by June Gray
Tears sprang to my eyes unexpectedly. “I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you,” I said with a quivering voice.
“Hey,” he said, gathering me into his side. “Don’t cry.”
I laid my cheek on his bare skin, tears falling from my face and soaking into the short, dark hair of his chest. “You smell nice,” I said between sobs.
“Sometimes I do this thing called shower,” he said to try to lighten the mood. “Try it sometime.”
I gave him a playful jab on the stomach, glad to have the old Henry back. “Smart-ass.”
He grabbed my hand and smacked me with it, his favorite way of tormenting me since our teens. “Stop hitting yourself, Elsie,” he said with a laugh. “Hurting yourself won’t do you any good.”
I struggled against his strong arms, laughing despite the moisture on my face. I twisted around and somehow found myself on top of him.
Henry bit his lower lip. “Are you trying to seduce me?” he asked with a cheeky grin.
I pinched his nose and slid off him, feeling a surprising jolt as my nipples rubbed against his chest. Ignoring the confusing feeling, I resumed our snuggling position, resting my hand on his stomach. He placed his hand on mine and gave a contented little sigh that I felt in my bones. I melted into his side, finding myself suddenly sleepy.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you either” was the last thing I heard him say before the weight of the deployment proved too heavy for my eyelids.
* * *
I was having a surprisingly erotic dream where Henry and I were naked together, his large hands caressing my body as we kissed like we would never see each other again. I could feel his erection pressing into me, his desire so palpable I could almost smell it. He reached down between us and his hand cupped my mound, making me moan when his fingers slipped inside. To return the pleasure, I gripped his thick erection and began a gentle tugging motion.
“Uh, Elsie,” he said.
“Henry,” I moaned against him, pumping faster.
“Elsie, wake up.”
My eyes opened with a start, surprised that it had all been a dream. It had felt so real.
“Umm . . .”
My eyes flew down in horror when I realized that my hand was, indeed, inside Henry’s pants, my fingers still wrapped around his erect penis.
“What the hell!” I cried, scrambling away in horror. “What was my hand doing in there?”
Henry stifled a smile as he fixed his waistband. “I think you know what you were doing.”
“I mean, why was it in there, in your pants? Did you do that?”
He laughed now, hearty and thick. “Hell no. That was all you. I woke up with you manhandling me.”
I covered my mouth with my hand—the other hand—feeling my face go up in flames. “Was I moaning too?”
“Maybe a little.”
“Oh my God! I thought I was dreaming.” I covered my face with my hands, dying of embarrassment.
He bit down on his lip but was not successful in hiding his amusement. “You dream about jerking me off?” he asked.
“No!” I cried. “I’m sorry for molesting you,” I said and fled the room as quickly as my feet could go, with Henry’s laughs trailing behind me like toilet paper stuck to my shoe.
* * *
I went to work thirty minutes early the next morning out of sheer embarrassment. I didn’t want to have to see Henry’s smirk, didn’t want to have to explain why my unconscious hand was touching him in his private places.
Several people came by my cubicle at work, asking if I was running a fever because my face was still so red. Oh, it’s just because I accidentally jerked off my roommate this morning, I thought about saying, then died a little more inside.
I found it hard to concentrate on work. Every time I typed something or reached for my mouse, I’d inadvertently glance down at my hand and remember how Henry had felt in my grip, that soft, velvety skin that gave way to the solid muscle underneath. I imagined guiding him inside me, filling me up completely with that dark look on his face. . . .
I stood up, my entire body overheating, and ran to the bathroom as fast as my boots would allow. I meant to only splash cold water on my face, but as soon as I was in the privacy of the bathroom, I knew there was really only one way I could get through the day, so I locked myself in a stall, lifted the hem of my skirt, and slipped my hand inside my panties.
* * *
My body relaxed somewhat for the rest of the day, but the moment I pulled into the apartment parking lot the desire came rushing back. When I slid the key inside the lock, I almost decided to forgo thinking and just fuck Henry senseless.
Yes, the F-word, because he wasn’t getting anything less. I was so aroused, I even entertained the idea of fucking him twice.
My hot fantasy was doused when I walked inside and found Henry and another guy in the living room, each lounging on a different couch with a beer in hand. They had been talking about work but stopped when I walked into view.
“Hey,” Henry greeted, his face carefully devoid of expression. I was almost in the clear when his blue eyes slowly slid down my body, inflaming me to the core. My knees just about buckled.
I didn’t know when he’d acquired that special power over me, but I wanted it gone. I couldn’t afford to burst into flames every time he looked my way.
“Elsie?” he asked, frowning.
I blinked, realizing I’d spaced out for a second. “Huh?”
A shadow of a smirk crossed over his mouth before he said, “Elsie, meet Lieutenant Jack Coulson. He’s moving to an apartment across the courtyard.”
I shot Jack a smile, noting the youth and inexperience in his face. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-two. “Nice to meet you.”
Jack stood up and shook my hand. “Pleasure,” he said.
“Do you work together?”
Jack remained standing. “Yes, ma’am. I just moved to the Seventy-Second Security Forces Squadron. Captain Logan is my boss.”
I looked over at Henry with a raised eyebrow. My first impulse was to say something funny but remembered to keep my snarky mouth in check. Henry was this guy’s boss and needed to maintain a sense of authority. “That’s great,” I said instead.
Henry cast that blue gaze at me, his eyes once again doing the sexy slide down my body that felt very much like a caress.
I turned away, sick of my body’s disloyal reaction to those looks. It wasn’t as if I was really attracted to Henry; I just needed a good lay and he happened to be the nearest available guy. That’s all it was. Surely there were other guys who might be interested.
I excused myself, deciding a long run at the park was just what my body needed.
* * *
Nearly an hour later, I was back at the apartment, sweaty and still frustrated. I’d run four miles, yet my mystery runner never showed up. I hopped in the shower, hoping to cool down—which worked for the most part, until afterward, when I came out to the living room completely dressed to find Henry definitively not. His shirt was off (did the guy even own one?) and he was sweaty from helping Jack move his stuff up the three flights of stairs.
He had his back to me so I was able to leisurely look over his muscular back, from his wide shoulders that tapered down to a lower back that sported two dimples dipping below the waistband of his jeans.
He turned around, wiping his chest with a balled-up shirt. “Hey, what do you want to do tonight?”
Hmm, what did I want to do tonight, apart from the obvious? “I was just going to eat a peanut butter sandwich and read a book,” I said as casually as I could.
He raised his eyebrows. “You sure? I was going to order a pizza.”
My eyes flicked down to his torso—he had the nicest six-pack abs of anyone I knew in real life—before I looked away. “I’m sure.”
He
cocked his head. “Come on. I’m leaving next Friday. Spend some time with me.”
Well crap, why did he have to put it that way? Still, his words helped because the impending deployment was the sexual damper that I really needed. The fact was, he was leaving and I should be spending time with him. “Okay, fine,” I said with an exaggerated sigh. “But please put a shirt on.”
He grinned and lobbed me the phone. “Call the pizza place, will you? I’m just going to jump in the shower.”
* * *
Henry and I ate sitting on the carpet, leaning against the suede couch. The couch had been Jason’s first major purchase and he had ordered a five-foot no-food radius around it when it was still brand-new. After his death, it became a ritual we observed to preserve Jason’s memory.
I put on a movie about superheroes as we ate, glad to have some distraction for a while.
“If you had any superpower,” I asked. “What would it be?”
“What would I choose, or what would I be born with?” he asked, balancing a beer bottle between his legs. “Because if I was born with a superpower, I’d say it’s being really, really ridiculously good-looking.”
I threw a crumpled napkin at him. “No, I meant what would you choose?”
He took a large bite of his third slice of pizza and chewed a moment before saying, “I would choose the ability to fly.”
“Huh, I would have chosen invincibility for you.” So you could come out of the war unscathed, I wanted to add, but didn’t want to ruin the mood.
“So I can sneak into your shower and see you naked?”
I smacked his arm. “No, invincibility.”
“Oh, that invincibility,” he said with a laugh, looking happier than I had seen him in months. He took a swig of beer, then said, “So, hey, are we going to talk about what happened this morning?”
The question caught me by surprise and my brain struggled to come up with an elegant response. “I, uh . . .”
“Because I think the elephant in the room needs to be addressed,” he said. “And I’m not referring to my colossal size.”
I burst out laughing, finally finding my voice. “You’re not that large, my friend.”
“How large would you say then?” He held his hands two feet apart. “So about this big, right?”
“Riiight.” I chuckled, feeling the embarrassment melting away. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what that was about.”
“I think that was about your hand on my dick.” He laughed at my shocked reaction and continued, “Would you rather I call it my phallus? My hammerjack? How about my porksword?”
I spit out my drink, having never heard the last one before.
Henry’s eyes glinted with mischief. “For the record, you are more than welcome to churn my butter any time. Seriously, morning, noon, night, whenever.”
My laugh caught in my throat as his words painted a very vivid picture in my overactive imagination. I took a large drink from my glass of water, torn between changing the subject and pressing him for more details about what I could do with his penis.
I started when he pressed the cold bottle of beer to my cheek. “You’re all red,” he said, his face suddenly closer than I remembered. He touched his thumb to my cheek and traced along my jawline. “Have I ever told you that I love your complexion? It’s like milk, so creamy but always quick to take on color.”
I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know what the hell had happened to me, but somewhere between finding out his secret and waking up with my hand in his pants, I had devolved into someone who could barely form a coherent sentence. I didn’t want to be that girl who got all googly-eyed when an attractive guy paid attention to me, but I couldn’t react to his nearness any other way. Henry had me stupefied.
When his thumb traced my lower lip, I lost it. Or rather, I let that thin wire of control snap. I spanned the space between us and kissed him, and he, thankfully, didn’t pull away. Instead he grasped the back of my head and deepened the kiss, our tongues a slippery, tangled mess. He gently bit down on my lower lip, then pulled away, giving me that dark, heated look I’d fantasized about. “Elsie, I . . .”
I waited for the rest of the words, but he said nothing else. He just ran a hand through his hair, then rubbed his forehead.
“What is it?” I asked, ready for him to get it out so we could get back to kissing already.
“This can get complicated,” he finally said.
“It doesn’t have to.”
He looked at my lips for a long time, then, with a sigh, finally met my eyes. “We’d better not,” he said, leaning his head against the couch and closing his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
4
DETONATION
I couldn’t sleep that night, my brain in overdrive from the porksword fondling and the kiss and what Henry said about complications. He was leaving in eleven days and would not be back for half a year; it wouldn’t do us any good to start anything now, especially something as tricky as sleeping together.
But a small part of me wanted it anyway, wanted to push through the barrier that had held us back all these years and find out what the hell was on the other side. All these years I’d held my crush at bay, thinking that nothing could ever happen between us, that we were forever banished to the friendship wasteland.
What if there was somewhere else, a terminal in between where we could be together in body and keep our hearts separate so as to not endanger the friendship? Did such a place even exist?
I finally fell asleep when I came to the only logical conclusion, the possibilities filling me with a sense of hope.
* * *
The next day I came home from work with a plan and a bag of takeout from Chili’s. I pulled out plates and started setting the table when Henry came walking out of my bedroom wearing camo pants and a tan undershirt that hugged his muscles.
“What were you doing in my room?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
He held up a pistol leg-holster that I’d used last Halloween when I’d dressed up as Lara Croft. “I was getting my stuff together and couldn’t find my other holster. And lo and behold, it was in your room.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I guess I forgot to return it.”
“Ah, yes,” he said with that sexy, sliding look again. “You can have this one if you would just wear that costume every day.”
I was thinking of a suitable retort when the food caught his attention. “What’s all this?” he asked, standing in front of the counter.
“Just wanted to remind you of what you’ll miss out on while you’re gone.”
He dipped his finger in the barbecue sauce and sucked it into his mouth. “You are not playing fair.”
I leaned over the counter and pressed my arms together, just like I’d done at the bar, the V-neck of my wraparound dress the perfect frame for my assets. “Hey, when you’ve got ’em, use ’em.”
Henry’s eyes tried their damnedest to stay off my cleavage, but in the end, the gravitational pull was too much. He swallowed, frowned, then tore his eyes away from my chest. “What are you doing?”
I held his eyes, trying to convey my message. “Reminding you of what you’ll miss out on.” My heart pounded wildly as he studied me, his expression changing from doubt to desire.
After what seemed like forever, he pushed away from the counter and stalked over to my side, placing his hands on either side of me, trapping me in place. With his face mere inches from mine, he asked in a pained voice, “Do you have any clue what you do to me?”
I shook my head, but I really did.
He took a half step closer, pressing his erection into my stomach. “You drive me insane,” he said in that gravelly voice. He lowered his head and I felt his breath on my neck, on my ear. “You make me want something I can never have.”
My breath came out in ragged gasps when I said, “I’m all yours, Henry.”
His hands grasped at the skirt of my dress, balling them up in his fists. “I’ve wanted you for the longest time, Elsie,” he said. “If you’re unsure about this, tell me now and I’ll step away and we can go back to pretending that everything’s the same.”
The hem of my dress rose a few more inches up my thigh as he gathered more fabric in his hands. I was transfixed by the curve in his upper lip, the way it offset his thick lower lip.
“Elsie, tell me,” he ground out.
I pulled on his dog tags and brought his face to mine. “I want you just as much as you want me,” I whispered against his lips.
His hands gripped my butt and lifted me up on the counter at the same time his head dipped down for a kiss. He slid my dress up my thighs, his palms warm on my skin, and suddenly, his hands were inside my lace panties. I gasped when his fingers found my entrance. He pushed one long finger inside, and I squeezed him as I moaned.
“You really want this?” he asked, uncertainty still evident in his voice. Or maybe he just liked hearing me beg. He pushed another finger inside and started a slow and slippery stroke. “Or this?”
“What do you think?” I asked, knowing I was soaked.
“I think,” he began, flicking his fingers upward in an exquisite way that made me gasp, hitting just the right spot.
“That—” Another flick.
“You—” I gasped.
“Are—” I squeezed him hard, intensifying the sensations.
“Sexy—” So close.
“As fuck.” With that, he began to move his fingers rapidly, and after only several seconds, I threw my head back and came around him, my legs and my insides trembling as he kept up the assault.
I grabbed his head and kissed him, moaning into his mouth. “I want to feel you inside me.”
He hesitated, glancing at his bedroom, when I grabbed his head and kissed him again. “I’m on the pill,” I said. “And I’m clean. Are you?”
