Happily Ever After Isn't Easy

by Jake C. Wallace

  Brandt rubbed at his chest, and Gabe wondered if a physical ache lingered or if painful memories were the cause.

  “I’m sorry. You had your entire world ripped away from you. That couldn’t have been easy.”

  He huffed. “I did three tours in war zones, and I have to say, I’d take them any day over those four and a half months.”

  Nothing like a reminder of those times. “What have you been thinking about when you were in bed?” Gabe wondered if he was in control or if his past was.

  “So much crap that sometimes it’s easier to just stare at the wall and let those two events play in my head. They’re just too similar to each other. The explosion, the screams, and the smoke. So much smoke. And I was on autopilot. Running in with only one thought—don’t let them die. They have families, friends, years ahead of them.”

  “Which time?”

  He grimaced, and his chest hitched. “Both.” Brandt’s emotions, the fear, the hopelessness, the mourning, the pain of his losses had to come to the surface before they could ever be set to rest. Given Brandt’s reaction after the explosion at the school, Gabe was pretty sure that he’d never properly dealt with the aftermath of the first explosion.

  Gabe ran his hand over Brandt’s biceps, tracing the sharp angles and straight black lines of his tattoo. “Tell me what was different this time.”

  Brandt cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

  “You told me how the two events were similar. Tell me how they differed.”

  He huffed with disgust. “Well, my lungs are worse this time. I probably decreased their already shortened life by ten years or more.”

  Gabe ignored the implicit connotations of that statement. Brandt had gone to the negative, where most people tended to go. He needed to dig deeper, past the injuries to his body, since healthy and strong were where his self-worth currently lay.

  “That’s not different, just worse. Same injuries with the same results. What happened in one event and not the other?”

  Brandt swallowed. His rate of breathing visibly increased, and his hands twitched involuntarily against Gabe’s. As Brandt searched his memories, Gabe continued tracing the tattoo over and over, loving the feel of Brandt’s skin beneath his fingers.

  “I didn’t get everyone out in Paktia.”

  Gabe gave him an expectant look, prompting him to go further, but Brandt seemed to be too stuck in what hadn’t happened.

  “That’s what didn’t happen. What did happen?”

  Brandt was so close. Not that anything he discovered with Gabe’s help would make a huge difference, but this was a start.

  His confused expression brightened slightly, not much. “I… I got everyone out this time.”

  “You did. What about after? Your recovery. Anything else different?”

  More silence, then he nodded. “I’m not in the hospital.”

  Gabe smiled gently, hoping to prod him without needing to ask.

  Brandt looked right into Gabe’s eyes, his hazel eyes as beautiful as ever. “I’m not alone this time.” He exhaled noisily. “Shit, I was acting as if I was. I was right back there at Walter Reed in my room alone for hours just wishing… well, wondering how I’d gotten to be so alone in my life.”

  Gabe rested his hand on the side of Brandt’s neck. “You aren’t alone at all. I’m here. Lucas is here, well, until tomorrow, and Betsy and Julia are here as well. We’re here and aren’t going anywhere.”

  The tension escaped Brandt, his shoulders falling, his jaw unclenching. “Kind of dumb, right? I let the past take over. Man, it was so easy, or is so easy to fall back into that frame of mind. What if it happens again? No. I can’t let that happen. How do I do that?” Brandt appeared to be afraid.

  “If you want, I can give you some cognitive-behavioral exercises that deal with ingrained reactions and thoughts. Of course, as a professional, I suggest a counselor who isn’t me, because we’re in a relationship. Usually just me suggesting counseling has people running.” Gabe figured Brandt would run, but that would be his decision.

  “You know, the first time around, I saw the required psych people, played by their rules, but didn’t really participate. I thought I was strong, unaffected, didn’t need help with anything.” He growled deeply. “Macho.”

  Gabe laughed.

  “Maybe now… I don’t know.” He shook his head and raised his hands. “Maybe I could use some of that help.”

  Gabe ran his palm down Brandt’s cheek. “There’s nothing wrong with needing help, and you know that, because you’re all about teamwork.”

  “That’s different. You’re not admitting to weakness by working on a team. It’s the size of the mission that depends on how many people need to be involved.”

  “Okay. Then let’s say this is a minimum of a two-person mission, maybe three.”

  Brandt smirked. “A mission, huh?” He grasped Gabe’s wrist, then lifted Gabe’s hand to his lips and placed a light kiss on his palm.

  The intimacy of the act tightened Gabe’s throat, and he swallowed. “I missed talking to you, missed touching you.”

  “Me too. Can you ever forgive me?”

  “Always.”

  Gabe bit his lower lip as they stared at one another. He wanted to kiss Brandt but wasn’t sure if….

  Brandt solved Gabe’s dilemma by leaning in. The kiss was tentative, hesitant, but then increased in heat. Gabe needed Brandt in the worst way. He broke away and climbed off Brandt and stood next to the bed. Gabe pulled off his shirt as Brandt watched. Carefully, Gabe removed his sweats over his erection, and Brandt’s eyes immediately focused on his cock.

  Gabe ghosted his hand over Brandt’s stomach, and the muscles twitched. Venturing farther, he hooked the sheet with his finger, pulling it down, revealing Brandt’s cock. He was naked. Gabe raised an eyebrow. Brandt grinned confidently.

  “I see you were hopeful.”

  “I was. Come here.”

  Gabe straddled Brandt’s lap, his ass settling on Brandt’s shaft. Gabe shimmied his hips. Brandt moaned and grabbed him by the waist. “Tease.”

  Another shake of his hips and Brandt lightly slapped Gabe’s ass.

  “Oh yeah.” Gabe groaned.

  Brandt chuckled. “So it’s like that, is it?”

  Gabe nodded.

  “You’re so hot.” Brandt ran his hand over Gabe’s hip and across his thigh, eyes intent on his body.

  When Brandt looked up, Gabe’s doubtful expression must have told him something, because he said, “You’re gorgeous. Your face, your neck, your shoulders, your chest, your stomach.”

  Gabe snorted and poked his stomach. “I jiggle. I bet no one in the Army jiggles.”

  “Oh, the Army jiggles the higher up you get. And you don’t jiggle. You’re sexy. Thought so the first moment I saw you.” Brandt’s eyes moved over his body slowly, deliberately, as if worshipping him, and the action trapped Gabe’s breath in his throat.

  Brandt’s entire body, his mind, his soul was everything Gabe wanted and needed. He’d never, in his entire life, been so sure of anything. He felt as if the entire world had opened up to him.

  Brandt’s gaze locked with his, a single moment frozen and expanding through time. Brandt cupped his cheek, his palm warm, reassuring. Beautiful hazel eyes were Gabe’s sole focus. Brandt’s thumb caressed his cheek. “I love you.”

  Chapter 23

  GABE’S CHEST seized. He sucked in a deep breath, and his release was shaky. The pressure in his chest increased as his heart swelled. How could three words mean everything, truly mean happily ever after?

  Gabe grasped the hand against his cheek, time moving once again, that single moment forever in their memories. “I love you too.”

  Brandt’s smile was bright as he wrapped his arms around Gabe. When their lips met, the kiss was overwhelming and deep. Easily, Brandt flipped Gabe onto his back. He grabbed Gabe’s wrists, bringing them above his head and pinning both with his wide hand. Another kiss and Gabe tried to catch his
breath as Brandt writhed on him, kissed and bit his skin. He drove Gabe absolutely wild. Gabe’s cock leaked wetness over Brandt’s stomach, and his balls felt large and heavy between his legs. Every nip and bite on his neck clenched Gabe’s hole. He wanted—fucking needed—Brandt to fill him up until he was screaming for release.

  Moans and pants and whimpers filled the air as Gabe fought to form even a sentence. “Brandt… fuck, yeah… please….”

  “You’re so fucking hot when I hold you down and you beg.” Brandt bit Gabe’s earlobe. The sting zinged right to Gabe’s hole, and he bucked harder. “That night at the bar. I fucking came in my pants,” he confessed. “But not this time.” Brandt pushed his hard-as-a-rock shaft into Gabe’s groin. Gabe’s breath stuttered as he imagined being impaled ruthlessly on that hardness. “This time I’m coming in your tight ass.”

  “Please. Please,” Gabe sobbed, then whimpered as the solid mass lifted from him.

  Gabe’s hands automatically sought contact with Brandt. Gabe sat up and hungrily attached his mouth to a copper-colored nipple. He sucked, then bit at the nub.

  “Ah, fuck!” Brandt wrapped his large hands around Gabe’s head, holding him in place. The hands then guided Gabe to the other nipple. Gabe immediately clamped his teeth and worried that nub until it throbbed against his tongue. Releasing it, Gabe soothed it with his tongue and blew a shot of cool air against the heated skin.

  Brandt pushed him back onto the mattress. Above him, Brandt’s chest heaved, and a fevered flush crept up his chest and into his face. Hooded eyes surveyed Gabe wildly. Brandt looked as if he were going to eat Gabe alive. Brandt’s rough hands ran the length of Gabe’s stomach and chest and he plucked Gabe’s nipples. He hissed and arched his spine.

  “You’re so responsive. Like a cat in heat. You move with every touch.”

  “Only your touch,” Gabe whispered.

  A low growl filled the air as Brandt grasped Gabe’s cock in a tight grip. Gabe gasped, combusting from the inside out. Organs liquefying, cells imploding, nerves ablaze. Any moment, Gabe imagined the fiery lust would render him a pile of ash.

  “Say it again.”

  Gabe fought to gain the words.

  “O-only your touch, Brandt.”

  In one motion, he engulfed Gabe’s cock, quickly bottoming out. Gabe cried out. He could feel Brandt’s nose buried in his pubic hair. Fuck, he wasn’t even gagging. The oversensitized skin on Gabe’s prick along with the tight grip on his balls threatened to send him over the edge.

  “No.” He grabbed at Brandt’s head. “Stop.”

  Brandt released his cock with an erotic pop but maintained his grip on Gabe’s aching balls. Leaning over with a wicked grin, Brandt ran his hot tongue from base to tip of Gabe’s weeping cock. Gabe moaned and tried to wiggle away, but Brandt planted his hands on Gabe’s hips and pinned him down. With one swipe of his tongue, Brandt cleared the precum from the tip of Gabe’s shaft, then dove up and shared the sweet liquid with Gabe. Gabe sucked on the invading tongue as if it were a cock. The action elicited another moan, cut short as Gabe gripped Brandt’s thick shaft tightly and pulled from base to tip.

  Breaking the kiss, Brandt moaned louder. “Fuck, your hand feels good.”

  Gabe increased the rhythm, giving the head a hard squeeze and a twist. Brandt’s head fell forward, his chin practically touching his chest, which heaved with each gasp for air. With a sharp snarl, Brandt pushed Gabe’s hand from his prick. Diving forward, he once again attached himself to Gabe’s lips, sucking, biting, and effectively owning the orifice. Without stopping the assault, Brandt reached out, fumbling with the nightstand. There was a snick of a cap, and within moments, a wet, slick finger probed Gabe’s pucker, massaging and then gaining entrance. A crook of a finger and Gabe arched off the bed as nerve endings tingled through his groin and balls.

  “Shit!” A load of precum leaked onto his belly from the enflamed purple head.

  If he were a prisoner of war and Brandt was interrogating him with his hands, Gabe would spill every national secret, including his own pin numbers, bank accounts—everything. Brandt had reduced him to a pile of blubbering putty.

  Foil ripped open and another snick of the cap. Hands grasped his hip and shoulder and, in one motion, flipped Gabe with ease, trapping his sensitive cock between the mattress and his stomach. Brandt pried Gabe’s asscheeks apart and started suckling on his hole. With a yelp, Gabe pushed back as Brandt’s teeth grazed and nipped. How much torture could he endure before he exploded into a million pieces? Wave after wave of blazing need washed over Gabe, pulsing, throbbing, expanding, until it felt too big, too large. Gabe kept pushing back against the probing tongue until his ass was high in the air, shoulders pinned to the bed.

  The heavy weight of Brandt draped over him, and he licked the shell of Gabe’s ear, sending a shiver racing down his spine.

  “I’m going to hold you down.”

  Gabe couldn’t suppress the whimper.

  Brandt rose above Gabe and then pushed the spongy tip of his condom-clad dick at his opening. Greedily Gabe bore down and all but sucked the hard tip in. Mind-numbingly slow, Brandt pushed in, stretching Gabe’s hungry hole with a delicious burn. He placed a hand on Gabe’s shoulder, forcing him into the mattress while Brandt guided his dick into Gabe. When his hips were against Gabe’s ass, Brandt lay flat, effectively crushing Gabe between the hardness of his body and the softness of the mattress.

  “So full.” Gabe gasped as Brandt laced their hands together and tucked them beneath Gabe’s chest.

  “I can’t believe how I feel inside of you.” Brandt pulled out at a torturously slow pace, then back in as leisurely. The slide of the hot, hard skin along his hole produced a radiating tingle. Each thrust forced Gabe’s excruciatingly hard cock into the mattress and his stomach. Sweat formed between his flesh and Brandt’s chest as it slid over his back. Brandt set Gabe’s skin afire as he licked and sucked along the nape of his neck, over his shoulders, at the sides of his neck, panting in his ear. Gabe began a steady chorus of moans and whimpers.

  “Love the sounds you make. Love you.”

  Brandt punctuated the statement with a snap of his hips, forcing a huff from Gabe’s lungs. And the thrusts intensified. Sounds of slapping skin echoed in the room. That weightless, floating sensation filled Gabe’s body, signaling his encroaching orgasm. He was getting ready to explode.

  “I-I’m going to come.”

  The words brought a frenzy of hard and fast strokes from Brandt. Gabe clutched Brandt’s hands tighter. He wanted to crawl inside of Brandt and never leave.

  The grunting, stroking in and out of his ass, the musky smell of sex and sweat, the weight bearing down on him, brought the perfect storm as Gabe’s cock swelled and forced the cum out onto his belly. Screaming Brandt’s name, Gabe soared as his ass pulsated around the rock-hard shaft pounding his hole.

  Brandt’s arms tightened around Gabe as his thrusts increased. With two sharp breaths and a grunt, Brandt’s cock throbbed as he filled the condom. Gabe reveled in the aftershocks of his release. Heavy breathing filled the room, and Gabe felt the loss when Brandt rolled to the side. Gabe reached over and grabbed the cannula from the nightstand, and Brandt put it back into place.

  “Thanks.” Brandt adjusted the tubing as Gabe opened the valve.

  Gabe was concerned over Brandt’s rapid breaths. But he didn’t have time to say anything before Brandt rolled Gabe over his body and settled him against his sweat-soaked chest. He then threw a leg over Gabe’s hip. They entwined their fingers on Brandt’s chest, totally and utterly sated for the moment.

  “You do realize we have to wash these sheets, since you came all over them,” Brandt whispered.

  Gabe let out a chuckle. “Twice I’ve come from you fucking me.”

  “Does that mean it was good?”

  “I think the earth moved.”

  “The earth always moves when I’m with you.”

  “Dork,” Gabe muttered before being drawn into a
slow, lazy kiss.

  Brandt brushed Gabe’s hair from his forehead. “Mmm. You’re in love with a dork.”

  “That I am.”

  THE NEXT morning Gabe entered the kitchen to find Lucas standing at the sink, mug in hand, staring far off past the kitchen window. Something in his expression was off.

  “Good morning.”

  Lucas turned, and his smile was halfhearted. “Morning. There’s coffee.”

  “Thanks. I could use some.” Gabe grabbed a cup and poured himself some. Staring into the dark liquid, he thought of his insecurity about his body, his lack of confidence before Brandt had barreled into his life and confessed to love him for who he was, jiggly gut and all.

  After opening the fridge, he pulled out his hazelnut creamer and dosed the caffeine-laden liquid until it turned light tan.

  “Sawyer still sleeping?” Lucas had moved to the table.

  Gabe joined him. “Yeah, he’s out like a light.”

  “From what I heard last night, I’m not surprised.” Lucas’s smirk wasn’t quite hidden behind his mug. “I’m thinking all is well.”

  “A man doesn’t kiss and tell.” Gabe turned his nose up.

  Lucas barked out a laugh. “There was more than kissing going on, but to save your virtue, this conversation will go no further than us.”

  Gabe shook his head. “What time are you heading out?”

  “Plane leaves at two o’clock, so I should leave by twelve thirty. Still have a few hours to lounge around civilian life.” Lucas’s smile faded. He appeared to be distracted, even agitated.

  “Everything okay?”

  Lucas furrowed his brow, eyes on his coffee. He shifted in his seat. His dark hair was mussed on the top, and Gabe imagined by the time he left he’d be Army ready. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking lately about when to retire. Somehow I thought I’d be in the Army as long as it would have me, but I’m getting older. Got my twenty. Maybe it’s time to do something else.”

  Gabe studied him for a moment, knowing he wasn’t discussing what he really had on his mind, but Gabe played along. “That’s a big decision.”