“Take me,” I said breathlessly.
His eyes connected with mine and, for a split second, I thought he was going to flee. I saw the war raging behind his eyes as the peridot sparkle I’d come to enjoy faded into a stormy blue sea. Darkness was coming as it engulfed his features and, soon, his hands were planted beside my head while he hovered over me.
“Don’t ask for something you can’t handle,” he said.
I rose up and caught his lips with mine. His hand came up and cupped my cheek. My tongue slowly prodded to find the tip of his. His hand slid down my chest, massaging my tit as I moaned into his mouth and, soon, his strong, sinewy arm was wrapped around my back and holding me flush against his body.
“Please,” I said, whispering.
In an instant, I was off the bed. My back was against the wall and he was pinning me there, his lips devouring my neck. I could feel myself spilling into my pussy folds, my body trying desperately to hold itself back until he granted me what I wanted. His chest was strong and his lips were hot. His skin pulled a red tint from the confines of my body while I wrapped my legs around his waist. I didn’t care about the pain in my ankle and I didn’t care about the weather outside. I didn’t care that we didn’t know one another and I sure as hell didn’t care that I wouldn’t see him again after this.
All I cared about was the fire being stoked inside of me. A fire I hadn’t felt in years.
“Please fuck me.”
His eyes connected with mine and, slowly, he lined himself up with my entrance. I held my breath, scared to utter another word lest he punish me with loneliness. The grin that slid across his cheeks was nothing short of devilish.
The Guardian of Lust was taunting me and I was playing right into his hand.
CHAPTER 1
LIAM
Let’s get this shit show on the road.
It didn’t matter that it was my discharge party, or that soldiers like Santiago were genuinely going to miss me. I wanted to get the fuck out of there.
“Are you sure we can’t convince you to stay?” asked Santiago.
“I’m sure,” I said. “This is the right move for me.”
“Fuck man. Good soldiers like you don’t come along every day. Your replacement has some serious shoes to fill.”
“Well, give him hell, just not the hell that was given to me.”
My platoon was throwing the party, and Paxton told me I had to make an appearance. Callen Paxton had been my right-hand man through some of the most treacherous shit.
Hell, Paxton saw it all through with me. He wasn’t trying to convince me to stay in the navy. Unlike everyone else, Paxton understood why I didn’t want to “put in my twenty,” then retire and do whatever the fuck I wanted.
The truth was the last tour altered my life forever.
I didn’t want to bullshit everyone, and pretend to be unhappy about leaving, but I knew I’d regret not seeing my platoon one last time, so I stuck it out.
Those men and I were thick as thieves, all of us. We’d been through hell and back, pierced stormy waters with the bows of our Navy ships, and bunked in beds that almost didn’t hold the muscle we’d all put on toward the end of the last tour. Working out was how all of us relieved the tension and stress from the bullshit that was thrown our way.
It was how I kept my heart pumping when it no longer wanted to.
The night was filled with mindless goodbyes. You’d think a soldier would be good at saying goodbye, but we were the shittiest at it. We said it so often that it became a knee-jerk reaction, but when the goodbye actually meant something, we couldn’t get it out.
I blamed it on the fact that we lost more people than we brought home sometimes.
“You’re a hell of a medic, Canter,” Tom said. “I don’t know what we’re gonna do without you on those ships.”
“I’m sure you’ll train someone just as fine as me to do the work,” I said.
“Highly doubt that. You’re one in a damn million. You gonna try to be a doctor out there in the civilian world?” Lamar asked.
“I’m not really sure. Gonna take some time to figure it all out.”
The Navy was all I knew, ever since I enlisted the moment I turned eighteen. They trained me to be a medic so I could save lives, while simultaneously teaching me how to take a life in case I needed to. It was a dichotomy I’d lived with for fourteen years, and I simply couldn’t handle it anymore. My fuel tank was empty.
Not that I’d let any of these fuckers know it.
“You okay, Canter?” Paxton asked.
I turned my eyes over to him, the man I’d come to consider my best friend, as he walked up toward me. His face was smiling, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes; a side effect of the bullshit wringer we’d gone through not so very long ago.
“On the record? Yep,” I said.
“Off the record, while drinkin’ a beer with your buddy?” he asked.
“Get me the fuck outta here,” I said.
The two of us chuckled before we put the glass bottles to our lips, but then I felt a hand come down onto my shoulder.
“Medical Officer Canter.”
I turned around at the sound of my Captain’s voice and forced a smile.
“Captain Wells,” I said.
He offered me his hand, and I shook it.
“I wanted to come over here and wish you a fond farewell myself,” Wells said.
“Well, I appreciate it,” I said.
“You’re a fine medical officer who’s going to make waves in the medical field out there in the civilian world. That’s one thing I’ve always enjoyed about the Navy. We make sure to prepare our soldiers for life inside and outside of the military.”
“It will do me well, sir,” I said. “That’s for sure.”
“Do you have any plans to become a doctor?” he asked. “You really should. You’ve been a fine one for us.”
“Thank you for the compliment, Captain.”
“Can we drop the bullshit for a second?” he asked.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said.
I watched his face grow dark, and I wanted to backtrack away from the conversation. I wasn’t ready to address this with the likes of him. I wasn’t ready to talk to him about what happened overseas. I was ready to get this fucking party over with, get out of here, pack my shit, and leave.
Leave and head to the quiet mountains of Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
“I want to thank you, son, for keeping as many of our men alive in that situation as you could.”
I stood there, my face stoic, while Captain Wells continued to ramble on.
“What you did under the terrible circumstances, was something that would make even the strongest of men cave. Whatever place you dug down into—wherever you pulled your strength from—thank you. From myself, from this platoon, and from the United States Navy. You made us all very, very proud.”
Proud?
I made them fucking proud?
This man didn’t have the first idea what I endured. What Paxton endured. The things I had to do and the things I had to witness. This man had no fucking clue.
He had no idea how many times I woke up wishing for death to take us all.
But like a good soldier, I nodded and smiled. “Thank you for that, Captain,” I said.
“And Canter. If you get out into the civilian world, and you need anything, you know where to reach me.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
Honestly, I wouldn’t even know how to fucking contact this man. In my entire career, I’d encountered him only a handful of times. His words lacked meaning, his face lacked any sort of emotional support, and I knew all he was doing was trying to save face. He treated every single opportunity like fucking cameras were following him around, and it made me sick.
“Good luck and Godspeed,” Captain Wells said.
I raised my beer to him, but what I really wanted to do was whack him over the head with the bottle.
I watched him walk away before I turned back to Paxton. His face showed the kind of shock I knew I was feeling, and in an instant, Paxton started laughing. He threw his head back and gripped tightly to his beer, making sure it didn’t spill anywhere while his shoulders shook.