by Caro Carson
For a sight of Tom.
There he was, running in front, his platoon leaders flanking him. He laughed at something one of the lieutenants said. He looked so—oh, he was everything. Handsome, never more so than when he laughed. Tough, not even winded by the two-mile run. In charge, running so confidently in front of a hundred other soldiers, as though this was no big deal, as though being a soldier was a piece of cake.
She missed him.
The thought took her by surprise even as her eyes ate him up, as if she’d been starving for the sight of him. It had only been two days since he’d walked so somberly out of their counseling session. But in those two days, he’d become scarce. Maybe he was just a busy company commander, but during the few hours he was at the house, he was so remote, it was as if he was a polite stranger she passed in a grocery store aisle. He stepped out of her way when she walked into the kitchen. He spoke very little.
And he didn’t look at her. All the polite hellos, an excuse me or two, were said as he looked away from her, toward where he was going next. She had not looked directly into those blue eyes since she’d told him the cookies weren’t supposed to make him happy.
Since she’d cried because he wouldn’t divorce her.
She’d reassembled his grill. She’d left the rest of the cookies in a container on the counter, but he hadn’t eaten another one, as far as she could tell. She’d picked up her tote bags and books and boots and everything she’d left out, then put it all away neatly in the spare bedroom.
If Tom noticed, he didn’t say a word. He was sad because she might never remember their wedding. She knew that. He was sad; she was relieved. It had been a scary prospect, to remember being part of something as intensely emotional as Tom made it appear to be. Now, the pressure was off. Tom no longer watched her with those hungry eyes. He no longer watched her at all.
She hadn’t expected to miss it.
A command was shouted, Quick time—march, and the 584th stopped running and fell into a regular march, walking—striding, really—straightening up their lines as they approached the spot where the brigade commander was standing with the American flag beside him. His staff stood behind him, including herself, two rows back.
Then it was Tom’s voice calling the commands, in a voice meant to carry, like a quarterback calling a play to his team. “Eyes—right.” One hundred soldiers snapped their heads to the right as they passed by, marching in step as the first sergeant counted a cadence. As the commander, only Tom rendered a hand salute, his hand flat like a knife’s blade, fingertips touching the edge of his brow, blue eyes intent on the brigade commander as Colonel Reed returned his salute.
Then those blue eyes locked on hers. She felt the jolt all the way to her soul. Everything fell away, the soldiers between them, the noise of the marching and the barked commands, and they looked at one another like they were recognizing a piece of themselves in a mirror. Oh, it’s you. The flashing and chiming slot machines, the drunken bachelorette party girls in their feather boas, the smokers and the card tables, all of it disappeared. She had to speak to him, this man on the other side of the casino floor. She had to find out who he was, but she’d gotten on the dumb glass elevator and couldn’t get off until it stopped at some random floor. As it rose, she turned to face him and kept her eyes on his for as long as she could. Just before she was going to disappear from his view, he smiled, and she smiled, because she knew he was going to come and find her. She couldn’t wait.
“Ready—front.” Tom gave the command, dropped his hand and turned his face away from her, looking straight forward, leading his company to their spot on the parade field.
An open field on an army post. Not a casino. A commander’s serious salute, not a smile.
But the same blue eyes. She remembered. They’d been at the same casino. What had happened next? How long had it taken him to find her? What had he said? Helen realized she was breathing hard, nearly panting, although they’d stopped running almost ten minutes ago. The officers to her right and left probably thought she was out of shape, unable to catch her breath, but she couldn’t worry about that right now. She was obsessed with her memory, turning it over and over in her mind. They’d seen one another on the casino floor. That first sight of each other had been electric and then...
She knew nothing.
What had happened next?
* * *
Helen had plenty of time to mull it over. The brigade parking lot was packed because of the PT spirit run, so leaving to go home to shower and change was like leaving a concert or a sports game. She sat behind the steering wheel, remembering those few seconds when she’d first seen Tom, reliving it all in her mind as she inched the car forward, then stopped. Inched forward.
Should she tell Tom? It would get his hopes up. She could imagine his face, the way he’d step close to her. He’d kill her with gentleness, smooth her hair back and cup her head in his hand and ask, “Do you remember now?”
She did not. She only knew, for the first time since she’d woken up married, that she actually wanted to remember more. Dear God, it had been so exciting the first time she’d seen him. Exhilarating. Still scary—she’d known in the casino that her life was going to change if she spoke to him. Her life was going to have a gap in it if she never spoke to him, too. She didn’t want to wonder for the rest of her life what might have been, so she’d talked to him later—or so she assumed.
Well, duh. You woke up married. Obviously, you talked to him later.
She inched her car forward. This traffic—she wanted to lay on the horn and tell everyone to move, but of course she could not. Every single car was driven by someone in her brigade. There was no anonymity on post. She smacked the steering wheel instead of the horn. It hurt the heel of her hand. She inched toward home.
Should she tell Tom?
Finally, she exited the parking lot and started cruising at a normal speed.
She couldn’t tell him. It would change everything, and he’d try to make her remember more. He’d want the whole commitment, the bed of roses, the diamond ring. She didn’t remember any of that. She only knew that she’d spotted a man across a crowded casino, and that first flush of attraction had been intense.
She wanted to see him again.
His car was not in the driveway. Her disappointment was as intense as that first attraction had been. Big highs, big lows. It was silly to have gotten her hopes up that she would see him at the house right now. Most days, he brought his ACUs to his office and showered there after PT. Today was not unusual for him. She wouldn’t get to see him again until this evening, if she was lucky.
But she’d seen him this morning at the run, leading his company, saluting, fierce.
A shower. She needed a cool shower.
She used the garage door opener to walk into the garage, where neither of their cars were parked, and hit the button to lower the door. She kicked off her sneakers and took off her track jacket and hung it on a hook by the door into the house. She slipped off her black track pants and hung them up, too. She walked into the house in her underpants and black workout shirt.
Her underthings, like the uniform shirt itself, were made of quick-drying fabric, so she was in no rush to strip out of any wet clothing, but her hair had gotten a little sweaty during the run. She lifted it off the back of her neck as she walked down the short hall to the bathroom. She’d just take a cool shower and wash her hair and not, under any circumstance, think about Tom Cross tying a towel at his hip in a Las Vegas hotel room, not while the shampoo bubbles slid down her body.
A cold shower. She would not remember the perfectly sculpted male body that stayed hidden under his baggy camouflage most of the time. She would get naked and get wet, but she would not think about—
“Tom!”
He stepped into the hallway from the bathroom and froze when he saw her. He’d been drying his hair with one end
of his towel, and the length of it fell down his front, but otherwise, he was gorgeously, gloriously nude.
“Tom.” Her voice sounded breathy. Had she wanted to see his eyes? She had. Had she missed the way his gaze followed her whenever she was in the room, a hungry gaze, demanding? She had.
Well, he was definitely looking at her now.
“I just...”
She just what? Think, Helen. The muscles in his legs were as chiseled as the rest of him. He had sculpted arms, washboard abs—she knew that. She’d remembered his chest, but now she couldn’t tear her eyes away from that hollow in his hip, the dip between buttock and thigh, the defined quadriceps.
She raised her gaze. He was looking at her face while she looked at his body.
She swallowed. “I didn’t see your car.”
He moved then, just to toss the end of the towel over his shoulder. It still draped down his front, an oversize towel for a very big man. He put a hand on his hip, as if he wore an MP black web-belt and holster, as if his fingers were resting just above his sidearm. “My car’s not here. One of my platoon sergeants lives in this neighborhood. I skipped the parking lot traffic jam and caught a ride back with him.”
“Uh-huh.” She let her gaze follow the trail of that white towel. Blue eyes, tan skin, white towel. Vegas. Glass elevator. Come find me.
“Helen.” His voice sounded sharp, a little angry. “Helen, look at me.”
She looked at his face again, that mouth, those lips, the way the muscle in his cheek flexed as he clenched that strong jaw. Those eyes. Oh, he was looking at her now, like he was hungry for her. She wanted to have sex with him, if only because he was sexy. She wanted that body. She wanted to be able to touch it, to take it, to command it for her pleasure.
She shouldn’t. There was a good reason she shouldn’t, if she would stop and think about it. It would hurt him, he was vulnerable, something like that, but then he cursed, a single crude word, and pushed her up against the wall, and it was beyond ridiculous to think he couldn’t handle what she wanted to do to him.
His mouth was on hers, a hot kiss. Then his tongue swiped her lower lip, and she opened her mouth to take his tongue and suck on it for a moment, until he pressed her harder against the wall with a sound deep in his throat while she had his mouth captive. He was nude and she wore only panties, so their bare legs tangled. She felt those defined quad muscles against her own thighs, all the way up to her hip, to the edge of her underwear. Higher than that, cloth lay between them, but his body heat penetrated the nylon of her panties and her shirt, and she wished she were nude all over, too.
He granted that wish, kissing her hard, keeping her pressed against the wall with his thighs as his hands grabbed the hem of her black shirt and jerked it up a little roughly, breaking off the kiss to pull it over her face, over her head, then throwing it down the hall. He didn’t return to kissing her but watched his own hands making short work of her running bra, his fingers sliding under the tight elastic and pulling it away from her breasts. The elastic didn’t have much give, so it abraded her skin a little as he lifted it, and she lifted her arms, so he could get rid of the bra and toss it down the hall, too. Then his hands were on her breasts, warm palms cupping her, shaping her as she put her hand on the back of his neck and pulled him closer, taking another hot kiss for herself, gasping in pleasure against his lips.
She grabbed his shoulders, fingers digging in. There was so much muscle there, so much meat, she could dig in and hang on and not cause him any harm. He lifted one hand to her hair, but there was no gentle smoothing motion, no warm cupping of her head. Instead, his hand pushed her head back, so he could taste her skin under her jaw and down the side of her throat. He pushed her higher up the wall, so her breasts were level with his mouth for a brief feast on first one, then the other, and then he lifted her higher again, his hands on her waist, keeping her pinned against the wall as the top of her head brushed the ceiling. His breath was hot on her as he breathed over the nylon, teeth grazing over intimate parts, before he pressed her against the wall with his mouth, too, sucking hard, right through her panties. With one thigh draped over his shoulder and one palm pressed against the ceiling above her, Helen came—came against him, came apart, came undone.
She became aware, dimly, that her stomach was being kissed, then her breasts, her cheek as he lowered her. She was once more face-to-face with Tom, incredible Tom, when she felt his finger jerk her panties to the side, felt two fingers open her up, then felt his body, thick and demanding, filling her. He pressed his forehead into the wall, his breath hot on her neck as he moved, until he shouted a syllable that never became a word and surrendered everything of himself to her, his muscles flexing, body shivering.
Helen didn’t care if she ever moved again. Her legs were wrapped around his waist; she didn’t need her toes to touch the ground for as long as she lived. It would take too much energy to lift her eyelids. She didn’t need to, anyway, for she knew exactly who was kissing her, his mouth gentle on hers now. She didn’t know what to say or what to do or what to think, so she kept her mouth pressed against his as he carried her into the bathroom. She heard the water being turned on, felt the steam on her skin, and then Tom stepped into the tub with her in his arms, right into the stream of water. He kissed her cheek gently, her nose, her eyelids, as he let go of her thigh. When her toes touched the porcelain, he let go of her other thigh, and when she was standing under the water, he stepped out of the tub and left her there.
That dazed feeling couldn’t last, of course. She returned to herself, returned to the world. She found her shampoo and thought of nothing but Tom as the bubbles slid down her body.
When she rinsed off and dried off and ventured back into the hallway, Tom was gone.
Chapter Eleven
So much for married sex being boring.
Tom flexed the fingers of his left hand. He wore no ring. She wore no ring. Their own marriage counselor said they weren’t working at a marriage, because it didn’t exist for Helen, and one of the basic tenets of marriage was that two people had to know they were married, damn it all to hell and back.
So much for the married part of married sex.
That left sex. All they’d had this morning was sex. Out of control, hot against the wall, leave you wrung out to dry, pure, physical sex.
“Merry Christmas, sir.”
Tom looked up from his desk to see his admin clerk, a young sergeant, standing hopefully at his office door. Tom kept his door open at all times, same as Colonel Reed.
“What are you still doing here, Sergeant Schreiber?” It was early in the afternoon. The half day of payday activities had been over since eleven. The troops were free to enjoy their long weekend.
“Sir, I didn’t want to leave if you still needed me for—”
“It’s Christmas. Go. Be jolly.”
“Yes, sir.” He was gone.
Tom wasn’t going anywhere. He’d volunteered to be the battalion duty officer today. Christmas Day, too. Why not? The battalion headquarters building housed the company headquarters offices, as well, so Tom could sit at his own desk and push paperwork around. Maybe he’d start the new year with an empty inbox. He didn’t necessarily have to stay in the building at all. As long as he was available by phone, he could be the legal point of contact for any issues with the battalion while the majority of its service members were on leave. Tom had thought he might as well volunteer to take the Christmas duty instead of letting it fall randomly. Otherwise, an officer that had little kids at home might have gotten stuck with it.
I’d at least try to be a decent father, he’d said, sounding like a petulant teenager as he’d talked with Helen.
The idea of going to his father’s house to spend the holidays was laughable, even though Daddy Dearest lived in San Antonio, only a couple of hours’ drive from Fort Hood. Dad was a retired air force general. Once a general, alwa
ys a general. He still signed documents with his rank. He was still given military courtesies on military bases. Lackland Air Force Base was the reason he lived in San Antonio, so he could still drive onto post to use the PX, the commissary, the medical facilities, but mostly so he could do all that while getting his necessary dose of the military butt-kissing he’d so relished on active duty.
Mom, as usual, lived where Dad told her to live. If Dad decided they’d retire in San Antonio, then Mom would say, “Yes, dear.” If the old adage that men wanted to marry a girl like the girl that married dear old Dad was true, it didn’t apply to Tom. He didn’t want a subservient wife.
A fragile feather. That was different. Helen had been talking about sex, not the whole relationship. He was all-in when it came to Helen’s wants in the bedroom. Hell, he’d practically shoulder-pressed Helen over his head this morning, so he could devour her—
“Merry Christmas, sir.”
Tom looked up from the computer screen he wasn’t looking at. One of the four platoon sergeants, Sergeant First Class Ernesto, stood in the door, holding a dish covered in red plastic wrap.
“You, too, Sergeant First Class.”
“I got a little something here for you.”
“You didn’t have to get me anything.” Tom attempted his old smile. “You know I didn’t wrap up anything with a bow for you.” Gifts were awkward, as a matter of fact, and had to be inexpensive and distributed evenly to avoid any appearance of favoritism. He really hadn’t gotten anyone anything.
Including Helen. What did you give the woman who was counting the days until your divorce?
“Well, you know my wife, sir.” Ernesto set down the plate. Under the red wrapping, perfect gingerbread men were arranged in a circle. “She’ll bake something at the smallest hint of an excuse. For Christmas, she pretty much goes crazy.”
“God bless her for that.” Tom stood up. “You’ll tell her I said so.”