34. Alex
CHAPTER 34
ALEX
“H oly fuck .” I dropped onto Connor’s bed beside him, still vibrating all over from my orgasm.
He was trembling too, and he ran a shaking hand through his sweaty, disheveled hair. “I needed that.”
“Me too.” I caught my breath for a moment, then levered myself up. “Let me get rid of this. Be right back.”
He murmured something in acknowledgment as he reached for the tissues beside the bed. I took care of the condom, and then we shared a shower, which turned out to be something I’d missed almost as much as the sex. His hands all over me. His lips against mine or skating up the side of my neck. Hot water sliding through the tiny sliver of space between our bodies. We were too far past thirty to be getting turned on again this quickly, but that was fine. I loved everything about this, and I didn’t care that neither of us was in any danger of getting hard.
I pulled him in close and buried my face against his neck, ostensibly to kiss him in those places I knew he liked. That was part of it, but mostly I just needed to be close to him. I’d missed him, and I’d missed the heat of his body, and now I couldn’t get enough.
I want you so much more than you realize, and not just when we’re turned on.
That spooked me. It had since the first time it crossed my mind, and it still did even after we’d both admitted this was becoming more than casual. But I couldn’t bring myself to pull away. Yes, this scared me, but not enough to make me put any space between us.
“We should get out,” Connor murmured. “I think my butano tank is low.”
I chuckled and drew back. “Always at the worst possible time, isn’t it?”
“Always.” He kissed me, then turned off the water.
Houses in this country heated water using butane—which was butano in Spanish—and the tanks had to be changed out whenever they were empty. Of course, they always ran out right in the middle of a blissfully hot shower, either on my own or with this sexy man.
“I’ll swap out the tank before I make dinner,” he said. “Then we’ll have plenty of hot water for later.”
I grinned. “Sounds like a deal.”
For now, we dried off, left our towels in the bathroom, and retreated to the bed we’d thoroughly rumpled earlier. It was too hot to even pull a sheet up over us if we were touching each other, but that was fine by me; I’d take tangling up with Connor over pulling up the covers any day.
Just like in the shower, we were lazy and affectionate. Touching, kissing, holding on, but not winding each other up. Such a far cry from men I’d been with whose interest in me wilted along with their hard-ons after sex. Even after we’d stopped making out, he still stayed close, running his hand up down my arm as we lay in comfortable silence.
After a while, he spoke. “You said something the other night that I’m curious about.”
“I did?” I racked my brain, trying to think what I could’ve said. “What was it?”
“About your family.” He furrowed his brow. “You never talk about them. I don’t even know how many siblings you have.”
“Oh. I guess… I guess I haven’t told you much about them.”
He studied me curiously.
I cleared my throat. “I have a brother and a sister. They’re three and six years older.”
“Are you close to them?”
“Not really. My brother and I keep in touch off and on.” I laughed almost soundlessly. “I don’t count on him visiting me overseas any time soon. Not with six kids.”
“Six?” Connor whistled. “Holy shit. I was overwhelmed with two.”
“I know, right?” I chuckled. “But he had two with his first wife, and his current wife already had two, and then they decided to have two together. It’s, um… crowded.”
“I can imagine.” He held my gaze. “And the rest of your family—your parents—they haven’t been out here? The whole time you’ve been in Spain?”
I broke eye contact and swallowed. “No. They didn’t come to Japan either. They can afford it—I know they can—but there was always a reason why they couldn’t. Then with as excited as my mom was when I got the orders here, I thought for sure they’d visit, but…” I shook my head.
“Really?” When I met his gaze, I could see the confusion. The downright bewilderment. “You’ve been here for, what, two years?”
“Almost three,” I whispered.
He stared at me in horror.
“They love me,” I insisted. “I know they do. But even when I was in CONUS, they’ve… never exactly put a lot of effort into seeing me.”
“Because you’re so far away?”
I sighed. “My sister did an exchange program in college. Spent a year in London. My parents took my brother and me to see her, and we traveled around the UK a bit.” I shrugged. “I don’t know if they just aren’t into long-distance traveling anymore, or…”
Or if seeing me just isn’t high enough on their list.
I didn’t say that out loud. It hurt enough to think it. Especially the part where they’d barely put in the effort for semi-regular FaceTime calls.
Clearing my throat, I shifted a little on the mattress. “I sometimes think they might put more effort in if I had a partner, and especially if I had kids.”
Connor made a face. “They should want to come see you .”
I half-shrugged. What could I say?
“I mean,” he went on, “that would be like me going to visit Quinn and Savannah, but blowing off Landon because—well, he has a girlfriend now, but when he didn’t have one. Or not bothering to see Quinn and Savannah until they have kids. Quinn and Landon are still my kids .” He huffed sharply. “I can’t imagine just… thinking it wasn’t worth the effort to see them.”
I swallowed. That made perfect sense after hearing him talk about his boys and especially after seeing him with them. It was impossible to picture Connor blowing off either of them, never mind because one didn’t have a girlfriend or kids.
And holding up my family beside his… fuck. I loved my family, and I knew they loved me, but I didn’t much like the unflattering light this conversation was shining on them.
Connor cuddled closer to me and kissed my shoulder. “I’m sorry your family hasn’t prioritized you like they should.”
My throat tightened, and I closed my eyes as I laced our fingers together. “They do love me. I know they do.” Why did I sound like I was trying to convince myself, not him?
“I don’t doubt they do,” he said gently. “But it does sound like things are a bit… imbalanced.”
“They are,” I admitted. “And I’ve kind of tried to bring it up in the past, but I get shot down pretty quick.”
Connor shifted, and when I opened his eyes, he’d propped him up on his elbow and was gazing down at me, clearly puzzled. “Why’s that?”
I licked my lips. “My sister, mostly. Growing up, she always saw things as…” I thought about it. “Well, any time my brother or I asked for something, in her mind, it was always framed as us getting something she didn’t, or something being taken away from her. It…” I laughed. “It’s just the way she is, I guess. So like when I was home for Christmas and asked my parents if they might come visit me the following year, she started asking why I thought they shouldn’t come see her and her kids, and I…” Sighing, I rolled my eyes. “It just wasn’t worth fighting over, you know?”
“But they see your brother, don’t they? Is it an issue when they see him?”
I shook my head. “He lives closer to them, so they see him pretty often. Plus he has kids, so it would make sense for them to make the effort, even if it cuts into time spent with her kids. I’m just a childless bachelor. Who am I to selfishly take her kids’ grandparents away?”
“Good God. Did she also expect a present at other kids’ birthday parties?”
I snorted. “If that had been a thing in our generation, I guarantee she would have.” I paused. “In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she does that for her kids.”
“Oh my God,” he groaned. “Landon had a friend growing up whose parents always made sure he had a present at everyone else’s birthday party. My ex-wife came right out and asked how he was going to manage as an adult, and the mom just blew it off as, ‘he’s a kid, it’s not a big deal.’”
“Yeah?” I chuckled. “What’s he like now?”
“Probably as much of a hellspawn as he was back then,” Connor muttered. “That was when we lived in San Diego, and I don’t think Landon or Aimee kept in touch with the family.”
“Can’t imagine why.”
“I know, right?” He chuckled, but then he sobered and squeezed my hand. “Kind of sounds like what your parents did with your sister, honestly. Letting her go unchecked enough that she runs the show now.”
“Kind of,” I admitted. “And it’s just… I guess it’s easier to avoid conflict by not bringing it up. Even if I talk to my parents one-on-one, it’ll eventually get back to her when they start making plans, so…” I waved my other hand. “It’s like pulling teeth just to get them to FaceTime with me.”
Connor’s eyebrows jumped. “They don’t even FaceTime with you? When you’re this far away?”
I shrugged, not sure why this whole thing made me feel ashamed. “I don’t have grandkids for them to fawn over.”
Connor stared at me. “I can’t imagine not talking to my boys just because they don’t have kids. And I still can’t imagine your parents prioritizing your sister’s tantrums over coming to see their son.” He scoffed and shook his head. “If one of my boys took issue with me seeing his brother, we’d have a problem.”
That made sense. It made perfect sense. Connor fiercely loved both of his boys, and they quite clearly knew it.
“How did they get along as kids?” I asked, partly out of curiosity and partly to escape this topic.
He eyed me, and I had a feeling he recognized the subject change. Mercifully, he went with it. “Oh, they fought. They’re really close now, and Quinn and Savannah even offered to let Landon live with them while he was going to school. As teenagers, though?” He whistled, shaking his head. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah? That’s hard to picture.”
Connor groaned, wiping a hand over his face. “Oh my God. During my last shipboard deployment, I almost dreaded calling home because Aimee would be losing her mind over the boys fighting. She sent me a picture one day of Quinn with a black eye and Landon with a bloody nose, and she captioned it, ‘Tell me how your day was—I dare you.’”
“Oh, wow.” I laughed. “Okay, that sounds intense.”
“Right? But they mellowed, especially after Quinn graduated high school. Now you’d never know they ever had any sibling rivalry.”
“Aside from some brotherly shit-talking, right?”
“Well, yeah.” He chuckled. “Do brothers ever grow out of that?”
“Absolutely not.”
We both laughed, and then we fell quiet for a little while. I was relieved we’d left the topic of my parents behind. No matter how much I tried to tell myself it didn’t bother me, the nerve was raw.
Connor watched his thumb trace along mine. “You, um… You said something else the other night. That I’ve been thinking about a lot.”
My stomach tightened. “Yeah?” I knew what he meant this time. Felt it all the way to my core, especially when he met my gaze with those sweet, intense eyes.
“This really isn’t just casual anymore, is it?” he whispered.
I gulped. “Is that… Is that okay?” He’d indicated it was the other night, but what if he’d had time to think it through? What if he’d had time to come to his senses?
He let go of my hand and touched my face. “It scared me a little at first, but the more I think about it…” Oh, man, that smile never failed to make my spine tingle. “I like the idea.”
“You… You do?”
“Yeah. I mean, we spend all this time together. We talk about everything.” He grinned wickedly. “And that’s to say nothing about the sex.”
I laughed, but quickly sobered. “But keeping it on the DL…”
“It’s not forever,” he whispered. “We just keep doing what we’re doing for now. See what happens between us.” The grin broadened. “And then maybe after you retire, we can think about coming out.”
My heart was absolutely racing now. “But that’s still more than a year away.”
“I know.” He trailed his fingers along the shaved side of my head. “I can wait.”
The hope swelling in my chest was almost painful. “We’d have to do the long-distance thing then. After I get sent back to CONUS.”
He nodded and drew me in. “Pretty sure it’ll all be worth it in the end.”
Then his mouth claimed mine, and I absolutely melted against him.
Was this real? Did he really think we had a future?
And did he really want that future?
Or was it just the right thing to say in the moment?
God, please, let him be serious about this…
* * *
A few days after Connor’s kids left, we were back to our usual routine. He was still bummed out that they were gone, and I didn’t blame him, but he seemed to enjoy the time we spent together. If nothing else, it distracted him from their absence.
I could live with that. I just had to remember that was what was happening here. He insisted we could do the post-retirement long-distance thing until logistics allowed us to be in the same place, but that was easy to say. It was easy to imagine it being worthwhile, and it was probably a lot easier to fantasize about that than it was to think about his kids being a few thousand miles away.
I believed Connor liked me. I believed he enjoyed my company. It wasn’t that I thought he was lying or being disingenuous; I just couldn’t convince myself that when the rubber met the road, he’d still be onboard. When the same ocean between him and his boys was between him and me, we’d see how willing he was to hang on.
In the meantime, I’d enjoy everything we did, and when it was over… well, it would be over.
And it’s going to hurt, because I’m getting way too fucking invested in this.
Yeah, probably. But that was a problem for future Alex.
Present Alex, on the other hand, was grinning like an idiot, trying to get comfortable in my office chair with all those telltale aches and twinges bringing back memories of last night. I leaned back in my desk chair and sipped my coffee as every muscle reminded me of last night. Connor and I were both as vers as they came, but lately he’d been topping more often than not. No real reason beyond him wanting to fuck me and me wanting to get dicked down, and good God, did he leave me smiling every time.
I shivered, intensifying all those aches and twinges. We might have to take it easy tonight, if only to give our bodies—or at least my body—a break.
That would’ve been a disappointing thought with anyone else. With Connor? It just meant more hanging out on his couch or in his pool, talking over good food, and/or lazily kissing while a movie played without us. Sign me up.
Right then, the waiting room door opened, and I shook myself back into the present. I was still at work and had work to do.
Pediatric patients could sometimes be challenging because kids struggled to be still even when they weren’t sick, hurting, or otherwise uncomfortable. Plus some of them were scared of the noise made by the machinery. Then I made it all worse by asking them to get into even more uncomfortable positions. I made a lot of kids cry, and that was definitely not my favorite part of my job.
This little girl today was seven. She’d hurt her foot at the beach, and the pediatrician wanted to rule out any fractures. If I had to guess from the minimal swelling and bruising, she probably had a moderate sprain, but it was always best to check. Unfortunately, that meant she had to lie back with her heel on the table and her toes up, and that wasn’t comfortable at all. The lateral view—with her leg and ankle on their side—was even worse. She’d been determinedly stoic and brave when she walked in, but by the time I was finished, her eyes were brimming with tears.
She was still trying to be brave, though, fighting back those tears and working her jaw so hard it had to hurt almost as much as her foot.
After she’d sat up, I said, “You know, I get big tough soldiers in here. Marines. All those guys.”
She looked up at me, eyelashes dotted with some of the tears that had escaped.
I smiled. “They cry sometimes. Did you know that?”
Her red eyes widened. “Really?”
“Yep. When it hurts, it hurts. Doesn’t matter who you are.” I patted her shoulder. “It’s okay to cry if it hurts.”
Some kids completely fell apart when I said that. Some just sort of exhaled and relaxed, letting the tears fall without shame but not like sobbing or anything. That’s what this kid did—her neck and shoulders unwound, and her jaw relaxed. The tears she was fighting back fell, and she released a long, ragged breath.
Her mom, who’d come back into the room once I was done taking the X-rays, met my gaze. “Thank you,” she mouthed.
I just offered a smile. I wished I could give her daughter a piece of candy or something. I kept a bowl of fun-size candy bars in the office for exactly that reason, but on the off chance her X-rays came back with a displaced fracture, she could need surgery. Or the doctor might give her pain meds that could upset her stomach. Best not to take the risk.
Her mom and I helped her into the wheelchair she’d come up in, and a moment later, another corpsman came by to take them back down to her pediatrician.
I returned to my office to send her X-rays to the pediatrician. A quick glance confirmed what I’d suspected—no fractures. Good. Poor kid’s day had already been shitty; she didn’t need a cast, crutches, and an order of “no getting in the water at the beach for a couple of months” on top of it.
I sent off the X-rays, and I was just about to check my email when the waiting room door opened again. It was going to be one of those days, apparently.
Well, being busy made the day go by faster, so whatever.
It was definitely one of those days. For a solid three hours, there may as well have been a revolving door on Radiology, and I even ended up with a few people in the waiting area. I got called down to the emergency department twice, and for a hot minute I considered calling the other tech or my chief to come in and help.
I kept it under control, though, and I didn’t keep anyone waiting too long. My already tired body wasn’t thrilled about it, and some of those aches and twinges were getting more uncomfortable than amusing, but… eh. Could’ve been worse. My job kept that in sharp perspective, too; I really couldn’t complain to an aircraft maintainer who’d taken a fall that landed him in the ER with three broken ribs and a concussion. Or the sixteen-year-old whose fractured tibia hadn’t healed as well as she’d hoped, and she was going to spend a few more weeks in a cast. Or the XO from one of the ships who’d taken a tumble down a ladder and broken his collarbone.
By about 1530, things had wound down a little. I finished with a civilian contractor who had suspected pneumonia (more than “suspected” from what I saw on that chest X-ray), and my waiting area was empty. There were no summons to the emergency room. HM2 Fox would be arriving soon, too, so there’d be two of us until my shift was over. Nice.
I was just sending off some images to Orthopedics when the door swung open again.
I rose and stepped out of the office, fully expecting another patient (or Fox arriving early), but?—
“So you’re not answering texts anymore?” Tobias glared at me.
I halted in the doorway. “I—excuse me?”
“I’ve texted you half a dozen times today, and you haven’t even read them.”
I blinked, needing a second to process this. Then I shook myself. “I’m sorry, am I obligated to get back to you by a certain?—”
“You’re ignoring me,” he declared.
There was a time when I’d have insisted that, no, I wasn’t. I really wasn’t! And I’d show him—look! See all these patients today? The summonses to the ER? I hadn’t even had time to look at my personal phone, never mind ignore his texts.
But the longer I was away from him—and especially the longer I was with Connor—the less willing I was to be Tobias’s doormat.
I affected boredom and sighed. “Well, you’ve got me now.” I spread my arms. “What was so important that I needed to reply to your texts?”
He glared at me. “I just think it’s impolite to ignore someone.”
I shrugged. “It’s impolite to keep texting someone who hasn’t answered, so…”
Tobias’s jaw worked.
“What is it you want?” I asked, letting the testiness into my voice, something I wouldn’t have dared done even a few months ago. “I’ve got work to do.”
“Yeah. Sure you do.” He made a big show of looking around the otherwise deserted waiting room. “You’re real busy, aren’t you?”
I refused to give him the irritated reaction he was digging for. “Oh, you sweet summer child. Have you really been discharged for so long that you’ve forgotten how much the military loves its paperwork?”
“I do plenty of paperwork,” he snapped. “Just because I’m not active duty anymore doesn’t mean I don’t do the same kind of work.”
“Okay, then that means you know why I’ve been busy and why I have shit to do. So could you please tell me why you’re?—”
“I just want to know why you’ve been spending so much time in Sanlúcar.”
I froze, realizing a heartbeat too late how conspicuous my reaction was.
A sly grin spread across his lips. “I mean, I know it’s not far from Chipiona, but you never seemed to want to go there when we were dating.”
I half-shrugged. “I explored it a bit and decided I like it out there.”
“Uh-huh. You sure have.”
I narrowed my eyes, pretending my blood hadn’t turned to ice. “What can I say? It’s more fun to explore it on my own than it would’ve been with you.”
“On your own.” The grin widened. “Yeah, I bet it’s been on your own, hasn’t it?”
Oh, fuck …
I cocked a brow, still trying to appear unaffected. Then I sighed with theatrical boredom and checked the clock on the wall. “Look, I really do have a ton of work to do. So whatever it is you’re trying to dangle over my head—just say it so we can be done with this.”
“I think you know exactly what it is.”
Fuck, fuck, fuuuck…
“No.” I shrugged. “I have no idea what you’re getting at, and I?—”
“You’re screwing Lieutenant Commander Marks, aren’t you?”
I choked on nothing, but masked it with a laugh. “What? That’s your big Sword of Damocles?” I rolled my eyes even as my heart slammed against my ribs. “I’ll give you props, Tobias. You’re creative, especially when it comes to bullshit.”
“It isn’t bullshit and we both know it.”
“Oh yeah?” I threw him a challenging look even as my insides twisted in on themselves. “How, pray tell, do you know?”
He sniffed indignantly. “You’re not nearly as subtle as you think.”
I rolled my eyes again because I knew how much that pissed him off. “You’re full of shit, Tobias. And I have work to do. So how about…” I gestured at the door.
He glared at me. “We both know I’m right.” He stepped closer, farther into my space than I ever wanted him to be again, and he added in a low growl, “Maybe you should’ve thought twice about dumping me and ignoring me.”
And then he was gone, the waiting area door swinging shut behind him before I’d even made sense of everything.
That…
That was not good.
I had no idea how much he’d actually seen. I’d been careful to make sure he didn’t follow me, since that had always been a possibility. Had I let my guard down? Been so caught up in seeing Connor that I got complacent? Hell. Maybe. I’d never noticed him behind me, but maybe he had tailed me.
Did that mean he’d personally witnessed me coming or going from Connor’s house? Had he just seen me in the area? Had he caught a glimpse of us sharing a flirty look as we passed in the halls and decided to fish for a reaction? That was the worst part—without knowing how much he knew, I couldn’t shut him down without potentially confirming something he only suspected.
Fuck my life.
I rubbed my eyes and exhaled into the silence of the waiting area. Connor and I were going to have to have a conversation. If it spooked him into ending things with me, then I really couldn’t blame him. I’d known from the start he was only going to risk so much just to sleep with me and deal with my nightmares. Even after he’d said this felt like more, even after he’d floated the idea of continuing after I retired—he was going to drop me like the hot mess I was once he knew someone had caught our scent. Especially when he knew who had caught our scent.
Some part of me wanted to wait until after we’d fooled around tonight. Just enjoy one last roll in the hay with him before he knew how close we were to being outed.
I couldn’t do that to him, though. I couldn’t ask him to take a bigger risk than he already knew he was.
My heart sank deeper into the pit of my stomach.
I had to tell him. Tonight.
And just knowing that conversation was coming…
I already missed him.