[Conduct Unbecoming 01.0] Conduct Unbecoming

by LA Witt

  This wasn’t like any kiss that had ever happened between us. Prior to this, we’d always been feverish, desperate, hungry. Every touch was rough and demanding, and every kiss was deep and unrelenting. We kissed like it was only a matter of time before someone was in the throes of a spine-tingling, toe-curling orgasm.

  This time, it was…different. Oh, the earth-shattering orgasms were inevitable, and I had no doubt we’d be in bed together tonight, but not now. Not yet. For the longest time, only our lips moved together. We barely breathed, barely moved, and it was forever before he gently parted my lips and deepened the kiss to something so slow and sensual it liquefied my knees and spine. Though it wasn’t nearly as violent as every kiss before it, this was no less intense. Not even close.

  His hand followed the curve of my spine to my lower back, and there he pressed in just enough to pull me against him. His erection brushed mine, and his other hand tightened around the back of my neck as he growled into an even deeper, more passionate kiss. And still, we were miles from our usual desperation.

  When I broke the kiss, we were both breathless. Somehow, my hands were on either side of his face and his were on mine. We panted against each other’s lips as his thumb drew unsteady arcs across my cheekbone and I trailed my fingertips along his lightly stubbled jaw.

  I wasn’t afraid someone was watching. For all I knew, everyone from the farms below us to the walls of Nakagusuku watched us now, but I didn’t care. If anything, I was afraid of surrendering to something. Afraid we were standing on the brink of a point of no return. I couldn’t even say for certain it was fear at all. My hands shook, my heart pounded, but it was the anticipation of the jump, not the fear of the fall.

  Eyes still closed, I licked my lips. “Why did you really call me up here?”

  He swallowed. “For the same reason you just kissed me.”

  I pulled back, and our eyes met. If I had any sense at all, if I knew what was good for the career to which I’d devoted half my life, I wouldn’t kiss him again. I’d politely pull away, thank him for showing me the view from Katsuren, and I’d go down the steps and the hill to my car and get the fuck out of here. I wouldn’t even taunt temptation with another meaningless, no-strings one-night stand that was anything but meaningless.

  Deep down, I knew the potential consequences. But standing here on the wall of a fourteenth-century castle with a kiss and a whole lot of carelessness tingling on my lips, watching Shane watch me in the fading daylight, I couldn’t even justify the inch of empty space that existed between us.

  I curved my hand around the back of his neck.

  His lips claimed mine.

  And we jumped.

  Chapter Ten

  Shane

  Following Eric from Katsuren to his apartment, I still couldn’t believe he’d actually showed up. I’d waited for over an hour, palms sweating, and heart racing, certain he wouldn’t show his face in the daylight. I wouldn’t have held it against him if he’d wisely insisted we keep this behind closed doors. Or suggested we quit altogether. In fact, I’d fully expected him to, and was surprised as hell when he’d stepped onto the uppermost enclosure of the castle ruins.

  But he did show up, and now here I was, parking a block away from his apartment. Walking to his building. Meeting his eyes from across the small garage. Following him upstairs. Biting my lip as he turned the key in the door. Walking into his apartment.

  The instant the door clicked shut behind us, there was no turning back. Safely away from anyone who might see us and give a rat’s ass, Eric grabbed the front of my shirt and hauled me into a deep, desperate kiss. We both stumbled, trying to hold on to each other and stay upright.

  I dipped my head to kiss his neck. Eric groaned, letting his head fall back so I had access to more of his hot flesh. I breathed him in, tasted him, let myself get high off the salt of his skin and the masculine scent that had, since our first night together, been synonymous with spectacular sex.

  He gripped the back of my neck, holding me against him like he didn’t want me to stop what I was doing.

  “God, I’m glad you texted,” he groaned, his voice vibrating against my lips. “I’ve been…all day…” He shivered, pressing his erection against mine. “Thinking about you.”

  “Have you?” I whispered, dragging my lips across the front of his throat. “Hopefully the same way I’ve been thinking about you.”

  “Naked?”

  “Fucking each other until it hurts?”

  Eric’s fingers twitched against the back of my neck.

  I kissed my way up the side of his neck to the underside of his jaw. “If I’d had a condom with me, and we could’ve gotten away with it”—I let my lips brush his—“I’d have fucked you right up there on Katsuren.”

  “So great minds do think alike,” he murmured.

  “Like I’m ever not thinking about sex with you around.”

  “To be fair”—he shoved my shirt up and off—“you’re usually having sex when I’m around.”

  “Hmm.” I tugged at his belt. “Can’t argue with that, can I?”

  “Maybe we should get to that part,” he said.

  “In a hurry, are we?”

  “And you’re not?”

  “Fat chance of that.” I kissed him hard.

  Somehow, we made it into his bedroom and out of our clothes without tripping over each other. I’d barely kicked off my briefs when Eric pulled me down onto the bed on top of him, and I gasped when my cock brushed against his.

  He wrapped his fingers around both of our cocks and rolled his hips just enough to create a gentle, mind-blowing friction. As he stroked us both with his hand, I couldn’t help moving to complement his motions, and I couldn’t. Fucking. Breathe.

  I groaned and buried my face against his neck. “Fuck, Eric…”

  “Like that?” he asked with a grin in his voice.

  “God, yes.” I raised my head and kissed him. My hips moved of their own volition, our bodies falling into some kind of involuntary sync. We kissed, we touched, and more than once I thought I was going to lose it.

  “Fuck me.” His fingers loosened, and his hips slowed. “God, please, Shane, fuck me.”

  “Condoms?” We’d been here together before, but I was lucky I could form the word, never mind remember where he kept them.

  He gestured in the general direction of the bedside table.

  I kissed him once more before pushing myself up off him. “Get on your back.” I stood and gestured for him to move to the edge of the bed.

  As I put on the condom, he sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the bottle of lube. He poured some into his hand, put the bottle aside, then pushed my hand out of the way and stroked lube onto my cock. Even through the thin layer of latex, his hand made me dizzy.

  I kissed him, and together we sank back onto the bed. I guided myself to him, and he closed his eyes and bit his lip as I pressed against him. As the head of my cock slid inside him, he reached back and grabbed the bedcovers above his head. I slid my hands up his arms. He turned his hands over, and when my palms covered his, we clasped our fingers together. Exhaling, I pushed into him, all the way into him, and we both groaned when I withdrew slowly.

  “Fuck…” His back arched.

  He hooked his ankles together above the small of my back, and his hips moved with mine.

  Like our bodies, our fingers weren’t still. Squeezing. Relaxing. Twitching. As if we both needed to feel as much skin moving across skin as possible.

  His fingers tightened between mine, digging into the backs of my hands, and he didn’t let go. Using his grip for leverage, I fucked him harder, and he swore and squirmed beneath me. He screwed his eyes shut, gripped my hands so tight it was painful, and as I slammed my cock into him again and again, he let out a long moan that crescendoed into a strangled, curse-laden cry.

  As his orgasm peaked, Eric rocked his hips back, and I was done for. I forced myself as deep as I could, shuddered against him and came.

>   When the shaking stopped, I withdrew and got rid of the condom. Then we both collapsed into bed together.

  We held each other’s gazes. Sweaty and disheveled, he looked fucking amazing.

  “Join me for a shower?” I asked.

  He wiped sweat off his brow. “Definitely.”

  We got out of bed and into the shower. Not surprisingly, we couldn’t stop touching each other, but Eric subtly backed off. He avoided my eyes, and his kisses were less than enthusiastic.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  He exhaled. “Yeah, I’m just…” He bit his lip.

  “Having second thoughts?”

  Eric swallowed. “Are you sure about this? Seeing each other out in public?”

  “Am I sure I want to?” I brushed a few stray drops off his temple. “Or am I sure it’s a good idea?”

  He shrugged. “Either-or.”

  “Absolutely, and absolutely not.” I cupped his face in both hands and leaned in to kiss him. “But…I just can’t get enough of you.”

  “We could…” He paused, exhaling hard and shaking his head. “We could get in so much trouble.”

  “Only if we get caught.” I kissed his forehead. “The places I want to take you, no one will see us. If they do, they won’t give a fuck, and they won’t know what’s going on between us anyway. Still, if you decide it’s more trouble than it’s worth, just say the word. We can always go back to just meeting like this.”

  He grinned. “I assume we’ll still meet like this either way?”

  I laughed and wrapped my arms around him. “It’s certainly an option, yes.”

  “An option?” He raised an eyebrow. “Only an option?”

  “Well,” I said with a slight shrug, “I’m not going to twist your arm.”

  The grin broadened. “Not even if I beg you to?”

  I laughed. “God, I love the way you think…”

  Chapter Eleven

  Eric

  I was still a little uncertain about Shane’s plan. I had no doubt it would take a while for me to relax into this and accept that we could be seen in public without a giant neon sign appearing over our heads and announcing to the universe that we were sleeping together.

  I’d take my chances, though, which was why, in spite of the knots in my stomach, I pulled into the parking lot beside a faded, handpainted sign that read Nakagusuku Castle Site.

  Shane’s car was a few spaces over, parked in the shadow of a tour bus. There were spaces beside his, but irrational nervousness had me choosing a spot on the other side of the gravel lot.

  Once I’d parked, I picked up my camera off the passenger seat, put the strap over my head and got out, telling myself I looked every bit the tourist. And I was. I had every intention of taking pictures all over this island, whether I was with Shane or not. I was no professional, but photography was a hobby of mine. And who knew? Maybe I could get through this tour without my equipment getting stolen. Someone jacked my twelve-hundred-dollar camera during my last shipboard deployment. Motherfucker. Anyone laid a hand on this one, there’d be hell to pay.

  Camera securely in my hand, I walked across the parking lot. There was an admission fee for this place, so I paid my four hundred yen, took my ticket and map, and started up the steep, paved hill that led to the ruins. On the left side of the pavement was a colorful garden, and the row of trees to my right formed a thick canopy of branches, which provided some shade. I enjoyed that while it lasted; I’d heard Nakagusuku was open air and completely exposed, just like Katsuren. This would probably be the last shade I saw for a while.

  As I neared the top, the garden ended, and to my left was a rectangular grassy field. A few tourists clustered here and there in the grass, taking photos of the ruins and a couple of shrines off to one side. The castle itself was up ahead, spanning the width of the narrow hill on which it sat.

  And to the right, beside a scale model of the castle in its original glory, was Shane in a baseball cap and sunglasses.

  “Going incognito?” I asked as I approached.

  He laughed. “Yeah, that’s it.” He peered at my camera and wrinkled his nose. “Canon?”

  “Yeah, so?” Then the yellow lettering on his neck strap caught my eye, and I gave the snobbiest sniff I could muster. “Oh. So you’re a Nikon man.”

  “I am.” His lip curled with mock disgust. “I suppose I can be seen with you, even while you’re shooting with that. Not like anyone will suspect us of being together now.”

  I laughed in spite of that knot in my stomach.

  He winked. “Relax. No one will notice us.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” I still wasn’t sure about this, but I followed him to the castle anyway.

  Walking together, exchanging playful jabs at each other’s cameras in between checking out the centuries-old castle, we passed a small group of Americans on their way down a set of stairs. My blood turned cold and my heart jumped into my throat, but Shane barely missed a beat as he explained some of the history of Nakagusuku. Just as he probably knew they would—and deep down, so did I—the Americans kept right on walking without giving us a second glance.

  The more we walked up stairs and paths, through archways and courtyards, the less I worried anyone would notice or care about us. It wasn’t like we wore our ranks on our sleeves or anything. Without insignias to incriminate us, we really were just two guys hanging out. Eventually, I convinced myself to just relax and enjoy the ruins.

  At the base of a small staircase leading up to a stone archway, Shane knelt and raised his camera. He turned his baseball cap around and looked through the viewfinder.

  “Oh, don’t you look all gangster now.” I flipped his hat up with my finger.

  He caught it and threw me a good-natured glare. “Very funny.” Chuckling, he fixed his hat, then resumed setting up his shot.

  Not long after that, I stopped to get a shot of a vine slithering up the side of the weathered wall. It was kind of nice exploring this place with someone who didn’t get impatient when I stopped every few steps to shoot something seemingly insignificant. In fact, he stopped almost as much as I did, focusing on a red hibiscus flower growing beside some stairs or tracking a weird black insect crawling along the top of a warning sign.

  Nakagusuku wasn’t much different from Katsuren. At least two of Nakagusuku’s archways were still intact or had been rebuilt, but otherwise, it was a lot like Katsuren--high walls made from large gray stones fitted together with incredible precision. On one of the top levels, though, unlike Katsuren, there was an archaeological dig in progress. Blue tarps covered a few sections, but in others, aged roof tiles and chunks of pottery stuck out from the carefully excavated soil.

  The view from on top of the walls was spectacular. Standing on them like we had at Katsuren, we had a stunning panoramic, unobstructed view of the Pacific, as well as towns and farms down below. It still struck me how big Okinawa really was. It was barely visible on most maps, and yet, standing up on top of a hill like this, looking to the north and the south, I swore the island went on forever in either direction. Maybe it was big enough after all for the two of us to get lost and avoid people who knew us.

  Behind the castle was a huge, bizarre structure. It was constructed of gray concrete, not stone like Nakagusuku. It began at the base of the hill below the castle ruins, then stretched all the way up to the top of another, higher hill.

  Taking it in from up here, I couldn’t put my finger on one style of construction. The whole thing was connected like one giant complex, but the shapes and styles varied from one area to another. The bottom level, which was closest to us, was flat and rectangular. Beyond that was a section that was probably three stories with a flat roof in most places, but the occasional peaked, tile roof here and there. And as the building continued up the hill, it widened into something asymmetrical, semicircular. The windows, which appeared to be without glass, were asymmetrically sized and arranged. The roof wavered and curved as if the builders couldn’t dec
ide how high it should be, or how steep, or how far it should stick out.

  And still weirder was this skeletal tower sitting on top of the whole thing. It sat on top of a single-story building and was comprised of rectangular pillars holding up three platforms, each a little smaller than the one before it, kind of like a pagoda. On top of the final platform, eight pillars—three on each side, one on each end—held up a long, peaked roof.

  Shane stopped beside me. “Bizarre, isn’t it?”

  “Uh, yeah. Doesn’t look like fourteenth-century construction either, so I’m assuming it’s not part of the castle?”

  He shook his head, then raised his camera. “It was supposed to be a hotel.” He adjusted the focus on his lens, then added, “They built it in the 1970s but never finished it.”

  “And they’ve never torn it down?”

  “Nope.” His camera snapped a couple of times. As I raised my own camera, he said, “The reason they stopped building it was because of a bunch of accidents. The workers insisted the accidents happened because several old tombs were destroyed during construction.”

  I zoomed in on some graffiti along one of the sides of the hotel. “So, the Okinawan equivalent of building on an Indian burial ground?”

  “Basically. No one would continue building it, and they can’t get anyone to go in and tear it down.” His shutter snapped again. “Plus there’s still some tombs next to it that could be damaged, so everyone’s just leaving it alone.”

  “Creepy.” Through my lens, I scanned the hotel. I couldn’t decide if it was more eerie when I zoomed in on a shattered window, or when I pulled back and looked at the entire building. Lowering my camera, I said, “I don’t suppose we can go wander around in it, can we?”