21 Marine Salute: 21 Always a Marine Tales (83 page)

“What do you want, Rick?” He tossed his bag down and headed into the kitchen. A phone call three days before to a housekeeping service he employed while stateside had delivered groceries—including a case of beer. He didn’t offer Rick a bottle—he didn’t plan for him to stay.

“We need to have a conversation.”

Tossing the bottle cap into the trash, Eli snorted. “No. We don’t.”

“Yeah, we do. Like finishing a conversation you walked out of last year.” Resolute, Rick stripped off his jacket and hung it on the back of a chair. Dressed in civvies, he looked more like a power broker than a naval officer, if one didn’t notice his haircut, his ramrod straight posture, or the deep, stubborn set of his chin. Eli did his best to ignore it, draining half the beer in one, long, ice cold swallow. He looked at the note on the counter.

Mail service would be re-engaged the following day. His sister had made arrangements for his cable to be turned on the week before, as well as adding a note that he should call her as soon as he settled in. He’d spoken to her the day before, so she could wait.

The weight of Rick’s stare pressed in on him. “I was finished with it.”

“You really are a stubborn son of a bitch.” Apparently Rick’s patience had reached its limit.

“So I’ve been told.” Eli circled around him to sit on the sofa. He could take on the fight, go toe-to-toe with Rick, or he could take a break. He preferred the latter. It had been a hell of a long flight.

“That’s it? You give up on a decade just like that?” Rick pursued him into the living room. Somewhere between Eli leaving the kitchen and sitting, the man had helped himself to a beer. Dropping into the seat to his left, he set the bottle on the table and leaned forward. “I didn’t think you were such a coward.”

The corner of Eli’s eye ticked. Rick wielded words like a scalpel. A skilled surgeon, his ex-lover seemed determined to provoke a reaction.

“For someone who wants a conversation, you seem pretty focused on a fight.” First tactical rule of battle: respond with training, not emotion. He distanced his emotions from the conflict brewing between them.

“Look, I fucked up. I get that. Now, will you talk to me?”

Tipping the bottle back, he drained it and set it down on the table. “I said everything I had to say, Rick.”

“No, you didn’t. You said all of ten words, walked out, and boarded a flight for Djibouti. You hit it and quit it in the same breath.” The slivers of truth in the accusation stung.

“You chose the terms of that discussion.” Eli selected his words with care. “You decided it was an all-or-nothing conversation. Your needs.Your wants.Your ultimatum. Don’t cry to me because you didn’t like the answer.”
I need a shower
. Rising, he nodded to the door. “You can let yourself out.”

Not waiting for a response, he grabbed his bag and headed for the bedroom. A scald-his-skin hot shower was just what he needed. His chest hurt. Seeing Rick delivered a swift kick to the nut sack. They were used to long separations. Their relationship had thrived on weekend assignations and five minutes spent sharing coffee. They could pack a lot of living into those moments between deployments. Having Rick in the apartment—
stop drooling and shower
. His cock didn’t seem in the mood to listen to reason, semi-stiff since Eli glimpsed Rick, and it thudded against his belly.

Wanting the man he loved wasn’t a bad thing.

Unfortunately, Rick made having what they wanted impossible.

Bastard
.

Rick rolled the bottle between his palms and stared at it. Eli’s dismissal cut right to the bone. The man knew exactly where to hit and when to maximize the pain.

He looks good
….

Understatement of the year, Eli looked better than good. He’d always been fit and trim, but his year in Africa chiseled away any trace of softness. His tanned skin, crowned by a hint of sun-bleached blond in his normally sandy hair, and a shirt stretched too tightly across well-formed muscles—the desire to embrace him flared through Rick. Years of hit or miss assignations and weekend escapes made the time they spent together valuable, but the last separation hurt worse than the others had.

Hurt because he wasn’t sure of his reception. He’d debated whether ambushing him at the airport was a good idea, but after months of containing the urge to contact him, Rick couldn’t let him arrive home without some kind of greeting.

I shouldn’t have left the car at the airport
. But he couldn’t let Eli keep walking away from him. He screwed up, so he needed to fix it. The man had to talk to him first.

Or listen.

Either would provide him the opening he needed. His cellphone buzzed in his pocket and he stood to pull it out.

The hospital.
Shit
. If paged to come back in, he’d need his car.

“McConnell.”

“Commander, Lieutenant Shell is having difficulty breathing and complaining of pain.” His last patient from the day before, Shell was a prime candidate for a pulmonary embolism.

“Fever?”

“It’s been steady at one-oh-one.”

Secondary pneumonia was on the table. “Order a Spiral CT and V/Q scan stat, add a CBC and D-dimer. Page Kensington for a consult and follow-up.” Rick glanced at his watch. “Page me again if his temp doesn’t come down.”

“Yes, sir.” Webber hung up. The young physician was an excellent intern in the program.

The shower shut off. Carrying the beer into the kitchen, Rick emptied it into the sink and disposed of the bottle. If he had to go back to the hospital, better to not have any reactions dulled by alcohol.

Wanting something to do, he dug through the fridge and found sandwich fixings. Someone had stocked the kitchen for Eli—likely the housekeeping service he used. The man liked his apartment and it didn’t matter how often he deployed, he kept it up and paid a service to close it down and open it back up when he planned to return.

Over the years, Rick had scored an invitation to the sanctum sanctorum twice. But Eli kept his life neatly segregated. It made sense when outing either one of them could have cost their military careers, but the repeal of
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
gave them options. So why the hell couldn’t Eli see that?

“Still here?” Mild surprise echoed in Eli’s voice. He leaned against the door frame of the kitchen. He’d changed into jeans and a T-shirt. His hair was still damp, his too-blue eyes narrowed and suspicious.

“Left my car at the airport.” Rick handed him a plate with a sandwich. “And I made lunch. Eat. Want another beer?” He thought Eli might refuse the food, his cool stare freezing him out.

Eli took the plate. “Thank you.”

Rick grabbed a cold beer out of the fridge and passed it over. They carried their food into the living room, where Eli picked up the remote and turned on the television. Channel-surfing to a sports station, he stared at the scores. Rick may as well been invisible for all the attention Eli paid him, but the man hadn’t thrown him out yet—so he took that as a positive sign.

Eli focused on the television, but Rick studied him. As a field sniper, Eli would outlast him every damn time. But Rick understood the value of riding out the turbulence. Sooner or later, he would have to talk to him. Rick simply needed to be present for it to occur.

When they finished their sandwiches, he took the dishes into the kitchen, made coffee then checked his messages. The silent treatment continued. If Eli didn’t want him making himself at home, that would require talking, wouldn’t it? A commercial played on the screen when he re-entered the living room. He carried an extra mug with coffee for Eli, to find him stretched on the sofa, sound asleep. Unwilling to wake him, he retreated back to the kitchen and left the extra coffee on the counter.

He’d replayed their argument before Eli’s deployment in his mind a million times in the last twelve months and hoped the anger separating them had dimmed, but it had only cooled to indifference. An indifference that cut him far deeper than anger ever could.

“No.” Eli growled, irritation flaming to life in his sleep-roughened voice.

They’d spent the weekend at one of their favorite hunting cabins in the Shenandoah. The trips there served two purposes—absolute privacy, and open land where they could hike, roam and just be themselves. Eli hated city living and while Rick preferred the creature comforts, he wanted to be with his lover, more. When they’d discovered the retreat nearly eight years before, it quickly became a favorite destination every time they were both home from deployment.

They sprawled in bed. He should be spent from Eli’s frenzied wake-up call—the man knew every place to touch him, from the stroke along his nuts to the deep, wet kisses that left both of them with cheeks reddened from stubble burn. Not that Rick complained: Eli made for a demanding lover who wrenched every drop of pleasure from him before taking his own. His body tingled at the memory. He traced a finger over Eli’s thick biceps. “Just hear me out….”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Rick. I heard your argument last night. All three-and-a-half fucking hours of it.” Eli launched off the bed and paced toward the bathroom. “Can we just enjoy the damn weekend?” The bathroom door slammed behind him.

“You realize that you walk away from every discussion you don’t want to have?” Rick called after him. “This isn’t some flight of fancy. It’s been a year, Eli. A year during which we could have stopped sneaking around. I could introduce you to the doctors on my staff—we could go to my parents for dinner and not worry if we leaned on each other. I’m not the corpsman in your unit any longer, and you’re not my commanding officer—there’s nothing to stop us.”

Eli answered by turning the shower on.

Swearing, Rick shoved the covers back and climbed out of the bed. He wouldn’t let him keep putting off the discussion. They’d agreed to table it when word came down that the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy could be repealed in the first place because they wanted to wait and see what happened.

He’d waited long enough.

Joining him in the shower, he found Eli standing under the spray, an arm braced on the wall. Hot steam filled the tiny bathroom. Rick slid his arms around the man and his cock gave a little twitch as it brushed against Eli’s taut ass. Biting down lightly on his shoulder, he hugged him.

Bit by bit, the tension cording Eli’s body relaxed and he placed his hand over Rick’s on his belly. “Thought we might hike to Bridger’s Point today.” Another personal favorite—they hiked for hours, set up camp and made out under the stars in warm weather.

“We can do that,” Rick murmured, nuzzling his shoulder. “But I want to finish this discussion.”

Eli’s body tensed again and he pulled away. “I don’t.”

“Tell me why?” He wanted—no, the hell with that—he needed a reason. They’d waited. Ten years of solid relationship, they were good together. But he was tired of being secretive about it—not when their careers didn’t depend on it anymore. Every bit the lifer that Eli was, Rick respected their code.

“We have a lot better things to discuss than this….” Eli turned and pinned him to the wall. Their cocks rubbed together and Rick’s fledgling erection grew. Eli didn’t give him any time to respond before closing the gap between them, his mouth heavy and demanding. Their tongues thrust together, dueling for supremacy. Desire streaked out from Rick’s core, igniting the languid pleasure, turning it into a burning need.

He’d always wanted Eli. Even while standing on opposite sides of the parade ground, under the watchful gaze of their commanding officers, one brief glimpse could send lust surging through his blood. He tasted of mint, and wholly masculine. Not content with simply kissing him, Eli’s hands stroked over his body and massaged Rick’s ass.

Their cocks throbbed to life between them. “Heads or tails?” Eli murmured between kisses and Rick laughed.

“Condoms?” he challenged. Although he wanted to go down on him, sliding into him would be preferable. He’d given Eli the honors the night before, but balancing who took top worked so much better for them.

“On the back of the toilet.” Eli kissed a path down his neck and wrapped a hand around Rick’s cock, stroking it until a drop of pre-cum beaded the tip. The hot water pummeled their skin. Rick reached out to find the bowl of condoms they kept in the bathroom, fumbling until he had an unopened one.

Eli’s mouth wrapped around his cock. All the blood in his brain rushed south and he thudded back against the cool tile, exhaling through his teeth. Eli sucked him hot and hard, pulling him deep until the tip bounced the back of the man’s throat, then releasing him. His hand snaked underneath until he cupped Rick’s balls and massaged them with gentle squeezes at every swallowing motion.

“Keep that up and I’m going to come….” Rick panted. They were supposed to be talking, but he couldn’t keep two thoughts together when Eli touched him, and damn the man, if he didn’t know his body so well.

A deep chuckle vibrated around the head of Rick’s cock and his hips jerked—molten pleasure seized his nerves. Catching the man’s head, he pushed Eli away and sheathed his cock. Electricity skated up and down his spine. Eli watched him with lazy eyes, toying with his own cock, and heat pooled in Rick’s balls. Nothing got him off more than watching his lover touch himself.

“Position,” he growled and Eli’s languid smile took on a predatory air. It didn’t matter that he let Rick top him, he maintained all the control.

Obediently, Eli turned into the spray and put a hand on the wall, but his other hand stayed on his cock. He would jerk himself off. Sucking in a breath, Rick spread Eli’s ass cheeks, and tested the rim of his anus. The tight ring of muscles loosened with a little pressure. He wanted to ram his cock in, let the tight ring pump him dry—but he wouldn’t hurt him.

He grabbed the lube they kept in the shower—like the condoms, the men kept it everywhere, liked to be prepared—and eased a finger into him. His cock throbbed, aching for release, but he forced patience. The slap and tickle of Eli’s hand working his own cock drove Rick wild.

“Don’t come until I’m in,” Rick warned, sliding a second finger inside.