hey. Hey. Don’t talk like that.” He brushed his thumb along my cheekbone. “Your last eval was solid as fuck, your PT scores are all outstanding, and you’ll nail the exam tomorrow.”
I sighed and covered his hand with mine, wishing like hell some of his enthusiasm would transfer through that contact.
“You’ll be fine,” he insisted. He pulled me in for a soft kiss. “Come on. Let’s sit down for a bit.”
I didn’t protest. If there was anything that could relax me, it was sitting on the beach with Chris’s arms around me. So, I sat on the sand and toed off my sneakers. It was chilly today, but not cold. Oregon didn’t get cold like Nebraska did, so this was comfortable for me.
Chris took off his shoes and socks, then moved behind me. When he sat down, he was straddling me like he usually did. Sometimes he leaned on me, but this seemed to be our default setting. Worked for me, and I didn’t hear him objecting.
A gentle hand tugged my shoulder back, and I leaned against his chest. Didn’t matter how many times we did this—I loved it. We didn’t talk for a while, and that was okay. I liked just leaning against him. His presence was warm and solid, and I loved the way his arms felt when they were loosely wrapped around me like this. Sometimes he’d run his fingers through my hair or trail one down my arm, and those little touches gave me goose bumps.
This was something I’d never had with a boyfriend before. Maybe because I’d never dated a friend. I was friends with a lot of my exes, but we’d always started out as a couple—or at least a hookup—then split up and become friends like Diego and I had. This thing with Chris . . . this was new. We were already comfortable with each other. Had been since long before I even knew he was gay or anything got physical. Segueing from friends to more than friends had been so effortless, I couldn’t explain why it hadn’t happened ages ago. Everything was relaxed. We weren’t self-conscious together, which was probably why the sex came easy and the cuddling seemed so normal. Why we’d gone from totally platonic to casually touching without batting an eye.
He pressed a kiss to my temple. “You’ll get there, you know. Back to being confident on the water.”
I closed my eyes. My thoughts had been drifting to us instead of all the reasons I didn’t want to return to the water. “I know. I’m just not looking forward to what it’s going to take to get there.”
He gave a soft, sympathetic grunt. “It’s gonna take time. I know the brass want to write it off as you just going for a swim, but something like that’s traumatic. It’s going to affect you for a while.” His arm tightened subtly, almost imperceptibly, across my chest. “Like I said, I’d be worried if it didn’t fuck you up.”
I didn’t reply, and we both let the subject drop. It was our day off—no point in getting worked up over shit we couldn’t control. Especially not while we were lounging together on a beach.
He held me closer, and as I nestled back against him, the incident and my fear of water couldn’t hold my thoughts anymore. I was too caught up in the firm, warm presence of Chris behind me. My body was obviously healing because my libido had come back in full force, and now just touching Chris was enough to get me fired up. I took a few slow breaths, hoping he didn’t glance down and notice the swelling bulge below my belt. I couldn’t help it—I had Chris, and Chris turned me on, and goddamn it felt good. Even that sort-of-frustrating feeling of getting randomly horny in a place where I couldn’t do anything about it.
Chris leaned down and kissed my cheek, then behind my ear. A shiver went through me, and there was no way he didn’t feel it. When he kissed that spot again, there was something a little more deliberate about the touch. Something that was echoed in the way his arms were tightening around me. I sucked in a breath as his lips skated along my hairline.
“You have any idea,” he murmured against my skin, “how hard it is not to get turned on around you?”
I guided his hand down to the front of my jeans. “Mmm, I think I can relate.”
He released a soft breath across my skin, then started kissing his way down the side of my neck while he squeezed and teased my erection through my jeans. “Can’t help it. Get my hands on you, and that’s all she wrote.”
“Know . . . know the feeling.” Goose bumps were covering every inch of my skin, and I was dizzy. The good kind of dizzy. The I want you so bad it hurts kind of dizzy.
Chris shifted a little to one side. I shifted to the other, so now I had my back against his thigh and was sort of facing him. Much better—now I had all kinds of access without straining my neck. Access to his mouth with my own, and also to the front of his pants with my hand. He groaned into my kiss as I started undoing his zipper. He kneaded me through my pants, and as soon as I had my fingers around his cock, he started on my zipper.
“Does this count as sex on the beach?” he asked between messy kisses.
“I don’t care what it counts as.” I moaned as he freed my dick from my pants. “Just don’t stop.”
“Stop? No way.” He nipped my lower lip and started stroking me.
“Oh God.” I shivered, then buried my face in his neck, kissing his skin as we pumped each other’s cocks. Since when was a simple, mostly dressed handjob this hot?
Since you started hooking up with Chris. That’s when.
My toes curled and I moaned against his neck. That was it, wasn’t it? There was sex, and there was sex with Chris, and when he was involved, we didn’t have to be doing much for me to go crazy. I loved how he kissed, the things he did with his hands, the way he fucked me when we were in bed, and yeah, even just jerking each other off on a beach with our clothes on was so . . . insanely . . . s
exy.
“Gonna come.” His voice vibrated against my lips.
“M-me too.” I let my teeth graze his skin, which made him shudder and grip my dick even tighter. “God, yeah . . .”
“Fuck, D . . .” He stroked me faster, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to come quite yet because this felt so good and I didn’t want it to be—
“Oh God!” My whole body jerked. His strokes were instantly slick and hot, and my eyes rolled back as he kept on pumping me. I couldn’t help sinking my teeth into his shoulder and right then he was coming too, and that moan he let go was almost as hot to my ears as the thrumming was against my mouth.
We both relaxed, exhaling in unison.
“If this is going to start happening when we walk on the beach,” I slurred, “I say we come down here every day.”
“We already do.” Chris laughed, nuzzling my cheek. “And I mean, we don’t have to walk on the beach. Anytime, anyplace, you just say the word.”
I bit my lip and squirmed with what might’ve been an aftershock from that awesome orgasm. “Careful what you wish for.”
He laughed. “You know,” he breathed, “if we leave now, by the time we get back to my place, I bet we’ll be ready to go again.”
I grinned. “Is that a challenge?”
“No. Just a suggestion that maybe we should leave. Like now.”
I pushed Dalton up against my apartment door, and we kept right on kissing while I fumbled with my keys. It took some doing, but I got the key into the lock, turned it, and—after putting an arm around him to keep him upright—opened the door. He walked in backwards, our feet brushing but somehow not getting tangled, and I kicked the door shut behind us.
“If I’d known it would be like this,” I said between kisses, “I’d have told you I was gay the day I met you.”
Dalton laughed, sliding his hands over my hips. “Guess we’ll just have to make up for lost time, right?”