21. Connor
CHAPTER 21
CONNOR
T hough Alex and I couldn’t spend as much time together as we would’ve liked, we did the best we could. We also made good on our decision to explore Spain together. Whenever we had a free weekend, we’d take off somewhere—Málaga, Toledo, some towns I’d never heard of. The day we spent exploring the Alhambra was utterly incredible (and I couldn’t complain about how we spent the following night, either).
We also took advantage of the late sunsets to take some short day trips after work. We couldn’t risk exploring places like El Puerto, Cádiz, or even Jerez together because not every American stayed on-base. There was too much opportunity to be seen by someone we knew.
If we drove a little farther, though? Nobody.
I’d seen photos of Setenil de las Bodegas, the town built under the rocky overhang of a giant cliff, and that turned out to be about ninety minutes away. Nearby was Ronda, which still had an enormous and impressive Roman bridge. There was also the tiny hilltop town of Arcos de la Frontera, and we found some cool churches as well as ruins from the Moorish, Roman, and even Phoenician eras.
I loved the history, the architecture, the scenery, but also the company. We drove separately just to make sure no one saw us together, which was annoying, but as soon as we were together, we talked nonstop. About where we were. About the Navy. About life. And, when we had enough relative privacy, what we’d do once we were alone.
I loved it. I just fucking loved it. Every last minute, even when I was driving back by myself, because I’d spend the whole ride smiling like an idiot and thinking about Alex.
I really wanted to go to Morocco, which was only about three hours away by car and ferry, but that required some clearances from our command. Traveling within Spain was easy, even if we needed to get an out-of-bounds chit for some of the farther places. Those chits were signed off by different people, and nobody really cared. If two people put in requests to visit Morocco at the same time, though, the clearance requests would likely both land on the same person’s desk. Maybe that person wouldn’t care, or maybe he’d ask questions about why an officer and an enlisted service member wanted to take the same ferry to the same city at the same time. And there were two opportunities for someone to get suspicious—the person who signed off on requests to go to Morocco, and the person who signed off on requests to go to Africa.
So we decided to hold off on Morocco. And anyway, my sons were begging me to take them, so I’d wait until they visited.
“There’s also that part about being two dudes traveling to a country where homosexuality is illegal,” Alex pointed out one night. “Most people don’t really pay enough attention to notice or care one way or the other, and I’m like ninety-nine percent sure my tour guides in Marrakech were a gay couple. But I’d rather not explain things to the Moroccan authorities or our commands if someone does decide they care.”
That was a reasonable point. There were places in the U.S. where I wouldn’t be out and proud, and I wasn’t going to gamble with my safety in another country either, with or without someone I was already traveling with on the sly.
So… Morocco could wait until September.
We were also making plans to take off to other parts of Europe, especially since we could be reasonably sneaky about the leave chits. We’d probably just blend into the larger stack of people making similar requests. That seemed like a contradiction, given how reluctant Americans were to leave overseas bases, but it was true. For all they didn’t explore off-base very much, quite a few did go to the big tourist magnets. Especially the seasonal ones. So Dr. Marks and HM1 Barlow were both going to Prague in December to check out the Christmas markets? So was half the base. One of us was heading to Florence, Rome, and Naples while the other was visiting friends in Gaeta (which was between Naples and Rome) before heading to Pompeii (which was right next to Naples)? A lot of people went to Italy after the summer heat died down. And who wasn’t heading to Munich for Oktoberfest?
Traveling in Europe required a lot less paperwork and scrutiny than going to Africa, and more service members and families stayed within the continent for various reasons, so it didn’t really raise eyebrows if people ventured out into the rest of the EU. As long as we weren’t on the same flights or staying in the same hotels (on paper, anyway), we could fly under the radar.
Hopefully.
For now, we were sticking to Spain. A lot of coworkers were taking leave, especially those with kids who were enjoying their summer off from school. While everyone we knew spent their off time cooling down at the beach, we met everywhere we could, from Valencia to Sevilla, still being discreet and keeping our heads down.
So far, so good. And the more we did this, the less I was actually concerned about us getting caught. At work, we interacted on a purely professional level, though we might exchange grins now and then when we passed in the hall. Really, unless we did something to brazenly draw attention to ourselves, no one was going to notice and no one was going to care.
As we got into the scorching days of August, I couldn’t deny that any thrill I’d gotten out of doing something forbidden—and there hadn’t been much—was long gone. The thrill was in being with Alex. The sex, the long conversations, the jaunts to various parts of Spain, the plans for more adventurous trips later in the year—I lived for that. After the loneliness of my separation had been compounded with the isolation of overseas orders, I craved his company as much as I craved the orgasms we drew out of each other.
There was only one thing missing, though, and it had nothing to do with wishing we didn’t have to keep this a secret. Even on our brief trips out of town, we still stayed in separate hotels, ostensibly in case someone who knew us saw us. And when he came to my house, he was always gone not long after the sun went down.
Lying beside him in my bed, still tingling all over from being ridden into the mattress, I curled closer to him. Sliding a hand over his thigh, I whispered, “It’s getting late.”
Alex sighed, trailing his knuckles along my chest. “I know.”
“You, um…” I swallowed, then pushed myself up on my elbow to look at him. “You don’t have to go.”
He blinked. “I… But I should go.”
“You shouldn’t be here at all,” I said dryly, “but I think that ship has long since sailed.”
His laugh was almost soundless. “Okay, fair. But staying…” His humor faded as he chewed his lip.
“You don’t have to. Just… You’re already here. There’s no reason you can’t stay all night. If you want to stay, I mean.”
“I do, but…” Alex’s face colored, and he avoided my gaze. “I, um… It’s not…” He swallowed hard. “Keeping things on the downlow isn’t the only reason I haven’t suggested staying over or rooming together when we travel.”
“Is that right?”
He nodded but didn’t elaborate.
I found his hand and laced our fingers together. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah. It’s…” He took a deep breath and finally faced me. “Look, you’ve been to combat. You know what it does to…” He gestured at his head.
“Of course I do.” Then the piece clicked into place. “Nightmares?”
Grimacing, he nodded and dropped his gaze again. “They don’t happen all the time. But when they do…”
“It’s bad?”
“It can be, yeah.”
I squeezed his hand. “Mine too.”
He looked in my eyes. “Yeah?”
“Mmhmm. I haven’t seen combat in about fifteen years… unless you count what I see at night.”
Alex swallowed again. “Still rough?”
“Oh yeah. It can be pretty bad.”
“So you get it.”
“I do.” I squeezed his hand. “If you’re worried I’ll be annoyed if one of your nightmares wakes us up—I mean, it’s just as likely to happen the other way around.”
His brow pinched as he studied me. “And you… you want me to stay over?”
I was kind of caught off guard by how vehemently I almost said, “Yes!” Because… yes, I really wanted him to stay over. Just the thought of falling asleep and waking up beside him made me ache with a longing I absolutely didn’t expect. It was something akin to what I’d felt during those long deployments—that cold, lonely, homesick feeling that was almost as hard to sleep through as all my psychological combat souvenirs.
I tamped down the impulse to plead with him, and I just nodded and quietly said, “Yeah. I do.” The uncertainty lingered in his eyes, so I pressed a kiss to the heel of his hand and whispered, “If one of us has a nightmare, we’ll deal with it. I, um…” I stared down at our hands. “I don’t want to put anyone through that, but I won’t lie—it’s always easier to go back to sleep when there’s someone else there.”
I cringed inwardly, sure Alex was going to balk.
Way to go, Connor—make it sound like you just want him here in case you have a fucking nightmare.
I opened my mouth to take it back, but Alex beat me to the punch.
“I wouldn’t know,” he said softly. “If it’s easier with someone else, I mean. I just… I’m always afraid of scaring someone. Or fucking up their sleep. Or…” He sighed and shook his head. “It’s… not really an aphrodisiac, either.”
“An aphrodisiac?” I looked at him again, not sure how to read the creases in his forehead or the color that bloomed in his cheeks. I caught on, though. “You think it makes you unattractive?”
The color deepened, and he nodded. With a bitter laugh, he said, “I can’t imagine it’s a turn-on.”
“Do you think it makes me unattractive?”
His jaw snapped shut and his eyes widened. “What? No! Of course not!”
I inclined my head and raised my eyebrows.
He held my gaze. Then he huffed a quiet, self-conscious laugh as the tension melted out of his features. “Okay, okay. Point taken.” Running his thumb along mine, he said, “I, uh… If you’re serious, I have an overnight bag in my car.” He paused, then quickly added, “You know, for duty nights.”
“I figured that was what it was for. And yes, I’m serious.”
His smile made my toes curl. So did the prospect of sharing my bed with him tonight instead of trying to fall asleep alone after he’d gone.
“Okay.” He pushed himself up and kissed me lightly. “I’ll go get my bag.”
I chuckled as I ran my hand over his hip. “You might want to put on some shorts.”
He glanced down at himself, then met me with a ridiculously innocent expression. “You want me to cover this up?”
“I mean, if you want to go streaking across my yard while the sun’s still up…”
Alex snorted. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
I rolled my eyes and gave his ass a playful slap. “Just go get your shit.”