10. Alex
CHAPTER 10
ALEX
E yes still shut, legs still shaking, I just stood there in the shower for a moment, letting the hot water rush over me while the last few aftershocks of my orgasm rippled through me.
Oh my God. Wow.
It was a genuine miracle I’d even made it into the shower before I’d had to get myself off. The whole evening, the whole walk back to the hotel and up to my room, the whole time I’d been stripping off my clothes—I’d been so horny I was lucky I could walk.
At least the night had cooled down considerably; it wasn’t cold by any stretch of the imagination, but stepping out of that stuffy club, it hadn’t been unreasonable to partially button my thin shirt. Connor hadn’t questioned me, anyway, and he hadn’t noticed the hard-on I’d sported for half a block.
The walk had calmed me down a bit.
Standing between our hotels? Locking eyes with him? Remembering how fucking sexy he’d been with those men on the dancefloor? Wondering if I should just say fuck it and ask him to come up to my room with me?
Yeah, the buttoned shirt had come in handy.
And now I’d come, and I was surprised my orgasm hadn’t dropped me to my knees right here in the shower. Every time I came while I was thinking about Connor, it was earthshaking. On the heels of a night spent watching him in a club? Holy fuck.
Which probably meant that sex with him would be a serious letdown.
I opened my eyes and turned around to rinse off the cum. That was the way things like this always worked, and I knew it. Every time I’d been into someone for a while before I finally slept with them, I built them up so much in my mind, the real thing ended up being… meh. Nobody could live up to the person they were in a fantasy.
So… fine. I’d keep this to fantasies. Really fucking hot fantasies about loud, bed-breaking sex with the man who made me stupid just by existing. Eventually, I’d get used to that, and I could think about him with my hand on my dick at night and coexist with him in the hospital during the day. Same as I had with that captain who’d been in charge of the emergency department when I’d first transferred to Rota. He’d eagerly and vocally bottomed for me in my mind, and we’d interacted like consummate professionals at work.
No reason I couldn’t do the same with Connor.
Though, I’d never seen Captain Pickering at a club. I’d never witnessed him biting his lip as someone ground against him, or sliding his hands up some lucky bastard’s back.
I shook myself, then hung my head to let the water rush over it.
I was stupid. That was all there was to it. I had a hot colleague who might as well have had DO NOT TOUCH tattooed all over him, and I wanted that forbidden fruit.
When I got back to Rota tomorrow, I’d text Isidoro. Even the other night when I’d been distracted, the sex had still been good. If we hooked up a few more times, I’d shift gears from wanting what I couldn’t have to lusting after the man who happily jumped on every opportunity to suck my brains out my dick.
Yes. That was what I’d do.
Tonight, sleep.
Tomorrow, back to Rota.
Tomorrow night?
Isidoro.
* * *
I was way too tired to make one of the early trains, but whatever. The ride from here to El Puerto was only an hour and some change, so even if I left later in the afternoon, I’d still be home well before dinnertime.
The only downside was that the Sevilla Santa Justa train station was crawling with people. My very slightly hungover head was less than thrilled, but I intended to appease it with some coffee from that one café inside the station. And one of their pastries, because those were amazing.
I got a ticket for the 1440 train, which gave me a solid hour and a half before I needed to head for the platform. Plenty of time to wade through the line and get something to eat.
The line crawled forward, and I caught up on my socials while I waited. Nothing too exciting going on. My family back home was posting vacation photos since it was that time of year. My brother and sister-in-law had taken their huge family to his in-laws’ cabin near Lake Chelan in Eastern Washington, and the kids were clearly having a good time. My parents were there, as were the in-laws, so it looked like my brother and his wife were getting a break, too. With six kids—they’d each brought two kids into their marriage, and they’d had two more together—neither of them got a lot of downtime these days.
I smiled to myself as I thumbed through the photos. I’d joked with my parents that between him and my sister, who had three kids, I was off the hook for grandkids. At the time, I’d been kind of relieved that there was no pressure on me. These days, especially as I watched everyone grow up through photos while I was stationed on the other side of the world, regret sometimes crept in. On my rare visits home, it was just me. No partner. No kids. I still didn’t even know if I wanted kids, mostly because I was still eschewing relationships.
“Alex, honey,” Mom had gently said the last time I was home. “I understand not wanting to settle down in your twenties, but you’re almost forty.”
“I know. And I’ll be retired in a couple of years.” I’d shrugged it away like it was nothing. “Once I’m out of the Navy and figure out what comes next, then I can think about settling down with someone.”
She hadn’t been happy about that, though she’d let it go.
These days, I wondered if I was happy with it. Was that why I’d been such a tangled mess of frustration? Was I lonely? Itching to finally connect with someone and have a partner instead of banging my way through my active duty years? Hell, maybe I was hungry for some real intimacy after that miserable year with Tobias.
I sighed and pocketed my phone as the café line moved forward. I was just hungover. That was all it was. Hungover, and a little frustrated because I’d spent last night alone.
Alone, Alex? Or not with Connor?
Ugh. Fuck that thought. I couldn’t have spent last night with Connor. I couldn’t spend any night with Connor. And even if we did hook up, that wasn’t going to do anything about this melancholy feeling I got when I watched my family vacationing a few thousand miles away.
Eighteen more months. Then I’d be a civilian, and I’d be stateside, and I could think about?—
“Fancy meeting you here.”
I whipped around, and even though I recognized his voice, I was still startled to see Connor standing there. And when had he started wearing glasses? “Oh. Hey.” Why was my heart suddenly racing? “Uh… Great timing.” Really? That was all I could think to say?
He chuckled. “Something like that.” Gesturing at the end of the line, he said, “I’m going to get something myself. Mind if I join you?”
The correct answer was, “We should probably stay separated as much as possible, sir, not eat our pastries together, and definitely not sit together on the train. Sir.”
What came out was, “Sure. Yeah. No problem. I’ll wait for you after I get mine.” There weren’t any tables available in here, so we’d have to take our food to go.
He flashed me a smile that brought back way too many memories of last night—especially the one in the shower—and then he continued toward the back of the line.
Fuck me. We were going to have a late breakfast together and then ride the train back to El Puerto together, weren’t we?
From the excited flutter in my stomach… yeah. We were.
I was sorely tempted to text Isidoro then and there to lock down something for tonight. At least then I’d know there was relief on the horizon.
In fact, that was a damn good idea.
I took out my phone and sent him a message through WhatsApp, hoping the translator didn’t mangle it too much:
Are you free this evening?
I was next in line when he responded:
Duty tonight. (sad emoji)
Gah. Duty rotations could be the biggest cockblock on the planet.
No worries. We’ll get together soon. (winking emoji)
Then I put my phone away again, and it was my turn to order. I was tired enough that my Spanish was clumsier than usual, but the lady was patient as I stumbled through ordering a coffee. I pointed out the pastry I wanted, which was a decadent, chocolate-filled monstrosity that meant an extra half hour at the gym tomorrow. I had no idea what they were called, only that they were divine .
Once I had my food and coffee, I caught Connor’s eye and gestured out into the flow of traffic through the train station so he knew I’d be out there. He nodded, and I stepped out of the café.
Just my luck, a family was getting up from a small table, and I commandeered it. I put my backpack under it and slipped my foot through the strap so no one swiped it. I knew a few too many people who’d learned that lesson the hard way.
The coffee was exactly what I needed—dark and rich with just a touch of cream. A couple of sips seemed to make my headache abate slightly; a placebo effect, sure, but I embraced it wholeheartedly. If the hospital’s cafeteria ever started serving good Spanish coffee, I’d be a happy man. As it was, there were a couple of places near my apartment in Chipiona that had the good shit, so I usually stopped at one or the other before I headed for work.
Work, which I’d go back to tomorrow. Where I’d inevitably cross paths with one Lieutenant Commander Marks on a regular goddamned basis.
Sighing, I lowered my coffee and watched him through the café’s front window. He was looking at something on his phone, and I didn’t think it was fair how attractive he was with glasses on.
C’mon, dude. Don’t you know I’m trying to not drool over you?
Fortunately, no, he didn’t. By some miracle, I’d managed to keep that under the surface and carry myself like a normal person around him. Or at least give the impression that was what I was doing.
I pulled my gaze away and took a bite of the pastry, concentrating on that instead of him. I’d always heard people rave about French pastries, but Spain made some damn good ones, too. They were never dry, never too sweet, and they only set me back a euro or two. It was probably a good thing that my favorite bakery in Chipiona wasn’t the one across the street from my apartment and there was almost no parking nearby. I basically had to walk to it, which was just as well, considering how much I’d stuff my face if they were more convenient. If that one place in Cádiz ever opened a location near me, I’d never fit into my uniforms again.
A set of footsteps broke away from the hurried foot traffic in the train station, and I looked up to see Connor striding toward me, a small paper bag in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. And the glasses. Still had on the glasses.
Fuck. You are so hot…
Unaware of my stupid mind, Connor took the chair opposite me. He also put his foot through the strap on his backpack—smart man—and then opened the small paper bag from the café. “Popular place,” he mused.
I pointed at the fruit tart he was pulling out; that was what I would’ve ordered had they run out of the chocolate ones I liked. “Take a bite of that, and you’ll understand why.”
An eyebrow quirked up. Then he shrugged, picked up the tart, and took a bite.
God. Was there anything this man did that wasn’t attractive as all hell? That look on his face…
Can’t I make you make that face? Just one time?
No, I couldn’t, and I needed to get off that train of thought immediately.
I sipped my own coffee. “So, what did you think of Castillo de Danza?”
Good one, Alex. Bring up last night. That’ll keep you focused on not wanting to lick him.
Unaware of me being a complete dumbass, Connor said, “It was… I mean, it was fun, I guess?”
I studied him. “You guess?”
“It’s… I don’t know.” He sat back. “I think I shorted out a little because I was already nervous about venturing out into that scene, and then I realized half the guys there are the same age as my kids.”
Right. Right, he had kids. I kept forgetting that. I fidgeted in my chair, tapping my fingers on my coffee cup. “How many kids you have, anyway?”
“Two boys.” A fond smile formed on his lips. “They’re both adults—twenty and twenty-two. But like, that’s the demographic in clubs, so…” He wrinkled his nose.
I laughed. “I never thought of that. Some of them are half my age, but if I had kids and they were that age… Yeah, that might fuck with my head.”
Connor chuckled almost soundlessly. “Just a bit. Otherwise, it was fun. I don’t know if it’s my scene, though.”
“Because of the ages?”
“No. I’m a little uncomfortable with the language barrier. It’s fun to dance with people, but going any further than that?” He grimaced.
“Yeah, I get it.” I pulled a piece off my pastry. “I’ve got a guy I hook up with sometimes who doesn’t speak much English. It’s a challenge.”
Something flickered across Connor’s expression, and I refused to consider that it might be jealousy.
“How does that work?” He brought up his coffee for a sip. “Just use a translator app for everything?”
“Pretty much.”
He almost spat out his coffee. “Wait, what? I was joking!”
“I’m not. Hey, you do what you gotta do.”
“Okay, sure, but like— while you’re hooking up with someone?”
Laughing, I popped the bite of pastry into my mouth. “I mean, we’re not passing a phone back and forth when we’re right in the middle of things. But it’s how we figured things out ahead of time, and how we talk after.”
I could not for the life of me figure out why he looked flustered. Or why he was blushing.
“That seems…” He cleared his throat before trying again. “That seems, I don’t know, awkward? I can’t imagine whipping out a phone in bed.”
“Eh, it’s not bad. Not what I’d call ideal—I wouldn’t do it if we both spoke the same language—but it gets the job done in a pinch.”
“Huh.” Connor stared into his coffee cup. “I didn’t think of doing that, but… maybe.” He still didn’t seem comfortable with the idea.
“You don’t have to go that route,” I said. “Hit up one of the clubs in Málaga; there’s always some British expats and tourists there. They’re safer than Americans.”
He lifted his gaze. “How so?” But then he answered his own question: “Because they’re definitely not military.”
I nodded. “Exactly.”
“Maybe I’ll give that a try. But, um…” He held my gaze, suddenly looking far too adorably shy. “Thanks. For, you know, bumping into me in the same club and showing me the ropes.”
I laughed softly. “Don’t mention it. It was fun for me, too.”
He… oh God, he really blushed. “Yeah, it… It looked like you were having a good time.”
Oh, hell. How much had he seen? Not that I’d exactly been hiding in the shadows or anything, but the thought of Connor seeing me—maybe even watching me—getting handsy with those guys?
Why was that so hot?
Because I was stupid, that was why. Fucking stupid.
I shifted in my seat and drummed my fingers on the table. “It was a pretty fun night.”
“But nobody you wanted to take back to the hotel?” There was teasing in his voice, but genuine curiosity too.
I locked eyes with him. Oh, there’d been someone I wanted to take back to the hotel, but he didn’t need to know that.
I went for my coffee, and just before I took a sip, I rasped, “Just… didn’t connect with anyone.”
His eyebrow flicked up ever so slightly.
Before he could ask any further, though, an announcement came over the loudspeaker. I tilted my head to listen.
Connor straightened. “Is that us?”
I nodded, listened for another few seconds, then got up. “Platform nine.”
He pulled on his backpack as I did the same, and we collected our remaining coffee and pastries. We stepped into the flow of traffic, found the right escalator, and took it down to our platform. The train was idling beside it, and we stepped onto one of the cars.
The train filled up quickly. Usually did on the weekends. Still, we found a pair of seats facing each other.
“Do you have any preference?” I gestured at the seats. “Moving forward or backward?”
He shrugged. “Nah. You?”
“Nope.” I took one of the seats, and though there was room on the overhead rack for both our backpacks, I kept mine at my feet. Connor did the same; couldn’t be too careful.
He settled into his seat, and we both played on our phones for a little while until the train started pulling out of the station.
Connor pocketed his phone and pressed back against his seat with a sigh. “This was a fun weekend, but I’m ready to head home.”
“Tired?”
He exhaled. “Just a bit. I’m getting too old for this.”
Laughing, I nodded. “I feel that. I usually go do tourist shit on the weekends instead of clubbing. It’s still tiring, but it doesn’t fuck up my sleep pattern quite as much.”
“Maybe I should try that.” Connor gave a soft, self-deprecating laugh. “Who knows? I could get lucky and meet some random English-speaking tourist on a guided tour.”
Jealousy flared hot in my chest. I wasn’t even surprised this time, and I didn’t have any trouble schooling my expression or my tone; practice makes perfect, apparently. “Stranger things have happened, right?”
“I mean…” He half-shrugged. “I have zero experience with meeting people as an adult, so it’s as good a place to start as any.”
“Right, you said you got married young.”
He laughed dryly, gazing out the window as the train picked up speed. “I got married young even by military standards.”
I straightened. “Oh yeah?”
“Uh-huh. We started dating when we were fifteen, had our first son during our senior year, and got married six months after we graduated.” He paused, then murmured, almost more to himself, “ Way too fucking young.”
I whistled. “Jesus. But we all think we’re adults at that age. I look back at the version of myself who thought he was all badass on the way to boot camp, and I just think, you dumbass .”
Connor laughed with some more feeling, meeting my gaze again. “Yeah, I remember that from boot camp. All the guys in my company were exactly like that.”
“Not you?” I furrowed my brow. “And wait—boot camp? Were you prior enlisted?”
He nodded. “I was a teenager with a wife and a kid. I needed job security with health insurance, so… I enlisted. And no, I wasn’t one of the guys who thought I was hot shit and all grown up because they handed me a gun. I was still fucking terrified from when a hospital sent me home with a baby two days after I took a history midterm.” He huffed out a laugh. “ That was a humbling experience, let me tell you.”
“Oh my God.” I actually shuddered. “I panicked enough over those tests. A baby? When I still couldn’t parallel park to save my life? Fuck no.”
Connor’s laugh this time made my spine tingle. He was just gorgeous when he smiled. “I mean, I still can’t parallel park to save my life? But I survived the kid thing.” His expression turned a little sheepish. “Though… I was gone for some of it. Boot camp, then A-school. I, uh… I don’t think my wife ever forgave me for being gone when our second son was born.”
“It isn’t something you can control, though.”
“No, but I get it. She was stressed out just taking care of our almost-two-year-old. Then things got a little scary in the delivery room with Landon, and she was shaken up from that for a while, and…” He sighed. “She knew it wasn’t my fault that I was gone, but I think she still resented me for it.”
“That seems to happen a lot,” I said quietly. “I know people who tried to time their babies around deployments, but if the Navy changes its mind about something…”
“Right?” He pressed back against the seat and let his gaze drift out the window again, watching the scenery pass by as the train took us out of Sevilla. “When I enlisted, we figured it would be a six-month deployment every couple of years, you know? So maybe once during my whole four-year enlistment? But I ended up doing two twelve-month tours downrange during that time.”
I stared at him. “No shit?”
“No shit. I don’t know if it was just bad luck or what. The Navy needed corpsmen really badly in both Iraq and Afghanistan, so…”
“Wait, you were a corpsman?”
He turned a slight smile on me. “Well, yeah. Did you think I went from being an aircraft maintainer to a physician?”
“Hey, it’s the military—would you really be surprised if you found out a doctor used to be an aircraft maintainer?”
“Okay, good point. But—yes, I was a corpsman. At the end of my enlistment, I wanted to go to medical school, and after my wife and I talked it over, we figured going the ROTC route was the best bet. The G.I. Bill would cover some of it, but not all; having the Navy cover it and then serving a few years?” Connor half-shrugged. “At least then I wouldn’t be deploying again until the boys were older, and we’d still have housing, health insurance—all of that.”
“Ah, yeah. That makes sense. And then, what? You just decided to stick with it?”
Another shrug. “By the time I was coming to the end of my contract, I was just sort of… used to it, I guess. Being in the military, I mean. And I’d already put in enough years that it just made sense to stay in until I could retire.”
I nodded. “Yeah. Same. When I got to the end of my second enlistment, it was like, well—I’m already halfway to twenty. Might as well just stick it out and get a pension.” I absently trailed a finger along the edge of the armrest as I studied him. “This is your first overseas duty station, right?”
“Yep. I’ve been CONUS my whole career aside from Sandbox and shipboard deployments. You?”
“I spent a few years in Yokosuka. Otherwise, same—just Sandbox and shipboard.”
He grimaced sympathetically. “You went downrange, too?”
I nodded, pretending not to notice the spiders creeping up my spine. “Three tours.”
“Shit,” he whispered. “Two was almost too much for me.”
“I think one was too much for me.” I shifted a little, trying to chase away those spiders. “I liked Yokosuka, though. I got to see a lot of Japan, so that was great.”
“Oh, man, I was hoping for orders to Japan. I love it here, don’t get me wrong, but Japan is a dream.”
“You’ve still got time. And you can always hop a military flight and visit after you retire.”
“Ooh, that’s true. Well, someday, then.” He watched me, the passing scenery flickering across the edges of his glasses. “So what was the best part about living there?”
I thought about it. “I mean, for one thing, there’s the food…”