by HotShots
“What?”
The lieutenant dropped his gaze and flushed. “I’m sorry, sir. He said he was too tired. I tried to tell him. He’s very…he wouldn’t come with me, sir.”
“I see.” I was really proud of how calm I sounded. I took a deep breath. “Tell him I said to get his ass in here now, or I’ll come and drag it in here.”
“Yes sir.” Weinberg’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, but he snapped off another salute and turned smartly to leave. I stopped him at the door. “Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t say that. Tell him I said, if he could make a little time for me this evening, I have an important matter I wish to discuss with him. Please. Be sure you say please.”
“Yes sir.” Looking mystified, he turned to go.
A few minutes later there was a soft knock on my door.
“Come in,” I called.
Dakota stepped inside, his hands shoved in his pockets, looking irritable. He gave me a sullen glare. “You wanted to see me?”
I came around the desk to take him in my arms, but he shied away. “Don’t,” he said.
I rocked on my heels for a moment before saying the first thing that came to my mind. “Your name is Dakota.”
His lips twisted in a sneer. “Why, yes, it is. And yours is Col. Ike Morgan. Now that we have that cleared up, I’m really tired. I need to get some sleep.” He took a step backward toward the door.
“Baby…Dakota…don’t be like this. We need to talk.”
“Do we? I assumed we’d said all we needed to say. I haven’t heard from you in over three weeks.”
“You told me not to contact you again.” He turned his faced toward the wall, refusing to look at me. I spent a moment enjoying his beautiful profile before I continued. “I was going to contact you anyway in a couple of days. I don’t like not seeing you.”
“Oh you mean online? ’Cause I gave you a chance to see me and you turned me down.”
“I was in Afghanistan!”
“Well, I didn’t know that, did I?” He turned back to glare at me. “You could have told me.”
“I-I was going to. So many times. But you have to know how hard it would be for me. I can’t be out in the open with my sexuality like you, Dakota. And to be fair, you didn’t tell me who you were either.”
Silence. He continued to stare a hole in the opposite wall.
“So your being here is just…”
“A coincidence? A cosmic joke? Fucking fate kicking me in the gonads? Yes, all of the above.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. It must have been quite a shock to see me here.” I saw his lower lip tremble just a little, and I moved in closer. I wanted to take his lip in my mouth and nibble on it. I tried hard to keep my voice low and soothing. “But you’re here now. With me. And I can finally hold you.”
I pulled him into my arms and kissed him, gently at first, but with an intensity that soon spread its way through both of our bodies. He was trembling in my arms, and I probably was doing the same. I kissed him until we were both breathless and then pulled back to look down at him. “I missed you, baby. I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me?”
Dakota whimpered a little and pulled my head back down to kiss me again. I wrapped my arms around his waist, picked him up and carried him to the bunk, laying him down and stretching out beside him. Relaxing against his body, I buried my face in his neck and inhaled. He smelled like expensive cologne, tinged a little with sweat and the slightest hint of coconut.
Dakota noticed me sniffing at him and chuckled. “Sunblock,” he murmured in my ear. “My skin sunburns pretty easy.”
I groaned and licked at his neck, slipping my hand up under his shirt and running it along the smooth expanse of his belly. Then my hands were everywhere on him at once, on his chest, his hips, his thighs. I practically ripped the clothes off both of us, and then I was kissing him on every part of his body I could reach. I’d wanted to touch him like this for so long. He thrashed and moaned under me, giving himself to me totally, completely.
I dipped my head and took one pink nipple in my mouth, teasing and taunting first one sensitive nub and then the other until he begged me for mercy, thrusting his hips toward me. I dropped my hands down to cup his ass and pull him possessively close to me. His sweet cock was hard and urgent pressing against my stomach. I bent over to take it in my mouth, and he gasped and arched his back, raking his nails across my shoulders.
He tried to put his legs around my waist, but I flipped him over on his stomach and bent over to bury my nose in the skin behind his balls and licked my way up to the prize I was after. When he was crying out hoarsely and begging me for more, I wrenched myself away from him long enough to find the lube and a condom I’d hidden in my drawer. Back by his side, I dragged one finger down his cleft before pushing first one finger inside Dakota’s tight hole and then another, stretching him gently. He squirmed in excitement and pleasure. “Please,” he said, “I need you inside me now.”
He pushed back against my fingers and spread his knees a little wider, begging me to fuck him. I moved my free hand to wrap it around the thick cock bobbing below his belly. I stroked it a few times, pushing in more fingers and twisting them as he added pressure. He almost whimpered and I relented, pulling my fingers out and rubbing my cock against his hole. I nudged inside him, and I had to draw in a slow, deep breath to try to get a little control. He lifted his hips in welcome, pushing his face down on the bunk and his ass up toward me. He clutched the sheet beneath him in both hands.
“That’s it, baby,” I murmured. “Take it for me. Take it all.” I whispered the words in his ear and he twisted his head to capture my mouth. As he touched his lips to mine, passion jolted through me and I pushed up harder, dragging my cock over his sweet spot. After only a few thrusts, he came with an intensity that surprised me. His orgasm caused his ass to clench so tightly around my shaft my breathing grew shallow, and I began to thrust harder than ever. When my orgasm erupted from me seconds later, I cried out and collapsed over him, remembering at the last second to try to hold most of my weight off his slight form. I rolled to the side, almost falling off the narrow bunk and clutched him to me.
When I could breathe again, I turned him toward me and kissed him tenderly for a long time, his cock nestling against mine, our legs entwined. We lay together like that for a while, and I drifted off to sleep. I woke up when Dakota pulled gently away from me and started putting his clothes back on. He looked down at me and smiled. “I need to get back to my hut. I’ll see you in the morning before we leave.”
Stretching out on my back, I put my hands behind my head. “Oh, you’re not going with them in the morning. Hell no. I’ll get you out of that.”
Dakota stopped and stared down at me as if I’d lost my mind. “I don’t want to get out of it. It’s my job, my assignment.”
“I said no. You’re not exposing yourself to that kind of danger. I forbid it.”
His eyebrows rose so high it was almost funny. Almost.
“You forbid it? You forbid it? Oh hell no, you did not just say that!”
I sat up on the side of the bunk. “Dakota, baby…”
“Don’t Dakota baby me! I have a job here, in case you’ve forgotten that fact, and I’m not a child to be protected by you! I’m going and that’s that!”
“No, you’re not.”
“Ike, I’m serious! You can’t just tell me not to go!”
“I can and I will. It’s done. I’ll tell your PAO there’s been a change in plans, and get you out of here on the first transport back to the states. I’ll do a lot for you, Dakota, but I won’t compromise your safety. You have no business here; it’s way too dangerous.”
“That’s not your decision to make. It’s hard for me to realize you’re here in harm’s way too, but I know that it’s your job, and it’s part of who you are. I respect that. Can’t you respect me too?”
“Dakota, please. B
e reasonable.”
“No. I’m going out on the tactical op tomorrow and I’m going to dig in with them, or whatever it’s called, and I’m going to get my story. I know you can stop it if you want to, but if you care for me, even a little…“
“You know I do!”
“Then don’t stop me from doing my job!” He glared at me for another minute and then crossed to the door. His hand on the knob, he kept his back to me and rested his forehead against the door. “I don’t want to fight with you anymore, Ike. Please don’t do this.” He opened the door and slipped out of my life again. And all I could do was watch him go.
*~*~*
Dakota Greer
No one tried to stop me the next morning, and our PAO never mentioned my visit to the colonel except to give me a strange glance now and then when he thought I wasn’t looking. I wondered if he’d heard us. I don’t imagine I was all that quiet the night before, but then neither was the colonel.
On the way, I sat in the front of a heavily armored truck. The handgrip of an M4 carbine rifle rested against my knee and the top gunner, manning a machine gun on the cab’s roof, stood against my right shoulder. It was scary as hell. I was wearing my dark blue flak jacket and my heavy helmet. The PAO stopped by to tell me, “Strap yourself in tight. If we encounter small-arms fire, keep your head down. But if the truck goes over, the top gunner will drop into your lap, so just hold onto him.” You better believe I would.
We arrived at the combat outpost where we’d be staying after a terrifying, but ultimately tedious drive of about two hours down dirt roads. A combat outpost says a lot about how brave and strong and determined American soldiers are. The one we were embedded with was called Combat Outpost Jennings, named after a soldier who had given everything, and a picture of the heartbreakingly young corporal hung by the door of the aid station, both a tribute and a chilling reminder to everyone who entered of the dangers the soldiers faced every day in those outposts.
I thought about how Ike hadn’t wanted me here, saying the COPs were way too dangerous. Once we arrived, I began to regret my stubborn desire to defy him and realize the dangers were indeed very real. The company we were to be embedded with had picked up the mission of securing a dirt highway connecting to the southern provinces. It sat on the side of the road, right near the intersection, surrounded by barbed wire in big, looping coils.
Everything existed in a fog of dust. The surrounding countryside was stark, but beautiful in a way. The soldiers had tents, but not many of the comforts the troops at Camp Blackhorse had. The place was Spartan—infested with bugs and overlaid with the smells of burning plastic and waste. There were two sinks with running water, some solar powered showers, an aid station, and a mess tent, besides the huts where the soldiers slept.
They got mail, one hot meal a day, and they even had a couple of washing machines and dryers, run by generators. We were shown to a tent and stowed our gear. We were told we were welcome to use their gym. They’d made it themselves, a rough assemblage of timbers, pulleys, pipes and tent poles under an open tent. They also had what they called a comm center, and a few computers for the use of the men, again, all powered by generator. Roughly fifty men were stationed there, in this area remaining at least partly out of government control. With our arrival, there were fifty-five.
The first few days were uncomfortable, but bearable. I talked to the guys, getting some great interviews and was awed by their stoic courage. They told me of a recent attack by the insurgents where one of the men radioed to tell them “I got a launcher aimed right at me.” He hadn’t sounded frightened; he was just letting them know he wouldn’t be coming in from the attack. The stories were heartbreaking, but inspiring too, and I was really glad I’d come.
On the sixth day there, our PAO, Lt. Weinberg mentioned at breakfast the colonel would be coming later in the day. My head whipped up. “He’s coming here? Is it because of me?”
The lieutenant and the other reporters at the table gave me an odd look.
“You?” Lt. Weinberg asked. “No, Mr. Greer. This visit was planned months ago.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling foolish, and applied myself to my breakfast, which consisted of cereal, warm milk and some really bad coffee.
“Mr. Greer,” the lieutenant said. “Were you and the colonel…I mean, did you know the colonel back in the States?”
“Nope,” I said, not looking up. “Never met him before. Why?”
“Oh, no reason. I just got an impression you knew each other.”
“Yeah,” Bob Dolen, the reporter from Oregon spoke up. “He never asked me to come to his office. What was all that about anyway, Greer?”
“Hmm? Oh nothing. He just wanted to give me a story about a soldier from my hometown.”
“Really,” Weinberg said, still staring at me.
“Yes,” I said, staring him down. He dropped his gaze back to his plate and left me alone.
Later, as I was working out with some of the guys in their makeshift gym, we heard a commotion by the gate and three armored vehicles rolled in, stirring up a dust cloud. I craned my neck but of course, I could see no one inside the vehicles. I turned to one of the young soldiers who’d been spotting me, a twenty-one year old from Oklahoma named Tim. “What are those things called?”
“MRAPs.”
“Which stands for…?”
He grinned. “Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles.”
“Colonel Morgan’s in one of them.”
Tim shrugged and nodded.
“So what do you think of the colonel? Do you like him?”
“Like him?” He looked puzzled, like it was an odd question. “He’s a good commander. A hardass, but fair. Smart too, and not scared of nothing. He’s paid his dues, you know? He’s been in the army for almost as long as I been alive.”
I nodded and turned to follow the progress of the little convoy as it pulled in front of the comm center, where the captain who was in charge of the outpost spent most of his time since I’d been there. The door of one of the vehicles opened and the colonel climbed out, giving a quick glance over to where I stood. My hand went up in a little wave, and he nodded before turning to go inside.
“He’s gay, they say,” Tim said in a matter of fact tone.
My head whipped around so fast I almost gave myself whiplash.
“What did you say?’
He shrugged. “The colonel’s gay. That’s just what I heard. You, too, huh?”
I smiled at him. “Why? Because of the way I look?”
He grinned back at me. “That, and the way you watch my ass when I do my squats.”
“Busted,” I said, laughing. “Do you—do you mind?”
“That you’re gay? Hell no, why should I?”
“What about the colonel? If he was gay, would that change your mind about him?”
Again, he looked puzzled. “No. Not at all. Like I said, he’s a good commander.”
I thought about what Tim said all afternoon. Ike would be so surprised to know his secret wasn’t such a secret after all and that for his men, it made little difference.
I didn’t see Ike again until late that afternoon in the mess tent. I was seated at his table again, along with the officers and the other reporters. The talk was mostly general, and I began to tune out, like I sometimes did, when a voice from the other end of the table caught my attention.
“So gentlemen,” Ike said, addressing the reporters. “I hope you’ve had a good experience here at Camp Jennings.”
We all nodded and mumbled something. He continued. “I’m afraid it has to be cut a little short. We have Intel that things will be heating up soon, and we need to move all the noncombatants out of the area.”
I narrowed my gaze as I stared at him. It wasn’t that I was sorry to leave. The last five days had been mostly uncomfortable, and I could stand to be grungy and smell bad and be without a hairdryer for only so long. Still, I suspected the real reason Ike w
as cutting this short was because of me, and I didn’t like it. Not one damn bit.
I kept my mouth shut, but just barely. I could feel his gaze on me, but I refused to look at him. He cleared his throat. “So, actually, I’ll have to ask you to pack your gear and get ready to move out tonight. You’re going back with us.”
I heard the other guys murmuring around me. Mostly they were glad to be going back too, and we’d had plenty of time to get our stories. I glanced up at Ike to find him staring at me, an unreadable look on his face. I scooted back my chair and stood up. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I’d better go and pack my things.”
The other reporters did the same, and we walked quickly across the compound to go back to our hut for our bags and equipment. I had to admit I was happy to leave, but I couldn’t help but think about the men who were stationed there and couldn’t go home yet. They were so stoic and fearless, but I worried about them all the same.
We brought our gear to the MRAPs and predictably, I was assigned to the one transporting Ike. The others, including our PAO were all in another vehicle. I saw them look at me as I climbed onto the truck and wondered what Ike was doing. Either he was oblivious to how obvious he was being, or he just didn’t give a shit anymore. I had to wonder which of those scenarios was true.
He sat beside me in the back seat, but he gave me plenty of space, staring out the window beside him and not saying much. About forty-five minutes into the drive, he turned toward me, his voice too low to be heard by the guys in the front seat over the sound of the engine. “You don’t have to look like that. We really do have Intel there’s going to be attacks.”
