Authors: SE Jakes
Finally, when the footsteps were close enough, he turned fast, found himself pinned to the side of the brick building by Rex.
Fuck. He struggled to get away before he got hard, but it was too late. The man’s body pressed his, thigh to thigh, chest to chest. Groin to groin, and a picture flashed in his mind of them against this wall with no clothing between them, with Rex’s mouth on his, hand on his cock…
“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked, with the thin hope Rex wouldn’t notice his arousal. But the way Rex pressed him, Sawyer knew he did. Maybe he knew and thought Sawyer’s stupid crush was something to humiliate him with.
It sure as shit worked. Rex, in the meantime, continued to study his face, and who knew what he was searching for?
“Rex, get the hell off me.” Because fuck protocol.
Rex shifted, then pressed harder, and finally, Sawyer noticed something he hadn’t at first.
Rex was turned on, too. This wasn’t about humiliation, or maybe it was, because then Rex said, “I know you watched me in the shower that night—you thought I didn’t know you were there.”
It had happened months earlier. Rex, in the small, portable shower in the middle of the desert training camp at midnight. Sawyer had gone in there because he’d been too hot to sleep—and then he’d gotten even hotter when he’d watched Rex stroking his cock.
The man had thrown his head back when he’d climaxed, bared his teeth as come shot from him in thick, white spurts, and Sawyer had thought about what it would’ve felt like to be on his knees in front of him, swallowing it. Having Rex come in his ass. That had been the night he’d known for sure he wanted the man. Before that, it was speculation, an aberration, since he’d never been attracted to men before.
After that shower, he’d wanted no one but Rex.
“Did you like it?” Rex continued. “You stayed until I came. Did you go back to your tent and touch yourself, thinking about me?”
He had. Quietly, under the covers, since he wasn’t alone in the bunk. He’d stroked his cock and imagined Rex on top of him, telling him he was going to fuck him, that he didn’t care if anyone else was watching, that Sawyer needed to be quiet or everyone would know…
“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” Rex laughed softly, his eyes dark with desire, and the heat rose up around them until Sawyer was pretty sure there was steam coming off them.
He swallowed hard, unable to breathe or form any kind of coherent thought. Rex’s scent swirled around him—a mixture of musk and man and winter. Rex always reminded him of the best parts of winter air—he’d bet the man tasted crisp and cool with a bite that tingled almost painfully on your skin.
Finally, his CO said, “What do
you
want, Sawyer?”
What a question. Sawyer swallowed hard and wished he wasn’t such a coward.
“To go home,” he managed.
Rex opened his mouth and closed it. Released Sawyer. As Sawyer started to walk away, Rex called, “I’m your superior. It wouldn’t be wise of me to make the first move.”
When Sawyer turned back, Rex was gone.
Chapter Eleven
Jace found Sawyer half-frozen on his stoop. From Sawyer’s expression, it was obvious he knew what he’d interrupted, but Jace insisted, “What the hell, man? Get in here,” even as Sawyer started backing up.
Jace hiked up his sweats and grabbed for the guy, but Sawyer said, “Shit, I’ll just call a cab—”
“Get the fuck in here, all right?” Jace was finally able to tug him in from the cold. “What were you thinking, walking home in this?”
“I was trying not to think.”
Clint had already moved to find his own clothes in the living room, had left the two of them alone as Jace attempted to shake off his sex haze and help his friend.
“So I guess you’ve pretty much forgiven him,” Sawyer said wryly. “So much for holding back.”
Jace snorted. “Come sit down—you need coffee.”
“I’m not that drunk. Maybe a little. Or maybe I should drink more.” Sawyer slid into a kitchen chair and put his head down on the table.
It was obvious his friend had walked pretty damned far—his lips were practically blue, and he didn’t say anything for a long while after Jace pushed coffee into him, just lifted his head and stared into space.
Finally, Jace came out and asked, “Did you see Rex tonight?”
Sawyer’s gaze cut to him, and Jace was relieved to see that some of the fog had lifted. “Yeah. I went to Deels.”
The bar was gay friendly, and to Jace’s knowledge, Sawyer had never gone before. “You should’ve let me go with you.”
“You were, ah, busy.” Sawyer shrugged and looked around like Clint was in the room.
It didn’t take much to get him to spill what happened at the bar.
“I still can’t believe you went there, man. What did you think would happen?”
Sawyer shrugged. “I figured maybe I’d be attracted to someone else. And I left being more attracted to him. Fuck.”
“And you just let him walk away?” Jace persisted, and Sawyer nodded miserably.
“I totally fucked up, right?”
“You’re not a mind reader,” Jace said fiercely, and yeah, things weren’t completely smoothed over between him and Clint if the anger could rise in him that quickly.
Sawyer knew it too, asked, “Are we talking about me or Clint?”
Jace shrugged and stared into his coffee like it held all the answers as Sawyer continued, “I thought things were okay between you guys.”
Jace had thought so as well, until he’d realized there was so little he knew about Clint. “Things are fine, I guess. Just…you know…confusing sometimes.”
“How about asking?” Sawyer suggested.
Jace leaned back and laughed. “We’re such fucking guys.”
“What gave it away?” Sawyer asked. “He’s going to think I’m a fucking idiot.”
“He’s going to know you’re scared.”
Clint’s voice had come from the doorway, and Sawyer froze before saying, “This just isn’t my night.”
Jace glanced back at Clint. “He’s right.”
“Great.” Sawyer stood and held out his hand. “Sawyer.”
Clint took it, introduced himself and then grabbed Jace’s coffee and finished it before pouring more. “Didn’t mean to intrude.”
“’S’all right. Shouldn’t be mooning about this shit anyway.” Sawyer ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll call a cab.”
“You can crash here,” Jace offered.
“Don’t leave on my account,” Clint said. “Want pizza if I order?”
“I could eat,” Sawyer said, and Jace nodded.
“Of course you could. Between you and Jace, I’ll need five pies if I want a slice,” he muttered, but there was a small smile on his face, and Jace shrugged because that was probably true.
While they ate, Clint regaled them with stories from his Delta days, even managing to slip in some stuff about Rex that made Sawyer grin instead of look unhappy. Afterward, Sawyer slept on the pull-out downstairs and Jace followed Clint into the bedroom.
“Thanks for being so good to my friend.”
“I like him. I like knowing you have good people watching your six.”
“We almost died on one of our recent missions—the one right before I slept with you the first time,” Jace blurted out. He told Clint the story and ended with, “That’s why I kept my end of the bargain after hesitating for so long.”
Clint looked shaken. He obviously knew the kind of danger Jace dealt with on a regular basis, but knowing it and hearing an actual truth were two different things. “That’s why the thing with Rex is weighing on him so much.”
“Part of it.”
“And the other part is the CO thing?”
“Yeah. But the biggest problem is that he’s straight.”
Clint’s eyebrows rose. “Bullshit.”
“Nah, it’s true. I think he just fell in love. Didn’t know how to handle it. I told him to just go for it, and look how it ended up.”
Clint pulled Jace to him. “It doesn’t sound like it’s an ending at all. I’d say it was a beginning.”
Jace wasn’t sure if he was talking about Sawyer and Rex or them, and decided that, either way, it didn’t matter.
Rex still smelled Sawyer on him; the younger man always smelled so damned good, and he didn’t know why everyone else hadn’t noticed it.
Actually, he was damned grateful—because if anyone else had shown the least bit of interest in Sawyer over the past months when he’d woken up nightly, frustrated and alone, he probably would’ve punched them out. He barely fought that urge with Carter, who’d gotten the message pretty quick.
And you’re still alone,
he reminded himself. Dammit. He could feel Sawyer’s cock rubbing his—the boy was so concerned about revealing his feelings and being rejected—or worse—that he hadn’t noticed Rex had been rock hard, too. And when he’d finally told Sawyer the deal, he couldn’t stick around and wait, because he didn’t want to come on too strong.
Rex had been assigned to this particular SEAL team because of his old CO, who thought he’d be a perfect fit for the relatively young team—Rex had a lot to offer in terms of experience, and that was an invaluable part of training. The mission Sawyer and Jace had become friends on happened a month after Rex took command, which was nearly four years after his capture and triumphant return to the SEAL teams.
From the second he’d met Sawyer, there was something about the SEAL that had intrigued him. Yeah, he knew Sawyer was straight—but Sawyer had looked at him like he’d seen a ghost before he’d recovered.
But now he was sure the boy had feelings for him beyond sexual ones, hadn’t been surer of anything in his entire life. And as he lay here, the clock reading two a.m. and sleep obviously not his friend, he tried not to think about the one hundred and thirty-nine days he’d done this when he’d been imprisoned, without the aid of a clock or a mattress or any other comforts he enjoyed.
The prison in a South American jungle had consisted of many small cells—he couldn’t stand up in the one he’d been placed in. There were four SEALs captured that mission, and the enemy soldiers had spread the wealth of the torture over all of them equally. But Josh, his teammate, had an infection that would never have healed under the primitive conditions, and as much as Rex begged for a doctor for him—and he did beg, no matter that it set his teeth on edge—no medical help ever arrived. The soldiers burned Josh’s body, so there was nothing of the man to bring home.
Rex still felt that loss acutely.
Josh had been more than a teammate for four solid years, since the first month he and Rex had served together. Both old enough to know that chances like that weren’t something to be passed up, they’d fallen into a hot, happy relationship that would’ve gotten both of them court-martialed if anyone found out.
No one had.
Goddamn, he could barely remember what life had been like after Josh and before Sawyer, because he’d lived those years in a personal fog, while professionally, his focus was laser-like and his career soared as a result.
Professionally he was fulfilled, but he wanted personal fulfillment, too. Wanted Sawyer to be the one to help him with that.
The other two men he’d been captured with were no longer in the Navy—one retired by choice, the other forced out because his arms never healed properly after having been broken during the torture. Having to consider himself lucky was an odd choice of words, but there was no other explanation. And so he was left with memories and broad stripes from the whip along his back and the backs of his thighs that would never heal into smooth skin.
Every lover who touched him from here on out would know, and he had never really cared. But he did with Sawyer, and he wasn’t sure why. He figured Sawyer had heard rumors about what had happened to Rex, but to show him…fuck, Rex hadn’t been this shy since he was seventeen, when he hit his first gay club and knew what he wanted. The Navy was a strange choice for a gay man, but he’d always been a physical guy, and the SEALs provided him with an excellent outlet.
When he was in the cell, all he thought about—beyond escape—was the fact that he’d lost Josh and that Josh was probably somewhere on the other side, willing him to survive.
If Rex closed his eyes, he could clearly see the image of the fantasy that had gotten him through a lot of lonely nights over the past year.
It happened in the sand pit—Iraq. The team had a stop there for a month after a recon mission. The team shared a tent, and he’d gotten his own, but the showers were communal, except for two set up with only cool water between his tent and his team’s. His favorite thing to do was go in there around midnight and beat off under the spray—it was the only thing that put him to sleep.
He’d been midstroke when he’d suddenly known he wasn’t alone any longer. He really didn’t give a shit who watched him beat off—there were a lot of gay or bi guys in the military, and notwithstanding, they were all undersexed and horny as hell.
He’d lowered his head and checked out who was watching him from under his lashes—he’d have known Sawyer anywhere. It helped that he’d been wearing the old boots with the rip in the front that he kept duct-taping shut because he couldn’t get new ones to fit his size fourteen feet until they got home.