Infantry

by Haley Pierce

  “Hey,” I said, looking into his eyes. “The present is what’s important now, right?” I squeezed his hand and smiled sympathetically. “You turned out just fine from what I can tell, and I’m sure the woman who raised you is proud of what you’ve become.”

  “She was.”

  I got nervous again realizing I must have brought up something he was probably doing his best to stay away from.

  “Don’t worry,” he could sense my discomfort, “she passed away over a year ago, and we kept in close contact right up until the end. It’s never easy to see someone pass away, but she lived a good life and made sure to let me know that she counted me as one of the better things in her long a rich life.” Things became silent between us again, but it wasn’t that uncomfortable now. It was contemplative and, before I knew it, the rich color returned to his eyes and he returned with his disarming smile. “Right,” he said. “Sorry about all this. I let myself get distracted by a lovely woman like you, Claire. I guess you have a face that makes me want to be as honest as I can be.” He ran his thumb over the back of my hand. It made my heart flutter and I grinned stupidly.

  “Let’s finish eating,” he said. “Then we can get you some dessert. I can see it in your eyes that you’ve been thinking about it.”

  Derek caught the waitress walking by and said a few sentences to her that I couldn’t hear above the noise of the restaurant. When he made sure the waitress was on her way back, he leaned in.

  “Close your eyes,” Derek said. He covered my eyes with his left hand before I could close them and I could hear the sound of plates being set on the table.

  “What?”

  “Just trust me.”

  I frowned, suspicious, but curiosity won and I sighed, closing my eyes.

  “Now open your mouth.”

  “On a first date? In public?” I could feel my face heating up as I imagined the scene from an outsider’s perspective.

  “Yes, in public.” The tone of his voice made me suddenly feel like a miniature furnace.

  I laughed, unable to retort, then leaned forward in my chair. “Fine, but just one bite.”

  I parted my lips and closed them around the spoon of Greek yogurt he offered me.

  “Okay, that’s beyond delicious,” I said after swallowing, still swirling the sweet taste of honey around in my mouth.

  “You have a little on your face,” he said.

  I groaned internally, automatically drawing a hand up to cover my mouth.

  “Just joking.”

  I harrumphed at him and turned my attention back to the dessert.

  “Hey, where’s mine, Claire?”

  “You’re not getting one,” I said, teasingly.

  A dramatic expression of hurt took over his face, but it was replaced by a devious one. “What about later?”

  “I make no promises,” I said, pursing my lips, and then helping myself to a piece of baklava. He could be honest, but it looked like I was going to pretend a little while longer that I wasn’t going to let him tear my clothes and do whatever he wanted to me that night.

  Chapter 6

  Somewhere between leaving the restaurant and flagging a taxi, I agreed to go to his place. He had posed the question casually, landing a soft kiss on my cheek, as if it was already part of our plan. His method was honest, and so I agreed without wasting another breath.

  His place was on the twelfth floor of an average-looking apartment building. There was no peeling paint, but the front foyer had tiles that could use replacing. And it wouldn’t have hurt if the decor had some updating, or maybe just having some décor in the first place. I was expecting a bachelor pad and that was what I got, but my nit picking was just part of my frayed nerves. I felt it all the way in the cab. There was a circus going on in my stomach and the touch of our hands was now charging me with sexual energy. It really didn’t matter what his apartment looked like. There was a bed and, although I didn’t know how soundproof the walls were, I told myself that they were thick enough to keep whatever noises we made between the two of us. The apartment itself was small, but a decent size for a single person, and thankfully very clean. It looked like it was barely lived in. The whole apartment felt nice, but it also made me feel a little sad. It didn’t feel like a home, but it reminded me of the fact that Derek probably never had anything that had felt like home before. I wanted to kiss and comfort him now, almost as much as I wanted him to grab me and rip my dress off.

  “Want a glass of wine?” Derek asked from inside the open-concept kitchen while I stood in the living area. I tried to stop my brain from alternating between picking apart the way he arranged the model sports cars on the fireplace mantel and wondering if his kitchen table was at a good height to bend me over. “Champagne? Or something else?”

  “Wine’s fine,” I said.

  “Take a seat on the couch. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  I did as he said, suddenly becoming aware of the fact that I was in Derek’s house and he was about to bring me more wine. There was no way I wanted to leave this place without having Derek all over me.

  I watched Derek pour the wine into the glasses. With the way his shoulders and biceps shifted under his shirt, he made this mundane movement arousing. The realization was a bit alarming since I thought I would have been nervous—it had been a while since I was last with a man. I decided he didn’t have to know.

  “Here,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking the glass.

  He picked up a small remote and the stereo came to life. He fiddled with it for a moment, and then set it down. Gentle music began to flow from the speakers.

  “You like jazz?” I asked, honestly taken aback with disbelief.

  “I do,” he said, moving to light a handful of blood-orange colored candles positioned around the room. “If the occasion and mood is right.”

  I set my wine on the coffee table and shifted on the couch, trying to subtly stop the hem of my dress from riding up. When I had my glass back to my mouth, Derek was next to me, leaning back into the couch with an air of luxury to him. I saw the framed medals and pictures he had around the living room now. I had no idea what any of them were for, but he sure had a lot of them. It all reminded me of the fact that he was leaving in less than ten days. But I was too far down the road of wanting to sleep with him to let anything stop me.

  I looked at him sitting there and realized that he didn’t look anything like I would picture a typical military man to embody. He wore black pants, that I suspected had been recently pressed, and an equally crisp navy top. I watched him reclining with the glass of wine in his hand. His eyes matched his hair in the dim lighting and reflected the flimsy amber glow from the candles.

  He drew a sip of his wine and I caught a flash of his tongue.

  “Claire,” he said. “You do things to me, you know?”

  I tried to keep a straight face and not blush too hard.

  “Do I?” I asked, trying on my best flirting tone.

  He took another deep sip and placed his glass to the table. Then, he slid closer to me and brought his hand up to my face. My glass joined his, discarded, and my eyes became trapped in his. I felt like I was being sucked into an ocean—something so vast and deep that I could never understand it but yet wanted to try.

  Derek drew my face to his and his lips brushed against mine, moving to the corner of my mouth and then jumping to the side of my neck. My breath started to punctuate, my eyes fluttered and closed at the sensation of his supple lips planting slow, even kisses along my neck, reaching up, and up, until his teeth grazed my earlobe and his mouth breathed warm air over my ear. Finally, his mouth found mine again.

  A firm palm pressed against my chest, his other hand behind my head, and he lowered me down on the couch. My heart was steadily thumping as I watched the light from the candles emit shadows that were dancing along the lines of his face. They were solid lines, but not harsh. For the first time I noticed softness to them. I reached up and ran my hand thro
ugh his espresso hair. There was a tuff that flicked out from behind his right ear that I somehow hadn’t noticed before.

  He kissed me again and I kissed him back. The taste of him made my head spin. His shirt was on the floor. Our breath became one. His hand ran up my thigh while my fingers traced lines down his bare chest and over his firm abs. My mind no longer had room for any stray thoughts. I was fully consumed by the moment we were creating. My body ached for more. My heart longed for it; to have Derek wrap me fully in his arms and take me elsewhere. Someplace new and different from the caution and worry I usually lived in.

  His lips tugged at mine as he pulled back. He brushed my hair with his fingers, kissed the side of my face and whispered into my ear.

  I kissed the side of his face back, and a breathless nod was all I could give him. We didn’t need words anymore. We both knew that we wanted the same thing.

  Quickly, he swept me up into his arms and carried me to his bed with a strength that surprised me. His taste lingered with me the whole way down the hall to his bedroom. On the bed, he started to kiss my neck and unbuttoned the front of my dress, exposing the sexy lace bra I put on. I had subconsciously prepared for something like this. I felt his powerful chest and moved my hands down to start on his belt, then the button and then the zipper of his pants. Soon he started working on my underwear and I could feel him through his boxer shorts on my thigh. As he took off the bra and flung it aside, I started to grind his member, feeling its firmness and size through the matching lace panties I wore as he cupped my breasts in his strong hands. Momentarily, we stayed like that, feeling as much of each other as we could. His cock started to grow more as my wetness made it through the fabric of my panties. I slid over his shaft slowly as I watched him let a slow breath from his mouth with his eyes closed. His hand then cupped the back of my head and our lips met again like they were magnetized. At the same time, the fingers of his other hand pushed aside the moist fabric of my underwear and started exploring the source of the wetness. It was my turn to close my eyes and let out a long and slow breath. I moaned slightly as his fingers explored more of me and spread my juices over all the areas of my womanhood that ached to be touch.

  Soon he started kneeling down, tugging my panties down from the hip, kissing every inch of newly exposed flesh. He planted his face between my thighs and started working his tongue between my folds, tasting my uncontrollable wetness. The sensations were instant; shudders and flashes of light. I responded to the movements of his tongue like it controlled me fully. My hips bucked and churned as real moans escaped my lips that I had no hope of keeping back.

  I pulled him up after orgasming from another’s touch for the first time in a really long time. I gently pushed him back so he could lie down on the bed. His huge erection was sticking up into the air, almost surging as my breath started to caress it. He breathed deeply through his nose as the head passed my lips and I worked it with my tongue, totally enraptured by my desire to make him feel at least a small part of what he just did to me.

  When both of us seemed like we couldn’t take anymore, I moved to straddle him, working my hips until I had all of him fully inside me. I couldn’t stop myself from working my body the way I did. It had been too long for me and I couldn’t control what my body was doing. He smiled at me and met my hypnotic hip movements with his own hard thrusts that shook me and made the bed creak along with our movements.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said, as I felt him swell inside of me, sending me over the edge. My whole body gripped him and I felt him loose himself right before we became disembodied groans of “fuck” and “yes”.

  Chapter 7

  I rolled over in the blue sheets and found Derek, hair particularly unruly, looking at me with bright eyes. I felt myself flush.

  “Hey,” he said. “Morning.”

  Light filtered in from a gap in the curtains, highlighting the lines of his body and reminding me that I had slept with him. The sheet pooled over his member that had spent the better part of the night inside me. The thought of it was making me want him again.

  I smiled at him. “Good morning.”

  He leaned over and landed a brief kiss on my lips. “Come here.”

  I squirmed towards him, not quite as gracefully as I hoped I would be, with the bottom of the sheets tangled about my legs. He helped untangle my legs and wrapped an arm around me, pulling me close. His face nestled against mine and into my hair. He kissed me again, but this time just below my ear. I ran my hands over his shoulders and arms, my heart swelling as I thought back to the night again. The touch of his fingers, how gentle and courteous he had been at the start, and then how he took charge from there on. His hands, mouth, and cock were the guides, and I was more than willing to be led wherever they went.

  We lay in each other's arms for some time, too comfortable to want to get up. The only sound was that of our breathing. It was nice. Peaceful. He played with my hair a little and I could have stayed there in his bed all day without a bother.

  Suddenly, my stomach made a gurgle that evolved into a full-scale growl.

  “Hungry?” Derek said, removing his arm from under my head.

  “Maybe a little,” I said, embarrassed. I could always leave it to my stomach to ruin a great moment.

  “I’ll make breakfast,” he said. “Waffles sound good?”

  I grinned. “You bet they do.”

  “Great.” He gave me a peck on the lips and then swung himself out of bed. I couldn’t complain about the view. His thighs, his calves, his arms, his rippled abs; they all looked like something sculpted from stone and not part of a living, breathing man. I caught sight of that gorgeous piece of him and remembered the feeling of it being rock hard and steadily diving deep inside of me. When alone, I didn’t daydream about the events of last night and was relieved to recall Derek putting on a condom somewhere in between tearing each other’s clothes off and me riding him late into the night. I wanted to feel all of him, but my cautious side was always pretty loud, no matter how much wine I drink. Plus, I felt good knowing I still regularly took the pill, even though I hadn’t been with anyone for quite a while.

  “You can lay in bed longer if you like.”

  “No, it’s okay,” I said. “I’ll come with you.”

  I sat up and looked around for the clothes I had thrown off the night before—or, more accurately, where Derek had thrown them.

  “Don’t distract me while I’m cooking,” he said over his shoulder, as he pulled on a pair of shorts.

  “I make no promises.”

  Derek didn’t put on a shirt before he walked down to the hall and kitchen. He tried to make small talk with me as he cracked eggs and measured the flour. I took a closer look at the medals and pictures he had hung up in his living room. Most of them weren’t even hung up and leaned in stacks against whatever space along the walls there was.

  It was strange to think that this body, that could be so tender, was also that of a soldier; someone who was trained to kill and defend his country. And here he was, whisking waffle batter in his underwear for me.

  “What is this one for?” I asked about a particularly ornate looking medal in a frame.

  “It’s really not that good of a story,” he said, looking up only long enough to see which one I was referring to. “I do my job, and sometimes doing my job means I win a medal for it.”

  “I doubt if it’s as simple of that. Are you trying to convince me that all this stuff is pretty much nothing more than winning Employee of the Month?”

  He smiled and shrugged. For a moment he stopped what he was doing and looked at me. “There are things that I can tell you and things that I can’t. Some of it is for my sake, some of it is for yours, and some of it is just because I’m not allowed. If you want, I could tell you about that one in your hand, but it’s probably best for your sake if I don’t.”

  I nodded and put the frame down. Somehow, I knew that he was right. I had no idea what he did as a soldier, but I figured tha
t it was probably better for me, and probably for Derek, if we left it at the fact that it was dangerous and necessary.

  Topped with a ring of whipped cream and sliced peaches, the waffles looked—and smelled—fantastic. Derek also made us coffee from freshly ground beans from Brazil. It was the most impressive breakfast I had eaten in a while, especially one I didn’t have in a restaurant, or one I hadn’t made myself.

  “Here’s syrup, if you want,” Derek said, plopping a plastic bottle down in the center of the circular dining table.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking the bottle and drizzling some over my still-steaming waffles.

  We ate to the background din of the radio and the sound of passing traffic outside. It was late morning, and I was glad that I didn’t have to head into work until afternoon. The morning had a weekend feel to it, for obvious reasons, and I groaned internally that it was, in fact, Monday.

  “Are you busy today?” I asked, feeling the need to drown out the radio host going on about a particular traffic accident downtown.

  Derek shrugged, swallowed a heavy mouthful of waffle and cream. “Just need to run some errands.”

  “Preparation for deploying?”

  He nodded.

  “Can I ask how long you’re going for?”

  “Until the middle of December. Possibly longer.” He didn’t look at me while he said it. “Why?”

  “Just wondering,” I said. “That’s almost eight months. Seems a little long, but I guess not horrible.”

  “It’ll go fast. Time does that. Plus, it’s not as long as most people spend overseas.”

  I paused, my fork loitering halfway to my mouth. “Yeah, I guess I heard about people deployed for years and all that. Time moves pretty strangely as well. Sometimes it feels so weird to think I’ve lived here for six years already.”

  Derek looked up at me and grinned. “I know that feeling.”

  “Some days it feels like no time at all, and I wonder where my mind’s been the whole time.”