“What do you say we head back to your room and keep drinking there?” one of the men suggested. A hand began to slither in between my legs. I closed my thighs shut.
The bearded man was smirking. I wanted to slap him on more than one occasion. His sweaty fingers trying to push up towards my pussy was almost the final straw, but I could see Nancy with an eye on me from across the room.
Even she had a man hanging off of her. She didn’t appear to be too enthused about it, but she wasn’t fighting it either. It was hard to tell from the other end of the dimly lit cafeteria, but I’m almost sure the man had his hand under Nancy’s skirt. What was he doing? I was happy not knowing.
“Excuse me while I use the little lady’s room,” I said, faking as much enthusiasm as I could muster.
The men watched me walk into the back room. I had nothing to cover my ass—unfortunately, my shawl wasn’t long enough. But even with my face turned away, I could feel their gazes glued to my ass, and I could feel the ensuing shiver creeping up my spine.
I didn’t have to use the bathroom, but I did have to get the hell away from those men. I walked straight out the backdoor and started towards the guest hall. I wasn’t even twenty feet away when I could hear the moaning and screaming of my fellow Playmates inside. Going into that guest hall would be like walking into a death trap. My little curtain wall wasn’t going to protect me from anything—and I had to pass through about a dozen other “rooms” just to get to my own. Soon, Nancy would be back at the guest hall, too.
I considered turning back to the cafeteria, but between Nancy’s guilty stare and those bald-headed, horny fuckers, I wasn’t much better off. Where else could I go?
“Looking for someone?”
I jumped and threw my arms around my body, securing my shawl over my chest. Gage was hanging from a chin-up bar, staring at me. He had a blank look on his face that almost looked annoyed, as if I was interrupting his workout.
His blank, annoyed stare was strangely relieving.
“Well?” he said. He was topless, and his body was ripped, a muscular powerhouse. The way his muscles bulged out when he pulled his body up was strangely mesmerizing.
My heart finally stopped pounding against my chest and I was able to speak. “Hi,” I said.
He just stared at me blankly.
“What did you say your name was again?” I asked.
“Gage,” he said. “Corporal Gage Daniels.” He continued to hang from the bar, staring at me as if I was an idiot. His body was glistening in the moonlight. I wondered if he’d left the little outdoor gym since I saw him last.
“Gage,” I repeated. I looked at him for a moment and tried to decide—is he seriously not interested in me? Am I right in assuming he’s safe? “Do you want to screw me?” I asked.
His eyes narrowed and his head titled. He didn’t respond. I quickly realized it sounded like an offer, and not the genuine question I meant it to be. “I—I mean, you don’t, right?”
“No,” he said, bluntly, after a moment of confused silence.
“Because I don’t,” I said. “I’m just making sure.”
He continued to stare at me with narrowed eyes. After a long moment of silent judgement, he continued his workout.
“Why aren’t you inside with the Playmates?” I asked.
He just stared at me, not responding.
“Don’t you want to meet the Playmates?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You like looking at flowers?” he asked.
I shrugged and stared at him, not sure what he was getting at. “Yeah, I guess so. Why?”
“You ever want to meet one?”
It took a few seconds to click. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I could feel my eyes scowling. “You know, all the Playmates are other things, too. Linda—Miss September—just got her MBA. Miss July owns a clothing line. And I’m an actress. We aren’t just a bunch of dumb sluts.”
As if on cue, one of the girls in the nearby guest hall cried out at the climax of an orgasm. My cheeks turned warm, and probably dark red too.
He smirked. He wasn’t buying anything I was saying. But I wasn’t looking to defend my pride.
His eyes narrowed again and he bit his lip, as if unable to decide whether to laugh or cringe. We were back to square one, and all I’d managed to do was make him think I was a mentally unstable hooker.
He dropped down from the chin-up bar. “Careful who you sleep with around here,” he said, turning away from me. “Some of the guys won’t go so easy on you.” He started towards his bunkhouse.
“Wait.” I ran up next to him. “That’s just it. I don’t want to sleep with anyone. I thought, since you don’t want to sleep with me, that we could maybe sleep together.” I found myself cringing at my own words. No wonder he thought I was borderline retarded.
“I told you—I don’t want to sleep with you.”
“Sleep. I’m talking about sleep. Share a bed.”
“You want me to hide you?” he asked.
I thought about it. Is that what I wanted? Hiding me was just a temporary solution to my problem. I still had five more days at that base, and I couldn’t just go and hide every night. And then what would I tell Nancy? How would that look, if I spent the whole week hiding from the soldiers?
“When they sent you here, what were you expecting?” he asked. It was a valid question. What was I expecting? A group of chivalrous gentlemen looking for rich conversation, genuinely interested in my interests and personality?
“I thought it would be good exposure,” I said.
He laughed. “Right. You keep telling yourself that.” He walked into the bunkhouse. It was a dark, desolate place with tin walls; a maze of halls and doors. “Ladies aren’t supposed to come in here,” he said, glancing over at me as if to say, ‘Get the hell out,’ though he did nothing to stop me. I followed him to his room and then stopped outside the door.
I stood silently, trying to think of some other way to ask, with my arms hugging my fur shawl against my body.
He grabbed a towel from the floor and wiped the sweat from his body. “You coming in or not?” He unfurled the blanket for his bed and then patted the mattress. “Go ahead.”
I stepped into the room with my arms still hugging my tense body. As I passed the door, he put a sock on the handle and closed it.
I stood still.
“Well? Go to sleep,” he said.
I hesitated, remaining still in the center of the room. I was putting a lot of trust into this stranger. As far as I knew, he was worse than the rest of them—and now I was alone, practically naked, in a bedroom with him. He was certainly bigger than the rest of them. He clearly worked out far more. There was no question that he could overpower me without any effort.
“I’ll sleep here,” he said, pointing to the bed across the room. “That door doesn’t lock, but no one should come in as long as that sock is on the handle. You sure about this?” he asked.
“Yeah. Thank you.”
“They’re going to think we fucked. You know that, right?”
I smiled. “Yeah.” It was exactly what I wanted. It was screwed up to think that I wanted to be thought of as a slut so I wouldn’t have to be a slut.
“You’re going to need to come up with a better plan tomorrow. Most of the guys are going to want their beds back before the end of the week.”
He was right. I was going to need a better plan. And it was going to need to be convincing, seeing as there was a reporter coming. And my runner-up would get my spot in the April issue of the magazine after an article with a headline like, “Miss April Disgusted By Armed Forces!”
I slipped under the covers. The mattress was as hard as a stone, and the pillow was lumpy and useless. I was just happy to be away from the horny soldiers, even if it was just for one night.
Gage was bent over the bed next to me, unfolding the blanket and tucking its edges under the mattress. The muscles on his back flexed, pushing o
ut, deepening the crevasse that ran along his spine.
Each muscle was like its own living, breathing thing, reacting to his every little twist and bend. He extended his arm up to flick off the light, revealing a whole new set of rigid muscles that flexed and flowed with his body.
I found myself in a state of near-hypnosis watching him move, and then I found myself slightly disappointed when he slipped under the covers and rolled away from me without even saying ‘good night.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
I’d never been much of a sleeper. Most nights, I was lucky if I got more than four hours of sleep, and even then, I still laid awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the magic of sleep to take hold. If I had a lot on my mind, sleep was out of the question.
That night, falling asleep was out of the question.
Unlike me, Ashley was a quick sleeper. She fell asleep before I was even settled into the bed. I figured, maybe she was exhausted from travelling, or maybe she was drunk—she was acting like a drunk, the way she kept begging me to let her sleep in my bed. Regardless of why she was so tired, moments after her eyes closed, she started snoring.
After a good twenty minutes of some of the deepest, manly snores you’ve ever heard, she transitioned into sleep-talking and tossing and turning. I considered waking her up at one point when she started yelling, “No! No! Please, don’t!” but before I could sit up, her nightmare melted into what sounded like a sex dream. “Oh, just like that,” she began to mutter under her breath.
Every little toss and turn nudged her blanket further down her body. She flipped over onto her stomach, snored loudly for a while, and then flipped over again onto her back. Still asleep, she had no clue the blanket had slid down past her chest, revealing her tits. The second those babies were loose, any notion of sleep was out the window.
After one final, vocal dream, she rolled over onto her side, facing me, and she became silent, peaceful. She smiled and the smile held as she curled up and subconsciously pulled the covers up, over her bare chest. Disappointing, but probably for the best if I was going to get any sleep.
A distant door slammed and a group of footsteps started towards the bedroom. It sounded like two men, drunk, judging by the inconsistency between their steps and their stammering into walls, like pinballs bouncing down a narrow pass. Their laughter was thunderous.
I looked back to Ashley, still fast asleep. Apparently, she was a heavy sleeper, staying asleep as the drunken Joes approached our bedroom. I assumed they were on their way to another room—there were five other rooms, and of all the guys on our compound, my roommates were always the last ones to leave the Desert Queens empty-handed.
But the men stopped at the door. And through the door, I could hear, “Shit, Darb. Someone’s in there.” It was Private Hastings voice, and presumably, he was talking to Brigadier Darby.
“Who’s in there?” said Darby in his British accent, which was strangely charming, even when he was slurring and drunk.
“I dunno. Nate went off with January, and Eric’s fucking that old lady. And Gage…” There was a silence.
“Gage is with a woman?” that British accent said.
Ashley was still fast asleep, smiling, peaceful.
“Shit—I’ve gotta use it,” Hastings said. I could hear his feet pattering in place.
“Go and use someone else’s loo.”
“Fuck. It doesn’t sound like they’re doin’ nothing—probably sleeping. Shit, when was the last time Gage fucked a BC? He probably finished in fifteen seconds and whoever he’s with probably died drowning in all that come that’s built up over the years.”
I carefully rose to my feet. If they came in and saw us sleeping in separate beds, not only would they know I was hiding Ashley, but they would probably think I was gay—the prettiest girl that’s ever stepped foot on the compound and we’re sleeping in separate beds.
I didn’t care much about whether they thought I was gay or not. I was more worried about them seeing it as an opportunity to take advantage of Ashley. After going through the trouble of hiding her, it seemed like a waste.
“Fine. Just be quiet, okay?” Darby said.
I managed to slip into bed with Ashley before the door creaked open and Darby and Hastings let themselves into the room. I threw my arm over her body and faked sleep. Her body was small and fragile, and she really was a heavy sleeper. Instead of waking up, she rolled away from me and snuggled her butt into my lap.
I could hear Hastings run through the room towards the bathroom.
“Shit—it is Gage,” Darby whispered loud enough for his friend to hear in the other room. “Whoa,” he said suddenly.
“What?” Hastings asked from the other room.
Ashley snuggled back some more, pressing her back against my chest. Now, I wasn’t just afraid of Hastings and Darby waking her up, I was afraid my chiming heart would jolt her awake. Somehow, she remained asleep.
Darby scuffled over to the bathroom and lowered his already whispering voice. “It’s Miss April.”
“Get the fuck out. Seriously?”
“Yeah. Gage fucked Miss April.”
“Atta boy, Gage,” Hastings said, his voice loudening as he emerged from the bathroom. The sound of the flushing toilet sent my heart into another rush, worried it would wake Ashley up. It didn’t, miraculously.
The sleeping Ashley grabbed my wrist and pulled my arm in tight to her body. She pressed my hand firmly against her tit. It was soft, warm, plump, perfect—none of which helped my situation.
The two men hovered over me, admiring the beautiful woman under my arm, as I pretended to be asleep. If Ashley woke up, I’d be in a world of trouble. What would she think if she woke up with her mostly-naked body pressed up against mine? That I was trying to take advantage of her? Rape her? And if she freaked out, what would Darby and Hastings think?
Hastings and Darby spent the next fifteen minutes changing and chatting about the Playmates, which ones they wanted to fuck, and which ones were currently being fucked by other Joes. The conversation went on and on; apparently, they wanted to fuck every one of them, including the old manager woman, and apparently, just about all of them were currently being fucked by someone or another. Darby claimed he fucked Miss March in the Chow Hall bathroom. Hastings was jealous.
Then finally, they went to sleep, and the room became quiet once again, save for the brief moaning of Hasting’s laptop and the slapping of his clenched fist against his pelvis while he jerked off.
But even with my roommates asleep, I wasn’t in the clear. I still had an oblivious, naked Playmate in bed next to me. I tried to inch my body towards the edge of the bed, but minutes later, she would snuggle back into me. Eventually, I was out of space to retreat backwards.
With a small wiggle, she managed to position the cheeks of her soft butt around the contour of my cock, cradling my manhood. I tried to think of something else—anything else—but it was hopeless. I could only think of her perfect ass snuggling my dick and the image of her with her fur shawl, with those eyes that, among other things, said, “I want you to fuck me senseless.”
I could feel my cock throbbing, swelling between those cheeks. If she woke up, I might be able to explain why I was in the bed, but I wouldn’t be able to explain the massive erection nestled between her ass cheeks.
Sleep, Gage—just go to sleep, I told myself. Going to sleep was far from a solution, but it was the only thing that made sense to do—a temporary escape from my problems, something I was all too familiar with.
Eventually, even with Miss April cuddled against my body, I fell asleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
He was warm. His big, heavy arm made me feel safe, secure, invincible. I revelled in the way his rigid muscles held my body in place.
And then, after I inched my body back, and his arm tightened around me, it dawned on me that I went to sleep alone, and that whoever “he” was, wasn’t supposed to be there.
I pushed his arm away and sprung fo
rward. Before I could open my lips to scream in protest, his hand covered my mouth and he pinned me down against the bed. My heart took off, suddenly beating a mile a minute against my ribcage.
What was happening? Had I been drugged? Was I raped?
The previous night’s events came rushing back to me, but none of my memories could answer who was in the bed with me, holding me down and muffling me.
The morning light was pouring in through the room’s only window, making it difficult to make out his face. But after my eyes had a few seconds to adjust, I could see that it was Gage, the guy who gave me his bed.
GAGE: A Bad Boy Military Romance Page 4