***
Mrs. Johnson took Belle back to her wing the minute we landed. I sensed a lecture coming from Leonard St. Croix, and I had exactly fuck all interest in that. I didn’t need a knowing glance or an impassioned speech from Leonard about how I needed to give up romancing her and just stick to actual business. I knew what I wanted, what was burning through my veins. I could feel it in the way my cock throbbed and my balls were tight and heavy with need. Just being near Belle left me horny as fuck. It was something wild and almost inhuman running through me, something beastly. I needed her, and I’d wanted to touch her in the worst way.
That was why I came back to my private quarters right away. We had dinner scheduled later tonight, but if I didn’t take the tension off, then I wasn’t going to make it.
Surging into my bathroom, I slipped quickly out of my suit and tossed the pants and shirt into the hamper. I tried to avoid the mirror. The images I saw there, like the anchor and the logo, brought me back to Iraq. Back to the war and things I wished to God I could change. But still, out my periphery, I caught sight of the sleeve of tattoos up my arm, the “Semper Fi” declaring my loyalty to the Marines. I got it at eighteen, when I was young, fresh, and on my first leave. Now, it’s almost a bigger pain to me than my other mark, the one I try to avoid at all cost. I’d consulted with doctors about getting it removed and the cost wasn’t an issue, of course, but the ink for the sleeve was very dark, harder to remove than most would have thought and I was too busy with meetings to be out of it for a week or more with laser treatments. I’d do it someday and soon, but I needed to make sure my company wouldn’t fall apart during my recovery. So, the tattoo remained, a reminder of my sacrifice written deep into my skin.
As far as the Marines went, I’d never trade the camaraderie, the amazing men and women I served beside were still the best people I’d ever known. But it had its own tolls, the life that I couldn’t deal with, that I buried with sex and booze, with long nights out on the strip. I could run from it, or at least I could try, but I never seemed to run far enough, never blacked out quite enough. I always ended up back there somehow.
Usually in my nightmares.
The steam rose from the shower, and I slipped into it, placing my palms on the tile on the back wall and hunching over, letting the hot water splash over me, cleaning me, as if that was something I could ever be after—
No.
Not now.
Now, I was going to be absorbed by Belle, by the woman I wanted, from her fabulous, rounded breasts—not too huge or fake, but just right—to her amazing, pillowy lips that I’d been fantasizing about for days. That would ease my mind, would ease the trouble rolling through my mind. Keep me from slipping back into my nightmares.
I lathered up the soap and placed my hands over my cock. One hand was cupping my balls, which were tight with need still, almost ready to go, and the other was stroking my long, thick erection. I closed my eyes and thought about her, about the brown hair I wanted to fist as I pumped into her mouth. I thought about that creamy skin that I longed to stroke and mark while I was fucking her. I thought about everything I could have with her.
I could have everything this month, and I wanted it. I didn’t want to be cautious or follow the rules. I was goddamn Drake McManus, top of the Fortune 500, and I made the rules, always had.
Now I had Belle where I wanted her, where I’d craved to have her.
I thrust into my hand, feeling my balls tense, and I pumped harder, the rhythm of my strokes getting more intense, the heat of the shower merging with the heat pumping through my veins, and I was on fucking fire, consumed by heat as thoughts of her drove me on. I came then, shooting all over the tile, my jizz thick against it.
I was gasping for breath afterward, inclining my head up to catch the water in my mouth. My knees shook, and an idea came to mind, something that would move too fast even for such an arrangement, but something I was dying to do. I would be surprising Belle after dinner, and I hoped she accepted what I’d be offering.
If she resisted, I’d work hard to convince her, seal that deal.
It was what I did.