After the Crash, page 11
part #1 of Small Town Hearts Series
“Yeah.” Fox squeezed his hand and kept their fingers laced. “As long as you’re there with me.”
“I will be,” Marshall promised.
For once, his heart and his brain agreed.
16
Fox
The wicker couch out back creaked beneath Fox’s weight as he settled, then made no more noise. Marshall sat at his side, and they stayed there, not speaking, as they listened to the beating rain and shared the thick, humid air the storm brought with it. Fat raindrops sank into the koi pond, so heavy and impactive that they seemed to spike its surface. The tinny beat from the rain gutters serenaded them. Their world may have been small, but it was beautiful in ways Fox had never thought to notice before.
“I was an airborne translator.” Fox looked out over the backyard as he spoke, watching as the trees along the property line bowed and dripped beneath the weight of the downpour. Since Marshall had shared some of his story, Fox thought it polite to reciprocate. “I joined the Air Force immediately after graduation and went through rigorous training—the kind that either breaks men, or shapes them. I fought to make it with everything I had, and I graduated.”
Marshall said nothing. He set his hand palm-down on the empty space between their thighs.
“As part of my training, I studied Middle Eastern languages. Pashto first, then Farsi. Along the way, I learned others. Dialects, mostly. All of it blends into this… this mess in my memory, like it happened decades ago, or like I was never actually there.”
Words were hard to come by. Fox stopped and tried to piece together exactly what it was he wanted to say, but doing so proved impossible. He’d never spoken about his experience with anyone—not his parents, not his old high school friends, and not even the therapists and doctors who’d treated him while he was laid up in a CONUS medical facility, praying the PEB wouldn’t end his career—but Marshall wasn’t just anyone. It wasn’t that Fox felt he owed Marshall an explanation, but that he wanted him to know.
When he found the right words, Fox continued. “When I finished my training, they sent me on tour. It was my responsibility to listen to and translate radio transmissions and other broadcasts while my Flight executed flyovers. It was exhilarating like nothing else, and I guess I got addicted. You get hooked on the adrenaline—on knowing there’s not anyone else out there who’s as good at what you do as you.”
Fox tilted his head back. It was the strangest feeling to have one foot planted in the past while the other was rooted in the present, but it was stranger yet to be thinking of the future while he did it. If he told Marshall his story, there was no going back. All the details of his failure would be laid out, and Marshall would see what a waste he really was. There was a chance he’d lose this—the happy place he’d found that was cleaved from the real world by Marshall’s perpetual mirth and sunny disposition—but if he kept his past to himself, Marshall would never know who he really was. As much as Fox wanted nothing to do with who he’d become, it was unfair to hide it from the man who’d given him everything. Fox cared about him too much to keep him from the truth.
“Most of the men I worked with went after promotions, ranked up, and got out. The guys in my original Flight all got cushy desk jobs back in the US. They served their time and left as soon as they could. It’s not easy being shipped overseas. You don’t realize how good you’ve got it back home until you’re thousands of miles away.”
Desiccating heat. The whir of F-16 afterburners. The shrill blare of an incoming alarm. Fox remembered it in fragments, sharp, jagged, and poised to slice right through him. Words that were once stuck spilled out now without filter.
“But I was the hotshot. Even after my tour was over I kept signing up for IA service, meaning I stepped in to fill empty positions to augment different units, and they kept sending me out. I was coming up on ten years in service when I went out on my last flight. We were cruising low over hostile territory on a recon mission, searching for signs of IEDs for the ground troops coming up behind us, and it was all on me. Every transmission I picked up was vital to our survival… except this time around, the dialect wasn’t one I’d heard before. It was jarring. Some parts I understood, some I didn’t.”
Fox set his hand down beside Marshall’s. A wind whipped by, blowing the rain sideways, but not into their covered alcove.
“When I figured out what they were saying, it was too late—they’d already fired off a lob bomb. The, uh, the media likes to call them ‘improvised rocket-assisted mortar,’ but fuck that. No one should give such a neat name to something so destructive and ugly. Most of the time, lob bombs are too inaccurate to be effective, but we were flying low and slow enough that we were hit.” Fox ran his teeth over his lip as guilt laced his ribs and tightened around his stomach. What little he could remember of that moment—the fear, the frustration, and the crippling concern for the men on his Flight—still made him sick. “The plane went down. I don’t remember much after that.”
Marshall’s fingers crept over his. His touch was tender and sympathetic in a way Fox didn’t believe he deserved.
Twisted metal. Anguished screams. Gunfire. Burning flesh and hair. Tremendous heat.
His hand trembled, and as it did, Marshall slotted their fingers together and squeezed.
“I want to go back and tell myself to stop being so arrogant,” Fox whispered as the tremble made it to his voice. “I want to tell myself that I need to stop pretending I’m so high and mighty—that the desk jobs the other guys on my Flight aspired to are good enough for me as well. I want to tell myself that if I don’t stop, my ineptitude will kill the men I loved like brothers—that I won’t even be able to go to their funerals to get to say goodbye.” Tears clouded Fox’s eyes. “I was the only one who survived, but I was the only one on that Flight who deserved to die. It was my mistake. I killed them all. Every single one of them.”
“Fox…”
The tears once clouding Fox’s eyes rolled down his cheeks. The world blurred. No matter how many times he blinked, nothing changed.
It never did.
“I’m not a good person, Marshall.” Fox followed it up with a heart-wrenching laugh that barely masked a sob. “I stood by while my friends bullied you in high school, and I was the one who killed the men in my Flight. I’m rotten. What happened broke my brain, and the doctors don’t know if I’ll ever be okay again. The panic, the emotion, the paralysis… all of the evil I’ve done lives inside of me, and I don’t think it’ll ever come out. Everything I do is selfish and wrong.”
“Fox—”
“So I needed to let you know.” Fox swallowed hard, choking out the racking despair trying to overwhelm him. “I needed to let you know who I am, just like you’ve let me know who you are—I needed you to see the truth in me and know how broken I am—because I like you, Marshall, but I don’t want you to think that I’m someone I’m not.”
“Being broken doesn’t change who you are.” Marshall’s hand tightened around his. “And it doesn’t change how I think of you.”
“You haven’t seen me at my worst. You don’t know what I’m capable of. There’s a bomb in my head waiting to go off, and I’m scared you’ll get caught in the explosion.”
“It hasn’t happened yet, has it?” Marshall was looking at him—Fox felt the affection of his gaze, but he couldn’t bring himself to see it. “If it happens, we’ll take it as it comes. We’ll figure things out.”
The last of Fox’s tears rolled down his cheeks. “I don’t know what I’d do if I hurt you.”
“You don’t have to.” There was a smile in Marshall’s voice that shook the anguish from Fox’s soul. It didn’t promise perfection, but that wasn’t what Fox wanted. All he needed was someone who would be there—someone who was willing to try. “If it happens, we’ll figure it out together. You don’t have to face this alone.”
Fox blinked the last of the cloudiness from his eyes and looked at the man beside him—the scrawny nerd who’d grown up to be an inspiration. Determination and tenderness softened his face. He’d meant what he’d said. Despite everything, he wouldn’t give Fox up.
Fox traced his fingers along Marshall’s jaw, then cupped the back of Marshall’s neck and kissed him.
Marshall hesitated, then kissed him back.
The rain continued to fall.
17
Fox
Kissing a man was different from what Fox was used to—bolder, rougher, and more sincere. Unlike the pretty girls he’d hooked up with while on leave, Marshall knew what he wanted, and he didn’t bother to try and hide it. As their kiss deepened from sweetness to crushing need, he showed Fox the way.
And fuck, what a way it was.
Wicker creaked. Bodies shifted. Marshall straddled Fox’s lap and kissed him with everything he had. Rain poured over the sides of the gutters like shimmering drapes, shielding them from the outside world, but Fox didn’t care who saw. He slid his hands up Marshall’s thighs and grabbed his ass, then pushed him forward so their clothed cocks brushed together.
“Fox,” Marshall gasped against his lips. “F-Fuck…”
“Not yet.” Fox tightened his grip. “But soon.”
Marshall shivered and kissed him hard in selfish, greedy ways that made Fox’s balls tighten. He returned the passion just as fiercely and rolled Marshall’s hips against his, forcing him to grind. It hadn’t been until recently that Fox had thought of being with another man, but now he couldn’t get the idea out of his head. Would Marshall drop to his knees, tear his fly open, and suck his cock with the same hunger he put into their kiss? Would he moan and twitch and tremble as Fox stretched his tight ass wide open with his cock?
Fuck yes, he would.
Fox knew it. He felt it. Marshall would do whatever he wanted, and he’d love every goddamn second of it. All he needed now was to see it happen in real life. “Get on your knees.”
Marshall shimmied out of his clutches and did as told, then nuzzled Fox’s bulge and looked up at him with his fucking beautiful blue eyes. Fox ran a hand through his hair, then pushed gently on the back of Marshall’s head to rub his face against his crotch. Marshall moaned and nuzzled, then ran his tongue along the length of Fox’s fly while making eye contact. It was the hottest goddamn thing Fox had ever seen, and he had to hold himself back from coming then and there.
“God, you want it, don’t you?” Fox stroked Marshall’s hair, then rubbed his face against his crotch again. Marshall moaned and kissed him all over, the pressure of his lips a tantalizing peek at what was still to come. “You don’t have to wait. Take it. It’s yours.”
The small, guttural noise Marshall made was all the answer Fox needed.
Marshall opened Fox’s fly and smoothed down each side, then tugged down the boxer-briefs beneath while Fox lifted his ass. As they gave way, Fox’s cock sprang free. Rigid, thick, and flushed with excitement, it bobbed between his thighs, ready for Marshall’s greedy mouth. A drop of precum rolled from its slit over the silken skin of his head, leaving it glossy. It hadn’t been the first—before Marshall let his boxer-briefs settle around his thighs, Fox spotted a large dark spot on the front.
He’d leaked all over himself for Marshall.
For his wonderful, needy boy.
“All for you,” Fox uttered. He guided Marshall forward by putting pressure on the back of his skull, but Marshall didn’t need to be led—he came willingly. With a tilt of his head, he took position by the base of Fox’s cock, but didn’t devour it like Fox thought he would. Instead, he looked at Fox from beneath his lashes with the fucking sexiest bedroom eyes Fox had ever seen, then slowly ran his tongue from Fox’s base to his crown, where he lapped up Fox’s precum.
“F-Fuck.” Fox closed his eyes and let his head fall back, but the fantasies of Marshall behind his eyelids paled in comparison to what was happening between his legs. Drunk on lust, Fox rolled his head down to watch as Marshall tongued his slit and chased more precum from inside, then kissed it and took him between his lips. Fox wove his fingers through Marshall’s hair to get a better grip and push him forward, but Marshall didn’t hesitate—he swallowed Fox’s cock on the first bob of his head, choking on it like it was what he’d been born to do.
A convulsion pulsed around Fox’s shaft, followed quickly by another. Marshall sputtered, but otherwise held his head in place, swallowing again and again around Fox’s cock as his body struggled to reject it. Gasping for breath, Fox stroked Marshall’s hair and watched his face turn red from the effort. Even as tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, he was fucking beautiful.
“Take it, baby.” Fox kept caressing, encouraging Marshall to keep him sunk deep for as long as he could. “You feel so goddamn good.”
Marshall whined and pushed until his nose flattened against Fox’s pelvis, causing his throat to convulse harder than it had before. Fox groaned and pushed his hips forward, but it proved too much—Marshall launched backward, gasping and sputtering for breath. He looked Fox in the eyes, his own muddied with arousal, then took Fox’s tip beneath his lips and kissed it deeply again and again, as if to apologize.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Fox promised as tenderly as he could. He wrapped his hand around the back of Marshall’s head again and kept it there idly as Marshall kept making out with his cock. Watching his own glistening skin slide in and out of Marshall’s lips turned Fox the fuck on, but he wanted—needed—more. “Everything you do feels so good, baby. Every little thing. But I need you to let me back inside. I’m going to fuck your throat until I come, and you’re gonna take it all, okay?”
Marshall blinked the tears from his eyes and hummed in agreement, and with nothing more said than that, Fox pushed on the back of his head until his cock was back where it belonged.
Pleasure. It exploded behind the bars of Fox’s ribcage like fireworks at night and cascaded into his groin until his whole body was lit up with it. Holding Marshall’s head in place, Fox fucked into his throat, stealing more of that feeling for himself while Marshall choked and spluttered.
“I’m gonna come,” Fox warned with a growl. He threw his head back, but just like before, he couldn’t keep it there for long. He needed to see Marshall, to watch the pleasure pass between them as it grew increasingly intense. “Oh, fuck, baby—you’d better be ready to swallow, cuz I’ve got so much of it to give you.”
The pitch of Marshall’s whine begged for it, so Fox didn’t hold back—he groaned and shot down Marshall’s throat, pulling out enough so some spilled across his tongue, giving him a taste.
Being with a man was different than being with a woman, Fox realized as he pulled free from Marshall with a wet pop. A strand of cum escaped Marshall’s lips and streaked his chin. Fox brushed it off with his thumb and fed it back to him, and he sucked on it indulgently in a way that made Fox want to fuck his mouth all over again. Being with a man was raw and primal, stripped of fear and drenched in unbridled desire. Fox didn’t have to worry that he was stepping out of line or being too rough, not only because he knew that Marshall would tell him if he’d gone too far, but because he knew Marshall could take what he gave him.
And fuck, did he still have so much to give him.
“We’re not done yet,” Fox said as he kicked off his shoes and socks. When he stood, he stepped out of his pants and underwear and ripped off his shirt, then offered a hand to Marshall, who still knelt in front of him. Marshall clasped it and rose on shaking legs. Once he was on his feet, Fox tugged him close to keep him stable, then whispered against his lips, “You know who I am now, and you know what I can do. If that hasn’t chased you off, nothing will—so I’m going to claim you. I’m going to make the one good thing in my life all mine. This is your last chance to run. Tell me no. Tell me you don’t want me and I’ll never touch you again.”
Marshall didn’t reply with words—he kissed Fox instead. It was a crushing, fierce kiss devoid of doubt, and it stole Fox’s breath away. With a throaty growl, he pushed Marshall against the French door and ravaged his mouth. Marshall had made his choice. Fox would have him, he would claim him, and from here on out, Marshall would be his.
18
Marshall
They stumbled in through the door, all jumbled limbs and bruising lips. Marshall was vaguely aware that Fox kicked the door closed by virtue of the noise it made as the latch clicked into position, but after that the only thing that mattered was Fox, the straight bush-sitting boy who wasn’t so straight anymore.
Told you, Marshall’s heart crowed as Fox pinned him to the kitchen counter and yanked down his pants.
Marshall’s brain was unavailable for comment. It was too busy melting down as Fox grabbed his dick and started to stroke.
Gasping, Marshall wrapped his arms around Fox’s neck and bucked desperately into his fist. Fox’s hand was toughened from manual labor, and his grip was as firm as it was certain. Not once did he hesitate or reconsider. He wanted Marshall and he made it clear—there were no ifs or buts.
Fox would claim him just like he’d said.
He would make Marshall his.
Their kiss, once interrupted by Marshall’s gasp of pleasure, picked up in intensity at Fox’s insistence. Marshall tried his best to match it, but his focus was divided between Fox’s lips and his fist. The more Fox pumped, the less the split was even, until all Marshall could do was thrust into the tightness surrounding his dick.
With a grunt of frustration, Fox ended their contact and lifted Marshall onto the counter. The nearby utensil holder clattered as it fell over, but as soon as the thought of picking it up crossed Marshall’s mind, it was gone—Fox wrenched off his shoes and tugged free his pants and briefs, leaving him nude from the waist down.
“You have twenty seconds to find something to use as lube, or I’m going to take you dry,” Fox growled. The sound of those words rolled through Marshall, crushing the last of his composure. The possessive, covetous, dominant side of Fox was hot as hell, and he needed more. “If you run, I will catch you, and wherever I do, I’ll fuck you right then and there.”
