Active Duty: Gay Military Erotic Romance (19 page)

I unlocked the door and flipped the locks for all the doors. I took our bags and placed them in the trunk.

“Honey, there was a slight problem with my plane ticket, and I won’t be flying home tonight.” He looked over at me.

I met his gaze. “Honey?” I mouthed.

“Yeah, they’re putting me up in a Jacuzzi suite, with a fireplace and champagne and all the room service I could want. A perfect view of the city and ice-cold air conditioning.”

Did he mean what I thought he was saying?

“Okay, kiss the kids, and I’ll see you late tomorrow night.” He closed his phone and opened the door. “Are you ready to head to the hotel?”

“Didn’t you have a flight?”

“It’s been delayed until tomorrow. I have other plans for tonight.” His smile and the twinkle in his eyes told me what he wanted.

“And who is ‘honey’?” I asked, hoping the concern didn’t shade my words.

“She’s my little sister, who’s sitting with my kids.”

“Won’t she be angry having to sit for another day?”

“She won’t mind, when she hears why I was delayed. She’s been hoping I’d find a new boyfriend.” Harris stepped next to me and looked around the parking lot to make sure no one was around. “I’m sure she’ll love you once she meets you.” He kissed the side of my head and ran around the car.

Opening my car door, I jumped in, fastened my seat belt and sped off to the hotel.

Harris held his hand on my knee all the way there.

SOARING

Michael Bracken

A
s I stared in the mirror, I adjusted my tie and straightened my uniform jacket, marveling at how much the world had changed during my years in the Air Force. Less than a year earlier I could not admit, nor could anyone ask about, my sexual orientation. Less than a year earlier I could not have married Scott and kept my commission. Less than a year earlier I could not have imagined a church filled with people about to share the moment in which Scott and I vowed eternal union.

We first met at a reception hosted by the local country club in which members wined and dined with newly transferred officers, and the socially connected locals patted themselves on the back for supporting the troops. As a captain, I’d been obligated to attend and regale the attendees with heroic tales of my recent tour of duty overseas in which I’d flown several combat missions as a jet pilot but had seen far less action than the grunts on the ground. When it became obvious that I was single, I found myself fending off the attentions of several matronly women
who felt certain I would be interested in their unmarried daughters.

I finally ducked into the men’s room to distance myself from their attentions and have a few minutes to gather my thoughts. Even there I wasn’t alone. Scott—an attractive man in his midthirties to whom I had been introduced at some point earlier in the evening—stood at the sink washing his hands. When he glanced in the mirror and saw me, he said, “I see the old biddies are circling you like a pack of wolves, trying to interest you in their homely and oft-divorced daughters. You don’t stand a chance, Captain Hunter.”

I saw that he wasn’t wearing a ring. “How do you deal with it?”

“Some of them have been after me for years.” He winked. “But I’m not interested in women.”

Before I could respond, he stepped from the restroom and left me staring at the slowly closing door.

Scott had disappeared from the reception by the time I exited the men’s room and once again attracted the circling pack of matrons. I survived the rest of the evening by repeatedly assuring the women that my duties kept me far too busy to become involved with anyone, but still they foisted off their daughters’ names and phone numbers. I graciously tucked each business card and scrap of paper into my pocket, but discarded them all once I returned to my quarters on base because none contained the one phone number in which I was most interested.

Scott and I didn’t cross paths again until several months later. By then I was flying a desk; my daily routine kept me mostly on base, and I had resigned myself to a life of solitude and self-pleasure because I had no desire to jeopardize my military career by engaging in meaningless one-night stands. I spent many evenings with my nose in a novel and, because the PX’s
selection of reading material didn’t coincide with my taste, I had to visit an independent bookstore off base to replenish my reading material.

While I was examining the back cover of an anthology of gay mysteries another shopper sidled up to me and said, “Captain Hunter.”

When I looked up I found Scott standing beside me.

“I almost didn’t recognize you out of uniform.”

I wore blue jeans, a loose-fitting sweatshirt, a baseball cap and Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses. I said, “That’s the intent.”

He glanced at the book I was holding. “That’s an interesting choice for a man who was fighting women off with a stick the last time I saw him.”

I shrugged and returned the paperback to the shelf. “I like mysteries.”

“Don’t we all,” Scott said. “The biggest might be why you’re shopping here.”

I knew he wouldn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure it out, and I was right. He suggested we visit a little coffee shop around the corner to discuss his conclusion.

He ordered a cappuccino and I ordered coffee, black. We carried our cups to a booth in the back, out of sight of anyone who might glance in the front window.

We didn’t mention the obvious, instead discussing our career choices—the Air Force for me, banking for him—and how they impacted our lives. I had elected to avoid most social situations that required my appearance as half of a couple while he had a pair of female friends who would beard for him on those occasions.

“I’ve lived here my entire life,” he said, “and I learned young that discretion is the better part of valor.”

“No one knows?”

“Only a small circle of trusted friends,” he said, “and you. I travel frequently and attend to my needs when I’m away.”

“That’s a lonely way to live.”

“You can get used to anything if you must.”

“Even celibacy,” I said.

“That bad?”

“It isn’t anything I can’t handle on my own,” I said.

Scott laughed and reached across the table to touch my forearm. “Maybe someday we can find a solution to both our problems.”

“Maybe,” I agreed, but we didn’t pursue the idea right then. We finished our coffee, exchanged contact information and parted company.

Scott was first to pick up the phone when he called a few weeks later to tell me about an upcoming trip to Dallas. “Ever been?”

I admitted that I hadn’t.

“Join me,” he said. “I’ll show you around.”

Scott drove from Enid and I hitched a ride in a transport plane from Vance Air Force Base, arriving a few hours after he did. I met him at a hotel where he had reserved a suite, and he took me to dinner, to the symphony, and then back to the suite where a bottle of champagne chilled in an ice bucket.

“If I didn’t know better,” I said, as I settled onto the couch, “I’d think you were trying to seduce me.”

Scott freed the champagne bottle from the bucket, uncorked it and filled a pair of glasses. He handed one to me and raised his in silent toast. As we sipped our champagne, he asked, “Is it working?”

“Quite well,” I told him. After setting my half-empty glass on the coffee table, I reached for Scott’s free hand and pulled him down on the couch beside me.

I hooked my hand behind his head, pulled his face close and covered his lips with mine. Our first kiss was tentative and lasted only a fraction of a second. We drew a few inches apart, stared for a moment into each other’s eyes as if searching for the answer to a question neither of us dared ask and then we kissed again—deeper, harder, longer.

Scott tried to set his champagne glass on the table with mine, but he missed and it fell to the floor. He unthreaded my tie and slipped it out of my collar. Then our fingers found buttons, buckles and zippers, and we stripped off the suits we had worn to the symphony.

Scott kissed his way down my chest, paused for a moment to tease one of my nipples and then continued until he reached the base of my erection. Using just the tip of his tongue, he drew a wet line along the underside of my shaft until he reached the tip of the swollen purple head. He licked away a glistening drop of precum before taking the first few inches of my cock into his mouth.

He wrapped one fist around my stiff shaft and pistoned his hand up and down as he hoovered my hard-on. Too much time had passed since I had last been with a man and I couldn’t restrain myself. Without warning, I came, firing a thick wad of hot spunk against the back of his throat.

He swallowed and swallowed again, releasing his oral grip on me while my cock was still throbbing. He slipped off the couch, stood and took my hand.

Then he led me into the bedroom, where we spent the next few hours exploring each other’s bodies.

The following morning we walked through Oak Lawn, a Dallas neighborhood where no one gave us a second glance when Scott took my hand. We shopped, had lunch and shopped more. After dinner, we went club hopping, visiting three different
nightclubs before we found one with the right mix of atmosphere and music to entice us onto the dance floor.

We stayed out until well past midnight and returned to our hotel suite hot, sweaty and borderline drunk. Once the door closed behind us, I pushed Scott against the door and covered his lips with mine. I shoved my tongue into his mouth and we kissed hard and deep and long, and by the time the kiss ended I’m certain he felt my erection prodding his thigh much as I felt his prodding mine.

As we kissed again, I unbuckled his belt, unsnapped his jeans and drew down his zipper. I wanted Scott and I didn’t want to wait. I spun him around and tugged his jeans and briefs down to his thighs.

He pushed me backward as he grabbed them before they could drop to the floor. I reached for Scott but he spun out of my grasp and headed toward the bedroom. I followed.

He kicked off his shoes as he went, peeled off his jeans and briefs and came to a stop on his side of the bed. He grabbed the partially used tube of lube we’d used the night before and pressed it into my hand.

I squeezed a glob onto my fingers and massaged it into his asscrack and then into his asshole as he bent over the bed. I unfastened my own jeans and let them drop to my ankles. Then I pressed the swollen head of my erect cock along the lube-slicked crack of his ass until it pressed against the tight pucker of his sphincter.

As Scott pressed backward, I pushed forward, driving my cock deep into him. I held one hip with my left hand. My right hand was still covered with lube so I reached around to grasp his erect cock, and I stroked it as I drew back and pushed forward.

We’d made love our first night together. Our second night,
though, fueled in part by alcohol and in part by an entire day spent flirting with each other in public places where consummation of our desire might be frowned upon, we fucked and fucked hard.

I slammed into him again and again as I beat him off and Scott came first, spewing cum over the bed and over my fist. I released my grip on his cock and grabbed hold of his hips with both hands. I held on tight as I drove into him several more times.

Even if I had wanted to, I couldn’t have held back, and I came hard, firing hot spunk deep inside my new lover. I held him tight against me until my cock finally stopped throbbing and I could withdraw.

We stripped off the rest of our clothes and fell into bed together. I wanted to take him a second time, but the long day and the alcohol had other plans for our bodies and we fell asleep in each other’s arms.

Room service woke us when they brought breakfast Sunday morning, and I barely had time to eat after I showered and dressed. Then I shoved the last of my things in my ditty bag and grabbed my suit bag.

Scott caught me before I reached the door. He kissed me long and hard, and when the kiss ended, said, “Stay.”

“I can’t,” I told him. “I have to return to base.”

“I’ll be here through the middle of the week,” he said.

“You’ll be in meetings all day.”

“But I could devote my evenings to you,” he said. “You have enjoyed the evenings, haven’t you?”

“I appreciate your desire,” I said, “but I have to leave.”

“Can we talk when I return home?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said. “As much as you want me and as much as I want you, we live in the same community and we can’t spend time together there.”

“I’ll be discreet.”

I pressed a finger against his lips. “You say that now, but what will you say later? What will you say when we meet each other on the street? What will you say when you accidentally reveal my secret? I have a lot to lose, Scott. What do you have to lose?”

He didn’t answer, so I opened the door and left him standing in the hotel suite.

I hitched a ride home on the same cargo plane that had brought me, and didn’t sleep well the next few nights. I’d had my share of one-night stands and short-term relationships when I was younger, but somehow Scott had gotten under my skin in a way that no previous lover ever had. But he was out, even if only to select friends and family members, where I could not be. While I might be willing to risk my heart, I wasn’t willing to risk my hard-earned military career so near to retirement.