Authors: Diane Collier
The big guy looked like a pretty rough customer, and it was clear by the scars on his exposed arms that he’d seen a lot in his life. Big was more in reference to the man’s height than his weight. Looking at him, Julia had to admit to herself that he was very easy on the eyes. Maybe a bit too easy, looking at him after all the thoughts she’d had that day made it all too simple to imagine herself bent over the bar he was sitting at, strong guys like him had a lot of options after all. Lucas had been pretty strong for that matter, it led to many fond memories, none of which were appropriate to think of at the moment.
Julia was not to be intimidated or flustered however, she sat down next to him and spoke, “Mind telling me what in the blue hell is going on Mr. X?” She asked directly.
The response was not one she expected, the large man bust into a hardy laugh, “Hah! He told me you’d say something like that.” He smirked as he took a hit off his beer, “Sorry, name’s Hector, I’m not ‘Mr. X’ Though.” He chuckled again, putting extra emphasis on the name that Julia had used.
“Then who are you, why did my receipt tell me to look for you?” Julia was much less amused than the large man, who looked at her with a smile on his face; it did a lot to offset his intimidating frame and even more to show off his roguish looks.
“I’m here to tell you a story, I’ve heard you like those right?” he asked, Julia gave a small nod, admittedly curious as to what Hector had to say.
“Alright,” He took another swig of his beer, “This is the story of a couple of soldiers that got in way over their heads.” He looked across the bar, clearly not really looking at anything Julia could see at any rate, “I’m sure you’ve heard all sorts of stories about the war, after all, who hasn’t? But the stories don’t do it justice, and that’s probably for the best.” Another swig, “This isn’t really the kinda tale you’ll hear in the news, and I don’t really have any proof either.” He smirked, the kind of look that told the listener that he really didn’t care if the tale was believed, just that it was heard, “See, a friend of mine and I got separated from the rest of our unit one day. We were in a shitty excuse for a city, sure you’ve seen pictures of them on the net right?” He slurred a tiny bit when he spoke, Julia doubted this was his first drink of the evening, “Well, in this little shithole of a town, we weren’t really welcome. It wasn’t open warfare or anything, but if we were on fire, the natives would probably have had to seriously consider if they would piss on us to put it out.”
Hector yawned, stretching a bit, his fingers brushed Julia’s jacket, seemed innocent enough though, “Well, it was just two of us, so the natives were looking at us a little bit meaner than usual, I mean, they pretty much keep their heads down when ya got twenty guys in Hummer with mounted machine guns, but two guys? Just two guys ya know?” He made an open palmed gesture to her, and then he shrugged, Julia wasn’t sure if she knew, but she nodded all the same, “So long story short, my buddy got shot. I reckon it wouldn’t have been so hard on him if it hadn’t been a fuckin’ kid who did it. Probably no older than twelve, shot him right in the shoulder, probably woulda gotten him in the head if the damn gun hadn’t been too big.” The guy leaned back in his chair and lit up a cigarette, right under a no smoking sign, Julia got the feeling he didn’t care, “Got him back to the unit, but it shook him up bad, he’d made it through bootcamp yeah, but he wasn’t really a soldier ya know?” the guy took a long drag off his cig and ignored the bartender glaring at him. “He pretty much begged to get sent home, and our CO was alright, he pulled some strings, my buddy wouldn’t be winning any medals, but they managed to get him out due to the injury without any great drama.” Hector stopped speaking at this point, favoring his vices for a time.
Julia’s brow furrowed slightly, “You say that your buddy left, what was his name?” Hector smirked, but didn’t answer her, she frowned, “C’mon Hector, help a girl out.” She put on a smile, “Is it this XtoyourY guy?” She asked in a smooth tone, giving the best innocent look she could muster.
The grunt seemed unfazed, “Maybe.” He gave a shrug, “I was asked to tell a story to ya, not answer any questions, no fun in that.” His smirk grew a little, “Still, next place for ya to go is Hugo’s, I’m sure ya remember huh?” With that, Hector put his money down on the bar for his tab. Julia wasn’t sure if he’d just drank a lot, or was a very generous tipper, but the amount he laid down distracted her long enough that when she looked up he was gone.
Hugo’s inn was where Lucas had stayed while he was on leave. Hugo was a veteran himself, and offered special rates for soldiers. Lucas had not quite gotten to moving in with Julia when he’d gone to war, and thus when he returned, he didn’t have a place to stay. Hugo was kind enough to put him up for free. The fact all the places she’d been today related to her former lover was not lost on Julia, and it was getting more interesting to her. She thought that maybe Hugo’s would be where she’d finally find the answers to Mr. XtoyourY, if he was Lucas, or someone who just really enjoyed playing mind games on her.
By this time, the sun was setting, darkness was starting to creep into the sky and Julia found herself on guard. Hugo’s was a bit of a walk from the Blackout, but not far from her apartment, so there was that at least. When she finally arrived she confirmed it was the same old inn. She noticed that maybe Hugo might have a couple more neon lights in need of replacement, but other than that it was the same old inn.
Julia walked in the front door and behind the counter was Hugo; he had grey hair now, still cut short in a way she’d noticed that military men tended to keep, even after leaving the military. He was a big man, not in the sexy, tall, Hector way; more a former grunt that had let himself go on the buffet way. Hugo smiled when she walked in the door, “Ah! Julie!” he smirked, “Long time, no see!” Hugo was a client of hers; he would commission her to write up new pamphlets for the inn every now and then in an effort to make his place look comparable to larger hotel chains. Julia had to take a bit more artistic license every time she wrote a new one since Hugo seemed to have an aversion to cosmetic repairs to his lodgings. The terms like “Rustic” were used a lot now, still, Julia had not come to talk about commissions.
“Hey Hugo,” She smiled at the large man, “This is gonna sound odd, but has anyone left me anything or…” she paused, realizing perhaps for the first time what a strange quest she’d been on all day, “Wow…This sounds nuts.” She spoke to herself, prompting a bellow of a laugh from Hugo,
“Don’t worry lil’ Missy, I do have a message for ya.” He pulled out a key to room number 17, “Room reserved in your name, said you’d be coming by tonight.” He slid the key across the counter to her, “Paid up and everything. I’ll walk you out there.”
Minutes later he’d led her to the room, Hugo put the key in and opened the door, walking in and turning on all the lights in the room. It was a habit the old soldier always followed. One thing was for sure, no one ever snuck up on a guest at Hugo’s. “All set Julie, need anything?” he asked with a smirk, she shook her head and Hugo went back to the office.
Julia walked into the room, she wasn’t sure if this is the room that Lucas had stayed in on leave, but it remind her of it, or to be more specific, reminded her of what they had done in the room.
It was a year before he’d gotten leave, with nothing but letters to correspond, and needless to say there was some pent up energy to be expended. She remembered that night very well. He gave her a call from his room and asked her to come down, specifically, he asked her to come down in as little clothing as she could. The two of them had always been the daring sort, and Julia took it as a challenge, Hugo’s wasn’t far from her apartment, so she made the trek in nothing but a bathrobe and slippers. She’d been lucky that night; no one caught her, except Lucas of course, who met her at the door to his room buck naked.
The night was full of a passion and excitement that she really hadn’t felt since. He pulled her into the room with a deep kiss and closed the door behind her, leading her to the bed with each kiss, moving down from her lips to her neck. Julia had been all too happy to reciprocate, on the bed her robe didn’t last long, and the slippers were forgotten at the door.
They wrestled for dominance, Lucas had won, it was clear in his every motion that he wanted her, wrapping her legs around him she sent the message that she wanted him just as badly. It was not long before he was inside her and after the initial pain, came only bliss. Lucas had bit her neck gently, and occasionally he moved down to give her lovely breasts some attention as well. Thrusting nice and slow to start out, it was maddening in a way, they had just started and she already wanted more.
Julia was about to shake the thought from her mind again, but she had been doing that so much, she had a room to herself, maybe Mr. XtoyourY was a no show, but there was no good reason for her to not get a little release while she had the privacy to do so. She closed the curtains and checked the room for any clues, she found none and shrugged, at this point she really just wanted to take care of the lust that had been building all day. She locked the door and stripped down, jumping on one of the beds and getting busy, letting her mind drift back to the memory.
Lucas had picked up the pace after teasing her for awhile, his thrusting becoming deeper and harder, keeping rhythm with her body, her legs wrapped around him and pushing him in a little harder every thrust. He had smirked, he loved to smirk, and she loved his smirk too for that matter. He stopped, wrapped his arms around her and using his fairly solid strength, he rolled them so that she got to be on top. The change in position was sudden enough that Julia was taken off balance at first, but soon enough she was busy pumping down onto his shaft with the same fervor that he’d had. Once she found her rhythm she was going harder now that she had control.
Julia was in a haze and getting pretty close to climax from the thoughts of that time they were together when there was a knock on the door. The noise forcibly startled her out of the zone and she rolled off the side of the bed before she remembered that she had closed the curtain. Blushing furiously she stood up and rushed to the door. She looked out the peephole and was startled again. The surprise at what she saw actually caused her to stumble away from the door for a moment. The person standing on the other side of the door looked exactly like Lucas, and another look confirmed her suspicions, the man didn’t just look like him, it had to be him.
She pulled the door open a little, it was stopped by the chain lock she’d set when she had settled down to enjoy her memories. It gave her a moment to look him over in full, he was wearing a bathrobe and slippers, when he saw her face through the crack in the door, Lucas smiled, “Hey.” He spoke with his trademark smirk. His blue eyes seemed to shine a little when his contacted her grey ones, unlike Hector, Lucas had let his black hair grow out, it looked like she remembered it from when they started dating, cutting off just above the shoulder.
After a moment the shock passed before Julia unchained the door and yanked Lucas inside, slamming the door behind him and crossing her arms over her breasts to hit him with a glare, “Lucas, you have some serious fucking explaining to do.” The poor girl was not quite sure what to feel, on one hand, she was happy to see the man she loved again after four long years, on the other she was pissed that if he was alive all that time he didn’t come see her, and on a third hand, she was still really horny. The horniness was a fact that was not helped by the appearance of her former lover in a bathrobe.
Lucas scratched the back of his head with a blush, “Guess I do huh=?” he sighed slightly, “Hector told you the story I assume, you’re sharp enough to know I was his friend that got shot by a kid.” His eyes trailed away from hers, “I was so ashamed that I let one incident make me chicken out and run from the duty I’d pledged to uphold that when I got back to the states, I just…” He looked for a word, “I guess I just drifted for awhile, I didn’t have much direction, I didn’t want to come back here because I thought you’d be just as ashamed of my cowardice as I was.” He spoke softly, it seemed a bit painful for him to bring up, and he met eyes with her again. “After Hector got out of the military he tracked me down, don’t know how, but he did. Asked me if I’d gone back to my sweetheart and didn’t care for the answer I gave him. So he pretty much brow beat me into coming back here.”
The redhead took all this in looking impassive, her arms moved down a little, coming to cradle her breasts from below. “You should have known better than that Luke, I missed you, I thought you were dead.” She sighed heavily, “So you are ‘XtoyourY’ I take it? Why the hunt? Why not just knock on my door and say hello?” She asked, looking him in the eye, he managed to hold her gaze this time, and the question provoked another smirk.
“Where would the fun be in that? I mean I guess if you hadn’t been such a mystery lover I would have bothered, and I’d have had to if you’d just deleted my email. But I had the feeling you might enjoy a good chase. I wanted to lead you to the places that were special to us, so you’d have them in mind when I came to say hello, at least that’s how it worked in my head. Sorry if it was a pain though.” He offered a wave of his hand with the apology, shifting a little as he sat down on the bed.
Julia took in the info and nodded slightly, “Well, I have to admit its more dramatic this way, you always did like to spice things up.” She stepped up towards him and stood in front of his spot on the edge of the bed, “So…back to stay?” She asked, looking him in the eyes.
Lucas nodded, “Yeah…Sorry I was a coward Jules. I promise…if you’ll have me, I will never leave you again, clearly the soldier’s life isn’t for me.” He stole a glance over her body at this point, his face getting a bit flush as memories came back to him.