by L. A. Witt
“Mmm, I like the way you think. C’mon. Bedroom.”
We separated enough to get down the hall, and we left a trail of shirts, shoes, socks, and jeans behind us. By the time we made it to the bed, we were both wearing nothing but drawers, and those were gone about two seconds later.
Fooling around on the beach had been hot. Tangling up naked on my bed? Oh fuck yeah. No clothes in the way. No one to stumble in and bust us. Just Dalton’s body pressed up against mine, hands all over each other, and mouths going to town like we hadn’t kissed in years.
I loved how much Dalton loved kissing. I didn’t even mind the nights when we set out to fuck and wound up jerking each other off instead because getting lube meant we had to stop kissing. The way he was kissing me now, I could see that happening again, except not tonight—I’d already had his hand, and now I wanted his ass.
In a minute.
Right now . . . God. He had a hand on the back of my head, fingers twitching against my hair, and he was teasing my tongue with his, and . . . Oh Jesus, I loved this. Everything else going on in our world was messed up and wrong, but this? Fuck, this was right. So right I still couldn’t help asking myself every single time why we’d taken so long to get to this point. It just made sense.
“There’s still lube in that bottle, right?” he murmured between kisses.
I glanced over at the bottle we’d almost used up, and saw there was still some left. “Yeah. We’ll need to get some tomorrow, though.”
“Fine. Fine. Just . . . long as there’s enough for right now.”
“Mm-hmm. Plenty.” I kissed him again. I wasn’t in a hurry to get to the lube. Except I kind of was. But I wasn’t. Damn, I could never decide—spend half the night on foreplay or get right to fucking him?
“C’mon, baby,” he whispered, barely breaking the kiss. “Want . . . want you. Now.”
Well that made the decision a hell of a lot easier. I kissed him one more time, then pushed myself up. “Turn over.”
Dalton grinned. Then he rolled onto his stomach, and I couldn’t get the lube on quick enough. Most guys I’d been with liked switching, but Dalton seemed to love bottoming. I wasn’t going to argue with him—not when he was enjoying it so much, and not when it felt so damn good to be in him. Especially since we’d gotten the all clear from medical and didn’t have to use rubbers anymore.
I positioned myself over him and guided myself to his hole. Dalton whimpered softly as I pushed in.
“You okay?” I asked.
Another whimper, this one very clearly a happy sound.
As he relaxed, taking me more easily, I stared down and watched myself slide in and out. Watched my hands on his ass cheeks, then running up his back, over his tattoo, back down, then on his ass again. I loved how it was so easy to see where one of us ended and the other started—dark as I was and light as he was, there was no mistaking who was who. Something about it—about seeing my hands on Dalton’s body and my dick moving in him—was too fucking hot for words.
The muscles in his back rippled with the shudder running up his spine, and we both groaned as he tightened around me. “God, you feel good,” he groaned.
“You feel amazing.” I kneaded his ass as I fucked him slowly.
“I can . . .” He looked over his shoulder, hunger written all over his face. “I can take it hard.”
“Yeah? You sure?”
“Uh-huh. C’mon.” He rocked his hips like he could get mine to move. “C’mon.”
Grinning, I moved a little faster. Then faster. Then I slammed into him, and he clawed at the edge of the mattress as his back arched.
“More!” The pillow muffled his voice, but not the hunger, and I gave him more. “Don’t stop,” he pleaded. “Oh God, Chris, don’t stop.”
I gritted my teeth and fucked him as hard as I could. Hard enough it smarted every time my hips smacked into his ass. Hard enough to make him yelp and gasp—Jesus, fucking him like this brought sounds out of him I’d never heard before. Strangled, helpless moan-sobs that were almost curses.
And maybe some of those were coming from me because I’d never felt this good in my life. The hot, slick heat around my dick. The gorgeous man under me, begging for more. The orgasm building fast like my body had completely forgotten I’d come in the last hour. The utter fucking bliss of riding Dalton hard while he cried out and moaned like it was the most amazing thing he’d ever felt.
Then a shudder ran through him, jolting him forward and making him clench around me. He sucked in a breath, shuddered again, and whimpered helplessly with the force of his second orgasm of the night. I rode it out, trying to hold my own back, but there was nothing in the world hotter than Dalton in the throes of an orgasm, especially when we both knew it was one I’d given him, and I followed him right over the edge. I roared as I forced myself as deep as he could take me, and I unloaded inside him as we both shook and moaned.
I collapsed over him. He sighed under me. I managed to pull out, but I couldn’t find the willpower to get off him, though I did hold myself up enough that he could still breathe.
As he caught his breath, he murmured, “Probably good we didn’t do this part out on the beach.”
I laughed and burrowed against the warm skin of his neck. “We’d go to jail unless I could figure out how to keep you quiet.”
His laugh was a drunken, sleepy sound. “Sounds kind of hot when you put it like that.”
“Of course it does.” I kissed his neck and finally managed to flop onto my back next to him. After a few more minutes of coming back down, we cleaned ourselves up, then dropped right back onto the bed.
I had no idea how long we lay there, just relaxing on top of the rumpled sheets. Somehow, I didn’t doze off. That was saying something, considering how relaxed I was after he’d gotten me off twice.
Eventually, Dalton rolled onto his side, facing me, and I mirrored him. I’d expected him to be half-asleep, but there was something unexpectedly intense in his expression. Like he’d been deep in thought while I’d been drifting on a post-sex high.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing. I’m just thinking.”
“What about?”
He searched my eyes, biting his lip. “It’s, um . . .” He hesitated, then finally draped his arm over me as he said, “I don’t . . . I don’t think I want just sex from you.”
I swallowed. “So, like, a relationship?”
Dalton hesitated, but then he nodded, his stubble hissing across the pillowcase. “I don’t usually do casual anyway, but to be honest, it kind of feels like . . .” He bit his lip.
“Like, what?” I nudged.
Pulling in a deep breath, he touched my face, and his expression was so serious, it made my heart thunder. He watched his thumb tracing my cheekbone. “Kind of feels like a relationship is what we’ve been doing all this time. Like we added this part as an afterthought.”
I was already nodding before he’d even finished saying it. “Yeah. Yeah, I think you’re right. Makes me feel like an idiot for not coming out to you sooner.” I smoothed his hair. “Could’ve been doing this months ago.”
He laughed, cuddling closer to me. “Better late than never, right?”
“True.” I kissed him softly. Dalton as my boyfriend? Fuck yes. Fuck yes! It really did feel like we’d been doing this all along, but actually saying it out loud? Fuck. Yes.
As I settled back on the pillow, though, another thought worked its way in, and I couldn’t help frowning. “This might make things kind of hairy at work if one of us gets promoted and the other doesn’t.”
Dalton scowled. “I know. Especially if Anderson gets kicked out of Harbor. First person to make MA1 is going to end up LPO of the duty section.”
I nodded. Neither of us said it, but he knew the regs as well as I did. If we were peers, dating was no big deal. If one of us suddenly outranked the other, that got muddier. If one of us became lead petty officer, that was a whole new bucket of shit. There was no wa
y we could stay in the same duty section if that happened. Which sucked, but at least we’d be able to keep dating. All we’d have to do was swap with someone else. One of us would work nights, the other would work days, and we’d wedge in a relationship during our days off.
“We’ll make it work one way or the other.” I ran my hand up and down his back. “Let’s get through the exam, see what happens, and go from there.”
Dalton nodded. “Good idea.”
“And for tonight . . .” I trailed my fingers down his side. “You want to stay here?”
Dalton grinned. “You know if I do, we’ll be up half the night.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It’s not, but we do have the exam at ass thirty in the morning.”
“Mm-hmm.” I curved my hands down over his ass and gave each cheek a firm squeeze. “And we’ll get some sleep. But I really want to fuck you again.”
Dalton sucked in a sharp breath and squirmed against me. “Well, damn. When you put it like that . . .”
I laughed. “Thought you’d see it my way. And as long as it’s lights out by 2200, we’ll be fine. That gives us plenty of time.”
“It does. A few hours at least.”
“Mmm.” I dipped my head to kiss his throat. “I think I can work with that.”
Dalton laughed drunkenly, cradling the back of my head as he stretched his neck, exposing more skin. “You’re gonna get me all fired up again.”
“Am I?” I nipped his jaw. “What a shame.”
We spent most of the evening in bed having lazy sex until neither of us could move anymore and then lying there talking or dozing. We got up long enough to hunt down something to eat. Then we wound up right back between the sheets, kissing and playing around but not getting much further than that because holy fuck, a man could only come so many times. Once we were completely wrung out and exhausted—and we’d triple-checked our alarms were set to get us up stupidly early—we settled in to go to sleep.
He was out in no time. I stayed awake for a little while, mostly running through everything we’d talked about earlier. I was nervous about the exam and both of our chances at getting promoted, and the investigation that had inexplicably gone quiet nagged at me. But I felt better than I had recently. If there’d been evidence of wrongdoing, the investigation would’ve heated up. If going quiet meant Anderson was getting off with a slap on the wrist, I didn’t like it, but I could live with it as long as Dalton and Rhodes could move on.
I cuddled closer to Dalton and kissed the back of his shoulder.
We’d be okay. Careers. Relationship. Dalton’s injuries. Yeah—it was all good. Nothing to worry about now except getting those promotions. And we’d both been studying for the exam for months. Dalton seemed to have his head back together from the concussion. He wasn’t a hundred percent yet but enough to sit for an exam he’d already taken half a dozen times and had been studying for since October.
Yeah. We’d be all right.
I kissed his shoulder again, then closed my eyes and let sleep come and get me.
And for the first time since Dalton’s accident, I didn’t dream.
An advancement exam was a miserable thing. It was like taking the SAT, except it was all military related. And the Navy was fucking cruel about it—not only did it start at 0730, even for those of us who worked nights, but they didn’t let us bring in our goddamned coffee. As far as I was concerned, that was a hell of an oversight of the Geneva Conventions.
There was nothing that said we couldn’t load up on caffeine beforehand, though, so Chris and I swung into the Starbucks drive-thru on the way to base. Once we had our coffee, we sipped happily while we waited in the long, slow crawl to get to the gate.
The coffee hadn’t even started to kick in, but I was jittery. Nerves had me almost vibrating. I couldn’t decide if that meant the coffee was a good idea or a colossally bad one, but hopefully my heart could take it.
“Hey.” Chris nudged me as he put his cup in the holder. “You’re twitchy.”
“Can’t imagine why,” I muttered into my own cup. “No pressure or anything, right?”
“No point in being nervous.” He gave my shoulder a friendly squeeze. “You know this shit inside and out. We’ve been studying for months.”
“Yeah, and I had my brain knocked around in my skull.”
His smile faded, and he looked at me with palpable concern. “I thought your head was doing better.”
“It is. It’s a lot better. But sometimes I still have to really think about things I know I know. Like how to pull up a contact on my phone or where I put my razor when it’s right in front of me.”
“Just take your time.” He put his hand over mine. “You know how it is. They give us a ton of time for the exam, and we both usually finish with an hour or two to spare. There’s no shame in using all that time if you need it.” He glanced at me and smiled. “We’ve got this.”
I smiled back. It was tempting to lean across the console and steal a kiss, but I didn’t dare. Not out here in the open, with cameras and our peers everywhere. I decided that a long look would hold me over, though. Chris’s smile made my spine tingle; I knew exactly how we’d be celebrating after we were done with the exam.
He parked outside the security building. Coffee in hand, we headed inside. Downstairs, signs directed anyone taking the MA1 exam to classroom three.
My nerves weren’t getting any better, but I took Chris’s advice to heart. We had this. We both knew our shit. Even with my bell rung, I knew this stuff, and as long as I cut myself some slack and took some extra time, I’d be okay.
We were almost to the door when a voice stopped us in our tracks.
“MA2.”
We both turned, as did three other MA2s loitering in the hallway, and my gut clenched at the sight of Chief Lasby. Especially since he was looking right at me.
He beckoned sharply. “Can I talk to you for a minute, Taylor?”
I chewed the inside of my lip. When a chief asked if he could talk to you, it was as good as an order to drop everything and listen. So I nodded. “Yes, Chief.”
Beside me, Chris shifted his weight. I glanced at him and gave a subtle nod toward the classroom. He nodded back before he kept walking. At the door, he tossed his coffee cup in the trash, then went inside. The other MAs quickly made themselves scarce too.
And I was alone in the hallway with Chief Lasby.
“I’m glad I caught you, MA2.” His eyes darted back and forth as if he wanted to make sure we were absolutely alone. Then he dropped his voice. “Listen, Big Navy wants to dig deeper into what happened. They’re classifying it as a Bravo-class mishap, and they want a more thorough investigation.”
A chill ran through me. I was well aware of how serious the incident had been, but the Bravo-class label was yet another reminder of how bad it could have been if the waves had been slightly higher or the water slightly colder or if the rescue attempts had taken even a few minutes longer. How easily the boat, the cold, or the water could’ve killed me or Rhodes and upgraded the whole thing one measly step to an Alpha class. I shuddered.
“Okay,” I croaked, my mouth suddenly dry. “So what happens next?”
“What happens next is there’s an investigator coming in who wants to talk to you, Rhodes, and Anderson.”
My stomach had already been a ball of nerves because of the exam. Now it felt similar to how it had right before the concussion had had me puking my guts out. “When?”
“He flew in last night. He’s expecting you today at 1100.”
I very nearly launched my meager breakfast onto Chief Lasby’s boots. Today? Right after the exam? “Uh. Oh. Okay.”
“He’ll be waiting for you in my office.”
Good thing I was already in uniform. “Yeah. Okay. Will do, Chief.”
He nodded sharply. “And remember, just tell him what happened as best you can remember.” His brow pinched. “Nobody’s expecting your memory to be comple
tely clear. Not after that bang on the head.”
“No, I remember clearly.”
He studied me, his unspoken skepticism making my skin crawl. I did remember. Didn’t I? There were bits and pieces that were hazy, but I remembered the important things. Right?
Chief Lasby put a heavy hand on my shoulder. “This is serious, MA2. Don’t try to fill in gaps you don’t remember clearly. Just tell them what you know for certain.” His hand seemed heavier. “You don’t want anyone taking the fall for something you think you remember. The Navy doesn’t like to let things go as accidents, and the investigators will be looking for someone to blame.”
But there is someone to—
My blood turned cold.
I swallowed.
“We’re all on the same team, right?” Lasby went on. “Sailors look out for each other. MA1 Anderson already talked to him, and he assured me he didn’t throw you or Rhodes under the bus.”
“Under the—” Well apparently I didn’t need any more caffeine. I was wide-awake now. “With all due respect, under the bus for what?”
Lasby’s features hardened, and his eyes bore right into me. “We discussed this, MA2. You had a responsibility on that boat.”
My jaw fell open. “And I was outranked by the coxswain.”
He glared at me. “Look, if you’re going to pull off being an MA1 yourself, you’re going to need to learn when to step up and own your responsibility. MA1 Anderson outranks you, but as the only Level II coxswain on the boat, you had a responsibility too.”
“I . . .” I gaped at him. “I told him a dozen times we shouldn’t go out there. When we hit the nets, I was literally on my way to tell him again.”
Lasby lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes. “So you weren’t watching over the bow anymore.”
“No! I couldn’t see a damn thing anyway, and I was trying to tell him to take us back into the harbor so we—”
“So you weren’t looking when you could have seen those fish nets.”
I blinked. “In those conditions? Even if I’d been looking right then, we can barely see the nets in clear, calm water.”