If pressed, Joe wouldn’t have been able to articulate what had compelled him to kiss Verna, to make no mention of what had compelled him to kiss her again and then take her. He could acknowledge that his heart had been lodged in his throat when she hadn’t come home, a million scenarios as to what might have happened to her out there running through his mind. And he could also acknowledge that each of those scenarios, Verna hurt or in danger or vulnerable, or cold and alone and afraid, had hit like physical blows. It made finding her and bringing her home, making sure she was okay, an imperative that he would not stop until he’d fulfilled.

And when she’d run into him in the hallway, she’d called to him, and he’d responded, the relief at knowing she was safe supplanted by fierce and undeniable desire. He’d kissed her before, but the explosion of passion when he’d touched his lips against hers had caught him off guard. The more he’d kissed her, the more he’d wanted to kiss her; the more of her generous, soft curves he molded under his hands, the more he’d wanted to touch her, and when he’d buried himself inside her, the pleasure he’d felt was only outpaced by the sense of rightness that had stolen over him.

“You asleep?” he asked.

“Nope. Are you?” she responded.

“Nope.”

He smiled at her little tittered laugh, and then they fell silent. Joe pulled her a little closer and then kissed her, trailed his lips along her jaw, bent to nip at her rounded shoulder as he sculpted her curves under his hands. She breathed out, the sound of her arousal stirring his own. But she’d be tender, he knew, so he stopped, opting to simply hold her in his embrace before things got more heated. Strangely, though he’d just had the most powerful release of his life, he wasn’t tired. But he wasn’t wired either.

He was content. Yes, that was it. Lying here with Verna in his arms filled him with an ease and comfort he’d rarely known.

“How do you feel?” he blabbered before he could stop himself.

“You getting emo on me, Joe?”

“Verna, I am an elite soldier, one possessing the highest physical and mental conditioning that humans can achieve. Does that sound like the type of person who gets ‘emo’?”

The gentle shake of her shoulders was followed by a laugh. “Yep. That’s totally emo.”

He shrugged. “Just a friendly inquiry.”

“Is that what this is? Friendly? If so, I’d have been much nicer to you, much, much sooner.”

“I’m glad you finally came to your senses,” he said, stroking a hand down her arm and then lacing his fingers with hers, loving the little shiver that went through her.

“Me too,” she said, her voice dreamy. “And to answer your question, I feel amazing! I could run a damn marathon.”

He let a lazy smile cross his face as a sense of masculine pride swelled within him.

“Don’t be so proud of yourself,” Verna said, somehow sensing his approval of her statement. “I’m still a little sore, much more than I was after—”

“After what?”

“Never mind.”

“Oh, so you’re getting shy on me?” He jostled her shoulders.

“Whatever.”

“Uh-huh. After what?”

“Well, last year, I…” She trailed off and he could almost feel her blush as if it were his own.

“I was very, uh, curious about what it was like to, you know, have something inside me, so I, uh, fucked myself with a dildo.”

She said the last with a coolly casual tone, but Joe wasn’t fooled. He also felt the arousal he’d tried to push aside roar back to life. An image of Verna, her legs spread wide as she fucked herself with one hand while she tugged on one of her dark nipples with the other, flashed into his mind, and in an instant, he was again hard.

“Did you like it?” he asked in a rough whisper, the air between them shifting from playful to hot in the blink of an eye.

“It was…nice,” she said, her voice a whisper, “but you inside me was so much nicer.”

Her fingers curved against his chest, and she pressed a kiss against his collarbone and then moved lower, swiping her tongue across one of his nipples.

“Verna…”

“Hmm?” she asked, not bothering to stop kissing him.

“I don’t want to hurt you. You’re gonna be sore as it is.”

“Umm-hmm,” she responded, still licking and sucking at his chest.

By the time she reached down to grasp his cock, he’d already changed his mind. In a flash, he had her on her back.

“Since you asked so politely…” he said as he leaned down to kiss her.

---

Verna sighed at the feeling of the warm, wet cloth pressed against her tender lower lips. Joe had warned of this result, but she hadn’t cared, and still didn’t for that matter. A little tenderness in exchange for the pleasure he’d given her last night and into the morning was more than a fair trade.

When they’d woken this morning, he’d insisted she soak to take away some of the ache, and now, despite the fact that it would have been unimaginable just twelve hours ago, she currently lay in his bathtub as he pressed a warm cloth against her intimate flesh. And even weirder was how comfortable she felt with it all.

“Feels good, I take it,” he said, and she turned her head toward him and smiled.

“Indeed it does,” she responded. And then, a moment later, she said, “How weird is this?”

He considered, looking away from her but keeping the cloth and his hand between her thighs.

“Weird. And not weird, you know?” he said, looking back at her.

“Exactly!” she responded animatedly, sloshing some of the water over the edge of the tub. “Sorry,” she said as she looked at the water spreading across his shorts.

“Verna, if you want me naked, all you have to do is ask.”

“Joe, get naked,” she said without missing a beat.

“Nope. I know where that would head, and you need a break.”

“And you don’t?” she asked somewhat tentatively, her gaze straying to his crotch and the ever-increasing bulge that rested there.

“Nope.”

“So what about…recovery time? I mean, aren’t you supposed to need time after such vigorous activity?”

“Sure, usually,” he said, and then he locked his gaze with hers. “But I find you quite stimulating.”

He followed the words with a hard swipe against her clit, and Verna was left in the extreme state of blushing down to her toes and moaning against the arousal he’d stirred.

“Out you go,” he said a few minutes later, standing and then unfolding a large towel before gesturing at her to come toward him.

A sudden flash of shyness struck her, and she hesitated.

“You know water is transparent, right?” he asked a few seconds later.

“What?” she asked as she looked up at him.

“Putting aside the fact that we just spent the better part of a night together completely naked, among other things, I can see you through the water. So no need to freak out about standing up.”

“You know, it’s possible I wasn’t even thinking that,” she said, annoyed that he could so easily read her.

“No. That’s not at all possible. Now hurry up. I’m hungry,” he said, his expression a mix of humor with sharp flashes of desire bleeding through.

“Fine, jerk,” she muttered, standing and exiting the tub with as much grace as she could muster.

By the time they left the bathroom, all shyness had been forgotten, Joe’s very thorough drying of every inch of her body having left her a shivering puddle of need. And he hadn’t been unaffected, his stiff erection poking out from his body a clear testament to that. But when she’d looked at him, a greedy look no doubt on her face, he’d just laughed and shaken his head before he frog-marched her down to the kitchen.

They had a simple breakfast and then whiled the afternoon away, watching the news for a bit and listening to the breathless dispatches from Charlotte and the surrounding areas. After the third helicopter shot of the same ice on the same patch of highway, Joe shut off the TV, and they sat, her playing solitaire and him watching.

“Are you really watching me play solitaire?” she asked after she’d dealt her third hand.

“Sure. Why not?”

She just chuckled. “You’re a strange man, Joey.”

“I’m not sure that statement has much weight coming from you, Verna…and it’s just Joe.”

“Why is that?” she asked, pushing the cards aside and scooting across the floor to sit next to him.

“What, why just Joe?”

She nodded.

“It was my granddad’s name on my mother’s side. Family lore says one of her great-grandparents was born in Italy as Giuseppe and died in New York as Joe, so I guess it just stuck.”

“You’re from New York?” she asked.

“No. Northern California.”

Her surprise must have shown in her face for he said, “Why so surprised?”

“I don’t know. I guess I just never would have pegged you as a California boy.”

“Why not?” he asked, clearly enjoying her discomfort.

“Well, I hate to give credence to a stereotype, but you seem a bit type A for what the TV has taught me people from California are like.”

He shrugged. “Maybe it’s a front. Maybe I’m actually just a slacker dude who loves to surf and smoke marijuana.”

“That you refer to it as ‘marijuana’ totally eviscerates that theory.”

They shared a laugh at that statement.

“So why the military?”

“A family tradition. My dad was in the Army and so was my granddad. Neither of them have quite gotten over the fact that I went into the Navy instead.”

“Are they still around?”

“Yes, still in California. I talk to them every week and try to get out there once a year or so to catch up with them.”

“Wow. My father would shit enough bricks to build a house if I went a year without seeing him, which makes no sense because he doesn’t actually like me very much.”

At the softening in his eyes, she regretted the words. This experience so far was too good to sully with thoughts of the outside world, let alone of her father and his grievances.

“It’s his loss,” Joe said, and in lieu of responding, Verna just smiled at him.

The air in the room had suddenly become oppressive, so Verna stood, trying to think of something to do that would distract them.

“Argh!” she exclaimed as Joe, moving with lightning speed, stood and scooped her up like it was nothing.

“You look bored. Let me entertain you,” Joe said as he raced up the stairs, Verna slung over his shoulder.

---

They repeated a similar pattern the next morning, though she’d prepared breakfast this time. After they’d finished, she stood and cleared the table, and when she walked around the island, she thought she felt his gaze following her, but when she looked back, he didn’t seem to be watching her. She turned her head and continued to walk toward the sink, still feeling his eyes on her, but when she turned again, he still wasn’t looking.

Wait…

“Are you looking at my butt?” she asked, whirling to face him, and this time she didn’t miss the way his gaze darted to her chest. “And my boobs?”

He was! And he didn’t even try to deny it. “They’re nice boobs.”

“Joe, nobody looks at my boobs. I don’t even look at my boobs, and they’re attached to me,” she said.

“C’mere,” he said, the spark in his eye drawing her to where he stood, leaning against the entryway.

“I’m sure people look at your boobs,” he said, “but then again, I hope no one has ever seen them like this.”

His stare was riveted to her chest as he put his arms around her waist and pulled her close, but not so close that he couldn’t see her breasts.

“Like what?” she asked, her voice going throaty with desire and that fire that it seemed only Joe could ignite building inside her.

“Like this,” he said, reaching up to cup her flesh with his big hands. “With your nipples beaded and poking out, their shape only enhanced by the way they press against the fabric. And the way the shirt pulls tight across, constricting just enough that I can see you’re not wearing a bra, and I can see them move, fast or slow, hard or softly depending on what you’re doing…”

He moved his hands, and her breasts with them, as if to emphasize the point. And then he stroked his thumbs across her nipples, drawing a low sigh from her, the pleasure that spiked where he touched making her move to get closer to him. He dropped his hands from her breasts and slid them down her belly before wrapping them around her waist and pulling her close for another of his breath-stealing kisses.

His hardness protruded, poking her in the belly and making her sigh again in anticipation of having it inside her again. Unable to resist, she lifted her hands and stroked him, tracing the shape of his cock through the thin fabric of his pants, again marveling at his size and at how touching him, feeling his firm cock against her hand, managed to be both familiar and new, a combination that, like everything about him, simultaneously made her comfortable and left her off balance.

Joe broke the kiss and began backing up, taking her with him. When they reached the sofa, he let her go long enough to lower his pants, revealing his iron-hard cock, a sight Verna found almost impossible to look away from.

“Now who’s staring?” he asked in a whisper that was both playful and scorching.

“Shh,” she said without looking up. “I’m busy; stop distracting me.”

He chuckled softly, and his cock swayed, drawing her attention even further. She watched raptly as he smoothed the condom he’d retrieved from somewhere down his hard length. And then he sat, an open invitation clear in his eyes, one that Verna gladly took. With a speed that surprised her, she stepped out of her pants, but when she grabbed the hem of her shirt, he stopped her.

“Leave it on,” he said.

A somewhat curious request, but she had other issues at hand, so she had no problem complying. As she stepped closer and raised first one leg and then the other to straddle his hips, he gripped the base of his cock firmly, almost using it to guide her. When she hovered over him, the newness of the position and her own uncertainty left her frozen. But, Joe, a caretaker even now when his eyes were filled with desire and his hard cock was almost straining toward her, put a hand on her back and guided her down. Soon, she took over, and he moved his hand away, watching avidly as his cock disappeared inside her.

When her pelvic bone hit his, her eyes slammed shut, and she reached out to grip his chest, seeking his support. He’d never been this deep inside her, and the sensation of him filling her very depths was one she wanted to savor and remember forever. She stayed that way, unmoving, just letting the impulse of them being fully connected wash over her. Joe gripped her hips tightly and exhaled harshly, but he didn’t move, even though she could tell how much he was restraining himself.

At the first tentative shift of her hips, he released a gruffed-out moan that she both heard and felt as it rose from his chest. She began to move in earnest, and Joe sat up, pushing himself even deeper, the motion making her moan and causing her inner muscles to clamp down tighter on him. Her eyes were still closed, so she jumped in surprise when she felt the hot heat of his mouth close around one of her nipples. He flicked at the bud, the wetness of his mouth and tongue dampening the shirt that covered it, creating a different but no less potent reaction.

Then he switched to the other, the wet T-shirt that he’d left plastered to her nipple, heavy against her as if he was still touching it. He gave the other nipple the same treatment, licking and sucking at the fabric and the flesh beneath it, and all the while she rocked her hips in an erratic motion, new sensations, each more pleasurable than the last, rolling through her. As she continued to move, Joe’s breaths became heavy and he released her breasts and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her even closer and resting his head against her collarbone. The harsh rasp of the air leaving his lungs rushed across her shirt-covered skin, leaving goose bumps in its wake, and that spiral of pleasure that had started where they were connected spread and grew more intense until they were both panting.

He hardened even further, a sign of his impending release, and on a heaved breath, he reached his peak, his cock jerked inside her, and he moaned through his orgasm, his grip on her hips tighter and more insistent as he pumped his seed into the latex. His orgasm triggered hers, and she sighed as wave after wave of pleasure washed over her.

They calmed in increments, her becoming aware of his solid, muscled body under her thighs, of his hands on her hips, the rise and fall of his chest, his heart thumping in time with hers, and she thought she’d like nothing more than to stay like this forever.