by Lynda Aicher
“Yes.” Finn’s soft chuckle tumbled down Tanner’s nape and tugged at the longing he’d learned to suppress. “We were so fucking annoyed and blind at the time.”
Chris and Finn had been beside him since the 1st Force Reconnaissance Company had been given a new name and unceremoniously moved to the newly formed Marine Special Operations Company. Becoming a part of MARSOC had shaped them as men and their careers in the Marine Corps.
“Me more than you two.” Tanner had slid in as a new transfer who’d found himself in special ops before he’d fully integrated with Force Recon. Pure luck and fortune had landed him in a team with Finn and Chris.
Finn shrugged, eyes still closed. “We were all a bit lost during the shuffle.”
Most of the men on the team had been in the Marines for six or more years, the majority already serving multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the Marines’ most elite company. They’d been told nothing would change with the shift in structure and command, yet everything had.
Despite the persistent view hammered into the Corps that all Marines were already elite, the then–secretary of the defense had given the Marine Corps no choice on becoming a part of U.S. Special Operations Command. The rift that’d formed between special ops and the rest of the Corps had never fully healed, even ten years later.
“Nothing new about that,” Tanner said, chuckling. Raised on naval bases around the globe, he had a lifetime of experience with the laborious process of managing the millions of people who fell under the umbrella of the U.S. military.
“Nope.” A smile spread on Finn’s face. “And thank God I had private insurance before this shit happened to me.”
Another truth. “Was the facility good? Where you were at?”
“The best in the area.” He opened his eyes and sat up, setting his feet on the floor. “Grady was on top of that.”
“Good.” Tanner shut down an irritation he had no right to feel. Yet he should’ve been the one there for Finn, not Grady, a cousin Finn only distantly knew, with no comprehension of the things Finn had lived through.
But he hadn’t been there. Hadn’t even known how much Finn had needed him.
“Why didn’t you contact me?” he asked, voicing the question that’d been harping on him since he’d first read Rig’s text. “When you could have, at least?”
Finn stared at the fire, forearms braced on his knees. Tension stretched through his shoulders and down to the tight clasp of his hands. “Fear at first. Shame next. Avoidance in the end.”
Fear. Shame. Avoidance. None of those words described the brother he knew.
He wet his lips, searched for understanding when the urge to yell swept back in. He scrubbed his hands over his bristly hair and remembered this wasn’t about him. He didn’t get to judge how Finn handled his situation. Not when he hadn’t been there to help or do anything about it.
“I’m trying to understand,” he finally said, the hurt burrowing into his chest next to the emptiness spreading outward. Fuck. He still expected Chris to bang through the front door at any moment, laughing and bitching at them for ditching his ass in Portland. He covered his face with his hands, breaths bouncing back to heat his cheeks before he lowered his fists to his lap.
Finn wouldn’t meet his eyes, his gaze studiously nailed to the little Christmas tree in the corner. Two feet separated them on the couch, but it stretched like a mile right now, hurt and misunderstanding adding distance that’d never been there before.
“Me too,” Finn finally said. “None of it makes sense no matter how long I try to process it.”
Some things simply never did. Shit.
He stood, unable to sit there and ponder what couldn’t be changed. He took his dishes to the kitchen, then came back for Finn’s. “I’ll clean up,” he said, avoiding Finn’s eyes. “Why don’t you head to bed. It’s been a long day.”
“What about you?” Finn challenged. “You’ve been going for how long now?”
“I’m fine.” He brushed off the concern. “I’m going to crash soon.”
Finn shook his head, a sarcastic scoff cutting through the air. “Don’t treat me like I’m broken.” His glare was hard when he met Tanner’s eyes, defiance blazing in the sharp edge of his jaw and clamp of his lips.
Tanner glared right back, his own fury clamoring for voice. What was he supposed to do? He was trying to help, though he had no idea how.
To stay close but away when everything in Tanner longed to curl into Finn and hide.
“Fine,” he snapped, striding back to the kitchen. He dropped the plate in the sink, the utensils clattering against the dishes. “Don’t act like you’re broken and I won’t treat you that way.” Frustration and fatigue were a fucking awful cocktail.
“Fuck you.” The roar blasted through the room to smack Tanner in the face. He refused to wince despite how much the invisible strike hurt.
He sucked in several deep breaths, hands braced on the edge of the counter, muscles pulled so tight his shoulder blades ached. “We’re both tired. I’m exhausted. This day has sucked more than…” What? No comparison came to mind. He sighed. This wasn’t them. “I don’t want to fight with you.” He wouldn’t be provoked into leaving. Or giving up on his brother. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
He left the dishes and escaped up the spiral stairs with one last look at Finn. They locked eyes, a thin smile offered up in apology from Finn. That little action was all it took for the breakdown to be forgotten. Tanner gave his own grim smile back and ascended to the small haven at the top of Finn’s cabin.
To sleep—if he could. To regroup, so that he could tackle tomorrow and all the shit that waited for its arrival. To move forward, watch his flank, and hope like hell Finn still had his six like Tanner had his.
—
The stairs creaked, the soft whine blasting into Tanner’s consciousness to yank him awake. He stiffened, slid his hand under his pillow, and found nothing. The absence of his gun signaled safety.
His eyes flew open. He was in a bed. The room small. Full dark. Dank wood and salt scent with a hint of freshly laundered sheets.
A step, a muffled grunt.
Finn.
The last day flooded in to withdraw the instant alertness from his muscles. He released his held breath, prepared yet afraid to move.
His back was to the spiral staircase, but he didn’t roll over to greet Finn. He tracked his progress, though. Each slow step that used to be completely stealth but was now distinct, if soft.
The hairs on the back of his neck danced in anxious expectancy as he forced himself to remain where he was. He was on full alert, unsure, yet hopeful. Wanting, yet expecting nothing.
Finn released a long exhale, the low rush of air whispering over the distance to wrap around Tanner’s chest and steal his breath.
Finn was fully in his space now, standing at the top of the staircase, watching him in the darkness. He sensed the hard stare that threatened to blaze a hole through the back of his head. And still he didn’t move.
Doubt and hesitancy drove daggers into his heart until he swore the wounds would never heal. The unknown spread before him on a broken path hampered by the confusion twisting his convictions into a mess of want and uncertainty.
But there was only one real option here. One that shouldn’t claw at his fears—or at least hadn’t in the past.
He closed his eyes, released his breath, and dove into what he knew to be true. His love for Finn had set his path for the last ten years. It’d defined his choices and sculpted him into the man he was today.
He rolled, pulse racing, acceptance settling, and lifted the blankets to welcome Finn into his bed.
Chapter 7
A rustle of blankets, a shift of the mattress, movements mostly hidden by the darkness. Finn’s heartbeat pounded a rapid pace in his head, harmonizing with its attempt to beat through his chest. Harder and louder than his metronome, but just as stabilizing.
He clenched his hands,
his voice trapped behind the wall of uncertainty that he’d erected the second he’d awoken to a lame body and a disjointed mind, all those months ago.
The first step toward the bed was the hardest, the biggest he’d taken in almost a year. The second was a lunge of trust that brought him closer to who he used to be—who he wanted to be again.
Tanner waited. No words, no questions. His solid strength was almost too much, but exactly what’d called him up here. The hours he’d spent trying to sleep, tossing and turning and questioning everything until nothing made sense, had propelled him to the one thing—person—who had any chance of quieting the noise.
The mattress dipped, the warm sheets wrapping around him before he slid in behind Tanner. Hesitation gone, restraint destroyed beneath his need to breathe.
He wrapped an arm around Tanner’s waist, his front pressed to the length of Tanner’s back. Smooth skin and engaged heat sunk into him on a released breath. He shifted, the coarse spring of leg hair tickling his ankle, Tanner’s hard abdominal muscles rippling under his palm.
Heat. Security. Comfort.
He inhaled, held and savored the masculine hints of flesh, and there, the subtle softness he associated with Tanner: vanilla. He had no idea where it came from or if it was just in his mind, but that simple scent had reassured him during some of their darkest hours. Dog-piled together for warmth, scared shitless, and eventually numbed to the dangers surrounding them.
War, fear, and survival had stripped the normal boundaries society placed on male friendships and replaced it with this bond right here. The safety of a connection without words. The shared exchange that confirmed they were alive.
Was it wrong to want this so deeply he feared it too?
He nuzzled close, nose buried in the soft bristle of hair on the back of Tanner’s head. He tightened his arm, the necessity to be a part of him impossible to deny. This was all he needed, all he’d wanted when the thought of anyone else touching or seeing him had sickened him.
“Thank you,” he whispered, so grateful and afraid.
Tanner clasped his fingers around Finn’s and shifted his palm up, tugging him even closer. They were plastered together, no space or barriers between them except for the thin cotton of their underwear.
This was everything.
He loved Tanner so damn much, and he trusted this love when he’d been ready to give up.
The quiet spread slow and gentle within him, easing into each pore until he could finally breathe freely. Relief swelled in a wave of stinging tears he couldn’t let out. Not if he wanted to remain anywhere close to whole.
“We’ve got this,” Tanner said, the soft promise a kiss to Finn’s heart.
They’d held each other like this before, at times in full gear, at times naked. Chris had been with them too. The three of them linked, their positions switching depending on who’d needed the most care.
The strongest opposition to the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy had always come from the higher-ups, who’d simultaneously fostered intimacy between men while scorning gays. Their hypocrisy was based on the disconnected belief that men couldn’t form the bonds needed to make them willing to sacrifice their lives for each other if they were afraid of being gay.
This right here had nothing to do with being gay. Nothing so shallow as getting off or a quick release for a moment of blissful forgetting. The erection slowly hardening in his briefs meant nothing, a bodily reaction they’d all ignored whenever it’d occurred in the past.
But here, now, he ached to follow through, to cross the line they’d never crossed before. To suck up Tanner’s strength and revel in his lust. To believe in the love that could carry them further—if it didn’t destroy them first.
Everything was different now. Changed forever in ways he didn’t fully understand. The risk of losing Tanner along with Chris was too great. So he buried the passion that longed to break free. Smothered the desire that’d been absent since he’d been freed from his coma.
Dove behind the wall he’d built long ago and found an element of peace in everything he still had. The ability to hold. To be held and know there was at least one person who accepted him as he was. Who always had, and hopefully always would.
—
Tanner woke in a sweat and tangle of bedding. He thrashed at the containment until his legs were freed, chest heaving for air he couldn’t catch. His eyes flew open, senses immediately alert. Shadowed shapes of a small dresser and tall windows displaying a view of a cloud-covered sky, shot through with the vague traces of dawn, yanked him into the present.
The quiet assailed him next, the vestiges of machine gun fire and chopper blades fading with the nightmare. Fuck. He rubbed his face into the pillow, the scent of flowered dryer sheets shoving the stench of dirt and blood from his memory.
And there, next to the flowers, was the deeper soapy musk scent of Finn. He snapped his head up, already knowing Finn was gone. He’d snuck out earlier while Tanner had pretended to sleep. The only other evidence of his late-night presence was the slight dent in the second pillow, one Tanner could’ve put there himself.
He flipped over, sucked in a few more long breaths, and slowly found his balance. Years of exercises in fortifying his mental strength fell into place as he boxed up and shoved back the darkness that’d snuck in while he’d been asleep. Letting even a portion of it take hold would result in a broken floodgate of memories he had to retain.
The floorboards were cold when he stood, the air brisk. The window off the back provided an amazing view of the ocean in the distance. He could see the beginning of the waves as the first ones broke before the tree line and cliffs cut it off.
His internal clock registered at zero seven hundred, long past his normal wake-up time. He must’ve been exhausted to sleep in this late.
Or at peace, for the first time in months.
He dug his running clothes out of his bag and slipped them on, grabbing his shoes and a fleece before he headed downstairs. He hadn’t exercised in two, almost three days and his body and mind were begging for the physical release. Anything to dampen the turmoil of emotions that kept cresting and receding.
Finn, Chris, his job, his family—the weight was so fucking heavy. He both thrived and strained under the responsibility and secrets he shouldered. Could he ever step down? Be something besides the committed Marine and dutiful son?
A stair creaked under his foot, probably the same one that’d woken him last night. He cringed, breath held. He should’ve remembered it.
“It’s about time you got your ass out of bed.”
He jerked up, hand slipping on the railing, heart pounding. “Shit.” Of course Finn was already awake. “What the hell are you doing sitting in the dark?”
“Waiting for you.”
Why?
He made his way down the rest of the annoying stairs, squinting into the shadowed light to make out Finn leaning against the kitchen counter. He was dressed to exercise, running tights hugging his thighs, the fluorescent stripe on the sides glowing in the darkness. A baggy fleece hid his chest, gloves covering all but his fingertips.
Tanner bit his tongue to keep from asking if he was sure about this. Finn was an adult capable of knowing his own limits—and Tanner knew none of them anymore.
He tied his running shoes, slipped his fleece on, did some stretches—all in silence. Obviously they weren’t mentioning the late-night cuddle fest. That in itself wasn’t new. Waking up alone, awkward, and floundering was, though.
He followed Finn outside, more doubts squeezing in beside the ones he’d failed to banish. The brisk air invigorated him as much as the revitalizing hit of the salty dampness that flooded him when he sucked in a habitual long breath.
“Damn, this is good,” he said, appreciation flowing out for the wisdom of Finn’s decision to come here last night. Memories were everywhere, but the ghosts were absent.
“It is,” Finn agreed at his side. “Really damn good.” He studied the brightening sky,
the rain having stopped during the night. The front of the cabin faced away from the ocean, the bluff heavy with trees and rocky inclines all around them. “You ready?”
How many times had the three of them stood here preparing to do this exact thing? They’d logged miles of runs and workouts on the Marine training course Finn had created. Staying physically fit was a commitment and, in its essence, a core value of the Corps, especially for those in infantry jobs. The yearly fitness tests and strict requirements ensured that every Marine was combat-ready at all times. Dropping those standards and habits after years of service was almost impossible for most dedicated Marines.
“When you are,” he finally answered.
Tanner fell in behind him, his pace automatically matching Finn’s. Familiarity dropped into place before they’d entered the forest. The trail was overgrown, but not enough to trip them up. He took up the rear position, gaze scanning, mind alert and consciously aware of the absence of another set of footsteps behind him.
They were on private land on the Oregon Coast, not hostile territory. Logically he knew that, yet he couldn’t relax. They were still exposed. Still vulnerable.
Especially Finn.
His strides were shortened, gait hindered by a slight hitch Finn couldn’t hide. The running tights amplified how lean his hips and waist were now, an easy thirty pounds of muscle mass gone.
He was still strong, though, even if he was in the process of rebuilding, both mentally and physically. Finn’s core of strength and assuredness had carried Tanner through some of the most horrific battles and tragic endings he’d ever endured. And now? He wanted nothing more than to do the same for Finn.
Could he? Without losing everything?
Last night had both broken and healed him. The contact—skin on skin, heat to heat—had rolled through him in a slow rise of fulfillment he couldn’t put into words. He’d taken as much as he’d given. Cherished the unspoken comfort neither of them had acknowledged this morning. Like the erection that’d run a hard ridge over his ass cheek and tailbone.
