Titan: We fell in love — in the cruelest of ways

by Fields, MJ

  “What’s not to be impressed with?”

  She laughs, turning her back to me, but she doesn’t step away. Instead, she leans back and looks over her shoulder as the water falls down her sexy as hell body. “You have a beautiful cock, Titan. But you have no game otherwise.”

  “That’s because I don’t play games.”

  “If you ever need some pointers, I have a few to give.” She turns away and reaches for my shampoo.

  “Is that so?”

  “It is.”

  “Let’s hear them, Doc.”

  She rubs the shampoo into her scalp and begins her list. “When a woman compliments you, you should compliment them back.”

  “Fair enough. You have the prettiest pussy I’ve ever seen.”

  She looks back and shakes her head.

  “You told me I had a beautiful cock. I’m telling you that your cunt is every man’s dream. Bare, tight, pink, trim little lips, hiding the tastiest little clit I’ve ever licked. Your cum tastes like heaven, and when it glistens on your skin, it’s comparable to looking up at the sky on a cloudless night.”

  She looks away, her head bowed. I put my hands in her hair and finish shampooing it.

  “Your cock is huge.”

  I chuckle. “I’d say I know, because I do, but you’d tell me I wasn’t being a gentleman.”

  She elbows me lightly, and I tug her hair so she’s forced to look up. Then I turn her and pull her hair back so the water rinses out the shampoo.

  “Why threesomes?”

  “Keeps it fucking honest.”

  “You and Shadows go both—”

  “Not my thing or his,” I cut her off before she says, both ways.

  She rubs her hand down her face, wiping the water from it.

  “Any more pointers, Doc?”

  “Learn to read people better. Not every woman you fuck is going to try to wife you.”

  “That’s a damn good thing because a man like me wouldn’t look good in a skirt.”

  “You’d have to wear underwear, or your third leg would be hanging out.”

  “I like the way you think, Doc.”

  She turns and grabs the conditioner. “Why does a man like you need constant affirmation that his dick is big is beyond me.”

  “That last time was all you.” I grab the conditioner and squirt it in her hair. “I just know I don’t have the legs for a skirt.”

  She laughs. “Oh, please.”

  “You certainly do.”

  “Is that an unsolicited compliment?”

  “You don’t need a man to tell you your body is rocking, Doc; you go to the gym three days a week to keep it that way. You don’t need a man to tell you you’re beautiful; you get to look at that face in the mirror every day, and you have twenty-twenty vision. You don’t need a man to tell you you’re intelligent; you’re a doctor.”

  She takes the sponge off the side of the tub where I dropped it and begins to rub her body silently.

  “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  She rinses off then turns to face me. “Every woman wants to be told those things, Titan. Just like every man wants to know his cock is the biggest and best she’s ever had.”

  I shake my head, disagreeing. “You tell a woman that, and she’s gonna want more.”

  She steps around me, grabs a towel off the warming rack, and gets out of the shower. “An intelligent woman knows when a man like you tells her, he doesn’t want a relationship, that’s what he means. She knows what she’s getting into. Pick more intelligent women, and you may not have to share.” She wraps her hair in the towel and turns toward me. “Not everyone who sees your cock swinging in front of them like a pocket watch is going to get hypnotized, Lieutenant. Hell, I see it as a challenge.”

  “Is that so?” I ask, rinsing the soap from my hair and body.

  “It was.” She eyes my cock. “And not that you asked, but my thing is confidence and strength. You would be almost perfect if you were as confident as you pretend to be.”

  I step out of the shower and reach for a towel. There isn’t one hanging there, since she used both. “I’m as confident as they come, Doc.”

  “Your dick has been hard as steel since I opened my eyes. So, another pointer: if you ever find another woman like me to cuff to your bed, I’d suggest you take it when you want it. Have the confidence that, if she hasn’t run for the hills after you cuffed her and marked her, she’ll definitely be down for seconds.”

  With that, she walks back into my room, leaving me at a loss for words.

  When I hear drawers shutting, I quickly make my way out to my room just as she’s slipping one of my T-shirts over her head. “You think I wouldn’t have fucked you for another three hours if you didn’t have to get home to your daughter?” I start to pull on a pair of running pants.

  She removes the towel from her hair and drops it on my bedroom floor as she walks out the door. I hurry to catch up to her as she’s walking down the stairs.

  “I think if you wanted to, you could have given me something before I left.”

  You have got to be kidding me, I think as I follow her into the kitchen.

  Hard, frustrated, and turned on by the fact she’s literally and figuratively showing her little ass as she bends down to grab her dress, I grab her hips and push her against the island, kicking her legs apart before I squat down and eat her sweet little cunt from behind while rubbing circles around her asshole with my finger, teasing her.

  I make her come on my tongue, on my fingers, and then … I do it again.

  When I step back, she’s panting.

  As she pushes herself up off the counter, her legs are shaking, I grab her dress she left on my floor last night and pull it over her head. When she turns around and faces me, she looks stunningly sated.

  “It was either that or a cup of coffee, Doc. Now you can go home and crawl into bed while thinking about my cock and my tongue as you drift off to Titan land.”

  She steps into me, fixing her dress before she lifts her chin and whispers, “Give me a taste.”

  “I’ll grant that request because I’m a gentleman.”

  After she sucks my tongue off, she eyes my cock hungrily.

  “You owe me, Doc.”

  Her eyes widen.

  “But not now. Go get home to Calee.” I pick her up and throw her over my shoulder before walking out the front door and toward her car.

  She screams in laughter, punching my back with her fists. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Door to door service,” I tell her.

  She laughs and tries to wiggle out of my grasp.

  “I’m being a gentleman.” I can’t help laughing at how ridiculous I’m being.

  I open her door and deposit her in the driver’s seat. “Sweet dreams, Doc.”

  She reaches up to grab the back of my neck, pulling me down for a kiss. “Fly safe, Lieutenant.”

  6

  Looking Back

  Laurie

  Growing up the daughter of a career Marine, I moved around a lot. I don’t remember much about living in California, but my mom, Ellen, took a lot of pictures of our life at Camp Pendleton and says it was her favorite place we lived.

  I do remember how much I loved Oahu and the friends I made over the seven years we spent there before moving to Cuba. Living at GTMO—Guantanamo Bay Naval Base—while Dad was part of the Joint Task Force—or the JTF—was short-lived. He and Mom separated because he had become more distant, had a shorter temper, and wasn’t coming home for dinner.

  I remember her and me leaving, and my dad telling me to be strong. “Don’t cry, Lo. Marines don’t raise quitters or marry them. Your mom will come around when she remembers that this is just part of the job.”

  Every little girl’s first love, their hero, is their daddy. Mine was no different. But something had changed the last month we were in Cuba. He had changed.

  Over the next year, I remember Mom being incredibly sad but strong, so strong. I remember ask
ing her if she missed him, and she told me yes. I asked if she still loved him, and she again answered yes, that she would always love him. I remember the tears she held at bay when she responded, and I remember wanting to be as strong as the wife of a Marine.

  She could see it.

  That’s the first time I realized love could hurt, and at the young age I was, I associated it with my move from Hawaii to Cuba. Later, I realized it was my parents’ separation.

  Less than two years later, I remember waking up in my grandparents’ Oklahoma home to Mom crying, and then Dad telling her it was going to be different. He’d make sure of it.

  We moved shortly after that to Cherry Point, North Carolina, at the Marine base. It was there that I attended middle school and made a lot of friends. Middle school was when I realized how much girls my age were boy crazy.

  I can’t even count the number of so-called friends I met in public school who wanted to hang out at my house. Of course, it became obvious that they weren’t interested in me but rather my lifestyle as a military brat and the men inside the security of the base.

  I didn’t meet my first boyfriend until we were living in Barracks Row in DC. Our fathers and mothers were good friends. Jake and I had agreed that we both were attracted to each other immediately. But after that, it felt like we were living a modern-day version of an arranged marriage. I never loved or craved being intimate with him; it was just … nice. We were still great friends, and he was my first everything.

  When we moved to Arizona, we kind of drifted apart, just like we said we wouldn’t. Later, he joined the Marines.

  Raised around military men made me hesitant to ever being with one. I couldn’t imagine myself being with someone who goes off to war with the possibility and fear of losing him. Plus I wasn’t sure how I would feel being with an alpha man.

  I mean, sex with Jake was just okay, but we were young. I figured, why not check out what most of the world considers the alpha male? And where better to start than in my own backyard.

  The second guy I dated was a Marine. I was seventeen, and he was twenty. We had to keep it to ourselves until I turned eighteen, so there was that element of taboo involved.

  There was passion. I definitely wanted him to touch me. I liked the bit of jealousy he displayed when I couldn’t come to meet him when he called. He made me feel desired. But I quickly learned his jealousy was insecurity, and insecure men will do whatever or whoever it is that would inflate their ego. In this case, I surprised him by sneaking out one night when my dad was in the field. The surprise was on me, though, when I found him at our spot, a seaside bar, and he was tonsil-deep in a girl that I assumed wasn’t much older than me.

  He cheated, and I broke it off. He then basically stalked me by showing up after school or at the beach when he knew my friends and I were there. Then I told him I was sixteen—yes, I lied—and if he didn’t leave me alone, I’d tell my daddy. Yes, I used the term daddy to freak him out.

  The next time I saw him was at a Fourth of July picnic with his very pregnant wife. He left me alone, and I vowed to never be with a man I thought to be an alpha or in the military again.

  In college, I dated Russell, a highly intelligent man. He was kind of the hot nerd type, who was from an affluent family. He, too, was going to be a doctor, a cardiologist.

  When I mentioned I wanted to be a general practitioner and specialize in orthopedics and emergency, he thought I was settling. He replied that I would be wise to follow a path that would give me more time to have children like his mother did. She was a cardiologist like his father, and he was going to follow in their footsteps. Then, when I told him I wasn’t interested in having children until I was in my thirties, he laughed at me.

  Russell started treating me like I was beneath him, and then I found one of our fellow classmates in the same position in the biology lab utility closet—beneath him.

  After two men in a row cheated on me, I should have been feeling pretty bad about myself. Oddly, there wasn’t a moment I wondered what was wrong with me. I knew it was them. My mother raised a confident woman and life had taught me a couple of valuable lessons. One, there is a fine line between an alpha and a bad boy. And two, no man should ever make me believe his cheating was because I was a horrible lover. Living through the truth in that gives you a clearer view.

  I became somewhat of an expert in picking out alphas.

  Bad boys, like alpha men are leaders. They naturally draw a crowd. They are competitive and love to win, especially when it’s a game against someone they don’t necessarily like. They’re confident. You can see it in their body language and in the way they take on a problem. They tend to believe rules are made to be broken. Both are typically great lovers and know how to handle a woman’s body. They are not just dominant in the bedroom but in everyday life.

  The line between a true alpha and a bad boy is thin, nearly invisible to the naked eye. But to the well-trained eye, it’s obvious.

  Alphas inspire and lift others up; bad boys only lift you up if you’re standing on something they need. A bad boy will say whatever he needs to get you in bed, while an alpha will put it out there—I need to get off, and I want to do that with you. As insensitive as it may sound, at least it’s honest.

  Alphas stand proud in public, whereas bad boys lack social skills. An alpha male’s leadership skills are less self-serving—they think about others, too. Bad boys will find an easy way to become successful. They’re controlling, manipulative, and dominating for self-gain, whereas an alpha man is ambitious and dedicated to becoming what they want to become. Alphas weigh risks and calculate their approach; bad boys don’t tend to care how they get what they want, just how fast they can get it.

  The biggest difference is a bad boy doesn’t make you feel secure.

  The night I met William Cruz, I would be lying if I said I saw him, and the world changed. As a matter a fact, I was out with my then roommate and best friend, Diane, and we were ogling a table full of men in street clothes. I knew immediately they were flyboys. It was in the way they carried themselves, and in the way their presence commanded the attention of all the people around them.

  I was actually drunk enough to take a dare from Diane—to follow the tall, steely-eyed, dark brown-haired man to the bar and hit on him.

  When I finally made my way through the crowd and bellied up to the bar, brushing against him, it was just in time to overhear him asking an older woman if she would like a drink. At this point, I should have walked away, but his voice was deep and sensual. It sent a ripple of awareness through me. I knew I could definitely get off to later, so I ordered drinks for Diane and me, while eavesdropping on their conversation.

  I heard him say to her, “My friend Shadows, and I have been checking you out.”

  She replied with a sultry, “Is that so?”

  He pulled no punches, held nothing back. “We have a room just down the road and think you’d like what we have to offer.”

  “And what are you offering?”

  The bartender had just set our drinks in front of me, and I had taken a sip of the beer when he replied, “Multiple orgasms and a night you’ll never forget.”

  I started to choke, like really choke, when I felt two strong hands grab my wrists and lift my hands above my head.

  After I got my shit back together, he lowers my arms and somehow manages to take my hands.

  “You okay, beautiful?”

  I looked up into dark brown eyes and a magnificent smile.

  “Look, buddy, you’re hot as hell, but don’t think I’m the kind of woman who will fall for cheesy ass pick up lines. If I want you, I’ll let you know.”

  He laughed as he released my hands. “I just saved your life. Does that gain me any points?”

  “Oh please.” I tried not to smile but couldn’t help it. I could tell he was not the typical flyboy, not like the man I had been dared to hit on. I blush remembering what came out of my mouth next. I mean, really? Talk about cheesy ass lines
.

  “I’m a doctor.”

  “Yeah?” He pulled out the barstool closest to me and guided me to sit.

  “So that means I’m smart.”

  Chuckling under his breath, he sat on the stool next to me. “Smart and beautiful. That’s a lethal combination. Doctor?”

  “O’Neil,” I answered without thinking.

  “Doctor O’Neil.” He rubbed his chin. “I really like the way that sounds.”

  I looked him over, the man is boyishly handsome, his body hard and strong. He’ll do just fine. “No need to flatter me, flyboy. I’m two shots away from not giving a damn who gets me off tonight. And you know your good-looking, admitted I am, so just lose the lines, will you?”

  He looks at me, like really looks at me. “See, now that’s not going to work for me.”

  “Okay, fine. I’m sure you and your boys sat around your hangar today, trying to come up with some good lines. I’ll allow it. Give me the best you’ve got.”

  He threw his head back and laughed.

  When he composed himself, he looked me dead in the eyes and said, “Fine, here’s the best I’ve got. I don’t know what made me come up to the bar at the exact moment I did, but when I saw you standing here, I was trying to figure out exactly how to ask the most beautiful woman in the place if I could buy her a drink. When you started choking, I figured it must have been divine intervention. So, Dr. O’Neil, as much as I’d like to buy you two shots and get the hell out of here, I’d rather buy you dinner tomorrow night and talk about how you and I are going to fit each other into our busy schedules. Because I want to get to know your mind, just as much as I’d like to get to know your body.”

  Over the next six months, William and I saw each other once, sometimes twice, a week, occasionally missing a week or two due to something classified. We talked, went to dinner, and had the best sex I had ever had in my life. Although we had never exchanged the words—mostly because I would stop him from continuing whenever I thought he was going to say it, in fear that this amazing relationship would be ruined by that exchange, that admission—regardless, he and I both knew we were falling in love.