This seems to surprise Buck. He pauses, processing this new information. He looks from my guilty face to Diego’s defiant one. “Youofferedto suck his dick.”
“Yes.”
“Why? Are you a fag?”
“Come on, Buck, don’t—” Diego starts.
“Shut up,” Buck snaps. “I’m talking to him.”
“No,” I lie. Because that’s the only answer I can give. “I just wanted to… I don’t know. Help him out.”
Buck doesn’t believe me. I can see it in his eyes. He’s looking right through me, through the pathetic excuse, and seeing the truth. But for some reason, he doesn’t push it. He just shakes his head, a slow, weary movement.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, more to himself than to us. “I told you guys yesterday that discipline was the key. To control your urges.”
Diego scoffs. “You’re telling me you haven’t once thought about it? About getting off? You’re so much better than the rest of us?”
“Don’t you fucking dare turn this around on me,” Buck says, pointing a finger at Diego. “This is a military squad, not a goddamn frat house. There are rules. Lines you don’t cross.”
“Chill, man,” Diego says, holding up his hands. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”
“Nothing? Adrian is on his knees in the middle of a training exercise with your dick in his mouth, and you’re calling it nothing?”
Diego shrugs. “It’s just a blowjob, bro. It’s not like we gave away state secrets.”
I wish he would stop talking. Every word he says digs the hole deeper.
Buck stares at him, then back at me. His gaze lingers on Emilio, who hasn’t said a word this whole time. He’s just standing there, watching. Listening.
Then Buck makes a decision. I can see it happen, a shift in his posture, a hardening of his jaw. “This ends here. Now. This never happened. All of you understand me?”
He looks at each of us in turn. Diego nods, a little too eagerly. I nod, my head heavy, my eyes on the ground. Emilio gives a small, almost imperceptible nod.
“We still have a mission to complete,” Buck continues. “We find the rest of those checkpoints. We get back to camp. And we never speak of this again. To anyone. Not to each other, not to Rourke, not to your goddamn priest. We’re a team. We act like a team. This stays between the four of us. Got it?”
There’s an iron command in his voice that even Diego doesn’t argue with.
Buck looks at Emilio. “Let’s move. We’ve got steaks to win.” He turns and walks away in those big, lumbering strides of his, not looking back.
Emilio glances at me one last time. There’s something in his eyes I can’t decipher. Pity, maybe. Or disappointment. Then he turns and follows Buck, disappearing into the trees. The sound of their boots crunching through the underbrush fades slowly, leaving Diego and me alone again.
“Fucking drama queen,” Diego says, adjusting his pack. “Buck needs to pull the stick out of his ass.”
I don’t say anything. I’m still trying to process what just happened.
“Come on,” Diego says, nudging my shoulder. “We’re losing.”
I follow him toward the next checkpoint, my body moving on autopilot. The taste of him is still in my mouth. That perfect bead of cum that I never got to taste is still on my mind. And even though everything’s fucked now, even though Buck could change his mind and tell Rourke any second, I’m still buzzing from it.
That’s the thing that scares me most. Not the threat of being kicked out. Not Buck and Emilio knowing. But the fact that with Diego’s taste still on my tongue, all I can think about is doing it again. That for those few minutes, on my knees in the dirt with a cock in my mouth, I felt more like myself than I ever have.
I finally got a taste of what I’ve been craving.
And now I want more.
6
“Ten minutes,” Diego says, poking at the fire with a stick. “We got beat by ten fucking minutes, man.”
