by Anne Marsh
She smells so fucking good. The whimpering sounds she makes are even better, because she needs me, and she’s not afraid to show me. She pulls me closer, running her hands over my shoulders, my arms, my ass. Fuck, when she grabs my ass I almost detonate. She sets me on fire.
I suck her nipples until she’s gasping. She’s such a pretty moaner. She makes these rough, needy sounds in the back of her throat, her fingers digging harder into my body and pulling me closer. See, her mistake was in thinking this was about me, when what I really need is to lose myself in her.
“Don’t stop,” she groans.
As if I could.
I bite down—gently, because I’m not a fucking caveman—as I push my fingers into her pussy. Just getting inside her this much is so damned good. She’s wet and tight, gripping my fingers in heated welcome. I used to be a planner in bed, used to know which moves I’d use, where and when. Now all I can do is feel because Vali rocks my world, making me harder, needier… hers.
My name tears out of her mouth.
I’m gonna make her scream it next.
“I can’t get enough of you,” I whisper against her skin. I should say something better. I should tell her she’s fucking gorgeous (so true), the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen (also the truth), and the best goddamned person to ever come into my life (which is why I need her to not leave). Instead, I get lost in the sensation of her hips arching up to meet mine, her body twisting. I want every inch of her, inside and out.
“You make me feel beautiful, Finn,” she whispers.
She is beautiful. That she’s ever doubted it, even for a second, makes me want to howl. To hurt somebody. Fuck, I’m ready to kick my own ass if I screw things up between us. Right now, though, she’s all about the pleasure. She draws her knees up, rocking into my hand, so sweetly greedy. She can have all of me.
She’s gonna love my mouth.
“Hands over your head, baby. Don’t let go.”
“What are we doing?” She gasps the question—but she also follows my directions.
“You’re coming for me.” Is that my voice that sounds so rough and hoarse? And my hands tugging, pinching, easing over her skin as I pretend to myself that I’m the only guy she’ll ever come for again. That she’s mine and mine alone. I may be the fucking rental bike for half the Florida Keys, but she’s like the Sistine Chapel. No way you don’t worship her. Just for a moment, I wish… shit, it doesn’t matter what I wish for.
I shove her legs wide with my shoulder and enjoy my view. She’s fucking pretty here too, all pink and soft. It would be so easy to hurt her or do the wrong thing, and nothing’s ever mattered more.
“Finn,” she whispers. “Stop torturing me.”
I haven’t even started yet.
Since I’m a man who needs a good mission, I go all in. I brush my mouth over her pussy and drink her in. This is the perfume all those manufacturers should be bottling—the way Vali smells is such a turn-on. She drives me crazy on my first pass. By my second, I’m an animal.
“Perfect,” I growl, because speaking’s getting harder—along with another part of me. And then I show her all the ways I’m not a nice guy. I make demands with my mouth, my fingers, and my dick. It’s wrong, and I don’t care. I lick her pussy like she’s my favorite flavor of ice cream—first the exploratory taste to make sure she really is that fucking awesome, and then deeper, faster, as I devour her. She’s mine, and the writhing of her hips, the needy cries spilling from her mouth? That’s the yes sealing our deal.
I’m Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel on his goddamned knees. I spread her thighs wider, make room for myself, and love her with my tongue. She can have the rest of me later. After she’s come. I lick and taste, dragging my tongue through her swollen, creamy folds, and she holds on, making the noises I love. She’s losing it for me, giving it up, and I’m pumping the sheets with my dick, desperate to be inside her. Not yet, though—first I need to make her feel good.
“Hurry. Up.” She bites out those two words and yanks hard on my head. Guess she’s impatient—and not following my rules anymore. Her hands are definitely not over her head, and we’ll be discussing what happens to misbehaving bad girls later. In rounds two, three, and four. Probably tomorrow and next week too, because I’m committed to this relationship of ours in a whole new way. I suck her clit into my mouth, stroking it with my tongue.
“Finn!” She screams my name, and I could get off on just that sound. Four letters, and she’s got me wrapped around her finger—next part of me to go is my dick.
I yank on a condom, give my erection the good to go, and slide home in one long, hard stroke. She’s had all the preliminaries she’s getting. I don’t have any more words left in me because nothing has ever felt this good. She shrieks, and it’s a good thing she doesn’t have neighbors.
I grab her hips and put her right where we both want her—on my dick, taking each stroke I hammer her with. She’s wet and tight as I thrust into her, and fuck me but I won’t last. And I don’t want to last. This isn’t about being the best (although I so am) or sexual gymnastics (although we’re not doing too badly in the creativity department). It’s about making a place inside her body for me and giving her everything I’ve got.
I ram into her, thrusting up, and she digs her fingers into my ass, yanking me down harder. My name’s coming out of her mouth in a long, breathy moan FinnFinnFinnFinn. And after that… yes.
I add a few curses and do some name-calling of my own, because that’s the one thing that makes this perfect. I’m doing this with Valentina Fuentes, and she’s my everything. And then she tightens, clenching around me, nails digging in, and we both know she’s coming and I’m racing her toward the finish line. I slam into her, pounding myself deeper, harder, faster, and when I come, there’s nothing but white lights and fireworks going off everywhere.
Including my heart.
I didn’t know that particular organ could orgasm, but it tightens and spasms right along with my dick, pouring everything of me into her.
VALI
I’m supposed to insist that Finn talk after we have sex. That he spill his secrets and let me inside.
Instead, I run my fingers over his head. Despite being eighteen months out of the military, he still keeps his hair cut regulation short. It feels both soft and prickly beneath my fingertips, like velvet with a bite. Like the rest of him, his hair’s amazing.
Dios.
I’m not sure when casual sex got so complicated. Because my mind’s still blown by the most intense orgasm of my life, I give up trying to think, however. Instead, I lie there breathing Finn in, my head on his chest, my fingers tangled up in those dog tags he insists on wearing. I wonder if he realizes that he’s cuddling. Mr. Big, Bad SEAL has popped his relationship cherry.
“Take the tags off,” he says after a long while. His body is still loose and warm beneath mine, and his heart beats as steadily as ever against my cheek, but I can almost feel him pulling away.
“Are you sure?”
“Do it.”
When I fumble looking for the clasp, Finn’s fingers cover mine and help. The tags fall into my hand, and I can’t help examining them. Someone’s scratched the initials B.B. into the metal beside the SEAL’s name. They’re not Finn’s.
“Get rid of them,” he says.
People say things when they’re hurt, when the bad news fairy has hit too hard. Finn may mean it right now, but tomorrow—or possibly a whole lot of tomorrows later—he’ll change his mind. So when I get out of bed, I tuck the tags into the empty dresser drawer I made for him to put his stuff in. He doesn’t want my space, but it’s his now.
“Who’s B.B.?”
For a moment, I think he’s not going to answer.
He rolls onto his side, watching me fuss with the drawer, folding the chain into neat quarters. “Not who I thought he was.”
That past tense? It says it all.
Two inches of metal is all Finn has left, and now he does
n’t want that. He wasn’t kidding when he said he wasn’t into relationships. I get back into bed—still naked—and he pulls me into his arms, though, so there’s that. It’s still light enough to see—our marathon sex session hasn’t extended past sunset, and I haven’t raised the questions of a sleepover yet—but my close up of Finn’s chest puts me face-to-face with his scars. They’re not big ones, and you’d have to strip him down to really notice, but they’re there and I haven’t had the right chance to ask him about them before.
I trace a three-inch ridge of raised flesh on his side. “What’s this from?”
He shrugs like it’s no big deal. “Same place I got the dog tags from.”
“B.B. cut you?” I thought the initials stood for another soldier, but maybe it’s a weapon. Like the air gun but more lethal?
“The Hummer B.B. and I were riding on hit an IED,” he says after another one of those pauses where his head’s taking a trip down memory lane somewhere far, far away from the Florida Keys. “Our ride flipped and went into a canal. We were taking heavy fire, so when I went after B.B. I picked up a few souvenirs. We had to wait for an extract, so I got him into a culvert that emptied into the canal, and then we waited.”
He says this so casually, like getting shot badly enough to have scars is no big deal. And maybe it isn’t in his world—but if he’s wearing B.B.’s dog tags, B.B. didn’t make it out.
“It took him almost an hour to die,” Finn continues. “We took fire the whole time because the hostiles knew where we were. B.B. wanted me to leave him, to try and crawl through the culvert to another exit point.”
Let’s say you’re having a really bad year—or possibly two—and you think everything that could go wrong has. And then a SEAL shows up and tells you about his bad day. A bad day that involves explosions and bullets. Friends dying.
I wondered where Finn went when he zoned out and his head went somewhere else. I suspected those moments first in Bee Sweete and then later in bed at his house sent him back in time to battlefields and bad places—and now I know. I could mention it, could let him know I understand and I have a few triggers myself. I won’t use Lysol anymore, and I hate the color white. Those things are my own personal fast pass to re-watching Bella die, and I’d prefer to gloss over the sad, bad parts and remember the happy times.
And Finn’s memories are so much worse. I had help and friends and the knowledge that this was coming, so that even though there was no preparing for it, Bella’s death didn’t literally explode in my face.
“B.B. asked me to kill him.” The words hang in the air between us, and I’m betting he’s told no one this before. He probably thinks he’s stunned me, but the thing is? I’ve been asked to do the same. Terminal metastatic breast cancer is a horrific diagnosis. At that point, it’s not just your breasts—cancer’s in your very bones, and it’s coming for your heart and soul. From what I’ve seen, the pain is excruciating, and some women would rather go out on their own terms. I didn’t say yes when my sister asked me for help, but I didn’t say no, either—and then she passed naturally, and I didn’t have to choose. Choose between ethics and love, helping someone I love and losing that same person.
“I wouldn’t do it,” he says fiercely. “I wanted him to live no matter what.”
Finn’s not a quitter. He’s a fighter and a soldier, and I’ll bet he doesn’t understand about giving up, about how sometimes letting go of life is the only way through. I remember the pain and I don’t know if I could be strong enough to do it again. If I did get cancer despite my preventative measures, if it were me facing a terminal diagnosis, maybe I’d ask for help ending things, too. Or maybe I wouldn’t. There’s no way to know for certain, but Finn wants black and white rules.
“He quit on me,” Finn says now. “And he quit on his marriage. He cheated on his wife.”
There’s no easy answer to the questions I hear in Finn’s voice. I wish I did have answers; I’d give them to him in a heartbeat. But Finn doesn’t do relationships, and I’m just looking for a good time, a friend with benefits, and neither of us has much practice opening up. In fact, it’s safe to say we suck at it.
I’ve fantasized about having more with Finn. Spent more hours than I care to admit daydreaming about possible feelings, about next dates, about milestones.
Finn’s an amazing guy. I’ve been living in my own world for so long that I’ve forgotten men like him exist. They’re big and strong on the inside as well as on the outside, and they’re fighters. I’m sure it’s why he enlisted in the first place. He’s the kind of person who means it when he promises to protect and serve. What he can’t deal with, however, is coming home. With losing the friend who fought beside him—twice.
Finn’s amazing. I should enjoy every minute I have with him. Indulge all my fantasies. Store up memories of amazing, mind-blowing sex. He’s good for it. We both know it. Someday, I’ll be the ninety-year-old woman telling stories in the nursing home, and Finn will be the hero I cackle about. I’ll have all the aides sighing over him, while they look at me and wonder how an old bird landed such a hottie.
That’s all I’m doing here. Making memories. Waiting until he moves on, and I head in a different direction. Funny how our fake engagement feels so real sometimes.
I hold him silently, and he lets me. Together we breathe in, breathe out, letting the last moments of our afternoon spin away. Eventually, I get up and make him an omelet, a smoking pile of potatoes, chorizo, and onion sprinkled with salt. He’s still eating when someone starts banging on the door.
T-1 days and holding
FINN
Ro is at the door, banging on the fucking thing so hard he’ll be inside in a minute if I don’t take steps. I’m not into sharing or ménage, so I glare at him through the six inches of open space. “What the fuck do you want?”
He has to know what we’ve been doing in here—and I’m actually okay with that. And apparently I’m also perfectly happy with having the emotional maturity of a caveman, because I feel good knowing that Ro and Vann both know that Vali’s mine and not just because of the ring I put on her finger. I suddenly understand why guys mark their gals with their jizz, ink a big-ass tattoo on her skin, or even buy diamond rings. Vali’s mine.
I’m the king of the fucking world.
Ro’s not going away, though. He stands there, booted feet planted on my porch, as immoveable as Congress.
“Come downstairs.” Ro makes this sound like the most logical request in the world.
Let’s be honest. I don’t care if a meteorite dropped out of the sky and cratered Angel Cay. I’ve just spent the last five hours having fucking fantastic sex with a woman I have feelings for. The feelings are new and genuine, so I’m gonna have to figure it out, but anything else isn’t a concern right now.
“Fuck off,” I suggest. Then add, “Please.”
Manners are part of the new and improved, almost domesticated, me. Ro isn’t swayed.
“Come down now,” he orders.
He seriously wants me to step away from Vali? Who is mostly naked, wearing just my T-shirt and no panties in her kitchen? While she cooks? I couldn’t have come up with a better fantasy if I tried.
“Jesus. More kittens?”
Because kittens definitely aren’t pulling me away from Vali. Ro gives me a look I haven’t seen since Iraq. It’s the look that says Get your ass in there, soldier, and save the day.
“This isn’t a game,” he says, and then he turns and marches down the stairs toward the street.
Alright then. I duck back inside, leaving the door open. Vali putters around her kitchen, doing those mysterious things that seem to end up with me eating way too much food. She’s a goddess. A sex goddess, a cooking goddess, and just possibly the all-round ruler of my universe. Baby steps, though. I’m still getting used to the idea, so I settle for pulling her in close and brushing her mouth with mine.
“Ro wants me downstairs,” I say. This need to share stupid, mundane details must be what it
’s like to be part of a long-term couple, but I kind of like it.
She nods. “Okay. Do you need me?”
She has no idea. I kiss her again, a little deeper. “Always.”
Her blush is cute, as is the slap she lands on my ass.
“Go,” she orders. “And then come right back.”
I salute and head out the door to where Ro is standing by my Jeep. Vann is next to him, and he actually looks worried—which is a look he usually reserves for situations like having twelve heat-seeking missiles locked in on his position. My ride’s great, but why is it drawing a crowd? Even Señor Seagull’s in on the action, perched on the roll-top roof and surveying the area with his beady bird eyes and hopefully not shitting on my seats.
It’s not the ride, although there’s a mountain of unfamiliar crap beside it. A sleeping bag that’s not mine. Several suitcases (also not mine). And a really fluffy-looking, quilted bag—it’s bright pink and covered with daisies. Again? So not mine.
“You remember Em,” Ro says, and Vann steps back, revealing a petite, brown-haired woman who looks at me with huge eyes full of emotions. Hope, calculation, more than a little exhaustion… she’s got it all going on in those eyes.
She’s looking at me.
Does she look familiar? I’m honestly not sure. Out of sheer self-defense, I nod to acknowledge our possible acquaintance and look around trying to make sense of this today’s command meet-and-greet.
Em’s not traveling solo. There’s a baby on the ground beside her, sleeping in a car seat. Short of stripping it down to its skivvies, I can’t tell from the small, wrinkled face if it’s a boy or a girl.
“That’s Roger,” Em says, as if introducing the baby is mission-critical.
Who names a baby Roger? The poor kid had better plan on an uphill battle when he goes to school and his peers have fun with that name. His daddy had better teach him to fight—or to not give a fuck. Or just get his name changed when his momma isn’t looking. If he were my kid, I’d do all three.
