Chapter 27 - Melvin #2
He watched, breath held, as Mac slicked himself, his fist moving in long, slow pulls. Thick and hard, the head flushed dark, a bead of pre-come glistening. The sight of it made Melvin’s mouth water.
“Come here,” Mac said, voice a command and a plea.
He guided Melvin by the hips, positioning him. The blunt head pressed against him.
Melvin took a deep, steadying breath, eyes locked on Mac’s. He lowered himself slowly, letting the stretch burn through him.
He felt Mac fill him.
Overwhelming. Claiming.
Melvin sank down until he was fully seated, Mac buried inside him. They both went still. Mac’s hands were vise-tight on his hips. Melvin could feel the frantic beat of Mac’s heart through where they were joined.
“Melvin,” Mac gasped, face a mask of strained control. The wolf in his eyes was right there, close to the surface.
Melvin leaned down, capturing Mac’s mouth in a searing kiss. He began to move, a slow lift of his hips followed by a steady sinking back down. The drag was exquisite. Mac’s hips jerked up to meet him, and the rhythm settled between them, deep and relentless, perfectly matched.
Melvin heard only their breathing, the wet slide of skin, the soft creak of the bed. Mac’s hands roamed him, mapping his back, gripping his ass, pulling him down harder.
“You know I want to see your eyes,” Mac growled.
Melvin snapped his eyes open. Mac’s gaze was fierce, possessive, with a depth that hit like a physical force.
“My mate,” Mac whispered, the words a vow.
He thrust up hard.
Melvin cried out, “My alpha,” and the pleasure crested sharp and bright.
The coil inside him snapped. Melvin came with a broken shout, his release striping Mac’s chest and his own stomach in hot pulses.
The clenching of his body pulled Mac over the edge.
Mac’s hips stuttered, a final deep thrust, and he spilled inside him with a ragged groan, his body bowing off the bed.
They collapsed together in a tangle of limbs, slick with sweat and spend. Mac was still inside him, softening. Melvin lay half on top of him, his face buried in the crook of Mac’s neck, breathing him in.
Mac’s hand came up, fingers carding slowly through Melvin’s hair. His other arm was a solid band across Melvin’s back, holding him close.
Neither spoke.
The two-hour clock was ticking somewhere in the fabric of this place, but here, in the warm aftermath, time felt suspended.
For now, there was only this. The beat of a heart under his ear. The scent of his alpha. The perfect, unbreakable silence.
After a while Mac shifted beneath him and pressed a quiet kiss to Melvin’s hair.
“Let’s go,” he said softly.
They left the shack together, the carved symbols fading into shadow behind them.
Morning came too quickly.
Melvin didn’t wake so much as surface. The base was beginning again. He lay still long enough to feel the imprint of the night in his body. Moonlight. Wind. Mac’s thumb against his scar like a promise repeated.
When he dressed and stepped out, he caught a glimpse of Mac across the corridor, already moving, already composed, like sleep hadn’t touched him at all. Melvin read the set of his shoulders anyway. Whatever had eased last night hadn’t stayed eased.
Briefing room, 0800. Captain Baxter stood at the front of the TOC, flipping through a stack of fielding orders as the platoon leaders took their seats. Melvin slid into his chair. Mac took the one beside him. Their knees nearly touched. Almost.
Baxter waited for the room to settle and then said, “New rotation schedule starts this week. Forward operations shift. Third Platoon will begin joint patrols with the 103rd Infantry Regiment starting tomorrow. Second Platoon will manage traffic control points and all MP support ops here at Al Asad.”
Across the table, Mac’s pen paused mid-word. Melvin kept his eyes on the projected map. No reaction. Just the job.
Baxter continued over the low hum of the fan. “The 103rd’s tempo is aggressive, but they specifically requested us. That means we’re being watched and evaluated from day one. Any questions?”
Silence.
Baxter’s eyes swept the room and then, clearly, “You’ll be representing the company. What you do out there reflects on all of us.”
His gaze passed over Mac, then Melvin, measured, neutral, a single nod.
“Carry on.”
Outside the TOC the sun was already brutal, beating down with that dry, unforgiving heat that made everything feel harder than it needed to be.
Melvin stood still, patrol cap in one hand, squinting at the too-blue sky like it might offer answers.
Mac stepped beside him, close enough to feel like intention, not accident.
“You holding up?” Mac asked, quiet and even.
Melvin didn’t answer right away. “Yeah,” he said eventually. “Just processing.”
A pause. The kind that held more than silence.
They stood side by side, shadows long and sharp in the dust, until Melvin asked, “So. Joint patrols.”
Mac nodded. “You’ll be bouncing around. Different battle rhythm.”
“Fewer check-ins.”
“Yeah.”
Melvin looked over, searching his face. “You gonna be okay with that?”
Mac didn’t look away. “Not really.”
Melvin gave him a small, tired smile. “Me either.”
For a moment the world narrowed. Just them in the sun under the weight of everything they couldn’t say, but the job didn’t care. You carried what you could. You left the rest behind. They didn’t touch. They didn’t linger. They just stood there, and then they moved.
Later that evening, word traveled fast. Melvin heard it low in the chow hall.
Someone from another company muttering, “Alpha’s getting too cozy with the grunts,” someone else laughing, someone mentioning Hayes.
Not overt. Not yet. Melvin didn’t flinch, but he felt it anyway.
That quiet tightening in the room when a rumor found a spine.
He didn’t see Mac at the DFAC that night.
Sleep didn’t come easy. Melvin lay staring at the ceiling until the fan’s hum became its own kind of torture. Sometime in the hours before dawn he heard boots in the corridor, a door opening and closing with too much care.
By the time he got dressed and stepped out into the cool night air, he already knew where he was going. The wire fence, the same path, the same crate, unchanged and completely different.
He saw Mac first. Silhouette against the thin strip of starlight, shoulders rigid, gaze fixed on the horizon like the answer was written out there.
Melvin climbed up beside him and settled in.
“You holding up?” he asked softly.
Mac didn’t answer right away. Then: “Not really.”
Melvin angled his body slightly, reading the tension in Mac’s shoulders, the way his hands curled like he was bracing for impact. “Dream?” Melvin asked.
Mac nodded.
“Want to talk about it?”
“No,” Mac said, and then, softer, “Yes.”
Melvin waited.
“I dreamt you left,” Mac said. “You walked away. And I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Melvin said gently.
“You were already gone.”
Silence again. Melvin reached out, took Mac’s hand, and brought it to his cheek, right where the scar lived. Warm and present.
“See?” Melvin said softly. “I’m still here.”
Mac swallowed hard, and then the next words came heavy. “Baxter knows.”
Melvin’s breath caught. He kept Mac’s hand against his face anyway and didn’t pull away.
“I told him,” Mac said quietly. “Yesterday. After the morning command brief. In his office.”
Melvin held steady. “How’d he take it?”
Mac’s voice cracked. “Better than I expected. He said I’m a good officer. Said the rest is just humanity.”
Something in Melvin’s chest loosened, anger and relief tangled together. “He’s right.”
Mac stared out into the dark. “I didn’t know if I should tell you.”
“Thank you for telling me now,” Melvin said.
Mac lowered his hand, but he didn’t let go. Their fingers stayed linked.
“I respect him,” Mac said. “More than I’ve said. When I came here, I was carrying things I didn’t think anyone needed to see. He gave me space to lead. To show up without explaining every scar.”
Melvin listened, throat tight.
“And I told him,” Mac continued, voice low and steady. “I told him I’m gay. And that you and I, it’s not just rumors. It’s real. And we’ve done everything we can to stay within regs. But I didn’t want it coming from someone else if it got louder.”
Melvin didn’t blink. Didn’t move. He just kept breathing.
“What did he say?” Melvin asked.
Mac’s mouth twitched once, humorless. “He said, ‘Okay.’”
Melvin let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
“He told me I hadn’t compromised the mission,” Mac went on. “Said I’d led with discipline. Said I’d earned his trust. Said I didn’t owe him that truth, but he was glad I brought it to him.”
Melvin nodded slowly. “And advice?”
Mac’s eyes stayed on the horizon. “Be solid. Be careful. Don’t give them anything they can twist.”
Melvin’s jaw tightened. “And if it stops being safe?”
Mac’s voice was quiet. “He said to go straight to him, no chain of command and no delay.”
That sat between them for a moment, heavy and real. Melvin stayed close enough for Mac to feel, not close enough to give anyone a clean picture if the wrong set of eyes cut across the dark.
Eventually the sky began to pale and the night softened into morning, and they climbed down in silence.
They didn’t talk much on the walk back. They moved in step through the pre-dawn quiet, boots scraping gravel, shoulders brushing now and then, neither pulling away. They were almost back when Mac finally spoke.
“What happens next?”
Melvin didn’t answer right away, not avoiding, finding the words. “We go back in,” he said. “Same way we always do.”
Mac nodded. “Just feels different now.”
“It is,” Melvin said. “When we helped Laird, we stopped hiding, even just a little. That’s a line you can’t walk back.”
They passed a row of Humvees, silent and hulking in the dark. The barracks loomed ahead.
“I’m not asking for anything special,” Mac said. “I just don’t want to keep acting like it isn’t real.”