by Tia Siren
“Hi. Can I come in?” she asked.
“Looking like that you can do anything you want,” he replied. Vanessa had made an extra special effort with her appearance. Her makeup was as perfect as she could get it and her newly washed hair fell alluringly over her shoulders. “Come in and sit down.”
Again he watched the buttocks that he was unable to resist slide from side to side as she walked over the floor and sat down.
“Been drinking?” she asked when she saw an empty bottle standing on the floor next to her.
“A few. Nothing too bad. So, to what do I owe this visit?” He sat down next to her. She noticed he hadn't shaved for a couple of days, his stubble made him look even tougher and almost irresistible.
“Er… I thought I'd come and say hi. You know, after what happened the other day at the VA. You said some pretty outrageous stuff. I thought maybe… we could talk outside of the office.”
“And you've come here because you want me to do some of those things,” he said, his voice taking on a lower tone than Orson Wells. “You do, don't you? You want me to take off your…”
“Let's go for a bike ride. Take me on your bike,” she interrupted. “Let's have a nice day out.”
He was always up for that.
Vanessa held onto him as he sped down the freeway at well over the speed limit. It was good to feel her body against his, her arms around him and her breasts pressing into his back.
When they arrived at the marina, Ashton went to the office and rented a rowboat. He took Vanessa into the grocery store and they bought a bottle of wine, some cheese and bread, and a few cherry tomatoes.
“I'll hold the boat, you step into it,” he said when they arrived at the mooring. She put one foot in the boat and squeaked when it began to move away from her. “Quick, jump in,” he said. When she landed in an unceremonious heap on the boat floor, he laughed. It was the first time she'd seen him really laugh. He jumped down after her and pushed off with one of the oars.
Once Vanessa had composed herself, she sat and watched as Ashton's muscles worked to the rhythm of his rowing. When they reached an island in the middle of the lake, Ashton rowed the boat onto the beach and they jumped out. Once the boat was tied, he took Vanessa's hand and led her to an area of soft sand below some trees which provided much-needed shade from the heat of the day.
After they'd eaten, Vanessa sat against a tree and pulled him down so his head was in her lap. She played with his hair and stroked his face as she looked at the boats bobbing around on the water.
“This is nice,” he said.
“Yes, lovely. I guess it's been a long time since you relaxed like this.”
“Yep, I suppose so.”
“I like you, Ashton, I don't want you to think I'm doing this because of Syria. I'm here because you make me feel a certain way.”
He closed his eyes and enjoyed the feel of her soft hand on his face. “You know I've only ever been in love once before. Since then I've not been able to love anyone.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I was twenty-five. She was a teacher at the Naval Academy when I went to do a course there. She was so pretty I fell in love with her straight away. She told me she loved me too, but in the end, it turned out she didn't.”
“Why not?”
“I don't know. After a short time, we moved in together, I loved her so much I gave her everything she wanted. Then she left me for some other guy. I wanted to rip his head off, but I realized it wouldn't have brought her back to me.”
“Do you blame yourself? I guess you were away a lot at that time, maybe she needed a stay-at-home guy.”
“I blamed myself for a while, but as time passed I learned to live with it. It tore me apart, though. What about you?” he asked. “How many lovers have you had?”
“Oh. A couple but no-one special.”
“Someone should have snapped you up years ago. You're too beautiful to be alone.”
“Beautiful? You keep saying that, but I've never seen that myself. I've always thought my thighs and ass were too fat to be beautiful.”
“No way. I love your ass, I can't stop looking at it. And your tits are amazing. You're the complete woman.”
Vanessa blushed again. She lowered her head and kissed his forehead. “Thank you. You make me feel so… so girly, so feminine. I've always had to fend for myself before but when I'm with you I feel… cared for. Wanted.”
“You should feel lusted after,” he quipped.
“I do.”
“You know, I'm sorry I was such a pain in the ass the other day, and I know you want me to talk about Syria. But I can't. I don't want to, and that's it.”
“It's okay. Thanks for today, it's great here. I don't want to talk about work either. I want to get to know the real you,” Vanessa said.
“There's only one thing I want to do now. I want to row you back to the shore, take you home and fuck you. You make my cock so hard I can't think straight,” he said.
“God, you make me so darn horny,” she said.
He sat up, turned around and kissed her. She tasted of wine and sunshine and all he could think of was getting her back to his bed.
When he flung her onto the mattress in his apartment, her breasts bounced and her legs fell open. “I don't have to ask you what you want, do I?” he said.
“I think you know,” she said.
“Okay. Fast and hard it is,” he said as she reached down to open her pants.
Chapter 9
Vanessa lay on the bed in her panties and bra and watched as Ashton undressed. She'd been right: his upper body was just as she'd imagined. She'd never made love to a man with such a great physique before, and the sight of him was making her so wet she couldn't wait for him to enter her. But she had to wait because he wanted to do what he'd talked about a few days before. He wanted her to feel his tongue on her clit.
As soon as her sodden panties touched the floor, his mouth was on her, making her scream with delight.
“Jesus, that's good,” she moaned.
“You taste so great,” he said pulling away for a fleeting moment.
“Don't stop, please don't stop.”
He didn't stop, his tongue kept up its steady rhythm as it glanced over her opening and flicked her clitoris. Soon she was breathing hard, her belly shaking as her pleasure mounted. When he took her clitoris between his lips and mercilessly licked it, she screamed and came in a wet wave that left him no doubt how much he turned her on.
He didn't wait for her orgasm to subside before pulling his hard body onto her, and thrusting inside in one fluid movement that filled her and made her cry out. His strokes were long and hard. Soon Vanessa was gasping again, fighting for air as his heavy body slammed into her.
This is real fucking, she thought. He made the other couple of men she'd had before, seem like total amateurs. Ashton was the real deal. He had a big cock and he knew what to do with it. In addition, he was fit enough to be able to thrust into her all day. She couldn't imagine him ever getting tired, and she loved it. She wanted him to last and last, to take her to places she'd never been before, to use her body for his satisfaction and when he was ready, fill her up with everything he had. Normally she would have been shy to let a man see her stomach and thighs, and she would have pulled a sheet over them to cover what she regarded as a disaster area, but with Ashton, she didn't care. She didn't care because he gave her the feeling her really liked her body, worshiped it even.
“Come on babe,” he whispered when he once again felt her about to come. When she was there she gasped his name and threw her legs over his back.
“You too,” she said. “I want you to come inside me.” He leaned down and kissed her, she came again when she felt his tongue inside her mouth. “Jesus I can't anymore,” she moaned. Taking no notice, he upped the pace to a level she didn't know was possible. When her fourth orgasm hit her, his breathing became labored and he ejaculated deep inside her. It had been exhausting, but the best sex
ual experience of her life.
When she felt a trickle of his seed escape from her, she pulled him to her and held him as tightly as she could. Now he was her man. She was going to look after him, fix him, make him whole again.
They lay in silence for a while before she spoke. “Tell me what happened,” she said running a hand over his chest. “I want to help you feel better about it.”
“I can't,” he said softly.
“Shall I tell you what I think?”
“I probably can’t stop you. Go ahead.” He sighed.
“I think you fucked up. Somehow you fucked up and your superego is preventing you from telling me.”
His body tensed and he threw the covers to the side. He jumped out of bed and glared down at her. “Who the fuck do you think you are? Did you fuck me as a way to get into my head? Was that why you did it?”
“No, I care for you, that's why. I just wanted to talk to you about this.”
“That's not how it looks to me. Get the fuck out of my apartment!” he shouted, jerking the rest of the covers off the bed. He pointed at the door. She suddenly felt so naked, so vulnerable. “Go on get the fuck out!”
Chapter 10
“Fucking bitch!” he said, taking another huge swig of vodka. He didn't care anymore. They could do with him what they wanted. If they wanted to sling him out of the Navy, let them do it. They were all assholes. Pussies! Scared of their own shadows. None of them had the balls it took to do what he did. Not one of them had any idea what it was like to lose friends, real friends. Not one of them had the faintest idea what it felt like to watch as your buddies were castrated and then had their heads hacked off.
When he finished the bottle, he smashed it against the wall and went to the fridge to get another. When the second bottle was finished, he got up from the sofa and fell over, pulling the TV onto him as he fell.
“Jesus, what the fuck?” He woke abruptly many hours later. The clock on the wall told him it was three in the afternoon. He'd been asleep for twelve hours. He pushed the TV off him and tried to get up.
“Shit,” he said as he lifted his thumping head from the carpet. When he gained his feet, the room spun and he raced to the bathroom to throw up. The bed still smelled of Vanessa and the sex they'd had the day before. He curled into a fetal position and closed his eyes.
What the hell was he going to do without the Navy, he wondered? It had been his life for so long. Maybe he could go to the Caribbean to teach scuba diving. That must be easier than putting up with all this shit, he thought. Yes, that's what he'd do. Fuck them all, he was going to leave and there wasn't a thing they could do about it.
The next morning, he saw he'd had three missed calls from Vanessa. “Bitch,” he said, just before throwing the phone across the room. The fridge was empty apart from a half-drunk bottle of whiskey. He poured himself a glass and sat at the kitchen table. He took the appointment card and looked at the name on it: Dr. V. Gilbert.
“Bitch!” he said again, screwing it up and tossing it in the general direction of the trash can. “No fucking idea! Any of them.”
When the bottle was finished he pulled on short jogging pants and a T-shirt and went to the liquor store.
“I can't sell you this. I think you've had enough,” the man behind the counter said.
“I don't give a fuck what you think. How much?”
The man looked at the three vodka bottles Ashton had placed in front of him and shook his head. “I can't let you do it to yourself. Go home, get some sleep.”
In an instant, Ashton pulled him over the counter and threw him onto the ground. He dug the point of his knee into the man's throat. “I asked how much.”
“Fifty bucks.”
“Thank you. That wasn't hard, was it?” Ashton threw the cash on top of the man and left the store.
Halfway down the second bottle, Ashton began to sob. Huge sobs of grief for the guys he'd had to leave behind shook him. He stood up, opened the drawer, and for the first time since Syria pulled out the photo of him and his unit. “Oh fuck,” he said when he saw the faces of the men who died. “Jesus help me, I can't do this anymore.” He ran his finger over their faces as tears landed on them.
He found the appointment card and smoothed it out, then reached for his cellphone and dialed the number. “Help me. Please help me.”
Chapter 11
“It's okay. I'm here now,” Vanessa said. She let him hold her and stroked his hair as he sobbed uncontrollably. “We'll do it together, okay?”
He nodded. “I'm sorry. I've been so fucking stupid, but it was so awful. You have no idea.”
“I don't have any idea, you're right. But I do know you're suffering.”
“I like you. I don’t want this to come between us,” he said.
“It won't.”
“I fucked up. You were right. I fucked up and I couldn't admit it.”
“There's no shame in that. Everyone fucks up sometimes.”
“But when most people fuck up, it doesn't cost lives!” He shook his head as if to get the pictures out. “If you’d seen those guys… my men… they—they were shitting themselves. There was… so much pain. So much pain.”
“What happened?”
“The coordinates were wrong. We were set down in the wrong place. Into the middle of the fucking enemy barracks. We were holed up!”
“How did that happen?”
“I pushed them hard. The guys needed to be fit for this mission. I trained them to breaking point but… I didn't notice how Mike was feeling.”
“Who’s Mike?”
“The only one of my guys with kids. He had four. I didn't see it. He'd lost it. When you've got a family, this job gradually becomes harder and harder until the day when you can't do it anymore. Mike was the one who took the coordinates and gave them to me.”
“He messed them up?”
“Yep, he didn't give me what he'd been told. He transposed two digits and wrote down the wrong number for another. He completely messed it up.”
“So why do you say you fucked up?”
“Because I was their leader, I should have checked it. It was my job! It was my mission! It's always down to the leader to check important things like that. I just didn't do it. Those men died because I failed them.”
She ran her fingers over his cheek as he lay on her lap. “Why didn't you tell me before?”
“Because Mike got killed, and I didn't want to dishonor his name. He was a brilliant soldier and a hell of a man. His memory shouldn't be tarnished, not by something I should have checked. I won't ever tell my superiors about it. I'm only telling you in confidence. I don't want you to tell anybody.”
“Okay. We'll find a way out of it. The important thing is to get you right, to get you better. You'll kill yourself drinking like this. You've gotta let it out so you can get your senses back on track.”
“I will. Anything you need to know. I'll tell you.”
“How did you feel when you saw those guys being murdered?”
“I can't describe it. I wanted to save them, but we would all have been killed if we'd intervened. I feel guilty, it should have been me. I should have swapped myself for them.”
“I don't know much about it, but I would have thought they would have murdered you all. They wouldn't have let any of you go.”
“They wouldn’t have. We tried to fight back but we couldn’t save the ones who were taken. We had to get out of there because we knew an air strike was coming in. The only good thing that happened was watching those bastards getting blown to pieces after we dropped the bombs on the site.”
“Does that mean your men who were taken hostage were caught in the air strike, too?”
When he didn’t answer, she knew that it was true.
“Listen to me,” she said. She turned his face to her. “Whatever happens, I'm here for you. Whenever you want to talk, I'm here.”
“Thanks. I'm so sorry about slinging you out. It was heartless.”
“No
. That was my fault. I didn’t approach that the right way at all. I shouldn’t have been so blunt. You are under a lot of pressure. A tragic event has happened to you. No one can get through something like that unscathed. I'm going to make you better.”
“Will you come to bed with me? I just want to feel your body against mine.”
“I'd like that very much,” Vanessa whispered, nodding.
They got undressed and crept under the covers. 'You know your ego isn't as big as I thought. Your heart is much bigger. You are a brave man, never forget that,” she said.
“There's something I really need to do. Maybe you'll come with me. I need to go and see Mike's family.”
“Sure I will. Sleep now. There's time for that tomorrow.”
Vanessa lay awake and watched him sleep. He'd been her most difficult case. Most men didn’t want to unburden themselves. They wanted to bottle it up and “be a man about it.” But he'd suffered for one reason and one reason only: to protect his fellow soldier’s memory. There was no telling what he might have done if she hadn't made a special effort to listen to him. Suicide would have been an option for him. If not by his own gun, then by the alcohol he was drowning himself in.
Could she lie to the Navy about what had happened? Could she find a way to keep Mike’s name out of her report?
She sighed. She would tell the Navy her findings: that although he was suffering from PTSD, she felt that with time and counseling, Ashton would be mentally fit to lead his troops in no time. He did need some time off and she thought she had him convinced of that. It wasn’t her job to tell the Navy what had really happened. She would have to recommend that Ashton tell them the trauma had displaced some of his memories, thereby making it impossible for him to recollect exactly how they could have ended up in the wrong place that day.
Chapter 12
Ashton looked at the front yard and grimaced when he saw the weeds and the state of the grass. It had been his job, and he should have been there for her. He'd promised Candy he would help, and he'd let her down. That wasn't going to happen anymore. He was going to be there for her now.
