He leaned toward her. “That’s because most guys are weaker than you,” he said.
She leaned forward as well; her lips were so close. His palms prickled and his mouth went dry.
She responded the only way she could, being Arly. “And you’re not?”
“Nope,” he answered, “I’m stronger than you. You can be too much of everything, and it’ll just break on me like waves, I’ll just want more.”
She leaned back, her head cocked to one side.
He drew up his courage then, and said, “Arly, honey...make love to me. Please....”
A slow smile dawned across her face. She laughed and didn’t bother to cover her mouth when people stared this time.
“Hell yes!”
He threw two twenties onto the table and they were out of there.
Arly gritted her teeth, her eyes squeezing shut. She threw her head back, her hair spreading out like waves of dark silk, as he watched the orgasm sweep over her. She screamed and her fingers bit into his shoulders, her back arching beneath him, her legs wrapping tight around his thighs.
The sight of her losing herself in an agony of pleasure was what pushed him into his. Oso’s whole body tightened in a wave that started at his feet and spread through him until it centered on his cock.
He came like thunder. He yelled around his clenched jaw, pushing hard a few more times, then slowing, in and out, in and out, a pause, one last long slow thrust as he groaned.
And then he gathered Arly into his arms and held her as tight as he could while his heart pounded against his ribs and the sweat on his body cooled slowly.
She kept her legs wrapped around his thighs, her arms around his ribs, as if she couldn’t stand an inch of space between them. In the dim light of the lamp they’d left on, he could see the pulse jump at her throat. He pushed the dark and matted hair back from her forehead and planted gentle kisses across her skin.
She smiled sleepily and snuggled down into his arms. He reached over to turn off the light and then pulled the blankets up over them. For a while they slept.
“What is the real world?” he whispered against her hair, sometime much later.
“Not Afghanistan,” she reminded him. “Or the VA. We pretty much decided that already. Why?”
“Arly, honey, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, going back to some country thousands of miles away to fight for ‘Truth, Justice and the American Way’ as it applies to Fresno, California. All you gotta see is one dead body, you know, you just got to get shot at a few times, and everything gets dark and fucked up. It’s like a taste you can never get out of your mouth; it ruins everything.”
Arly drew in a deep breath. He could feel her ribs move and he thought maybe he was holding her too tight. He loosened up a bit, but she only burrowed closer.
After a long silence, she said, “Fight for me, baby. Fight so you can come back to me. Fight because I need to be safe, and right here, right now, lying in your arms, this is the safest I’ve ever felt in my life. Fight because I need you.” She tilted her head back to look up at him. “Fresno can be me, okay? I’m Fresno.”
“Yeah,” he said, blinking away all the ugly stuff, concentrating on the way she smelled and the feel of her body against his. “Okay. Make love to me again, Fresno....”
HOMECOMING
Kelly Maher
The acrid tang of burned milk filled the kitchen as she collapsed to the floor, tears running down her face. Molly laid her head on her knees, no longer able to maintain the façade. Three days ago, her world had imploded with no one the wiser.
She’d understood the possibility, thought she’d prepared for it, but never could have comprehended the utter gutting of self.
A side story in the paper already overwhelmed by the news of virulent politics and ghastly murders. The loss of an entire Marine platoon out on patrol two days before was a blip on the radar. The only reason she’d even caught the story was because of the damn Google Alert she’d set up. Due to her job as a traveling consultant based out of DC, she’d never had the chance to meet and get to know any of the spouses and girlfriends of David’s unit. Molly doubted they even knew she existed.
Fresh waves of grief smothered her in suffocating blackness. Grief for how little time they’d been able to spend together. Grief for the future they’d never have to rectify that loss.
Time slid by in a pitch-black ooze. The distant ringing of her phone barely registered. Even if she had wanted to respond to the summons, her body had turned into a numb lump. A woman who had once prided herself on answering with a smile within two rings now wished the world would disappear into the black hole where her soul had once resided.
She curled up, back pressed against the sharp lower edge of her cabinets. The pain focused her mind for a moment, and she thought of the milk before remembering she’d moved the pan from the hot burner. Tears leaked down onto her arm. She thought of the first time she’d met David.
His smile, slow and serious, melted her heart. They’d run into each other at the embassy open houses. Twice in one night. She’d first spotted him at Australia but had let self-doubt force her into letting the moment slide away. There was no way a man that magnetic would look twice at her. An hour later she’d been reaching for small weisswurst at Germany when she’d been bumped from behind. The deep voice expressing abject apologies sent a bolt of lust through her system. Even before turning to discover who the man was, she was wishing it was him.
It was.
She’d teased him about engineering the bump, and she’d gotten the smile in return. They’d spent that first night walking down Embassy Row to Dupont Circle and dancing until the wee hours of the morning. They’d eventually landed in the apartment she’d been renting at the time. Even now, in her paralyzing agony, her body responded to the remembered pleasure.
The year since had been one of lazy weekends and hurried hookups. He’d been stationed down in Norfolk, but whenever he’d had leave, he made the trip up as long as she wasn’t out of town on an assignment.
A week before he shipped out to Afghanistan, she’d closed on a gorgeous old Victorian in Takoma Park. It gave her the sense of permanence she’d craved as a kid shuffled around from foster home to foster home. She knew she’d gotten through the system with minimal scars, but the shared lack of blood family was a point that had drawn her and David closer. He was close to retiring and expected this to be his last deployment. They’d made, she’d made, giddy plans of how they’d remodel the kitchen and build a sunroom off the back. He’d just stood back and said, “Whatever you want, honey.”
One week later, instead of kissing him good-bye down in Norfolk as she’d planned, she’d been on her way to Seattle to triage the near-catastrophic meltdown of a project another team had been working on. With all the preparations he needed to do for deployment, they hadn’t even managed one last night together.
She’d gotten a bonus and a promotion out of the sacrifice, but if she’d had to do it all over again, she would have quit rather than miss seeing David one last time.
A knock rattled the front door. She scrunched up closer to the cabinet. Every morning since discovering the story, she’d dutifully called in sick to work so they would know she was alive and wouldn’t call the police on her for a safety check. This morning her secretary had sounded worried, but Molly couldn’t bring herself to fully reassure Diane of her well-being. Instead, she’d let loose that she was dealing with a death in the family. No one at work knew that much about her past, so Diane had let it go at that.
The knocking finally stopped and Molly relaxed a fraction. She didn’t even know who to call to find out about where David was going to be buried. If he could be buried. Had his body been recovered?
Glass from the back door shattered and she screamed.
A dark figure in black came through as the door opened. She couldn’t stop screaming. Why weren’t her neighbors coming?
She scrambled back to the corner of the cabinets, pulling herself up to reach
for the knives in the butcher’s block.
“Molly.”
Her body froze. Then her knees dissolved and she sank once more to the floor, head shaking. It was a ghost. Wasn’t it? But ghosts couldn’t break into houses. He went to his knees, meeting her on the floor.
This time her reach was for the chiseled jaw, the skin drawn tight and pale. “You’re dead.”
Rough calluses caressed her hand as he pressed her palm against his cheek. “No. They tried. I’m here.”
“You’re dead. Everyone died. They said everyone died.”
He shook his head. “I’m here, Molly, I’m here.”
She clutched her arms around his shoulders and attached herself to him like a barnacle. “You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead.”
Her litany of disbelief was answered by his of reassurance. She dug her fingers into the hard muscles of his back and shoulders. She wanted to merge him into her so he would never leave her again. A heartbeat’s separation would be too much.
He winnowed his hands into her hair and pulled her back into his hold. She tried to fight, but he molded his lips to hers. She sucked on his lower lip, nipped it with her teeth.
Growls emanated from his chest, rumbling through both of them. His tongue speared into her. Claimed her. Thrust and retreat. Possession. Life.
She needed him in her right then. Covering her. Filling her. Uniting them.
Tearing at his shirt, she tried to rip it off him, but couldn’t find purchase. He got the message, though, and broke the kiss long enough to pull it off. When his arms were tangled up in the heavy cotton, she took advantage and stroked her hands across taut skin. Took note of large patches of bruises, scrapes, lacerations. Kissed his injuries as she found them.
“Molly.”
She tried to shake him off, but he prevailed, sinking his mouth against hers once more. In one motion, she pushed off her leggings and panties. Winding her legs carefully around his waist, she ground against the erection that strained against the fly of his pants. This time he hissed.
She froze in his arms. “Did I hurt you?”
“No. Come back.”
She pushed one hand against the brick wall of his chest. “Did. I. Hurt you?”
He cupped her jaw. Massaged. Met her eyes straight on. “No. You could never hurt me. You just reminded me I should probably go a little slower.” He breathed out a sigh. “And we should probably head up to the bedroom. Christen it properly. We didn’t get a chance before I shipped out.”
“David...”
She didn’t know what to say. Drank in the sight of his close-cropped dark brown hair, silvering in spots. The laugh lines at the corners of his chocolate eyes. The Roman nose that had been in one too many bar fights when he was younger.
He really is here.
She lifted her mouth to kiss him again, but before she could make contact, he stood and lifted her up into his arms.
“David. You’re hurt.” She tried to escape his hold, but he clamped her legs together with one arm and pressed her torso tight to his.
“Don’t fight me. You might hurt me more.”
She sighed. When David got all autocratic master seargeanty on her, there was no arguing. He rarely pulled out that tone of voice, and when he did it was always for a good reason. She subsided against him and reveled in the sensation of being in his arms once more.
“Did you take the front bedroom like you’d talked about?”
“Yes.”
That was it. No more words were needed. For now. She stroked her palm against his chest, happiness bursting through her as she felt the flex and release of muscle as he maneuvered them up the twisting staircase.
She hadn’t made the bed since the morning the story broke, and most of the covers had fallen off during the restless hours she’d managed a semblance of sleep.
He laid her down amidst the chaos and stood there.
“My princess.”
For the first time since he’d called her that, she didn’t snort, only opened her arms—and her legs—to him.
He sank one knee down beside her thigh and placed a kiss at the throb of her pulse in the hollow of her throat. He took hold of the collar of her T-shirt and ripped it down the middle. She struggled out of the rags and wrapped her arms around him. Stroked her hands down his back, cupped his shoulder joints.
Kisses rained down her body as he relearned her with the same studiousness he applied to tactical guidebooks. The rough skin of his fingers scraped down her hips, outside of her thighs, back up again, circling where she craved his attentions. Finally, one finger traced the lips of her sex. Liquid heat greeted him. She spread her legs open even further to encourage him. He tweaked her clit in acknowledgment, but only played on the outer edges.
She groaned. “David, please...”
He nipped at the skin above her belly button. She took the hint. He’d get there in his own time. How he controlled himself when she wanted him pounding into her, reaffirming his vitality, their future... Her thoughts drifted when he covered her with his mouth and sucked on her clit. Hard. Liquid gold coated her nerves. Two fingers speared up into her and coaxed brilliant diamond starbursts to explode. Her body bowed under the firestorm of pleasure. She counted each heartbeat from the moment of climax to when his hard cock replaced his fingers.
This time her tears were for joy. Even now, he took his time. Elicited yet another climax out of her emotionally wrecked body. His eyes locked on hers, refusing to let her retreat as he joined her.
Molly figured she must have blacked out even though she would have sworn her eyes never closed. She didn’t want to fall asleep and wake only to find this to be a dream. The heavy weight of his body lifting off her finally broke through her stupor. Her fingers turned into claws as she fought him leaving.
His hands caressed her arms, tried to loosen the locked muscles. “It’s okay, baby. I’m not going anywhere. I just have to go lock the door and grab my bag. I’m coming right back. I swear.”
She nodded, but still needed his help to release him.
He hitched his pants back up around his waist and fastened the fly before leaving her room. She strained her hearing to track his movements through the house. First the stairs, then the beat of his boots against the hardwood floors of the living and dining rooms. Crinkling as he crossed the glass-strewn tile floor of the kitchen.
She heard the door close and then the sounds repeated in reverse.
Back in her room, he stripped out of boots and pants. Moonlight glimmered on his naked body, and she bit her lip. His injuries were even more extensive than she’d first thought. Two dark lines crisscrossed one thigh. Muscles strained against skin and stitches as he bent to pull something out of his bag. “David...”
He looked over to her and then down to where her gaze was fixated on the black stitches holding him together.
“I’ll tell you later.” He came back to the bed and lay down next to her. Placed his fist against her heart. “When you had to cancel on the deployment ceremony, I promised myself that I would move heaven and earth to make sure you got this.”
“I wanted to be there.”
He pressed a quick kiss against her lips. “I know you did, honey. I know you did. In a way, I’m glad you did miss it. I was all the more determined to make it back to you.” He undid his fist and she felt the warmth of metal hitting her left breast.
She reached up and took the ring from where it lay.
“You have my heart, Molly. Will you marry me? Be my family?”
She’d thought the joy that had filled her earlier was as much joy as she could contain. She’d been wrong, and she hoped he would prove her wrong more and more every day. She held the ring up to the shaft of moonlight and caught the flare of blood red in the stone.
“It’s a ruby.”
His fingers stroked up and down her midriff. “Red’s the color of blood, blood is life, and you’re my life, Mol. I will always, always come back to you.”
She loo
ked into his eyes and let the truth of his words seep into her bones. “I love you, David. When I thought you died...” Her breath hitched, the thought choking her once more.
“Always, Molly, I promise.”
She nodded and handed him the ring to slip onto her finger. She kissed him, this man who risked his life for his country and survived hell to get back to her.
“Yes.”
PASSING OUT PASSION
Lucy Felthouse
As we filed into the mess, I glanced to my left and caught my mother’s eye. We shared a smile. From my other side, my dad grabbed my hand and gave it a quick squeeze before letting go. It had been a tough twelve weeks, but now that my younger brother Shane had successfully completed his basic training for the British Army, we were overwhelmed with pride. We’d just watched him and his colleagues at their passing-out parade, complete with the pomp and ceremony Brits are famous for, and were heading indoors for some food, drink and celebrations.
I could hardly wait to see Shane and tell him how proud of him I was, but I knew that the recruits had a few formalities to take care of before they could head into the mess and be with us. Throughout the parade, I’d barely taken my eyes off the spectacle before me. The band and the recruits had mesmerized me with their well-rehearsed routines, and when I’d finally spotted Shane, I’d welled up. My little brother. Though of course, he’s not all that little. He’s four years younger than me, yet when we stand side by side I barely come up to his shoulder.
Now, though, I looked around at the other families and friends who’d also come to celebrate their loved ones’ achievements. There were lots of women hugging and men shaking hands and slapping backs. There were people closer to my age, too, the brothers and sisters of the recruits, and also girlfriends and boyfriends.
“Christina.”
My mother’s voice tugged me out of my thoughts, and I turned to face her with a smile.
“Come on, dear, your father’s gone over there to get us a table.”
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