I laugh while stealing it, anyway. After I finish it off, I set it down and look around the room, not quite sure what to do now.
His laughter makes me look his direction.
“What?” I ask.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to stay and act like you want to hang out.”
“Well, I mean…” I pause not sure what to say. I don’t really want to stay but it feels weird coming here, having sex with him, and leaving right after.
“I told you. It's all good. Thanks for a good fuck.”
See, this, right here. He gets me and, more importantly, makes me feel like what I’m feeling is okay.
My lips tilt up in a smile before I lean in to kiss him on the cheek. “Thanks. I needed that. I’ll see you around?”
“Yup. See ya,” he says nonchalantly but then surprises me by grabbing the back of my neck, pulling me in for a goodnight kiss before letting me go to walk to the door alone.
6
Weeks startto blur together and our weekend flings turn into more weekday fun though only at his house or at far away clubs so we don’t get caught.
There’s no talk of us or what’s going on, just sex, dancing in other towns, sex, and more sex. It’s the best non-relationship I’ve ever had, and, of course, I go fuck it up without even realizing it.
He lies on his stomach and I trace my fingers over his naked back covered in tattoos that are more like a collage of stories than random designs. I can’t help myself when I ask, “What’s the meaning of your tattoo?”
Immediately, he flips over, hopping out of bed, and grabs a shirt to cover his ink before trying to walk out of the room without saying a word.
“Whoa, what the hell?” I ask, sitting straight while pulling the sheet up. Suddenly very aware that I’m naked in his bed and he just stormed off with no explanation.
He grabs the doorframe and with his back to me he grits out, “We said from the get-go, nothing personal.”
“Well, excuse me. Sorry to ask a simple question to the man I’m fucking.”
I throw my legs off the bed, hastily grabbing my clothes, pulling them on in a hurry to leave.
A deep sigh rumbles through the room, and when I look up, he’s standing in the doorway, blocking my exit but not saying a word.
“Jenelle, I told you. I didn’t want this to go there because believe me, you don’t want to know about me. Sex. That’s all this is.”
I can tell he’s treading lightly. His eyes cast down to the ground and his voice is almost a whisper. The way his shoulders lean forward it almost seems like he’s guarding his own feelings more than mine.
But it’s too late. I won’t put up with someone treating me like that. We may just be fuck buddies but neither of us can deny this might be turning into something more. We both know it’s happening so maybe we should just end it now.
“I asked you a simple question. You can’t expect me to not want to know anything about you. I’m your commanding officer. The rules changed when you walked into my office a couple of months ago, or did you forget? No matter how causal this is, I think I have the right to want to know something about someone I’m risking everything for. Now, please, excuse me.”
I try to leave, but he won’t budge, and even though I could move him with the slightest of touches, I don’t want to. He’s blocking me but intentionally testing my boundaries at the same time.
He wants to see how far I’ll go, and damn it, I can’t bring myself to push him out of the way because I don’t want to.
I’ve done it. I’ve started to care for him. I want to know more about him, but I didn’t see it coming until it slapped me across the face.
Both our bodies stand at attention, not willing to move but not willing to give into one another either. We’ve come to a crossroad and neither one of us is willing to move yet both of us are scared to walk away.
I get the nerve to make my move to the side to start my exit, but he stops me, grabbing my arm slightly and holding me there, looking down and whispering, “It was my brother.”
Tears burn the backs of my eyes as the knowledge I learned before I knew who Alex really was runs through my head.
“The military, all of this, this was his dream. Not mine. But he didn’t get to live it, so I—”
