“What war did he bring home with him?” Jake asked.
“Does it matter?” she answered. “He couldn’t leave it behind him and one day he snapped and killed my mother and then himself.”
“I think you need to say more about that,” Jake responded. His voice was a mixture of concern and mirth.
When Sophie frowned at his use of what would normally be her words, he smiled and said, “I know the drill. Remember, I had to deal with my mother’s condition from the time I was five.”
The smile left his face. “But seriously, it does sound like you need to talk to someone who understands and isn’t in your chain of command. I understand, but this is not the place. You don’t have to be paranoid to think that the walls here have ears. I’ve seen the technicians repairing the microphones.”
His smile returned. “Thanks to my therapist, I have off-base privileges. We could go someplace quiet and talk. There are a lot of nice restaurants in town.”
“This base has very long ears,” Sophie replied. “Do you think you could drive me home? We can talk there.”
Then she kissed him. It started as a kiss on his cheek, like his grandmother would have given him, more of pressing the cheeks against each other rather than actually kissing, but then it changed. She drew back, slightly tilted her head and kissed him again. This time it was fully mouth against mouth. Her lips were hot and her body seemed to mold itself to his. She parted her lips slightly as she pressed in tightly against him, moaning softly.
Suddenly she stiffened and pulled herself away. Her face had a confused look, as if she again wasn’t sure what had happened or why. Then she laughed slightly. It was an artificial laugh. “A kiss for my rescuing hero,” she said.
“Just doin’ what a Marine is trained to do, ma’am, protecting the one you love.” Now it was Jake who looked slightly confused. “I mean, protecting the women and children back home,” he stammered.
“Look, Doctor,” he said, “maybe it would be better if we did go to some diner or restaurant. It’ll look less like fraternization. I’m a non-com and you’re a...”
“Civilian!” she said as she cut him off. “I’m a civilian, Sergeant. No regs against us meeting. And I live off base so the housing regs don’t apply either.”
“But you’re my therapist,” he said. “Isn’t there something about that?”
“Yes,” she replied, “there is. But my code of ethics requires honesty, not rigid separation. I will inform my colleagues that your heroic rescue of me today changed the dynamic of our relationship and I can no longer continue as your therapist. That’s the truth... sort of. The code doesn’t require the whole truth.”
She blushed slightly and then sighed. “And besides, your actions today indicate that you are progressing beyond your initial stages of PTSD and belong in a different group.”
“I just did what a Marine...”
She completed his sentence, “...is trained to do. I know. But it was appropriate behavior for the situation and you stayed in the present reality.”
“So, is our going to your house appropriate behavior for the situation?” he asked.
“It is if I love you,” she answered. “... and you love me.”
“I’m not sure it’s love,” he said softly.
“Neither am I,” she answered. “That’s why we need to talk... first.”
***
Sophie’s mind was alternating between numb and racing at a million miles per hour. What had just happened? What had she just done? She was taking a patient, an enlisted patient no less, back to her house with implied–no, explicit–overtones of sex.
Normally, it would take only moments to get off base and fifteen minutes to get to her house in town. South Camp was primarily housing and not quite as tightly-guarded as North Camp, but a massive explosion, no matter how seemingly accidental, was still an explosion and full security was now in effect. Every car was checked, going in or out. Armored personnel carriers with their guns locked and loaded sat on either side of the gates ready to repel intruders. Until everyone was sure exactly what had happened and the commandant made orders to stand down, both North and South Camp would be on high threat security alert.
As they sat waiting in a long line of cars leaving camp, Sophie replayed what had happened in the group session. When the building shook all of the men reacted as expected for severe PTSD. But then Corporal Kincaid started swinging the chair against the walls and table... just like her father had done more than once in her kitchen. Suddenly she was ten years old and hiding under her chair... Suddenly she was in the middle of nightmares she hadn’t experienced in over a dozen years... Suddenly she was pleading with her father not to hurt her or her mother. And when it was over, the most frightening realization of all came to her. She awoke to discover that the only difference between her and the men she tried so desperately to cure was the trigger for the PTSD episode.
Jake’s voice disturbed her thoughts. “You still with me, Doctor Bryant?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered. Her voice somehow sounded distant as she spoke. Then things cleared and she said, “Jake, I think that while we are off base you should call me Sophie. Is that OK with you?”
“Got it,” he replied. “On base, full regs. Off base, residence regs.”
Sophie smiled. “I’m a civilian and I don’t live in base housing. Residence regulations don’t apply.”
“I’m a Marine, ma’am. Regs always apply.”
“Do you like Italian food?” she asked suddenly. Her mind was racing through what she had in her refrigerator and pantry. She and Jake needed to talk before they... before anything else might happen, and a meal made conversation much easier. She had some penne pasta on the shelf and a bag of pre-made Caesar salad in the refrigerator. There wasn’t time to make her mother’s recipe for red meat sauce, but there were a couple of jars of store-bought sauce in the pantry next to the pasta.
She had plenty of wine. The decanter on the kitchen counter was only about half-full, but there was an almost full gallon of Italian table wine on the floor of the pantry. It was the same wine her Italian mother and grandmother had preferred. It always amused her to hear her doctor friends compliment her on the wine when she had them over for dinner. She never told them it was what the gourmands–and probably they–would call “peasant wine.”
“I’m a Marine, ma’am,” he replied again, this time with almost a chuckle. “I’ll eat anything that doesn’t crawl away from me.” He laughed. “Except in survival training. Then crawling away doesn’t save it.”
Sophie laughed. They were now at the gate. A Marine guard leaned close to each window. A second guard with a rifle held at the ready stood a few steps behind each of them. Both she and Jake rolled down their windows and held up their IDs. The guard on Sophie’s side looked over the top of the car and asked, “What’s the number?”
The other guard answered him, “Eleven.”
He then smiled down at Sophie and said with a laugh, “You are lucky number ten. You may go.”
When she looked over at Jake, he said, “I guess this is our lucky day.”
She still had no idea what he meant, so he explained. “High security protocol. Random full inspection of all vehicles going in or out. Those poor bastards behind us are going to be there for a while.”
Then his voice became much more serious, “Do you feel like this is your lucky day?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. Her voice was very soft.
“You would never let me get away with an answer like that in group,” Jake pushed.
“I found out something about myself today that I have been hiding from everyone, including myself for a long, long time,” she said. “And I was nearly killed by a member of a therapy group that I am supposed to lead. That doesn’t sound lucky.”
Her voice brightened, “But I was saved by another member of the group. A member...” There was a long pause. “...A member to whom I have been strangely attracted ever since he was wh
eeled into admitting in a coma.”
“You knew nothing about me then.”
“I saw you naked,” she replied quickly and then suddenly reddened.
Why did you say that? she yelled at herself mentally. Then she sputtered out, “I mean— I— I mean I was there for the initial evaluation when we checked all of your muscle responses, and I have all of your files. I know more about you than you think.”
“So did they all work?” Jake asked, glancing over at her.
Sophie felt herself blushing horribly. With her slightly olive skin and darker complexion, a blush normally didn’t show, but from the heat on her face she knew that she was totally red. “Um... ah...” she stammered.
“I know about the peter performance test,” He laughed. “I don’t know what you write in the reports, but the word deployed is that if a Marine doesn’t salute, he is in a coma. If he doesn’t rise to the occasion, he’s dead.”
Sophie had trouble meeting his eyes. She felt like she was once again a teenager giggling in the corner as she talked about sexual things. “Not exactly the medical terms,” she replied, “but if there is no response to penile stimulation it means there are much more serious neurological issues.”
“Everything worked,” she said with a smile, “but that isn’t what attracted me to you. No wounds, but so badly damaged...”
“Like your father?” he asked.
They were at her house, so Sophie replied, “We’re here. Just park in the driveway.” Then as Jake was pulling in, she added, “...like a lot of soldiers and sailors I have worked with before.”
He stopped the car and looked over at her. His eyes seemed to be twinkling. “I’m not a soldier, ma’am. I’m a Marine.”
***
Jake followed Sophie into her house. It was an older two-story house built “during the war” with a living room, dining room, and kitchen on the ground floor and two bedrooms on the upper. He hadn’t really thought of her as a woman before. No, that wasn’t right. He was a Marine. He had thought of her as a woman. He had even found himself strongly attracted to her. He just hadn’t thought of her as a woman to whom he could ever be more than just another patient.
Now as he followed her up the front steps of the house, he couldn’t help but notice the way that her hips moved in her dress. Why had she invited him to her house? Was it to talk? Was it for sex? Did she feel attracted to him the way he was attracted to her?
“Why don’t you take off your shoes and just sit in the living room while I fix us something to eat?” Sophie said as they entered.
“I could help,” he answered while he was removing his boots. “Or, I could just sit in the kitchen and talk to you while you fix something.”
Sophie frowned at him.
“Or... I could just sit and watch your ass as you move around.” He smiled at her as she stuck her tongue out at him.
He followed her into the kitchen. “Make yourself useful, then,” she said. “The plates are in the cupboard and the silverware is in the drawer under the counter.”
He started setting the table while she put a pot of water on the stove and got a jar of sauce out of a set of shelves along one wall. Then she got two glasses out of the cabinet and set one of them, now filled with wine, in front of him.
He took a sip of it and said softly, “You don’t have to do this.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” she replied. “Everything in life is a choice, remember?”
“Ok, doctor,” he laughed. “But you do not have to choose to do this just because I saved your beautiful ass today.”
“It isn’t because you saved me,” she answered. “I’ve been strongly attracted to you since I first met you, and— and now... and now you’ve seen me naked.”
Jake was now totally confused. Sophie lifted the lid on the pot to check if the water was boiling and laughed brightly at him. “No,” she said, “you’ve never seen my nude beautiful ass. But you’ve seen more than that. Naked isn’t about clothing. It is about vulnerability. It is about opening up to someone else and letting them know your weaknesses. It is about someone else knowing your deepest, darkest, most secret of secrets.”
“Like brothers in combat,” he answered.
“Or like people who have seen each other at their most vulnerable and understand because they’ve been there.” she continued. “No one else in that room knew why I was curled up on the floor. The others in group didn’t notice. The orderlies thought I was protecting myself. Only you knew that I was one of you. Something connected you to me. You saw me naked, and now I am making myself even more naked to you by admitting that I should have been in that group, not leading it.”
Jake suddenly remembered the beautiful voice and the beautiful face which had called him forth from oblivion. Hers was the only voice that had reached him. His mind dimly told him that hers was not the only voice which had called out to him in the days and weeks that he was gone. But only she had truly known the pain that his mind was trying to shut out forever. That true knowledge of each other beneath whatever lay on the surface was the bond that ultimately drew them together and led him out of the fog and darkness.
He stood up and pulled her into his arms. Their lips met and the final walls dissolved between them. His hands slid under her blouse and held tightly against her back. The heat of her body was intense against his palms.
Jake wasn’t sure how long they held themselves together in that kiss. Then they pulled apart slightly and he kissed her anew. Now his hands were unbuttoning her blouse and sliding it down her shoulders. Her skirt followed shortly thereafter. Dressed in just her bra and panties, she continued to push herself against him. He felt hands loosening his belt and pulling at his uniform shirt to free it from his pants. His hands moved to her bra, and soon his firm chest was pressed tightly against her breasts.
A very hot pair of hands–small and gentle, but very hot–pushed his pants down his legs. His GI issue boxers fell with them to his knees and he stepped out of them. He broke free from their embrace for a moment to shed his shirt. When he pulled her back against his chest and slid his hands down her back he felt the rounded swell of her buttocks. In that moment while he was removing his shirt, she had removed her panties.
They pressed their bodies tightly against each other as if they were trying to merge into one being. Jake could feel his erection held tightly against her abdomen as their kisses moved hungrily over each other’s faces.
The clatter of the pan’s lid against its metal sides reached his ears. Boiling water was bubbling out onto the stovetop. He reached over and turned off the burner beneath it and said, “I think it’s time we went upstairs.”
***
Sophie led Jake over to the steps, but then hesitated slightly when she realized that the narrow steps did not allow enough room for them to walk side-by-side. There is no graceful way to do this, she thought to herself. Either I let him go up in front of me and try to guess which bedroom is mine, or I go in front of him and let him look directly at my ass while I climb the steps. I guess now he will have truly seen me naked, she considered as she started up the steps. She could feel his breath against her backside as he climbed the steep steps directly behind her. They were about half-way up the steps when she felt his lips press lightly against her right ass cheek. “You do have a beautiful ass,” he said from behind her. For some reason, that felt like the greatest compliment she had ever received.
Sophie turned as soon as she reached the top of the steps and pulled Jake by his hands into her bedroom. She swept the sheets and covers from her bed and pulled him down with her to the mattress. Again their bodies pressed tightly together, and Jake knew intuitively that she was not yet ready. She still needed him to hold her, to stroke her, to explore her body with his hands. And he did.
He teased her nipples with his lips while he ran his fingers lightly down the outside of her legs and then just as lightly back up on the insides, just missing her cleft as he pulled his hand up onto her abdomen.
His fingers then gently traced the outline of her well-trimmed triangle before once again beginning their journey downward on the outside of her legs.
On the fifth, or maybe it was the sixth, journey, his fingers did not move to the side as they reached the top of her legs and instead grazed directly across her slit. She gasped as his touch pressed lightly against the hood of her clit. The fingers traced the outline of her pubic hair once again, but returned across her slit, slipping slightly between her wet outer lips and circling her now engorged clit.
His mouth sucked lightly at each nipple, driving her higher. She raised her knees and opened them outward, slightly pulling open her sex. His hand was now sliding up and down within her slit and making circles around her clit. Her hips were beginning to buck against his hand, and moans and cries escaped her lips.
She felt him position himself between her legs and could feel the warmth of his member begin to spread the petals of her opening. Then he was within her. He paused for a moment, stroking her breasts and nipples and letting her adjust to his size. Then he began to move within her.
Hot Extraction: SEALs, Marines, and Infantry - A Military Romance Boxed Set Page 30
