But Papa had already left for the nurse’s station. Marc could have pointed out that there was a call button, but instead focused on catching a decent breath. When would he be able to breathe normally again?
“Here, take a sip of this.” Mama held a straw to his lips and he sucked down the ice-cold water. Even something as simple as that left him shaky.
“What’s up, Doc?”
The blonde nurse who had checked him onto the floor bounced in and quickly checked his pulse.
“Just a little dizzy and short of breath. Moved too fast.”
“Well, hon, you’d better stay in bed a while and save those moves for later.” She wiggled her eyebrows and he smiled. She’d been flirting with him since he’d arrived this morning.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Your parents have been camped out all night waiting for your flight to get in. You got away from them while they were out to get a bite of breakfast.”
Marc’s chest squeezed tight. “Yeah, we were just…catching up now.”
Her smile faded as she helped him to sit up in the bed and pressed her stethoscope against the middle of his back. “Take as deep a breath as you can for me without hurting yourself.”
He did the best he could, although it was anything but deep, then he felt the familiar hitch in his side.
“Good enough for now. I’m going to torture you with the spirometer later, though, so you’d better rest up. Don’t want you catching pneumonia on top of that hemothorax.” She helped him lie back down against the pillow. He grunted from the exertion.
“Maybe we should leave and let you get some rest,” Papa said.
“I want to stay,” Mama said to him, then looked down at Marc. “If you don’t mind, Marco. I promise not to upset you again.”
“You didn’t upset me, Mama. I’m glad you’re both here. But I’m afraid I won’t be much company. It’s all I can do to keep my eyes open.”
Mama pressed her warm fingers against his forehead and drew them down over his face to close his eyelids. “Just sleep, my son. We’ll be here if you need us.”
The next thing Marc remembered was opening his eyes and seeing that Papa had found himself a chair and he and Mama were huddled together, their sleeping heads leaning on one another, hands clasped together.
Sweet. He couldn’t picture himself growing old with a woman. He liked women too much to settle for one. Besides, you had to let your guard down if you were going to let someone that close. He didn’t want to be that vulnerable to a woman ever again.
He turned away. For now, he’d like to get stronger so he could see if the blonde nurse was all talk and no action. Somehow, though, he pictured she might be the one into wielding the whip.
Still, he held onto the dream of finding that perfect little subbie to work with. Maybe he’d find her at the top sergeant’s BDSM club.
* * *
Five months later, June 2005, Naval Medical Center, San Diego, California
Adam rubbed the back of his neck, trying to ease the crick he’d gotten on the flight from Denver, as he walked down the hallway beside Doc. “Any change?”
Doc gave him a sidelong glance and shook his head. “None. He’s got no fight left. Won’t let anyone visit. Not even his sister. Does the bare minimum with the therapy staff. Won’t wear his prosthesis.”
They walked slowly down the hallway toward Orlando’s room. He didn’t want to walk too fast, in case Doc had any lingering effects from his collapsed lung. “Sounds like he needs a swift kick in the ass.”
Marc smiled and glanced at him. “That’s why I called you, sir.”
Adam grinned. “Cut the sir crap. I’m retired. Besides, when I was off duty, the only person who needed to call me sir was Joni, my wife.”
Marc smiled, but Adam could tell it was a pity smile. He’d opened up to Doc more than anyone else about Joni.
“I’ve tried to get through to him for the last couple weeks. He’s fucking stubborn. But next week I start classes to train with the search-and-rescue squad. I have to get back to Denver tomorrow.”
When they reached the room number they were looking for, Adam stopped and glanced over at him. “Good choice, by the way.” Adam was proud of how far the kid had come from the cocky SOB who had joined his recon unit as their corpsman to someone who could lay his life on the line for someone else. “You’ll make a fine SAR worker.”
The younger man looked down at the floor. For a once-arrogant man, he sure didn’t take compliments well. Maybe he wasn’t arrogant at all, just hiding some past hurts. “Anyway, I’m glad you called me out here. Hate to see the kid discharged just to go do some damn fool thing because he hasn’t gotten his head on straight yet.”
“You and me both.” Marc reached for the door handle to Orlando’s room, and then paused. “I’ll wait out here. He’s sick of seeing me. Good luck.”
Adam nodded, and then entered the room to find the blinds closed and the room in near darkness. No wonder the kid was depressed. He marched to the window and opened the blinds full force.
“What the fuck? I’ve told you to keep them closed!”
Adam turned and came around the bedside curtain to see Orlando lying there, the white sheets bunched around his waist. Shirtless. His dog tags hung against his brown chest, buried in a diamond-shaped tuft of black hair.
“You talking to me, grunt?” Adam tried not to smile as the kid practically came to attention while lying flat on his back. God, he missed having that kind of power over people. Couldn’t wait to get his club started. At least, he’d have submissive women responding to him like that again. Even better.
“Master Sergeant Montague!
“What’s this I hear about you refusing to follow orders?”
Regaining his composure, the kid slumped back against the pillows. “The orders make no sense.”
“Come again?”
“There’s no point fixing me up.”
“Since when does a grunt decide which orders to follow and which to ignore?”
Orlando turned away. A new maneuver was in order. He remembered the night he’d seen them at the fetish club in L.A., getting a screaming redhead off on the St. Andrew’s cross, right before they’d deployed. Of course, when he’d seen Doc and Orlando, he’d high-tailed it out as fast as he could. That would have been a real morale buster if the two could have held it over his head.
“So, have you ever restrained a woman on a St. Andrew’s cross?”
Orlando looked back at him. If the man could blush, he would have. “Say again?”
“I asked if you were into kinky sex—tying women up, spanking them, that sort of thing.”
Orlando seemed unsure how to answer. “I tried it once—well, maybe a few times.”
Well, hell. Adam knew about the one time, but didn’t know there’d been others. He’d just figured Doc had dragged him up there. This might be just the therapy the kid needed.
How the hell many Doms did he have in his unit, anyway? D’Alessio for sure. And he’d heard rumors Grant was a Domme, although he’d never been able to speak with her about it. Sexual harassment regs and all. Serving with a female Marine was like dancing on eggshells and trying not to break one.
Right now, Orlando was the one needing a little dominating.
“Well, I can tell you one thing, grunt. I’d rather be with a sexy redhead right now making her round ass all nice and pink than to be looking at your ugly face.” He watched as the kid’s face did flame a bit at the mention of a redhead. Adam tried not to smile at the look of surprise on the young man’s face.
Orlando got over the shock of Adam’s words pretty quickly, though, and the defenses came up yet again. Stubborn wasn’t the word for this one.
“Guess I didn’t tie mine good enough. She got away.”
Fuck. What kind of woman would dump a man while he was recovering from something like this? If you asked him, good riddance to her. Adam would find the kid as many women as he needed to get over her. But obviou
sly, she’d sunk her claws in him pretty deeply. He wouldn’t get over her very easily.
Joni would never have ditched him, no matter what had gotten blown off. That’s what she’d told him—and he believed her.
“Come back to Denver with me. You can help me out with a little business I plan to start.”
Orlando took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Adam could tell he was choosing his words carefully, afraid to disrespect his former top sergeant. “I don’t need your charity, sir. When I leave here tomorrow, I’m just going to hole up in a motel in Solana Beach and get a good drunk-on.”
Memories of his own two-week bender in Minneapolis after Joni died came back to Adam full force. He didn’t want to count the number of times he’d come close to pulling the trigger with his Magnum, rather than go on without her. Would Orlando have access to a weapon? If not already, he’d have little trouble getting one.
No way was he letting this kid leave here alone.
“It’s a BDSM and fetish club.”
* * *
Damián wondered if he’d heard the man right? “Pardon, sir?”
“You heard me. I’m starting a kink club—bondage, domination, discipline, SM, fetish, any kind of kink you want to get on. Doc’s joining me, but we can always use another good Dom.”
Damn. Damián felt his dick going into a full salute just thinking about it. First hard-on since before the grenade blast. “I’m no Dom. I’m not interested.”
“The hell you aren’t.” Montague grinned, and then directed his attention to the tenting of the sheets.
Damián adjusted the sheets to hide his stiffy, and then slid his leg out to reveal his bare grotesque stump. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m missing a foot.”
“Well, last time I checked, most of the ladies at BDSM clubs are more interested in a firm hand and a stiff cock. You still seem to have both of those in your inventory. Sure, there may be some chicks with a foot fetish, but you still have a good one, don’t you?”
Damián was speechless.
How could he get the master sergeant to see he wasn’t good for anything anymore? Still, even though his former Top was out of uniform, wearing his Marine t-shirt and blue jeans, Damián couldn’t just out-and-out tell him no. He’d spent more than a year under the man’s command.
“I’m supposed to continue outpatient therapy for the prosthesis.”
“Denver’s got an amputee center for vets.” The man got more serious. “But I’ll damned well make sure you do as you’re told. You won’t be pissing around the way you’ve been doing out here.”
Damián had only planned as far ahead as tomorrow—with a couple bottles of tequila and a pistol. That’s all he’d thought about for weeks. Months. So, why did the thought of starting over far away from all the memories of Southern California appeal to him so damned much? He sure had nothing to lose, certainly no more than if he stayed here.
“Look, sir…”
“Cut the sir crap. I’m retired. Call me Adam.”
“I appreciate the offer, but…”
“Sure, there’ll be plenty of butts for you to redden once we get you trained and open up the club.”
Damián knew his former Top was being deliberately dense, because the man wasn’t stupid. No way. He threw his arms up in exasperation. “Fine! I’ll go with you!”
The older man smiled. “I knew you would. I’ve booked our flights back with Doc tomorrow afternoon. You just do whatever they tell you between now and tomorrow.”
* * *
Six months later, December 2005, Denver, Colorado
“Madre de Dios! No! No! No!”
Fuck. Another nightmare. Adam tossed back the sheet, jumped up, and ran across the hallway into Damián’s room. The kid had been plagued with these fucking nightmares for months, just about every night. Adam went to the bedside and laid his hand on Damián’s shoulder. He knew from experience any kind of pressure on the kid’s chest would trigger a PTSD response.
“Damián, it’s Adam. You’re dreaming. Wake up!” The boy’s arms thrashed in the air like a rattlesnake on the attack and one blow caught Adam on the cheekbone before he could block the punch. Adam winced. The kid had been working on his upper-body strength. Judging by that blow, he’d say Damián was getting back to his pre-injury conditioning.
“Sarge! Don’t you fucking die on me!”
Adam knew what the kid was reliving, after hearing how Miller had bled out lying on Damián’s chest. He couldn’t imagine what the kid had gone through when he’d realized that. Grant said Damián hadn’t been unconscious at first. He’d seen Miller’s brains….
Adam needed to bring him back to reality before the kid hurt himself. Using his former top sergeant’s voice, he tried again. “Orlando! Wake up! That’s a fucking order, grunt!”
Damián’s body stiffened. He stopped thrashing and Adam finally was able to grab and hold Damián’s wrists still against the pillow at the sides of his head. He opened his eyes, his gaze darting around as if waiting for more incoming. His breathing was shallow and rapid as if he’d just climbed Mt. Evans on foot.
“You’re okay, Damián. You’re safe. You’re in your own bed…in Denver.” Adam kept up a litany of calming statements, waiting for the crazed look to leave the kid’s eyes. Damián looked around as his pupils adjusted to the darkness. “It was just a bad dream.”
The young man’s eyes cleared. “Fucking nightmare.” He continued to breathe rapidly.
“Yeah, it was.”
“You can let me go. I won’t punch you.”
“Again, you mean?”
“Aw, shit. I did it again?”
Adam smiled. “Barely stung me. I’d like to see the day when a young pup like you can get the better of me.”
“Why do you keep putting up with my shit? You haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in six months.”
“Sleep’s overrated. I’ve been a Marine for more than twenty years. My body doesn’t need much sleep to function.”
“You’ve had to put your club opening on hold, too. I’m costing you money.”
Adam stood up to assume his maximum intimidation stance. He placed his fists on his hips, his elbows at a ninety-degree angle, and tightened the muscles of his bare chest. “Now hear this. We’re Marines. We look out for each other—on and off the battlefield. Until you’re ready, the fucking club can wait.”
Damián closed his eyes, crooked his arm, and draped it over his eyes.
“You aren’t going to get rid of me just because you can’t see me.” Adam sat on the edge of the bed. “Now, tell me about the dream.”
Damián’s therapist said the more he talked about the experirence, the less power it would have over him. Joni had done that with him while he was on his medical leave recovering from the Afghan ambush. She’d held him, cried for him, and just let him talk until he was all talked out.
If Damián kept talking, more details might come out, especially the ones he was afraid to admit even to himself. Adam talked him down from the nightmares every time. Just in the last month, he’d gone from nightmares two or three times a night to only once a night. Progress.
“The same one. Grenade goes off. Sarge blocked the blast for me, but wound up…” Damián stopped rattling off the usual details, but his breathing became shallow and rapid again.
“Deep breath. Now!”
Damián responded, taking several deep breaths actually. “Should have been me.”
Adam knew guilt had been eating at the kid all along. Hell, he knew that feeling firsthand. No amount of therapy would help either of them lose that. They’d survived while others had not.
“You’d have done the same thing if you were in Miller’s place. Hell, Grant and Wilson said you were trying to protect them. Stop blaming yourself for what some fucking insurgent is responsible for.”
Damián lowered his arm and looked Adam in the face. His body began to shake, almost imperceptibly at first, then harder. Adam rubbed the scar on the back
of his neck.
“I froze.” The words came out in a whisper. Tears streamed unheeded down the sides of Damián’s face.
Fucking breakthrough. This was the first time Damián had admitted to freezing. The kid’s pain tore Adam’s guts out. After what he’d watched him go through the past several months, he’d thought they’d never get at what was eating him. He never wanted to give the kid a hug more than he did now.
Where the fuck did that come from? He didn’t need to baby him.
“Tell me what happened.” Adam started to reach out and squeeze his arm in support, but backed off. Touching him might interrupt this confession of sorts. He needed to let him talk, release some of his demons.
Damián turned his head away and pulled his legs up, the right knee tenting under the sheet a few inches lower than the left because of the amputation. Lost in the memories, he remained silent for a moment. Then he groaned in anguish. “I saw the grenade first. I just stared at it. Oh, God!” He cried out and Adam couldn’t help but reach for his hand, which Damián grabbed onto with a death grip. “I just fucking stared. I looked at the others. They didn’t see it! But I couldn’t move for like a minute.”
“Just seemed like a minute. Grenades go off in seconds. You’ve just slowed the motion down in your head.” Adam sure could relate to that. He’d had those same slow-motion memories from the ambush in Kandahar. Watching and not being able to protect or save his men.
Damián stared at the ceiling with unseeing eyes. “By the time I screamed for them to take cover, there wasn’t enough time. Grant was talking with Wilson. She didn’t fucking know. I nudged Sarge and we both moved at the same time. I thought he’d moved fast enough, but I didn’t make sure. I went after the others. When I turned back, Sarge was right behind me, but too close to…” His body stiffened and he squeezed his eyes shut, as though feeling the impact of the explosion again.
Damián pulled his hand away and hugged himself, squeezing his eyes shut. Adam couldn’t stand it anymore. He pulled him up to sit, wrapped his arms around him, and held him tightly. The kid began shaking harder, as if in shock.
* * *
Masters at Arms Page 15