Ramsey’s kisses are exactly what I need. They’ve been what I’ve needed for a long time, but I didn’t even know it. I was keeping my feelings, my loneliness, all bottled up. Now I open up to him, as he removes my uniform and then my bra, and his hands trace over my breasts.

“You’re beautiful,” he says. “Stunning.”

He wraps his hands around my waist and his fingers slowly trace their way up to the curve of my breasts.

“Wow.”

He moves his hands up and down my body, feeling me all over urgently yet slowly, as if he’s never felt anything like me before, and then he takes off my panties. I reach up to help him out of his uniform and admire his muscular, tattooed chest and arms.

I don’t have the lovely words like he has. I just have a million racing thoughts, about how good this feels and how badly I want it. I can barely hold back my excitement, and I feel weak, almost embarrassed, next to Ramsey’s quiet yet somehow eloquent strength.

I want him in me, on me, all around me. I can barely think at all, but suddenly a rational thought does break through.

“Ramsey,” I whisper. “Do you have a…”

“Oh shit.” He stops kissing my stomach and takes a deep breath.

“I have condoms, but they’re in the bathroom,” he says. “I’ll go get them but I don’t know if it’ll wake my mom…”

“It’s not an issue of… pregnancy,” I tell him, trying to be careful of how I word things.

We may have just had a really deep conversation and we may be in the middle of an intimate act, but I’m not ready to go into that with him, or anyone.

“Okay,” he says, sounding relieved. “I just had my tests done last week, and everything is clear…”

“Me too. Well, pretty recently.”

I’d definitely been tested since I’d last been with anyone, at least, but that’s been a while, and it’s another thing I don’t exactly wish to discuss with him. Some things are too painful and pointless to get into when two people know they’re only going to be together for just one night.

“All right,” he says, his breath quickening again as he lays me down on his bed. “But anyway, you were jumping the gun.”

“I was?”

“All I want to do is taste you,” he says, his mouth moving lower, slowly, as he kisses my breasts, my nipples, my stomach, my thighs.

I sigh as his tongue flicks the outside of my vagina.

“I want to taste your pussy so bad,” he says, and spreads my legs out with his hands.

Pussy, I think.

I like the way he says it.

I like the way he touches it.

I raise myself up a bit, to meet his mouth, and his tongue gently licks my pussy hole.

“Oh my god,” I say, grabbing a hold of his thick, gorgeous brown hair.

I hold onto his head as his tongue slides in and out of my pussy. He plays with my clit with one hand and one of my nipples with the other.

He flicks my clit, then rubs it expertly as he licks all around it. He squeezes and plays with my breasts.

Each time I feel on the verge of coming, he pulls back, licking around my lips or my thighs. At first, I like when he does this, because I’m on the edge of something so overwhelming I can barely stand it.

But finally, I’m at the point of near ecstasy and I say, “Please Ramsey, please…” feeling helpless under his spell.

“You want me to do this, don’t you?” he says, and closes his mouth tight over my nub. “You want me to suck on your sexy little clit?”

“Yes,” I say, trying to keep my voice down. “I want you to make me come.”

He moves his finger in and out of my hole as he sucks my clit. I’m overpowered by emotion and raw release. I finally give in to the mighty sensation I’d been holding back, even though I’m still a bit afraid of what could happen when I let myself go.

“I’m coming,” I say, pulling a pillow over my face so as to stifle what would be screams if I could only let them out. “Ramsey. I’m coming!”

“That’s my girl,” he says, kissing my pussy and then sliding up next to me.

I’m nestled in his arm, my head under his armpit, completely exhausted. I’m pretty sure I’m panting, although I’m trying to control myself.

“Need a break?” he asks, with a grin.

“Just a little one,” I tell him, still feeling the electricity running all throughout my body still, gathering at my nerve endings for an extra special tingly after- effect. “That was amazing.”

“Tonight is amazing,” he says, stretching out across the bed as if we’re on a relaxing vacation instead of having to face early morning training tomorrow. “Our Just for One Night is turning out to be very nice indeed.”

I smile, and think of all the things I want to do to him, to make him feel as good as he makes me feel. And I want him inside me still, far up in me and close to me.

But before I have time to make my plans a reality, Ramsey’s breathing has become deeper and slower, and I realize that he’s fast asleep. And that I’m not far from joining him.

 

***

 

I awaken to a scream. Lots of them.

Ramsey is screaming.

He’s sitting up in bed, his eyes wide with terror, his veins nearly bursting out of his arms, his mouth wide open, and he’s yelling at the top of his voice.

“Ramsey!” I say, touching him lightly on the shoulder.

He moves his shoulders away from me in a sudden jerking motion. He jumps out of bed and starts throwing pillows and blankets on the floor, with angry, vigorous yet soft thuds.

“Ramsey! Ramsey!”

I don’t know what’s happening or how to stop it. He doesn’t seem to hear me yelling his name. Or it just sends him into an even angrier rage. He grits his teeth and huffs through them.

Then he runs to the door, obviously meaning to open it, but in his half-awake, half-asleep state, he’s in a stupor, and he overshoots it, crashing into the door with one shoulder and then slumping down onto the floor.

Only then does he wake up, with a surprised jerking motion, his eyes popping wide open.

He looks at me, then looks around in bewilderment, as if he doesn’t recognize me, or his surroundings at all, not even his own bedroom.

“Ramsey?” I ask, tentatively. “It’s Monica.”

I decide to take the tone of a trusted medical professional, the way I’ve seen people do on TV after someone has suffered a concussion.

“We’re in your house,” I continue. “Your bedroom…”

“Monica,” he says, sounding almost completely back to normal now.

But his eyes still flitter back and forth, and he looks remorseful, regretful, and embarrassed. His shoulders slump and he sits back down on the bed in a resigned state.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, quietly.

I hug him, not knowing what else to do, but it must be an appropriate idea, because he wraps his arms around me, breathing heavily.

“There’s another thing I should have told you,” he says. “But it doesn’t happen all the time. I thought it had mostly gone away, until I’m deployed again…”

“What is it?” I ask him, although I know I’ve just had it shown to me better than he can probably explain it.

“I have night terrors.” He sighs. “They’re pretty awful.”

“Yeah,” I agree, as I keep my arms wrapped tight around him. “I can see that.”

After a few minutes, he says, “Do you want me to take you back to your car? I’m so sorry for scaring you like this.”

“No, I’m fine,” I tell him. “I mean, unless it’s easier for you if I go…?”

“No. Stay.”

He pulls me back onto the bed with him, and we look up at his ceiling in the darkness.

“Well, we did say we wanted to have an exciting night,” I say, trying to lighten the mood.

“Hrmph.” He lets out a low chuckle.

Minutes tick by. I try to think of what to say, or do, next, to try to make him feel better, but I’m still a bit startled myself, and I don’t really understand what happened.

Then Ramsey says, “I guess I owe you an explanation.”

He really doesn’t— this arrangement is just for one night— but I have to admit I’m curious. And so I hug him tighter and nod my head, knowing that by encouraging him to tell me his deepest, darkest secrets, I’m opening up something between us that I might not be able to close. And I’m not just talking about my legs.