by Anne Marsh
I give it to her hard and fast from behind, my hips slapping into her ass, my mouth exploring the side of her neck, her ear, any inch I can reach. She makes the sexiest whimpers, moaning out bits and pieces of instructions and other words that might be in English—or Swahili for all I can fucking tell, because she’s lost with me in this moment.
And while I pound into her, whispering how beautiful she is and how hot she makes me, my hands are busy. I run my free hand over her gorgeous tits, teasing the nipples, and then lower. Kneading her stomach before slipping into paradise. There’s no space between us, because I’m filling her up and she’s demanding more, but she groans when I find her clit.
“Dios, yes,” she breathes. And before I can make her scream my name, she’s coming. This is how I love her, tight and slick, her body holding onto me as she gives into the pleasure and gives up control. Her pussy clenches, squeezing me hard, and I can’t hold back either. Don’t want to. There’s nothing but a condom between us, and that doesn’t count. It’s just me and Vali. Vali and me. Fuck if I know where I end and she begins, but when I come, there’s no more thinking—only feeling.
The water’s starting to run cold by the time we stagger to the bed for round two. Ten minutes and four kisses later, she straddles me like a cowgirl, and I know she’s the perfect woman for me.
I cup her tits, massaging the sweet, firm curves. “Do you know how gorgeous you are? How much I’ve wanted this?”
Something flashes across her face. More ghost riders, maybe, because she looks a little sad for a few seconds, and then she presses those magnificent tits of hers into my greedy palms.
She watches me from her perfect perch on top of my dick. “You like my tits?”
My reaction to her mouth forming those dirty, dirty words should be illegal. “Fuck, yeah.”
I’m no poet. If she wants anything but heartfelt appreciation, I’m not her guy.
“Good.” Satisfaction fills her voice, but then it gets better. She swings around and palms my dick. I now have a prime view of her gorgeous ass—and everything in between. She leans down and sucks my dick into her mouth.
Jesus. Christ.
It takes me a couple of seconds to breathe, to overcome the urge to flip her onto her back and drive into her hard. She rises and falls, her ass counting the beats as she sucks me. I’m suddenly way too close to coming—and it’s ladies first and always in my book.
Whatever she wants, I give it to her. That’s the only job I’ve got here, my only mission, and I’m not screwing it up. I run my hands down her back, cupping the round apple of her butt. The white lines from her bikini are a road map I’d be crazy to ignore. When I drag my palms over those sweet curves, tugging her up and back, she arches into my touch.
That’s all the invitation I need. I pull her ass back and plant my face in her pussy. She tastes like all my favorite flavors, so I drag my tongue through her sensitive folds. Time kinda stands still—or speeds the fuck up because this could last forever as far as I’m concerned—while she takes me in her mouth and I eat her like a starving man. She moans around my dick, and I’m groaning against her sensitive places, and we find a rhythm together that’s urgent and intimate. So. Fucking. Good.
When neither of us can wait any longer, she shifts and I turn her around. I love watching her face, the way her mouth softens and her eyes can’t stop looking at me. It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen, Vali on the edge of coming, waiting for me to give her that nudge over. She helps me roll on a new condom—I’m not making her ask awkward questions about where I’ve been or with whom. I’m clean and I’m careful, but even so her safety comes first.
And then she seats herself on my dick in one swift, hard move—hello, cowgirl fantasy—and my eyes might roll back in my head. I move in and out of her, my fingers hanging onto her hips, her hands braced on my shoulders. Her gorgeous tits bounce in the air between us, and I can’t believe she’s here. With me. A fucked up, used up SEAL. Somehow, I won the cosmic lottery. And that’s the thought I hang onto as we move together, our bodies reaching out for each other, until we’re coming. Together.
When she collapses, I catch her, rolling her underneath me. Something that good, how can you not want to do it again? She winds her arms around me, her face buried in my chest. I can feel her lips moving, pressing kisses against my skin. Her aim’s perfect, because she’s touched my heart.
I keep her like that, tucked against me, and let myself think about it for just a few seconds. I do sex, not relationships, but this is the first time my heart’s been used for something other than target practice. I’ve been shot at, ambushed, fired upon, and nearly blown up countless times, but I’ve always come out on top. In one piece.
Vali kisses me, her mouth moving over the place where my heart is, and I’m fucking lost. I could lie like this forever, and that’s a scary thought. So sex it is.
I pull back just a little and look down at her gorgeous, smiling face. “You up for round three?”
She moves her hand lower, and I’m damned certain that’s a hooyah I’m hearing.
“Bring it,” she says, and I do.
When I was five, maybe six, I drew pictures of the desert, and those pictures always had palm trees in them. I didn’t know then that the Middle East runs more to date palms than to coconuts, so I drew acres of brown sticks, green leaves, and big, hairy, brown balls. Now I don’t smell coconut without remembering the desert. I don’t need some shrink to tell me that’s fucked up.
When I wake up, I wake up just halfway, because that’s how the nightmare works. My head’s back in Iraq, and we’re in the Hummer headed toward another city whose name doesn’t matter. It’s a target, and we’re going there to shoot things. Shoot people. We’ve got orders, we’ve got our reasons, and it all makes sense. Our Hummer is a pretty smooth ride, and sometimes we pretend we’re surfing the sand dunes in our very own private-issue, Uncle Sam boat. It’s the small things, right?
B.B. has his FN SCAR slung over his lap, and we’re bullshitting each other. But even while our mouths run on, we’ve got eyes on the road, the desert, the horizon. There’s nothing friendly about this place, and we both know it. The words, the jokes, and the bad movie lines we toss back and forth are the only normal. B.B. called shotgun so he rides in the front of the Hummer, his gaze dipping to the beat-up asphalt. The on-duty K9 handler cleared the road just thirty minutes ago, so we’re not expecting fireworks.
And we all know what assumptions make out of you and me, right? There’s a sharp bang and a crack of smoke. I go flying backward, hitting the ground hard because I’m too much of a dumbass to hang on. I fucking let go and fly. I’m up as soon as I’m down, though, thumbing the safety off my gun as I run for the Hummer.
I’m playing catch up, even in my dream, time slowing down to that horrible molasses sludge where you’re running and running, but your feet take you nowhere. In front of me, the Hummer bounces through the ginormous fucking crater that’s just opened up in the road, goes airborne, and performs a gymnast-worthy somersault toward the canal. Once again, I’m too late.
My whimpers wake me up. Fuck. That’s so wrong. I hate the little, broken sounds leaking out of my mouth.
“Finn?” Of course Vali doesn’t sleep through my breakdown. Nope. She’s front and center, with a ringside seat. Worse, I can’t move. I’m totally paralyzed. I breathe in and out, my lungs working just fine. It’s my arms and legs that are stuck. No amount of effort has ever snapped me out of the paralysis that follows the dream.
She leans over me, her hand stroking down my arm. “What’s wrong?”
It’s not as if I can fucking tell her, is it?
And then she carefully tugs me toward her. She’s not all that big, but she manages to turn me onto my side, and then my front’s plastered against her gorgeous, naked body. Her eyes are wide with sympathy and understanding. She can’t know where I’ve gone, but she’s sure it’s not my happy place.
And while she holds me, she w
hispers stuff. The words themselves don’t matter. She could read me the phone book. It’s the tone. Each word sounds like she cares, and the ice locking me in place melts a little more with each word. I try to say her name, and the muffled sound has her tucking in closer. I’m scaring her. I know that, and I fucking hate it. I want to tell her it’ll be okay. I’ll get through this, and I won’t snap and go postal on her.
Instead, I just lie there. Like a fucking log or a corpse. Her arms tighten around me, and she’s whispering shit in Spanish, and all I can do is close my eyes. But then I see the Hummer and what’s left of B.B., so instead I open my eyes. Vali’s a much better sight. We lie there like that, me pinned to the bed by memories, her hanging onto me. Funny how she feels like an anchor, keeping me where I want to be. Eventually, my heart slows back down, and my head decides it’s okay for me to be in charge of my arms and legs again.
“You want to talk about it?”
Not a chance in hell. Instead I roll her under me. Loving on her is way better than words, and it doesn’t take long before I’m lost in her instead of the memories.
T-5 days
VALI
Sometimes life’s mistakes taste good. The crunchy bit of rice left at the bottom of the pot isn’t the soft treat you intended, but it’s still the perfect complement for the dish. Raspita is a screw up, but so bursting with flavor that you forgive it. Finn’s my raspita. He can’t be my entire meal, but he’s the seasoning. The zip.
I don’t mean to look at Finn’s phone. All I want is to check the time, but my phone’s dead and the man apparently doesn’t believe in clocks. When I tap the screen, however, Finn has a series of text messages from someone called Xander.
Honestly? They’re hard to ignore. That’s a lot of naked woman. Xander is on a boat somewhere tropical and sunny, and he’s wearing a blonde on each arm. The blondes… aren’t wearing much of anything. I think their surgeons were even better than mine. They sport some impressive boobs.
So I stare. And then somehow… yeah. I read the texts.
I’d apologize, except apparently Xander’s not the only asshole.
In fact, he’s not even the biggest asshole.
That would be Finn.
Finn—who apparently bet Xander a million bucks that Finn could go for a month without having sex unless he was in a committed relationship. This explains some of Finn’s questions, but now I don’t know where we stand. I wasn’t looking for forever or a real ring, but I also expected to be something more than a payoff for a bet. It’s hard to reconcile the roughly tender man who held me last night with someone who’d bet on his own sex life.
This is the point at which I sneak out. I’m not ashamed to admit it. Unfortunately, however, I have to ask Rohan for a ride back to my place because it’s too far to walk. Finn’s mentioned him, but we’ve never been formally introduced. Plus, he’s a hot guy, and the girlfiends have happily discussed his looks, his whereabouts, and his presumed dating preferences. His dark eyes look me over carefully. He was the lieutenant commander of Finn’s SEAL team, the guy in charge, and the big kahuna. He’s used to make lightning-quick judgments where people live—and die. I get the feeling that my request for a ride merits no less consideration from him.
“My man will take you wherever you need to go,” he says finally, when the silence has stretched out between us a little too long.
“Not him,” I say. Finn’s sleeping, and there are those pictures… yeah. I need to go, because I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing here. I came over for hot, no-holds-barred sex, and Finn delivered that. God. Did he deliver. It’s just that I’m feeling a little clingy this morning, and I got a little too close last night. My emotions are right on the surface, where those pictures and texts can irritate them, and that means I need to back off. Fast. Finn is fun—he’s not forever. Plus? I don’t want forever.
See? We’re actually on the same page. His stupid bet is just fine with me.
Rohan’s not big on talking, which is a godsend. He just nods as if he understands (which he can’t possibly since I don’t) and heads out the door to a battered, topless Jeep.
“Tell me he treated you right,” he asks once we’re on the road. He keeps the Jeep at a solid, steady pace, his fingers loose on the wheel. He looks like a barracuda or a great, big grizzly bear trying to convince someone that it’s really cute and fuzzy. Harmless. Right. I bite back a snort.
“Finn’s amazing in bed,” I tell him, because there’s no way that comment doesn’t short-circuit our conversation.
As expected, Rohan looks pained. Apparently, he didn’t need the mental image of Finn naked and engaged in sexual gymnastics. Ordinarily, I’d enjoy teasing him. He’s a big, macho guy, and he probably chews enemy insurgents alive. Feelings aren’t part of his training, though, and he’s clearly not comfortable being my stand-in girlfriend.
He nods. Slowly. “So you’re sneaking out of his place, wearing his clothes, because he rocked your world so well?”
This is not when I’m bringing up Xander. I don’t have an answer—I’m just feeling overwhelmed. The other problem with hooking up in just a bikini? The morning-after walk of shame is that much more obvious. I’ve stolen a T-shirt and a flannel from Finn, but the man doesn’t own a pair of sweats that wouldn’t end up around my ankles. So I’m hoofing it back to my place bare-legged.
“I need to go home,” I say, and he drives a little faster. “Finn’s wonderful.”
When he parks outside Bee Sweete five minutes later, I just hope the neighbors aren’t staring. Ro even waits until I’ve climbed the stairs and unlocked my door before he pulls away.
T-5 days
FINN
I love my job. Training dogs is great money, and my canines make a difference in the world. Not that I’m a fucking Boy Scout, but it’s nice to still matter. I may no longer infiltrate hot, buggy, cartel-infested jungles for Uncle Sam, but I’m not parked in a rocking chair banging out knitting, either. Training guard dogs isn’t easy. I bust my ass, and what I do counts. If I was in the National Football League, I’d have gone from the starting string to the sidelines, but I’d still be the coach. I’d make the calls, organize the plays that matter.
It sucks when I have to let my dogs go, too. I can’t keep them forever. They’ve got a job to do out there in the world without me, and most of them I’ll never see again. Knowing a dog you’ve trained is out there keeping good men and women safe is a rush. I kind of figure it’s parenting SEAL-style, because these dogs are my fucking babies. I’ve raised them, trained them, and guided them through the doggy equivalent of adolescence, only to drop their asses off at college and drive off into the sunset. Some of the dogs love you back, while others can’t wait to be rid of you. I miss them, and, yeah, I’ve got a whole gallery of pictures on my phone. If you ask real nice, I’ll show you.
I’d like to offer this as Exhibit A in my defense. I do know how to have a relationship. SEALs and dogs don’t count, you say? Well, they’re the training wheels that should guarantee I don’t fuck things up with Vali. Vali is easy to be around, and not just because she’s hot. I mean, that helps. Don’t get me wrong. But she’s funny and relaxed, and when I’m with her, it’s all just… easy.
Or it was.
Because waking up alone after we had awesome sex and I opened up to her about my PTSD? Yeah. That sucks. More than sucks, if I’m being honest, because I can’t even pretend that I don’t care. I wake up, and she’s not wrapped around me. I stretch—keeping my eyes closed because my brain has already added two and two and arrived at four but I don’t want to admit it yet—and my legs don’t bump into hers. She’s not in the bed.
Okay. So maybe she’s in the bathroom?
Hope is not a strategy. I man up, sit up, and survey my bedroom. Funny how it looks exactly the same as it did last night, yesterday, last month—but it seems emptier. Vali’s gone. I shove back the covers, take a second look around the room, and confirm what I already know. She’s left, and I’m so fa
r gone that I even check for a note.
Under the fucking bed.
I don’t know where I went wrong or how I screwed this up. I’m confused as shit, and I don’t like that. I’d planned on having hot wake-up sex with her, and then maybe we’d spend the day together. We could work on my relationship skills. Repeat the hot sex portion of the day, because some things really, really bear repeating.
My place has more than one room. It’s not too fucking much to think she’s just not… here. I get up, pull on a pair of jeans, and recon. She can’t do this to me. She doesn’t get to mess with my head or my heart—that’s not part of our deal.
But she’s not in the bathroom. She’s not in my bed, under my bed, or in the fucking living room. The kitchen’s empty, and so is my front porch which means… what? I check the beach and the dog runs, in case she wanted early morning puppy love or a job. I’m a positive thinker—and an idiot.
This is where Ro find me when he peels into Search and SEALs, driving just fast enough to be dangerous. Ro loves speed, although he usually drives precisely the speed limit. Rules are important, or so he claims. I’ve always been the flexible one, but today he screeches to a halt in front of my bungalow, tires spitting sand. He leaves me no doubt the stick he’s got shoved up his ass. As soon as he’s popped the door, he’s out and striding toward me.
“You gonna pack up your shit so Xander can move in?”
And good morning to him too.
“Xander’s not winning our bet.” I peer around him, on the sad, pathetic off-chance he’s got Vali stashed in that Jeep of his. An early morning breakfast run, a feminine emergency, something. Jesus. I need to get over this. Over her.