by Lynda Aicher
He took a moment to study him, admire the new sleeker lines and lean muscles. He didn’t have to watch himself now, check his gaze or pretend to be looking at something else.
The only tattoo on Finn’s back was the one for the three of them. They’d all done that, kept that spot sacred. Finn had more on his chest, most of them instigated by Chris. All of them were hidden unless he removed his shirt. Even after he’d left the Corps, he’d held to the strict requirements that limited visible tattoos.
The freedom to finally, fully appreciate the guy he’d loved for so long sent another wave of joy into his heart.
He could have this. They could have this.
Tanner set his clothes in the bathroom and used the facilities before heading back out to check on Finn. He was doing his brain therapy, the one that used the beats of the metronome to promote synchronized timing responses. He’d done it every day, and Tanner had been intrigued by the flash of different words and colors on the screen and Finn’s action of tapping on a custom pad to the beats ticking through the headphones. The brain was like any other muscle that could be strengthened and retrained. If this technology helped him without the use of drugs, then Tanner was all for it.
He came up on Finn’s side to ensure he saw him. He was almost positive Finn had been aware of him the second he’d come down the stairs, even with the distraction and headphones. But sneaking up on someone who’d been through combat was not smart—or kind.
A flick of Finn’s eyes toward him let him know he’d been spotted. His smile grew from inside, spreading from his heart as he ran his hands up Finn’s arms and kneaded his shoulders. There were knots at the juncture of his neck, and he worked on them, thumbs digging in while he watched Finn.
His rhythm appeared to be better. The timing numbers on the screen showed his responses were getting faster. Which, as Tanner understood it, meant the brain retraining was working.
He didn’t fully know the extent of the injuries Finn had recovered from and didn’t want to focus on that. All that mattered was having Finn here now and helping him however he could while he was here.
But then what? His time here wasn’t endless.
Finn removed his headphones and sighed into Tanner’s touch. “That feels good.”
“You’re really tense.” He pushed hard on a particularly large knot, getting a grunt in return. Thankfully, there was no awkwardness between them.
“I haven’t seen my physical therapist in over two weeks.” He groaned, leaning forward, giving Tanner better access to his back. “There.” He shifted his shoulders in a hint for Tanner to go down and to his left. “Yeah.” The long moan that flowed from Finn went straight to Tanner’s dick, his mind diving to the sight of Finn lost in pleasure.
He cleared his throat, spread his stance. “You should’ve said something.” He refocused on his task and hunted down more knots while staying clear of the new tattoo areas. “Christ. You’re tight.”
Finn’s muffled laugh shook his back. “I’ve heard that before.”
Tanner froze, his brain hitching over the thought of some other guy fucking Finn. They were guys; of course they’d ribbed each other about sex and hookups. Neither of them was virginal by any means, but he’d never stopped to actually picture Finn bottoming. Fuck. He’d always avoided creating any image involving sex and Finn—or sex and Chris, for that matter.
Friends didn’t go there.
But they’d moved past “friends.”
“I’ll have to test that out,” he finally said, resuming his massage. The idea—and visual—was now firmly planted in his head. Giving up his sexual power didn’t mean he wanted to surrender it every time or become an exclusive bottom.
Finn turned his head to look over his shoulder, his grin downright filthy. “Not many have.”
What a fucking tease. He flicked Finn on his nape, his fake scowl getting a laugh from Finn. He could play this game.
“When was the last time?” he interrogated, lifting his chin in the challenge it was. Were they really having this talk now? While he still stunk of their come? It was almost surreal. But then, this entire leave had been permanently camped in that mode.
“That I bottomed or had sex?” Finn let his head fall forward, shoulders rolling inward as Tanner dug his fingers along the edge of a shoulder blade.
“Both?” Hell, he didn’t know if he wanted to hear the answer to either question. It didn’t matter. Not to him. Yet basic curiosity was there.
Finn’s soft scoff held enough humor to relieve some of his concerns. The sigh that followed was long and deep, the mood shifting before he spoke.
“I haven’t thought about sex since I woke up from the coma. That component shut down when there were five thousand more important things to worry about.” He swiveled his head in a slow rock of acceptance. “Lately, I’d started to worry that my sex drive had been wiped out too. But I still had my nuts, so I had hope that things still functioned correctly.”
“I think we’ve taken care of that concern,” Tanner said with a soft chuckle. In combat, when IEDs were blasting off legs, the first question asked had been “Does he still have his nuts?” That would probably have come across as crude to most, but the assumption among the guys had been that he’d be fine if he did. He was still a man, and everything else could be overcome. “Rather spectacularly, I should add.”
Finn turned around on the stool and trapped Tanner between his legs. They wrapped their arms around each other, the embrace natural and without thought. Finn laid his head on Tanner’s chest, the move one of comfort that eased into Tanner.
“We did,” Finn said on a soft exhale.
He ran his palm over the short stubbles of Finn’s hair, the prickling sensation tingling up his arm. “You’re still okay with this?” he asked, cautious despite the lack of hesitation from either of them.
“Yeah. You?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” His breath warmed Tanner’s ribs, each soft exhale feathering over his skin in quiet confirmation.
“Any plans for today?” he asked, staring out the window but not really seeing the ugly, gray day.
Finn released a low hum. “More of this.”
His smile grew. He’d resumed his massage, fingers working over Finn’s scalp and down his neck. “Sounds perfect.”
“Are you going to get dressed?”
“I was planning on it after my shower.” His pants at least.
“But no shirt.” The command could’ve been taken as a reminder or a demand. Tanner treated it as a reminder. Going shirtless for a few days was better for their tats.
“Got it.”
The fire popped in the background, the grate keeping it safely contained. The wind howled an angry gust, rain driven horizontal until it abated. His heart beat a mellow pace he couldn’t detect, love filling him to block the horrors and sadness slinking around within him.
“Have you cried yet?” Finn asked, head still resting on Tanner. He ran his palms up and down the back of Tanner’s legs in short strokes that played over the fine hairs. The movement more absent than deliberate. Touch given and received.
He was getting used to Finn’s tangents. There’d been times over the last week where he couldn’t follow him at all. And others where Finn seemed to lose the topic in the middle of it. But he was getting better at clarifying and Tanner was getting better at following him.
“For who?” There were many men he could cry for. Too many who’d died beside him or under his watch. More he’d known at a distance, but who were still brothers. And then there was Chris. The obvious choice he was purposely avoiding.
“Chris.”
“Have you?”
Finn’s silence was an answer. Just like Tanner’s avoidance. The stereotype that real men don’t cry went to shit in battle. Everyone broke down at some point. Whether they let anyone see was a different matter. Support without judgment was a given when faced with so much loss and pain. But there were times when letting others see
a crack of weakness might open a floodgate that had to be kept locked up in order to face the next day.
“I’m still waiting for the event to become an emotion.” Finn pressed a kiss to Tanner’s ribs, light and holding. Instead of shooting to Tanner’s groin, the small contact went upward. It surrounded his heart and filled it with the love he’d given up finding.
He stroked Finn’s neck, pinching at the tightly bunched muscles. He was in the same emotional boat. Some of the rhetoric they’d received in the service was about how being exposed to so much death could switch their processing and make them see and treat it as an event instead of something they should feel. Which was exactly what the military wanted to have happen while they were fighting. They couldn’t have warriors who couldn’t kill. They roared them up, cheered them on daily to keep them going. But turning that switch off wasn’t easy.
Yet another stumbling block on reintegration with civilians. Coming down from that left many lost in the sea of normality, when their training and experiences had been far from normal.
“Maybe that’s better,” he said, knowing it probably wasn’t. “Did you—” He swallowed, going still. “Have you talked to Chris’s parents?”
Finn stiffened, his breath hitching. “Once. In the summer.” He pressed his forehead into Tanner’s chest bone. “They were in town, collecting the last of Chris’s stuff after his house sold.”
Tanner winced, sadness driving deep. “How were they doing?” He knew he should call them, express his condolences. Yet he couldn’t. Not yet.
“How is anyone after their only child dies?”
Destroyed. He stayed silent for a moment, their shared sorrow somehow comforting. He hugged Finn tight. “How were you?”
“Broken.” A hollow laugh burst out on a single gust of air. “They didn’t stay long.”
“It probably hurt too much.” They were good people who were in pain, just like he and Finn were.
The fire snapped, the wind gusted, and Finn’s breath’s warmed his chest with each slow exhalation. It remained steady and soft in the rhythm of muted acceptance that eased the ache in Tanner’s heart more and more the longer the moment stretched.
Finn sucked in a breath, ran his hands over the curve of Tanner’s ass and then back down, the mood shifting. “Grady wanted to know if we were alive. If I—we—were coming back for Christmas.” A pause. “He sent me a text.”
Tanner winced, annoyed at the intrusion. The rest of the world didn’t exist while they were here. It was safe. Nothing could harm or threaten them.
And it was an illusion.
His time here was dwindling, and he couldn’t stop it from sliding out from under them. They both had responsibilities—and people—waiting for them.
“I told him you’d killed me and shoved my body over the cliff.”
Tanner tapped him on the back of the head. Gently, though. Finn’s head couldn’t take another hard hit. Logical deduction had told him that, not Finn. He felt Finn’s smile spread against his chest and couldn’t stop his from following.
“So?” Finn pushed. “How should I answer?”
In other words, was he going to his parents’ house or staying here? “I’ll do whatever you want to do.” His answer flowed without thought. He’d spent eleven years thinking he’d never have this with Finn. He didn’t want to give up even a day of Finn’s time while he had it.
“Will your mom be mad?” For a guy whose own mother hadn’t spoken to him since before Tanner knew him, Finn was always very aware and considerate of other people’s families. Yet another thing he loved about him. “We could…go there.”
It wouldn’t be weird or new if Finn joined him. He’d done so in the past, more than once. He was welcomed in his family, along with Chris—as Tanner’s best friends. But what they had now was too new, too special. He wasn’t ready to tackle jumping the line into “boyfriends” when his family still assumed he was firmly in the straight camp. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell had meant keeping the gay thing silent in his family, packed as it was with Navy officers. By the time it’d been repealed, they’d all been so entrenched in their parts, they’d continued to play them.
Coming out wasn’t a requirement. No one ever came out as straight, so he’d never seen the point of informing anyone about whom he preferred to sleep with. That included his family and his fellow Marines. His sexuality didn’t affect his job or change who he was. It’d never been his identity, only a component he’d blended with the rest to form the whole him.
The second he came out, he’d have one more stereotype to battle, and he was so fucking tired of defending who he was.
He didn’t have to here. He’d never had to with Finn.
“She’ll have the grandkids to fuss over.” He shrugged, though Finn couldn’t see it. “You know she’s used to the absences. She’ll understand.” Even if she was hurt.
Like himself, his mother had been raised on Navy bases, her dad a noncommissioned officer, her mother a Korean War bride. Her proximity to and understanding of the military way was one of the things that’d drawn the career officer to her. A widower with two young sons, he’d needed a wife who could navigate the military lifestyle and raise his kids. In exchange, she’d gotten Tanner and a solid position and life in a world she knew.
She’d done her best, even if his half-brothers had tormented her—and him—for years. They were better now, adults who were able to appreciate the stable home life she’d given them in an environment that was continually changing. He’d never tried to determine if his parents’ marriage was a love match or one of mutual respect. They were civil, polite to each other, and most of all supportive. Which was more than a lot of kids got from their parents.
Finn didn’t argue with him, just hummed his acceptance into Tanner’s skin.
“Did you go back to sleep at all?” Tanner asked, hunting for the clock on the computer screen. “Damn. Why’d you let me sleep so late?” It was almost lunchtime. His stomach rumbled on cue, hunger kicking in once he’d thought about food.
Finn chuckled and sat back. His eyes were soft and heavy when he looked up at him. All warmth and easy comfort. This was the most relaxed he’d seen Finn since…maybe ever.
He couldn’t resist brushing his fingers along his hairline, none of it receding yet. There were a few gray hairs near his left temple, just enough to tease him about.
“I stayed in bed for a while. Made sure you were okay.”
“I was more than okay,” Tanner reassured him, rubbing away the frown lines that appeared on Finn’s forehead. “I don’t even remember dreaming.” Which they both knew to be a huge win and a declaration of how at peace he’d been.
Finn cocked a half-smile. “No regrets?”
“None.”
“You’d let me know if you had any. Right?”
Tanner frowned now, annoyed at the doubt. “Would you? Let me know?”
“Of course.” The words snapped out like a reprimand and a command.
“There’s your answer.”
Finn swatted his ass, laughing. The sharp crack rang through the air and sunk deep. He flinched, thoughts running to the possibilities opened before them.
“Go.” Finn shoved him away, grin spreading wider and wider the harder Tanner scowled. “Shower.” He pointed to the bathroom. “I’ll dig up some food.”
He wanted to protest from the pure point of being ordered around. But he did want a shower, and Finn enjoyed cooking. It’d always relaxed him.
He rolled his eyes and turned to go, flipping Finn off because he could. Because they were still brothers and friends first. This new component didn’t change that. Hopefully, it never would.
Chapter 19
Finn banked the fire, moving the logs around and cutting down the flames until there was nothing left but hot red coals and gray ash. Repeated tasks sunk in quicker now. He didn’t have to think about them as hard or even at all most of the time.
He set the screen in front of the fireplace, thought
s spinning ahead and back at the same time. Tanner was using the bathroom first. He’d moved his stuff into Finn’s room that afternoon. No words said, no asking, and Finn had only smiled. Because damn, Tanner belonged in his room. The thought of sleeping without him brought back that big empty space that’d encompassed half of his heart for too damn long.
They’d spent the day watching football. Something they’d done hundreds of times in the past. Their old team rivalries were still in place, just like everything else between them. Sex hadn’t ruined anything—yet.
The bathroom door opened on a soft click, steam billowing out around Tanner. He motioned to the vacated room. “Your turn.”
His hair was wet, skin damp. Finn had tried not to think about Tanner’s naked body under the spray or what he was cleaning for so long.
“Thanks.” He blatantly took in the sight of Tanner in nothing but boxer briefs. Wide through the chest, narrow at the waist, thighs thick with muscle. His dick was snuggled prominently behind the soft cotton, the outline declaring his thoughts to be in line with Finn’s.
He brushed past him, Tanner stubbornly not moving. His eyes were heated, desire clear. Yeah, they’d been dancing around this all day. Touches, looks, a slow build that all led to what would happen next.
He flicked his brows up, smirk cocked, and cupped Tanner through his briefs. “Hard and ready in ten.” It wasn’t a question. Not an order either. More of a statement and a promise.
Tanner stole a kiss, quick but lingering as he drew away. “I’ll be ready in one.”
Another promise.
His shower was probably the fastest damn one Finn had ever taken. Clean, shaven, and teeth brushed, he was stepping into his bedroom in under ten. The cooler air nipped at his bare skin, but it didn’t affect the erection he’d forced himself to ignore.
“Fuck.”
Tanner’s soft curse drew a smile over Finn’s lips. He glanced down at his nakedness, no longer worried about how he looked. Those doubts had been obliterated last night—at least with Tanner.
