Chapter 29
H arper snatched her phone off the coffee table at the first ring of the video chat alert. She fumbled with the icons once but in seconds was treated to the face she had been missing.
“Hi, baby.” Luke looked exhausted.
It had been two long weeks since Aldo got hurt, and Luke’s reluctance to video chat told Harper that he wasn’t dealing well. Seeing his face confirmed her suspicion, and her heart hurt for him.
“Hey there, handsome. How are you?” Harper sat back on the couch, hugging a pillow to her chest.
“I’m okay. How’s my girl?”
“I miss you.” She fought back the tears that welled up. Seeing him intensified everything. “I’m worried about you.”
He sighed under the weight of the world. “Baby, I’m fine. Everything’s okay.”
“Look, I know you’re not much of a talker. But I can’t have you stumbling around half a world away fucking things up because you’re distracted by a misplaced sense of responsibility and guilt.”
He blinked. Luke’s mouth opened and then closed.
“I see I have your attention,” Harper said primly.
“I would say so.”
“Luke, do you think there is any way that Aldo blames you for what happened?”
He sighed. “No.”
“In fact, he’s probably already told you that you’re not to blame.”
Luke stared off. “Fine. Yes.”
It was like trying to get answers out of a brick wall… or a basement. “Great. So did you place the IED there?”
He rolled his eyes at her. “No. ”
“Did you tell Aldo to drive over it?”
“No.”
“Did you know it was there and not tell him?”
“No. Harper?—”
“Not done, yet. So logically you can agree with the entire rest of the world that you are not to blame.”
He sat stoically without moving for a few seconds. “Was that not rhetorical?”
“Luke, it hurts me to see you hurt like this. I don’t know how to help you.”
“Harper, baby, you can’t make it better. I get what you’re saying. I know that I’m not to blame. But I feel responsible for my friend. His life and the lives of everyone in this unit are in my hands. If I don’t lead responsibly, people can and do get hurt. People die.”
“Aldo didn’t die.”
“No, but others have.”
The men he lost before, Harper remembered.
“I lost good men because we had bad intel. Ultimately that responsibility lies on my shoulders.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Am I to blame? No. But I’m the leader of this unit, and that makes me responsible for everything that happens within it.”
It was Harper’s turn for silence.
His sigh was heavy. “All I know is I can’t get the blood out of my head. I saw it happen, and we started running towards the truck. He was just lying there in a fucking river of blood.” Luke stared down at his hands as if seeing it again. Harper shuddered.
“I thought he was dead. I thought I lost my best friend right in front of me. And it made me think of everyone else I’d lost. All that I have to lose and how it can just be taken in a heartbeat.” He looked up at her.
Harper wiped away the silent tears coursing down her cheeks and wished she could touch him.
“I felt helpless. ”
“He’s going to be okay.”
“He got really fucking lucky, Harper. So many times it doesn’t go that way.”
“I need to know that you carrying this on your shoulders isn’t going to make you do something stupid.”
“Like what?”
“I’m new to this military thing, but I assume you have plenty of poor choice options, like going on a rampage, developing a drinking problem, getting careless.”
He sighed and smiled a little. “I’m not going to do any of those things.”
“I know you won’t. I just need some reassurance that you’ll take care of yourself. I need you to come home safe and sane.”
“I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that happens,” Luke told her.
“That’s all I ask.” She swiped a hand under her eyes. “Isn’t it the middle of the night there?”
Luke smiled. “It’s the only way I can get this place to myself.” He turned his laptop around, giving her a view of his tiny room.
It was Harper’s turn to smile. Intensely private at home and at war.
“Good, that means you can take your shirt off so I can lick my screen.”
That got a real smile out of him and even a hint of dimple. “Baby, if one of us is taking our shirts off, it’s going to be you.”
“Well, if you insist.” Harper tugged her tank top up and flashed him.
She watched those hazel eyes go dark as he set his jaw. She wondered if he had any idea how sexy he was.
“Do you know what torture it is to be able to see you and not touch you?” His voice was raspy, low.
She felt her color rise. “I miss your hands on me. I feel so empty without you touching me. We only had a little time before. But when you were inside me, I felt like all the pieces of me were stuck back together.”
He growled. “Baby, you can’t talk like that when I’m seven thousand miles away.” His hands cruised the back of his head. “God you get me hard even through a shitty video connection. I miss you so fucking much.”
Harper closed her eyes and nodded. “Back at you, Captain.”
“Every time I think about fucking you, I go to the gym. I’m going to need to size up in shirts soon. My bench PR is up 15 pounds already.”
“That’s hot,” Harper teased. “You’re gonna give Aldo a run for his money when you both get home.”
“Have you heard when he’s coming home?”
Harper shook her head. “We’ve exchanged a handful of emails. He thinks it’ll be sooner rather than later. Has he mentioned Gloria to you?”
“I’ve only heard from him twice. Once to assure me he was alive and that I better not be moping around about it, and the other to show me a picture of his surgeon in Germany who looked like Wolverine from X-Men .”
“Gloria’s emailed him twice now and hasn’t heard back. I asked him point blank if he got them, and he ignored me.”
Luke shrugged. “I’m sure he’s got a lot on his mind.”
Harper was sure he did, too. And that’s what worried her.
“Show me again,” Luke ordered.
“Show you what?”
“Your perfect tits.”
She wondered if she’d ever stop blushing when he talked to her like that. “You’re sure you’re alone?”
“The Wi-Fi signal is strong enough to work in quarters tonight. I’m all alone, baby. Show me.”
His voice sounded like gravel but still felt like satin on her skin. Harper bit her lip and pulled her tank top up and over her head, baring her breasts to the screen. “Are we going to?— ”
“Quiet,” he ordered. “I want you to do exactly what I tell you.”
Harper nodded breathlessly. Even from thousands of miles away, he could make her wet enough to soak through her underwear. She angled the phone so he could see more of her.
“Good girl. Now take your shorts off.”
She leaned her phone against one of the couch pillows and stood, shimmying out of her shorts.
“Fuck, baby,” Luke sighed, his gaze glued to the screen. Harper ran a finger over the edge of her light blue cotton briefs.
“Get on your hands and knees on the couch. Face me.”
She slid back onto the cushion bracing her weight on her hands. Her breasts hung down, and she ached for his mouth on her sensitive peaks.
“Luke, I want to see you.” It was a whisper, but it carried across the miles.
He paused for just a moment and then Harper heard the rip of Velcro. A second later, Luke pulled off his shirt and angled the screen down, and she could see what she had been missing for weeks.
Even gripped in Luke’s big fist, his cock looked huge. Harper felt the ache deep inside her core start to pulse with need. She wanted to feel his erection drive into her, stretching her walls as it invaded her.
“I’d give anything to be inside you right now, Harper.” He stroked his hand down his hard-on. “I want you to touch yourself.”
She hesitated.
“Go ahead, baby. Pretend it’s my hands on you.”
She took a shaky breath and brought her palm to her breast where it hung. The growl from her phone told her Luke liked what he saw. She took her nipple between her thumb and finger and tugged it down in a leisurely pace that matched Luke’s strokes.
“Baby—” The audio crackled and went silent, but the video feed remained.
Harper pointed to her ear. “I can’t hear you. Can you hear me?”
Luke pointed at his ear and shook his head. But his other hand stayed gripping his erection. Understanding, Harper slid her hand back down to her breast. She rolled and tugged the nipple, pretending it was Luke’s mouth teasing her.
She saw him increase the pace ever so slightly, wondering if there was a drop of moisture that so often appeared from the slit in the broad head of his penis. She licked her lips and slid her hand lower into her underwear.
She should have been feeling embarrassed. She wasn’t an exhibitionist. But right then, all she wanted to do was see Luke stroke himself to climax across his chiseled abs and chest.
Her lips parted as her fingers found the slick wetness between her folds.
Her bud was already straining for contact.
Harper shifted her weight back and brought her free hand to her other breast. She squeezed and saw Luke’s eyes narrow.
His fist slammed down the length of his cock as he pumped himself in his own hand.
Harper’s fingers circled her clitoris in a frantic pace, a race to the finish.
She felt the need for release blossom inside her. It bloomed as she drove her fingers into her wet channel. She opened her mouth to say his name and saw he was with her. The first rope of cum unleashed across his stomach. It was her name on his lips as a second and a third exploded from him.
She felt herself close around her fingers as they came together.