Page 5 of Better Late Than Never

That was something to look into after work, though. Today, I had to get my head together enough to concentrate.

But of course, the universe wasn’t done fucking with me today.

When I’d stumbled across Lieutenant Commander Marks’s profile earlier, I’d been too off-balance to think of much beyond“goddammit, that hot guy I can’t have is queer and available.”

The problem with a pool of men this small, though, was that if I saw him on the app, that meant other guys would too. Which, in and of itself, was fine. The issue was that I personally knew of at least one other man who really, really didn’t need to know that Marks was queer and available. I should’ve known it wouldn’t take him long to find out.

And I definitely should’ve known he’d be sauntering into Radiology to rub it in my face.

Sure enough, about the time I was finally calming down from my brief mental short-circuit, Tobias Miller walked in. As he always did, because fuck him, he didn’t bother knocking and swung my office door open hard enough for it to bang against the wall, startling me out of my damn skin. He knew I was jumpy about shit like that, which was exactly why he did it.

As I peeled myself off the ceiling, he dropped into the empty chair across from my desk, phone in hand and a familiar shit-eating grin on his face. God. Just what I needed. He was in jeans and a black golf shirt, and I hated that he looked good in them. I hated that his longish and neatly arranged salt-and-pepper hair was still sexy, and that his graying beard accentuated his sharp jaw and high cheekbones. I hated that when he eventually turned around and walked out, his jeans would be clinging to that ass the way they always did, because he was clearly still going to the gym as religiously as he always had.

He was such a gorgeous man. Shame it was only skin-deep.

Still grinning like the asshole he was, he jiggled his phone at me. “You been on the app today?”

I gritted my teeth, irritated with the intrusion, and I played casually stupid. “No, I haven’t. Why?”

He smirked, because of course he did, and tapped his screen. When he showed it to me, I wasn’t at all surprised to see Marks’s profile. About the only thing Tobias did at work these days besides bother me was prowl around online for his next piece of ass.

I sat back, trying to affect nonchalance. “Okay?”

Tobias snickered. Then he very pointedly swiped right, winked at me, and pocketed his phone. “Seems like your type. I’m surprised you haven’t—ooh, right. Youcan’t, can you?”

It took so damn much work not to roll my eyes. That would only egg him on. “No, I can’t. He’s all yours.” I half-shrugged, then nodded toward my computer screen. “And I’ve got work to do, so…”

He huffed a laugh. “Yeah. Looks like you’re really busy here today.” But, mercifully, he got up. “You know,ourpaygrades are still allowed to hook up.”

“Yep. They sure are.” I stood and gestured toward the door. “Goodbye, Tobias.”

He scowled, shoulders dropping as he apparently realized his attempt to make me jealous hadn’t worked, and neither had the thinly veiled suggestion that we fuck again. I knew him. Whether he was interested in Marks or not, he knew Marks was my type. In his mind, him connecting with Marks would get under my skin, either because I’d be jealous that Tobias could have him and I couldn’t, or because I’d be jealous that Tobias was sleeping with someone else. It had been almost a year, and he was still deluding himself into thinking I’d eventually get desperate and want him back.

Not a fucking chance, slimeball.

At least he left after that, which meant he was probably on his way to a meeting or something. As soon as I was alone, I shuddered at the memories of our “relationship.” The sex with him had always been consensual, but it had also left me feeling… uncomfortable in ways that were hard to describe. I’d had some incredibly casual and even anonymous hookups over the years, but only Tobias had ever left me feeling like I was just a hole to put his dick in. And that was before we’d started kind-of-dating, and he’d started fucking with my head as much as he’d fucked my body.

I chafed my arms. God, I couldn’t believe I’d wasted so much time and energy on that asshole. Never again. Not with him, and not with anyone else attached to the base, because the worst part about Tobias was that we worked in the same building. I couldn’t get away from him any more than I could get away from?—

Alarm straightened my spine in the same moment cold dread started wrapping around it.

Lieutenant Commander Marks.

I was frustrated as all hell because I couldn’t get away from him. I couldn’t touch him, but I also couldn’t avoid seeing him around the hospital.

The same hospital where Tobias worked.

Tobias, who’d swiped right on Marks.

“Oh,fuck,” I murmured into my empty office.

The thing was, Tobias wasn’t a bad-looking guy at all, and he could be charming as hell when he wanted to be. Hell, he’d gotten me to date him even when I’d sworn off relationships until I was out of the military. The love-bombing was easy to see in hindsight, but at the time, not so much.

And I was experienced with men. Marks wasn’t a clueless virgin, but he was new to the queer scene, and even older guys could get bamboozled by someone who said the right things and played the right games.

Tobias knew how to say the right things and play the right games.

I rubbed the back of my neck and exhaled as that cold dread wound tighter around my spine. I knew it wasn’t just me. Isidoro had experienced Tobias’s bullshit. My buddy Crawford had been with the asshole a couple of months ago; he hadn’t realized until afterward that Tobias was the guy who’d fucked with me, and he’d been with him one time and one time only. We’d both had the same experience with him—namely, that Tobias knew how to toe that line before being gently pushy turned into coercion. Hewouldtake no for an answer, but he was just manipulative enough that he wasn’t easy to say noto. I’d gotten the impression he saw limits and boundaries as goals. I’d found it annoying, as had Crawford and Isidoro, but none of us had left the experiences feeling like any boundaries had been violated, per se—just brushed up against and pushed.

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