Rank & File (Anchor Point Book 4)

by L. A. Witt

  The weekend was over, but Portland wasn’t that far away. As soon as possible, I hoped we could take off again for some more time away from the Navy. More lazy, unhurried sex. More waking up in the same bed. More going out like a real couple.

  But . . . maybe not another hot wing challenge.

  There were days I hated how slow and boring NAS could be. On a small base like this, there were only so many people around to do so many things that actually warranted police involvement.

  Then there were days when I wished it were a little slower and a little more boring.

  Days like today.

  I’d advised my MAs to keep an eye on the house where that domestic had happened a while back. The one where the broken glass, scraped knuckles, and dented wall had added up to something we all knew but couldn’t prove.

  Noah had been in my office when the call came through for police and medics. Both of our radios had crackled to life, and when the dispatcher read off that address, our eyes had locked for a split second. Then we’d been on our feet and sprinting to the parking lot.

  A patrol unit beat us there, and a local ambulance wasn’t far behind. Minutes later, the slight blonde woman was being led out of the house in cuffs, screaming obscenities the whole way while the neighbors watched from their driveways, and her husband, shaken and bleeding, stayed on the sofa.

  Noah and one of the patrols went from neighbor to neighbor to find out who’d heard or seen what. Me, I got the fun part—staying with the man who’d finally taken enough of a beating to say enough was enough.

  The living room and kitchen looked like a bar brawl had happened here. A glass end table had been shattered—one of my guys wisely surrounded it with police tape to keep anyone from stepping on a shard, even with boots on. The kitchen table was shoved up against the sliding glass door, the chairs on one side toppled like kids’ toys while the others were pinned between the table and the glass. Blood was smeared on the wall above a dent I distinctly remembered reading about not long ego.

  The EMTs glued a cut on the husband’s cheekbone and another on his arm. The wounds weren’t as severe as they looked, fortunately. They happened to be in places that tended to bleed profusely enough to be terrifying. Kind of like the cut on Brent’s face the night we’d met.

  The husband changed out of his bloody T-shirt, put on a gray Navy T-shirt, and returned to the couch to talk to my MA2 and me. “So what happens now?”

  “We need to ask you some questions,” I said as calmly as I could. “JAG is being notified, but for now, it’s just us.”

  He nodded, wringing his hands. His knuckles were bruised and raw in places, but they looked mostly healed. Like scabs on top of scabs, bruises where other bruises had already been, and scars filling in the rest—pretty typical of the maintainers down on the flight line.

  Those battered, discolored hands were trembling in his lap. He didn’t look at me or MA2 Sanchez. From the way his cheek tensed, I suspected he was trying really hard not to break down. In his mind, he’d probably been humiliated enough.

  The kindest thing we could do at this point was get the questions over with and leave him alone. Give him some time to catch his breath before he had to talk to JAG.

  Clearing my throat, I met MA2 Sanchez’s eyes and nodded toward the victim.

  She gulped.

  I gave her what I hoped was an encouraging smile. You can do this. I’d have said it out loud, but we had a shaken victim who didn’t need to know the cop asking him questions was second-guessing herself. She needed the experience. If she couldn’t do it, I’d take over so we didn’t draw this out for him.

  MA2 Sanchez sat on the couch a comfortable distance away from the husband. Petty Officer Swain, according to MA2’s briefing when I’d joined them.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” she asked him.

  His jaw worked. Yeah, he was definitely trying not to cry, and I was trying almost as hard not to remember how it felt to be in his shoes.

  Swain pushed himself up and started pacing across the floor. He was favoring his left foot slightly. Could’ve been an old injury. Could’ve been something from work. Could’ve been . . . neither of those things. I made a note of it.

  He folded his arms across his chest, flinching when his finger brushed the freshly glued gash above his elbow. “I’ve had to work a lot of long shifts lately. We’re short on manning. Got someone out on maternity leave, couple of people on light duty . . .” He hugged himself tighter as he kept pacing. “She always thinks I’m cheating when I have to pull extra hours. So I got home late this morning. I, uh, work nights. And . . . she lit into me, and we got into a fight.”

  “How did the injuries happen?” MA2’s voice was calm and even, exactly as it should’ve been.

  Swain absently touched the bruise that was slowly spreading across his left cheek. “I’m not sure, to be honest. When . . . when she gets really pissed, she loses it and comes at me. Fists. Feet. Whatever. I’m . . .” He stopped pacing, gestured at himself, and faced us with a broken expression. “Look at me. I’m twice her size. I’m afraid to defend myself because I don’t want to hurt her. So I try to, you know, stop her. Keep her still until she runs out of steam.” He exhaled, then came back to the couch and sank onto the cushion, shoulders sagging with the same defeat that filled his voice. “Today, we just . . . It just went on for so long. When she finally stopped fighting, there was blood everywhere. I don’t even know what cut me where. I guess when we clipped the corner of the counter, or maybe when the end table broke. I don’t know. But . . . man, I can’t live like this. Not anymore.”

  “How long has it been going on?” MA2 Sanchez asked. “The physical violence in your marriage, I mean?” Her eyes flicked toward me, brow pinched as if needing reassurance, so I nodded.

  You’re doing fine.

  “It’s been going on since . . .” Swain sighed, rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding my gaze. “I don’t know. A long time. At least since my last deployment, which was three years ago.”

  Goose bumps sprang up under my uniform, and I tried not to visibly shudder. My ex had roughed me up periodically over the course of one year. Three? Fuck . . .

  MA2 glanced up at me. What else should I ask?

  I made as subtle a gesture as I could toward the dent beneath the blood smear on the wall. Her eyes tracked in that direction and stopped.

  “Swain,” she said gently, “can you tell me what happened there?” She pointed with her pen at the dent.

  He didn’t look. I suspected he didn’t have to. Sighing, he leaned forward, elbows pressed into his thighs and fingers kneading his neck. “We got in a fight. A while ago. She came at me, and we both . . .” He motioned toward the dent. “Never got around to fixing it, I guess.”

  My stomach twisted. He and his wife had hit the wall hard enough to dent it, and he was worried about fixing the damage to the plaster. Fuck.

  Been there, done that, buddy.

  It was a good two hours before Noah, the patrols, and I all returned to the precinct. I debriefed the patrols, mostly to make sure they were coping okay. Cops were supposed to be desensitized to this stuff, but domestics fucked with the best of them. Especially when we’d been called out to the same house enough times—it was easy to drive ourselves insane wondering if we could have prevented today.

  At least it had been relatively minor. Everyone was alive. Injuries weren’t severe. It could have been so, so much worse.

  After I’d made sure my younger MAs were steady on their feet, I swung by Noah’s office to check on him. This was hardly his first domestic, and he’d seemed solid at the scene, but I always worried about him. The job took its toll, and every once in a while, I worried something might make him relapse and start drinking again.

  “Hey.” I stepped into his office. “You going to be okay?”

  He looked up from his computer and nodded, lips taut. “Yeah. I . . . think I might get out of here, though. Anthony will be here soon, and I . . .”
He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t have to. God knew I understood fully.

  “Me too,” I said.

  He held my gaze. “You going to be okay on your own? I know this stuff doesn’t, uh, sit well with you.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  With any luck, I won’t be alone either.

  “Okay.” He gave another nod. “You know where to find me if you need me.”

  “Likewise.”

  We exchanged a look, and then I left his office. We’d both taken each other up on that offer quite a few times over the years. Me when an abuse case hit too close to home. Him during the first few months he’d been getting sober.

  In my own office, I closed the door and took out my phone to text.

  It’s been a hell of a day. Please tell me you’re free tonight.

  In seconds, Brent replied, If I wasn’t before, I am now. See you as soon as I can.

  And for the first time since that call had come through, I released my breath. Tonight couldn’t come soon enough.

  Brent didn’t ask any questions. The second my door was closed behind us, he grabbed on and kissed me, and I held on to him like my life depended on it. Kind of felt like it did.

  I couldn’t get Swain’s face out of my mind. After my own abusive ex-boyfriend, and then Vince, I knew what it was like to be with someone I couldn’t trust. To second-guess everything they said. To flinch every time they made a sudden move.

  Brent was . . . the opposite. Ironically, since being with him at all was dangerous in its own right, there was safety in his arms. After being in other relationships where I had to keep my guard up to a certain extent, it was amazingly liberating to let that guard down. Not that I had to let it down. As soon as he was here, it was down. Gone. Forgotten.

  “Tell me what you want,” he breathed.

  You. All I want is you.

  I kissed him and held him closer.

  Brent broke the kiss and touched my cheek. “We should go in the bedroom. Get out of these clothes.”

  “Good idea.”

  And good thing I had a small apartment, so we didn’t have very far to go. Just a few feet down a short hall—littering it with clothes as we went—and we were there.

  Brent dropped his boxers on top of his jeans and turned to me. Grinning, he stroked himself slowly in one hand and reached for my neck with the other. “Tell me what you want,” he repeated. “Anything you want tonight.”

  I pulled him close, sucking in a sharp breath when his arm grazed my erection. “This is exactly what I want. You. Naked. In my bedroom.”

  “I’m here. I’m naked.” Brent licked his lips, making that slow gesture into something deliciously obscene. “What are you going to do with me?”

  His hand slid up the shaft of his dick, and his knuckles grazed my stomach. I looked down, watching him touch himself between us. The sight of his cock—thick and hard and ready—made my mouth water.

  Without a word, I went to my knees, held his hips in both hands, and took his cock as far into my mouth as I could. Brent whispered profanity, cradling the back of my head as I deep-throated him.

  My own cock desperately needed attention, so I stroked it slowly to take the edge off. Mostly, though, I concentrated on Brent’s. On making him shiver and gasp.

  “Oh fuck, Will,” he murmured. “You like having your mouth fucked, don’t you?”

  The dirty talk drove me wild coming from him. I moaned an affirmative and licked around the head to be sure he understood. He responded with a low, helpless sound and raked his fingers through my short hair.

  “God.” He rocked his hips, just pushing my gag reflex. “Oh fuck, yeah . . . oh yeah . . .” A shudder rippled through him, and I glanced up in time to see him look down at me with heavy-lidded eyes. He licked his lips again. “I want to fuck you tonight.”

  I let him slide out of my mouth, and slurred, “Yeah. Please.”

  “You want that?” It was a playful taunt, like he wanted me to beg, but with a subtle note of uncertainty. Even with his pupils blown from arousal, his eyes were still full of the same question he’d had when he’d arrived—What do you want me to do?

  “Fuck me,” I whispered, and as soon as the words were out, I couldn’t have him soon enough. “Please fuck me.”

  He held out his hand. I clasped mine around his forearm, and with a little help from him—and an audible protest from one knee—I stood. He threw his other arm around my waist and kissed me deeply, kneading my ass cheek as his tongue played with mine.

  When we came up for air, we were both out of breath, and he nodded toward the bed. “Now.”

  Oh hell yeah.

  He grabbed a condom and lube from the drawer, and we both got on the bed. Once he had on the condom, he knelt behind me. Slick fingers teased, then probed. I was worried he’d spend half the night fingering me to drive me insane, but he didn’t do it for long. Just enough to lube me up and stretch me a little.

  After he’d withdrawn his fingers, he nudged me all the way down onto the mattress. His knee gently pushed my thighs apart, and I closed my eyes as his weight settled over me.

  He slid the head of his cock back and forth along my crack, stopping now and then to press against my hole before he continued teasing.

  I gripped the edge of the mattress. “C’mon. C’mon. I want . . .”

  He stopped again, giving me just enough to make me think he was going to push in this time.

  “Brent . . . God . . . I need—”

  Everything blurred as the head slipped past the tight ring.

  “That what you want?” he taunted in a husky voice.

  “Uh-huh.”

  He withdrew, then slid back in. He could’ve easily forced himself all the way to the hilt without hurting me, but he took his time anyway, steadily working his cock deeper. And, holy fuck, I loved it. The stretch, the invasiveness, the warmth of his body covering mine, the hot huffs of breath rushing past my neck—it didn’t get any better than this.

  “You feel so good,” he purred in my ear as he took a slow, deep stroke. “Jesus, Will.”

  I closed my eyes, pressing my forehead into the pillow and arching up to touch as much of him as I could. “So . . . so do you.”

  He nuzzled my neck and exhaled. “Fuck. I could do this all night, but . . . not gonna last.” The faltering restraint in his voice made my balls tighten.

  “Same.” I tried to rock my hips—not that I could do much in this position—and my head spun as my dick rubbed against the sheets and his slid across my prostate. “Ungh. Brent . . .”

  “Don’t come yet,” he panted in my ear. “I want . . .” He shuddered. “I’m gonna come, and then I’m going to . . . suck you off.”

  “Oh God.” Not coming was suddenly a lot easier said than done. “You’re gonna make me come like this.”

  “No,” he whispered, lips grazing my neck. “I’m right there. I want . . .” He shuddered again, driving himself into me so hard we both grunted. “Not yet.” The line between begging and commanding were impossibly blurred, and the desperation in his voice was unbearably sexy.

  So was the low, crescendoing moan he released as his body started to tremble. He was all the way inside me, and his hips jerked as if he thought he could still get a little deeper, and his fingers dug into my arms as he buried his face against my neck and came.

  With one last shudder, he sank on top of me and exhaled cool breath across my skin. His weight, his heat, his breathing—he was on me and all around me, and I was distantly aware of something that had made me desperate for all of this, but the only thing I could focus on was right now. I couldn’t remember why I’d needed relief, only that I had it. That he felt so good I was halfway to tears.

  Brent lifted himself up and pulled out. I wanted to protest even though I knew he had to, but then he said, “Turn over. On your back.”

  I rolled onto my back, and Brent didn’t waste any time. He tapped my thigh so I parted my legs, and he settled between them. Elec
tricity crackled along my nerve endings—fuck, I was so close to losing it already, and the anticipation of his mouth had me hovering on the brink. Then he pushed two fingers into me in the same moment he swallowed my cock almost to the base.

  “Oh yeah,” I moaned, stroking his hair as he worked his magic on me. “God, yeah, you’re gonna make me . . .”

  Instead of backing off, he must’ve taken that as a challenge, and he gave me everything he had. The fingers inside me curled just right, and his lips and tongue relentlessly teased my cock, and my neighbors—hell, his neighbors—had to have heard me when I cried out with the force of my orgasm, and he didn’t quit. He fingered me and sucked me until I made a pitiful pleading sound that somehow translated to Stop, no more.

  He lifted his head and slid his fingers free. I collapsed back on the bed—apparently I’d arched up off it—as he rose up to kiss me. He only stayed for a second, just long enough to let me taste the salt on his tongue, before he left to take care of the condom.

  I didn’t move. I was too comfortable. Too fucking blissed out and relaxed and perfect. The only thing that could make this better was him pressed up against me, and I wouldn’t have to wait long for that part. After he’d put me through the delicious wringer, fucking the stress right out of me before capping it off with a short, spectacular blowjob, I was too spent to be impatient.

  I was right—he didn’t keep me waiting long. Or maybe I just dozed off for a minute. Whatever the case, I opened my eyes as he was sliding into bed beside me, and now everything was perfect.

  He pushed himself up onto his elbow and gazed down at me. He trailed his fingers along the side of my head like he always did when I’d recently had my hair cut. “You okay?”

  I nodded. “I am now.”

  That was the extent of his questions. I liked that about him—he knew I’d speak up if I wanted to, but he didn’t dig. Especially not while it was obviously still raw.

  I cupped his face and looked in his gorgeous eyes. “Thank you. I needed this.”