by Lila Price
So I did. I drank a few more shots and then the three women came to me, just like I knew they would.
“Hey,” the sexiest one said. “Thanks for the drink,” she said.
“Welcome,” I replied.
“You look familiar,” one of her friends said. “Are you in movies?”
“I’m not an actor, I just play one on TV,” I replied.
They stared uncomprehendingly at me.
“It’s a little joke,” I said, winking, and they all began giggling and one of them put her hand on my bicep and remarked how strong I was.
“So you’re like—a professional athlete then?”
I had to laugh.
This was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel. The only question left to be answered was whether or not I would fuck all three of them at once, or one after the other.
It was rare to find three girls willing to get turned out all at once in the same night, but it wasn’t impossible.
Nothing’s impossible, I thought.
And the way they were staring at me, and the looks they were exchanging—not to mention how willing they were to throw the drinks back—told me that I was probably in luck.
About an hour later, one of them shoved her tongue down the others’ throat, and before I knew it, all three of them were making out right in front of me.
Les was shaking his head in awe from behind the bar, while I laughed.
After their little display ended, I tossed some cash on the bar and then turned to my three ladies. “Whose place? Yours or mine?”
“We’re at the Hilton around the corner,” the hot one said.
“Yours it is,” I said, and we left.
Not five minutes later, we were walking into their hotel room, and shit was about to go down. I had done everything right, and now the mission was about to be accomplished.
I’d gotten fucked up.
I’d landed three hot ladies who were down to fuck.
Now I just needed to do the fucking—my specialty.
“Are you as big as you look?” someone asked, I didn’t care who.
“You’re about to find out, hon,” I replied, pulling my shirt off.
They gasped at my tattoos.
As one of them went to touch my bare chest, I instantaneously reacted, without even thinking. My hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, stopping her from making contact with my skin.
“Hey,” she said, her face contorting.
“Don’t.” I let go and she withdrew.
It suddenly occurred to me that this mission was actually a big fucking failure. I stared at these three women who wanted to suck and fuck but didn’t know the first damn thing about me, didn’t care and never would.
And I realized that I hadn’t forgotten about Caeli. Not even close.
My cock was hard, but it wasn’t hard for any of them. I didn’t even want to touch them or have them lay a finger on me.
I was rock hard because I was thinking about her.
I was remembering her body, her skin, her tits. But not just her body. I was also remembering that smile, those eyes that seemed to see right into me and didn’t shy away, weren’t afraid of my darkness.
What the fuck was I doing in this shitty hotel room? Why was I trying to throw away the one good thing that I’d found since coming home from Afghanistan?
“Hey, what’s wrong—“ one of the girl said.
“I need to go,” I said, pulling my shirt back on, turning and starting to leave.
“What the hell? You don’t want this?” one of them said.
I glanced back at her bare titties. “They’re nice,” I said, “but they’re just tits, hon.”
And then I was leaving as they shouted profanities after me.
When I got outside the hotel, I thought about calling Caeli, but decided against it. She wouldn’t want to hear from me and I knew it.
I’d hurt her badly.
I was rapidly sobering up, and I knew that this needed to be said in person. I went to the cabstand out front and got in a cab, told them the address to take me.
As we drove toward the other end of town, I looked out the window and thought about what was happening to me.
For a long time now, I’d been absolutely certain that the person I’d been in the past was gone. Completely gone, destroyed and never to return.
But for the first time since I’d seen my best friends murdered and blown apart in a foreign country, there was a small part of me that felt like myself again.
It was so tiny a fragment that I wasn’t even altogether sure that it was real, but just the fact that I thought it might be real was enough to turn my world upside down.
Maybe I was coming back to something inside that had been buried but not completely incinerated. The other vets had told me it was possible—some guys never came back to reality, never were anything like the men they’d once been…but others somehow bounced back.
The verdict was still out on me, but this was the first moment I’d ever wondered which kind of guy I might be.
Soon, we arrived at her apartment. There were still lights on up there, and I smiled a little, imagining her in there, perhaps sitting on her couch watching TV or maybe in bed reading a book.
I would have liked to just be able to look in on her, watch from afar, make sure she was safe and that nobody would ever hurt her.
Getting out of the cab, I told the cab driver not to wait for me, even though I knew there was every possibility Caeli was going to tell me to take a flying leap.
A smarter man than me would’ve at least told the driver to keep the fare running and hang tight while I pled my case. But I wasn’t that smart, and as I watched the taxi speed off down the street, break lights flashing twice before it disappeared, I laughed a little to myself.
Whatever else, I wasn’t going to be half-assed and keep the cab waiting. I’d walk home if necessary.
Moving up the steps to the door, I knocked and then buzzed.
After that, I stepped back and looked up. I saw her come to the window and look down but couldn’t see the expression on her face.
A few moments later, the window opened. “You need to leave,” Caeli called down to me.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” I asked.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You should go, Zack.”
“I’ll go,” I said, “but first I just want to see you. Just a minute, Caeli, and then if you still want me to leave, I will.”
“No, Zack. Just forget it, I’m not speaking to you.”
The window shut.
I looked up and waited for her to reappear but she didn’t.
I thought about leaving, since it was very obvious that Caeli wanted not part of me after what had gone down between us. And I couldn’t blame her one bit.
But I also wasn’t ready to give up. I stood there, not moving. I remembered my time in basic training, how there were days where we would march and march until people around me were dropping like flies.
I would never drop. I didn’t then and I wouldn’t now.
I would do what I did whenever things got tough, and just suck it up and stick it out.
Standing completely still, a strange sense of peace came over me. I remembered my brothers in arms, their faces, the ones we’d lost…and I smiled a little. My mind floated back to that earlier time, basic training before we’d been shipped overseas.
Everyone had looked so young. Maybe it was just innocence. The laughter, playing cards, shooting the shit, even the arguments—what I wouldn’t have given to have my friends back and alive and my side once again.
My feet never moved, my spine stayed straight. Standing there as if at attention, I imagined my drill sergeant screaming in my face. If I gave up and walked away now, I was just dropping, quitting on what I believed.
And what I believed in was Caeli Powers. I wanted to see her again, talk to her again, tell her the truth.
I wasn’t sure how much time went by, maybe an
hour, maybe more. All I knew was that eventually the front door opened and she was standing in front of me, looking more beautiful than I even remembered.
She was wearing light pajama pants and a Boston University t-shirt, her hair pulled back. Her big eyes watched me with caution as she shivered and rubbed her arms.
“Zack, what are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m waiting,” I answered.
“For what?”
“You,” I said simply.
She shook her head. “There’s no point. I’m sorry, but it’s just…I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“I have something to say,” I told her.
She bit her lower lip, sexy as hell, and looked down. “I don’t think I want to hear it.”
“Maybe you’re afraid you’ll feel something if you actually listen to me,” I replied.
When she looked up, her expression was furious. “You’ve been drinking. Tomorrow after you’ve slept it off--”
“Listen to me, Caeli,” I said. “I know that the way I treated you before was wrong, but I’m going to show you it can be different. Just give me one day. One more day and let me prove—“
“No,” she said, glaring.
I moved towards her, walking up the steps. “Then just give me one last kiss,” I said.
She stared up at me, her lower jaw trembling with emotion, and I couldn’t help but reach out and caress her chin with my thumb.
“Zack,” she whispered, her eyes looking watery suddenly. “You can’t just toy with people.”
“I’m not playing with you, I swear. Give me one day to prove it.”
“Fine,” she said. “Come back tomorrow.” She stepped back to close the door and I blocked it with my foot. I pushed it open.
“I want my goodnight kiss,” I told her.
She stared at me, her plush lips glistening. “Fine, one kiss,” she said. “But that’s it, and I’m serious.”
“I’m serious too,” I replied, and then I leaned in, my hands instinctively grabbing her around the waist as our lips finally met once more.
I felt like I’d been waiting my entire life for this moment, felt like I finally had a grip on the first real thing I’d found since God knew when.
I didn’t want to let her go, and as I felt her melting into me, our lips searched more intently, our tongues meeting, intertwining as our bodies pressed closer still.
When we pulled away, she swallowed. “Want to come upstairs?” she asked, her voice softer.
“Yes,” I answered.
CAELI
He slid inside me again, both of us groaning as his enormity fit between my legs.
We were in my bedroom, lying in my bed together, and Zack’s naked body was on top of me as I spread myself for him, opening to him.
Our bodies were slick with sweat.
My nipples were hard and covered with his saliva. He’d licked and sucked them for so long, until I’d cried out for him.
And then his mouth had been between my legs, his tongue effortlessly stroking me, making me come.
Now that he was fucking me, I shuddered with emotion and pleasure. His body felt even better than I remembered it, and all I could do was hold onto him, let him take me wherever he would take me.
My hands roamed across the hot flesh of his muscular torso, watching in awe as the glistening ink on his chest and shoulders rippled as his muscles contracted and released, contracted and released while he fucked me, making me cry out.
His hips pumped into me, our skin slapping.
The air smelled of our sex, and I’d never been more relaxed and yet also in such a heightened state of awareness. It was as if every detail my eyes and ears and nose took in was magnified.
“Oh, Zack,” I cried out, as his wet cock popped inside me and stroked, then retreated briefly, teasing me. “Oh shit, I’m going to come soon,” I told him, reaching out and grabbing his shoulders.
He slid back inside me with a low groan that emanated deep from his throat. His eyelids fluttered closed as he began pumping faster now.
I could feel him throbbing, his shaft expanding as the intensity between us grew hotter.
“Shit,” he growled.
He crashed down on top of me with his full weight and I wrapped my legs all the way around him so that my feet were crossed over his clenched buttocks. My fingernails scratched his skin as I felt him penetrate so deep that the pressure was exquisite.
I was coming now, and I hugged him to my body as he thrust inside me, exploding, his entire body rigid as he emptied everything into me.
“I’m taking it all,” I whispered in his ear.
“You’re taking everything I have,” he whispered back, and then his lips were covering mine, drinking in my air.
We completed a circle, my air into his lungs, his cock releasing everything inside my pussy, which contracted and clenched him and sucked him dry.
We laid together like that a long time, and I’d never felt so close to another human being before.
Then he finally withdrew and slid himself out between my legs, but remained close, stroking my hair and looking into my eyes.
“That was amazing,” I said.
He smiled. “You’re so different from everyone and everything else in this world,” he said. “I don’t understand how I ever found you.”
I felt my skin flush. “I’m just like anyone else.”
“No,” he replied, shaking his head subtly. “You’re not.”
I turned away, unable to meet the intensity of his gaze, even though my heart was racing happily in my chest. I loved the way he felt next to me, the way he made me feel when he looked at me with his eyes.
“What changed?” I asked, finally. “When I was at your apartment you seemed like you didn’t think much of me.”
Zack sighed and leaned back, his chest rising and falling, still beaded with cooling sweat from our lovemaking. “I’m a very fucked up person, Caeli.”
I looked at him. “Everyone’s fucked up,” I said.
“Not like me.”
“How are you so much worse?”
He turned his head and grinned a little at me. “I want to tell you,” he said. “And I will soon. But can we just enjoy this moment together? I don’t want to ruin it talking about my life.”
I turned onto my elbow and stroked his bare chest with my fingertips, tracing the lines of his tattoos. I knew that the flag and gun and the eagle with the tombstone told part of his story, but it wasn’t time to ask yet.
He was getting closer but he wasn’t ready right now. I decided I could be patient, even as my stomach twisted uneasily when I wondered just what was so horrible that he’d been avoiding it like this.
But for now, I needed to listen to him and just enjoy this time we were spending together. Enjoy the comfort, the safety, the way he looked at me.
The way we looked at each other. “I feel strangely close to you right now,” I admitted.
Zack nodded, his expression serious. “I know. I feel the same way.”
“Is it real, though?”
“Yes,” he replied, as if he knew.
“You told me to give you a day,” I said, laying my chin on his chest now. “That means the clock already started ticking when you came upstairs.”
“That’s true,” he chuckled. “Which means I still have over twenty hours left. Not bad.”
“It goes fast,” I reminded him.
He put a thumb on my cheek and caressed it softly, giving me chills. “Everything goes fast in this life.”
I sighed, knowing he was right—and knowing that he was talking about so much more than this night, this day together, more even than about just him and I.
I snuggled into him and he held me close, sliding his body around mine, and then we were drifting together.
“I’m going to hold you like this every night for the rest of my life,” he whispered into my ear, softly.
Or was it a dream? I’d been falling asleep and I couldn�
�t be sure.
Everything was liquid, there was no solidity and I was floating, breaking apart as the darkness took me.
I knew that somehow, somewhere I was happy and smiling and safe.
But I just wished I knew if it was real.
***
That morning, we got up around the same time as one another, and our routines were strangely easy and synchronized, like a couple that had been together for years and had those special rhythms and ways of doing things that just fit together.
There was no awkwardness, no fear of him seeing me without my makeup or my hair done.
He used the shower first while I went and put the coffee on, and then he came out of the shower in just a towel, looking hot as ever, and I went by and he gave my butt a playful slap as I passed.
I squealed and then continued on my way into the bathroom and had a nice hot shower myself. When I was done, and changed and freshened up for the day, I found Zack sipping coffee and looking out the window, his legs crossed, looking oddly calm and serene.
I made my own cup of coffee and then sat nearby and sipped at it, feeling warm inside. After a bit, Zack reached over and grabbed my legs and swung my bare feet onto his lap. He sipped his coffee with one hand and then rubbed my feet with his other hand.
“I wish I could wake up like this every morning,” I said, moaning with pleasure.
“You can,” he replied.
“Sure,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“You think I wouldn’t rub your feet every morning?”
“That’s right,” I replied, smirking.
“Then you don’t know me very well.”
My grin faded. I didn’t know him very well, and I knew that he had secrets, things he didn’t want to tell me about his life.
All of this normalcy, the way we were behaving together—it was all just a mirage.
It was going to disintegrate so fast, as soon as the real world intruded.
Zack seemed to sense my change of heart, as I pulled my feel from his lap.
“I’ve got something fun for us to do today,” he said.
“What’s that?” I asked, turning away so he couldn’t see the sadness in my eyes.