Page 14 of Renegade

“Oh, Miguel,” I said, trying to envision the sight of the empty desert and the man who’d somehow lost his bearings in the storm, blinded by sand and wind, unable to find his way back to his brothers in the sandstorm even though they’d been so close. “You all thought he’d died.”

Miguel shook his head. “None of us could believe it. Our base commander wouldn’t let us return until the convoy had been escorted to its destination. By the time we were finally allowed to go back to the area John had been lost, four days had passed and we knew Sutter was most likely dead. He’d gone without water in the desert heat all that time.

“Initially, he’d been declared missing in action but that was quickly downgraded to killed in action after an exhaustive two-day search of the area proved futile. None of us could accept that John was dead. Sutter was just too tough of a Marine to let a little sandstorm separate him from us. We didn’t find a body, so his capture was always a possibility, but as you can guess, that idea made us dread the situation all the more. Above all, though, we knew he’d make his way back to base if he was alive, if just to kick our asses for leaving him.”

“It must have been horrible, Miguel,” I said.

He absently nodded, picking up the pile of pictures he’d set down on the bed. He handed them to me, and I slowly leafed through them, looking at each one. They were all of his friends, the men he’d called brothers. Some were of the whole group, but most were of John. Close up, I could make out the features of the man. He was handsome with a white scar marring one perfect eyebrow. He had freckles over his nose and his skin was tanned. At his forehead, a strip of skin from left to right, was pale, as if he’d worn a hat while out in the sun.

I couldn’t imagine how hot it must have been out there in the desert landscape of what I assumed to be Afghanistan. It could have been Iraq, but the U.S. began drawing down troops in 2007, completing withdrawal in 2011 if memory served, while Afghanistan went on for another ten years. Doing the math in my head and knowing Miguel was thirty-six, made me think I was right about that. I didn’t picture Afghanistan with rolling dunes of sand like I’d seen inLawrence of Arabia, one of my favorite movies. Instead, I imagined it had scrub dotting the sandy ground as I’d seen in news reports from reporters on the ground while the war raged, but I supposed even Afghanistan could have freak sandstorms like the one Miguel described.

I thought about the differences between the Miguel I knew now and the man he must have been then. I was acutely aware of whatI’dbeen doing while Miguel had been on the ground, fighting the enemy…killing them in service to our country. I’d been a young, gay man, making the rounds of the clubs, playing around, dancing…fucking. All the while, the brave man sitting beside me had lost a man he loved while fighting for our country. I handed the photos back to Miguel with John’s smiling face on the top.

“You fell in love with John,” I stated what he’d already confirmed.

He gazed at me with sad eyes. “It wasn’t what we have, Raven. You gotta understand. He was my superior and, though, we always had an attraction to each other, we never…” He paused before going on. “It took a long time—almost seven years on the same team—to acknowledge that attraction. We kissed a bit. We both wanted to go further but out there…well, there isn’t much privacy, and he didn’t want to risk my career if we were caught. He’d be demoted if he was found out, but I’d likely be transferred. We both could have been court martialed, but they probably would have kept him in place because he was the team leader. Keeping a Recon unit together was important. If it hadn’t been wartime, we both would have gotten in hot water.”

I nodded to show I was listening and understood.

“John wouldn’t risk breaking up the team. We worked together like cogs in a wheel and if one of us left, it woulda taken a long time to find another guy to fill my place. Ironically, when Sutter was lost, that’s exactly what happened. As second-in-command, I became team leader, and they brought in a new guy…Carlos Jimenez.” He smiled. “He was a cocky son-of-a-bitch who tried to fit in, but he was acutely aware of the fact that he was filling the spot of a dead man. We accepted him as best we could, but the team was never the same. He was shot dead on patrol one night. He was killed a month or so before my tour was due to be up, so instead of replacing him, they brought us home.”

It was nice to get the background and all, but I selfishly wanted to get back to the subject at hand. “So…you and John…you just fooled around a little?” I asked, knowing I had norightto pry.

He smiled at me, and I felt my heart speed up as he nodded. “That’s it. A few kisses, a quick fumble in the dark, a few mutual hand jobs…that’s it. We wanted to do more because by that time we’d worked our way up to this. We were seven years into ourtour by the time either of us acted on our feelings and that was only weeks before we lost him.” He looked down at the picture. “Literally, lost him in the desert.”

I put an arm around his shoulder, and he looked at me. “You’re still in love with him, Miguel.” I felt my Adam’s apple bob up and down in my suddenly parched throat.

He frowned, setting the pictures on the bed table, and turning to me. “No, Sunshine. That was a long time ago.” He pushed me back on the bed and pulled me into his arms. I turned into his embrace as he lowered his mouth and began kissing me. My heart pounded wildly in my chest. I loved Miguel so deeply, the very thought of being separated by the ghost of John Sutter nearly killed me.

And now, he’d come back.

MIGUEL

I kissed Raven passionately, pouring my love into him, needing him to know that he was the most precious man I’d ever met. I didn’t want John between us. Seeing him at the cantina today had triggered memories but none of them had been the romantic fantasies of the twenty-five-year-old man I’d been when he’d been swallowed up by a freak sandstorm in Afghanistan. They’d been the sorrowful memories of the way our unit had searched for him, going out under the cover of darkness time and time again, defying our commander when we’d been ordered to give up the search. I needed Raven to believe what we had now was different than what I’d felt for John.

I reached between us to drag his t-shirt up, pulling it high enough to get it off him, before returning to his mouth and going to work on his pants. I undid the cord on his sweats and worked him out of them, tossing them on a chair while he did the samefor me. When we were down to underwear, we fell back on the bed together, kissing deeply, eager for each other. I had a deep desire to feel him wrapped around my cock as I buried myself in his body. No man had ever made me feel this way, as complete as Raven did, and I needed him to know that.

I needed to wipe away any concerns he had over my short-lived physical relationship with John, and the relationship I had with Raven now. There was no comparison between the two in my mind and the last thing I wanted to do was make the man I loved believe John was between us in bed.

“I love you, Raven,” I said, kissing the corner of his mouth. “You are the most precious thing to me in the world. You saved me the day I tackled you to the grass outside the Capitol Records building, whether you believe it or not.” I gazed into his eyes, reaching up and brushing away the hair that had fallen over his forehead. He smiled and lit up the room like sunshine…my Sunshine.

“I love you too, Miguel. I love you so much.”

Our mouths crashed together again, tongues twisting, seeking, needing. He wiggled until he was under me, head on his pillow, legs open, bodies grinding against one another through our boxer briefs. I was stiff as a post, leaking precome. He was equally as hard, clutching at my shoulders as I rose up over him, delighting in the way we moved together. I reached between us, taking both of his nipples in hand, to begin squeezing. I’d found that under Raven’s touch, I liked a bit of nipple torture myself. I suspected they were as much of an erogenous zone as his were.

I missed his piercings. He left them in a box at home most days along with some interesting hoops with tiny balls threaded on. He’d claimed that the single most embarrassing moment of his life had been when he’d caught Judy staring at them througha particularly tight T-shirt, he’d worn to the office one day. I hadn’t brought up the absence of them, hoping they’d make a return eventually, but I wasn’t sure when. Maybe my Sunshine was getting a little stuffy. I hoped not. Perhaps the trip to Arizona would allow us to kick up our heels a little while his grandmother was gettinghealed, whatever that entailed, once this case was done.

Raven yelped slightly as I pinched a little too hard, but I touched him the wayIliked to be touched. I kissed him deeper as I reached down and slid my hand into the waistband of his briefs, taking his weeping dick in hand. Raven was nearly equal to me in size and cut—beautiful. I loved the way his cock leaked, sliding pleasantly through my fingers. I squeezed, dragging more filthy sounds out of him. Every moan…every groan, made me harder, taking me closer to the edge. I drank them down, only separating our lips when I felt myself moving into dangerous territory. I wanted to be inside him before getting to the point when I couldn’t hold off my climax.

I rolled off him, quickly shedding my boxer briefs as he did the same, getting a nice view of his tight ass as he rolled to open his bedside table drawer to remove a bottle of lube and toss a condom between us. He rolled back to me as I picked up the condom and eyed it up. When I glanced up with a question in my eyes, he smiled back. “Do we—?” I stopped the unspoken “need these anymore” from leaving my mouth before lifting the gold package to my teeth, looking back at him when he grabbed my hand. He closed his fist around it.

“Let’s…talk about this for a second,” he said.

I frowned. “You don’t think we need them anymore?”

He shrugged. “If you…think so,” he said, furrowing his brows.

I sighed, leaning over to kiss his lips. When I pulled away, he was watching me intensely.

---