He paused long enough for the words to register, then smiled around me, somehow more self-possessed than I was in that moment. It was the hottest, most ridiculous thing I’d ever witnessed.
He kept at it, hands warm and sure as he alternated between long, slow pulls and tight, fast ones, as if he’d taken every hint I’d given him and distilled it into a perfect act. My head rolled back and I stared at the ceiling, every muscle straining as the pressure built and built and built, my control slipping. I wanted to warn him, to be goddamn polite, but all I could manage was a broken, guttural, “Eddie… Fuck, I’m gonna?—”
The rest of the warning was a grunt as I lost the battle, hips stuttering, and Eddie did not flinch. He took it, swallowing and then coughing and laughing at the same time, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand while looking up at me, triumphant.
“God, Bash,” he gasped, voice shot but so fucking happy. He flopped back onto his haunches and looked at me like he’d won some sort of prize. It was the most endearing and disarming thing I’d seen in my life.
I blinked at him, dizzy, heart still racing in my throat. The rest of the apartment felt impossibly distant, the world reduced to right here, to Eddie’s delighted, hoarse laugh and the memory of his hands bruising into my skin. I was still half-hard, still wanting, already greedy for more—yet the urge to feel even closer to him overwhelmed the physical afterglow.
I leaned forward, tangled our fingers together, and pulled him up into my lap. His knees bracketed my hips, jeans rough against my bare thighs and tender cock. He was flushed and breathless and beautiful, that crooked smile lighting up the universe.
“Jesus,” I managed. “You’re going to kill me, you know that?”
He raised an eyebrow in modest triumph, then ducked his head, laughter fizzling into something more tender. “I’m glad. That you liked it. I mean,” he amended, tracing absent circles along my shoulder, “I wasn’t sure if I’d be any good…”
He stopped, the way Eddie always did when his mouth threatened to outrun his confidence.
I hooked a finger under his chin and drew him in, kissing him soft and slow, tasting myself on his lips and not caring. “You were perfect. Absolutely goddamn perfect.”
13
BASH
The cable machine made a sound like a gunshot when it snapped—a sharp, metallic crack that echoed through the nearly empty campus gym. One second, I was pulling down on what should have been a controlled resistance, and the next, I was jerking backward as the cable gave way completely, sending me stumbling into the wall behind me with enough force to rattle my teeth.
The pain hit about three seconds later, a white-hot spike of agony that shot up my spine and made my vision blur around the edges. Fuck! This wasn’t the kind of minor strain you could walk off or stretch away. This was the kind of injury that put people out of commission for days or weeks.
“Fuck,” I hissed, pressing my back against the wall and trying to assess the damage. Sharp pain when I moved, a duller ache when I stayed still, and a lovely burning sensation that suggested I’d pulled something important in my lower back.
Perfect. Just fucking perfect.
“You alright, man?” The gym attendant—a college kid who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else—approached with the kind of casual concern that suggested equipment failures weren’t exactly rare occurrences.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied, because admitting I’d been sidelined by faulty gym equipment would add insult to literal injury. “Cable snapped.”
“Yeah, that happens sometimes. Sorry about that. You want me to call someone?”
“No, I’m good.” I pushed off the wall carefully, testing my range of motion. Not great, but not completely catastrophic either. I could walk, which was something. “Just gonna head home.”
The walk back to our apartment was an exercise in pain management. I’d had worse injuries—took shrapnel in Kandahar that hurt worse than this, and I’d still finished the damn patrol—but this particular kind of back pain had a way of making every step feel like a small betrayal by my own body.
More importantly, it was compromising my ability to do my job. How was I supposed to protect Eddie if I couldn’t move without wincing? “A Marine who can’t move is a dead Marine,” Gunny had always told us. If someone actually tried to hurt Eddie, what good would I be, hobbling around like an old man with a cane?
By the time I made it to our door, I’d worked myself into a downward spiral of professional anxiety. This job was too important to screw up because of some random gym accident. Mama’s treatment depended on me finishing out this contract successfully, and that meant keeping Eddie safe no matter what.
I could hear him moving around inside the apartment as I fumbled with my key, probably getting ready for whatever we had planned for the day. Classes, maybe lunch with Jessica, Tom, and Kolby, the usual routine that required me to be alert and mobile and ready for anything.
“Morning,” Eddie called out as I entered, not looking up from where he was making tea at our small kitchen counter. “How was your workout? You’re back earlier than usual.”
“Yeah, about that,” I said, trying to figure out how to explain this without sounding completely incompetent. “There was a minor equipment malfunction.”
Eddie turned around, took one look at me, and his expression immediately shifted from casual interest to sharp concern. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
“It’s not a big deal.”
“Bash.” Eddie’s voice carried an authority I’d rarely heard him use. “What. Happened?”
I sighed, recognizing defeat when I saw it. “Cable machine snapped while I was using it. Threw me into the wall. Tweaked my back a little.”
