Walking Wounded Read online

  John let himself breathe again. “You’re not. If you’d seen me a few years ago…. Give me two minutes, would you? All that beer.” He made a temporary retreat to the loo, wondering whether Kevin would be willing to talk. He’d managed to avoid it pretty neatly so far, but they really did need to figure out what they wanted, what they were expecting of one another. It looked as though he’d have to be the one to ask, and he’d somehow have to manage it without making Kev feel as though he was being interrogated. One wrong step, and he could lose the most precious thing in his life, just when he’d got it back against all hope and reason.

  I’m not ready for this.

  But life didn’t wait until you were ready, did it? Besides, there wasn’t anybody else. He had to do what he could, because he had a queasy feeling that if he missed this second chance, Kevin would disappear again, this time for good.

  Kevin had always been something of a perfectionist, an unusual one in that he didn’t expect perfection of anyone else. But the standard he set for himself was always very, very high. John had never doubted Kevin would qualify for the SAS, no matter how demanding the requirements might have been. He’d heard the usual rumors—that candidates had to walk naked through a trench of bloody entrails, that they were beaten, starved, half-killed with exposure. He suspected most of the rumors had some basis in fact. Every warrior elite had its own initiation ordeals.

  Of course, Kevin had passed them, and being who he was, he would never have made much of his accomplishment. But somehow, in the line of duty, he had failed—failed very badly and very publicly. That must have been devastating. Whether he was ready to talk about it was another matter, and for the first time in ages, John nearly regretted that he had stopped watching the evening news. Nearly. He’d always hoped to see Kevin again, but he was happier that it had been at his door, not as the target of some acid-tongued news “personality.”

  He took the quick shower he’d been too groggy for the previous night and returned to the bedroom to find Kevin asleep again, one arm thrown across the pillow beside him. The sun had risen high enough to send a few rays through the east window, and Kev was right in the middle of the light, curled up like a cat. He looked so vulnerable, so young, despite the fact that they’d both be turning thirty this year.

  John draped his towel over the doorknob, climbed into bed, and took Kevin in his arms. The shift in his breathing said he was awake now, and waiting.

  “I’m glad you came here,” John said finally. “Whatever’s happened, whatever’s going to happen—thank you for coming back.”

  “I’m sorry I took so long, Johnny.” The words were quiet, mumbled against his skin. “I should have been there for you when you got home.”

  The memories from that wretched time were mercifully fuzzy now. He had thought about Kevin back then, often, but had never had the energy to do anything about finding him. “I didn’t try to find you either. I suppose I could have at least tried.” He sighed. “It’s just as well. I wasn’t fit to be with anyone.”

  “Thought you must’ve found someone else. I tried, not quite two years ago. To see how you were, tell you I was in line for a command. It was carefully hinted that you had become a potential security risk. I should have told them to stuff it. Instead, I backed down.”

  “I was a risk, though. I expect I still am. Will your being here now create problems?”

  “Johnny, I don’t care anymore. But no, I don’t think so. I’m not the valuable commodity I once was. Or maybe it’s the new military gay policies and the civil rights laws. At any rate, I told them straight out if my friendship with you would put me completely out of the picture, they might as well shoot me then and there.”

  “What?”

  “Figuratively speaking.” Kevin pulled away a little. “You really don’t know about it.”

  John shook his head.

  “Oh, damn.”

  For all his good intentions just a few minutes earlier, John suddenly did not want Kevin to explain what had happened. Not in his current mood, not if it had to start with him apologizing for things he had done, or not done, years earlier. “You don’t have to tell me about it right now.”

  Kev’s jaw was set. “It won’t get any easier.”

  John ran a hand down Kevin’s chest to the underwear spoiling his view. “I was hoping it would get harder.” And sure enough, it did, pushing back against the pressure of his hand. He tried a kiss and felt Kev’s mouth relax beneath his. “Can the news of the world wait for a little while?”

  “How long did you say it’s been?” Kevin reached down too, caressing John’s fast-growing erection with a speculative frown. “I don’t know if I can handle seven years’ backlog before breakfast,” he warned.

  “Let’s just go for a week’s worth. Raise up.” He slipped the briefs down Kevin’s legs, marveling at that trim, masculine body—strong shoulders, beautifully muscled limbs, strong but not overdeveloped, neither too much nor too little body hair. If he were set to design a picture of male perfection, he could not improve on what lay before him now. The beauty of it took his breath away. “Jesus, Kev,” he said. He let his fingers drift through a sprinkling of chest hair that looked like pure gold where the morning sun touched it, and tried not to notice the little scars that hadn’t been there before. “I don’t know where to start. No, maybe I do. I’ve learned a thing or two since the last time.”

  “I thought you said you hadn’t—”

  “I learned something that is almost better than sex. Roll over.”

  “That doesn’t sound like ‘almost,’” Kevin said, but he did as John asked, plumping a pillow under his face and glancing back over his shoulder. It was, as John’s grandmother had once said in reference to something else, a picture no artist could paint.

  John sighed. “I will never get tired of looking at your arse.”

  “Flattery will get you somewhere, but it’s not better—oh!”

  John had settled one hand on each cheek and begun to slowly rotate them, pressing lightly with his palms. “For a while,” he said, “quite a long while, I was so dissociated I hardly realized I had a body.” He glanced around the room and located what he was looking for over on the storage chest. “Stay put.”

  “That was nice, but—”

  “I’m not finished.” He found the bottle of sandalwood-scented oil he’d bought ages ago, poured a little in his palms, and rubbed them together as he settled himself between Kevin’s legs. He reached up to Kev’s shoulders, spreading the oil down, pausing for a deep breath of the intoxicating combination of scents, especially the part that was clean, healthy male—the man he had never thought to see again, to lie with again. He was astonished at his own sudden lust. He had gone without for so long that his body had gone into sexual hibernation, but right at this moment, he only wanted to throw himself on this beautiful man and fuck them both into a stupor.

  And if he touched Kev’s arse right now, he would do just that. Slow the hell down! he told himself sternly.

  Taking a deep breath, he started at Kevin’s heels, kneading the soles of the feet with his thumbs. Kevin groaned.

  “Does that hurt?”

  “Are you crazy? It’s wonderful, don’t stop!”

  He grinned and continued kneading. His hands were big enough that he could use one on each calf. It wasn’t the most professional massage in the world, but he was willing to bet it was the first one Kevin had ever experienced. “I was like a rock,” he said. “Didn’t even realize it. My therapist told me to go get a massage and recommended someone.”

  Kevin was hardly paying attention. “Ummm.”

  He had to use both hands on each strong thigh, working the muscles away from the bone as Pat had taught him. “It took me weeks to get up the nerve to let anyone touch me, but when I finally did, it felt so good I thought for a while about studying physiotherapy. Might still do that. There are some branches of therapy, body-mind techniques….” He’d got back to Kevin’s bum and let himself play a l
ittle, letting one oiled finger slide between the cheeks, slipping just far enough in to tease, eliciting a moan and a delicious shiver. Not the sort of thing one would ever do to an actual patient—totally unethical in what Pat called the “therapeutic context,” but she had once suggested that massaging a lover was something else altogether… and much more fun.

  She was right.

  “Oh, Christ, Johnny…. How’d you learn this? Should I be jealous?”

  “No. The doctor sent me to an actual medical massage person. A lesbian.”

  Kevin chuckled. “Clever. Oh—yeah, do that again….”

  He obliged. “Very clever. Safe, sympathetic—but no threat, no temptation, and not likely to let me pull anything if I had been tempted. Good thing she doesn’t look like you.” He straddled Kev’s thighs, enjoying the feel of warm bare skin beneath him, and dug his thumbs gently into the lines of muscles along the spine. “You are the most beautiful human being I have ever seen.”

  “You’re mistaken, you know.”

  “Not from where I sit.” He leaned forward a little, letting his cock rest along the cleft of that perfect arse. “By the time we get out of this bed, we’ll have to send out for pizza.”

  “Mmm,” Kevin said once more. “I suppose I’m in no position to argue.”

  “No. But I’m not about to criticize your position. Arguing wasn’t what I had in mind.” He put a little more oil on his hands, stroked it across those smooth golden shoulders, and had to stop for a breath to get himself under control. He couldn’t very well just start humping; this was supposed to be a slow, gentle seduction. Not that Kevin really required seducing. With the way he was writhing under John’s ministrations, he was well beyond the need for any persuasion.

  “Are you going to do something soon,” Kevin inquired, his voice a bit hoarse, “or am I supposed to just lie here and explode?”

  If he were doing this with serious therapeutic intent, the next thing would be to work on Kevin’s arms. But he didn’t want to do that, particularly not until he learned the story behind the uneven red mark on the back of the right triceps, a mark he recognized as a partially healed exit wound. He didn’t even want to look at it; he certainly didn’t much like thinking about where it had come from. At least it was only an arm—not an eye, not his face, not some vital organ. It was a wound from which Kevin could recover.

  John shivered and leaned down to kiss Kevin on the nape of his neck, rubbing his lips through the short stiff hair of the military trim. He nuzzled around to one side, licked the back of Kevin’s ear, and grinned as a shiver went through him. “Are you ready?”

  “I’ve been ready,” Kevin said plaintively. “If you don’t do something soon, I’m going to start without you!”

  “Which way?”

  Kevin shoved his rump up and back, and John carefully lubricated himself and Kevin with more oil.

  “Been awhile?”

  “Same as you. Come on, Johnny….”

  “No, we did quick and dirty last night. It’ll go too fast no matter what….” Slowly, with infinite care, he positioned himself and pressed forward. Slow. Careful. He would rather cut off his own arm than hurt Kev through impatience, but Kevin’s soft cries were not from pain, and he was pushing back with his usual determination.

  And then John was fully inside, and they were both breathing hard, half crying, and instinct took over. The years dissolved, time and distance and disappointment and longing banished in the immediacy of the moment. The tension gathered inside him as he thrust into the welcoming body, excitement building until he simply couldn’t be careful. He tugged Kevin’s hips up, reaching under to bring him along, holding him close with his other arm across his lover’s chest. As he pumped with one hand, he had that odd illusion that it was his own cock he was holding, as his whole body quivered on the edge of climax—and then Kev cried out and shuddered, squeezing tight, and it was like setting off a string of firecrackers one right after another. He thrust, and thrust again, and then they both dropped onto the mattress, panting.

  They rolled to one side, Kevin curled in his embrace.

  “You all right?” John asked after a minute.

  “Better than.” He let out a huge sigh. “Johnny.”

  “What?”

  “If you decide to do that for a living….”

  John laughed. “Only for a very select clientele.”

  “How select?”

  “You.”

  “Good.”

  They lay there for a while, catching their breath, and John realized that, for the first time in longer than he could remember, he was happy. Simply happy. He kissed the top of Kevin’s head and relaxed, enjoying the novelty of it.

  In a very little while, Kevin cleared his throat. “Johnny?”

  “Mm?”

  “Do you have anything in this place that’s fit to eat, or would you like to go to breakfast?”

  “Whatever you like.”

  “Mm. Maybe a nap first.”

  “Sounds fine.”

  Chapter 5

  THE SUN had shifted to the southern window by the time they awoke, and the pot of tea Kevin had left to brew was stone-cold and strong enough to strip paint. He raised an eyebrow when John poured some into a mug and stuck it in the microwave.

  “There’s an American in one of my study groups,” John said when he caught Kevin’s expression. “We sometimes meet here. One afternoon I started to pour out half a cold pot, and she said, ‘Why waste it?’ and I couldn’t think of any reason. Apparently Yanks can’t taste the difference. Don’t worry, we’ll get a fresh pot with breakfast.”

  Kevin wasn’t going to argue—he’d used the last of the teabags anyway. He could taste the difference, but it cleared away the cobwebs, and the milk took the edge off. “Damn!” He set his mug down as his brain, sluggish after finally having gotten enough sleep, reminded him of a waiting pile of laundry. “We can’t go anywhere decent, Johnny—I’ll have to borrow your sweats again until I can wash my things.”

  “Jeans will do,” John said. “I’ve got some you can wear.”

  “I’ll have to roll them up—I’ll look a fool.”

  “No, you won’t—come on, I think I know where they are.” He rummaged under the bed and retrieved a plastic storage box, then pulled out a pair of folded jeans. “Here,” he said, tossing them up to Kevin. “Those should fit.”

  The jeans were too short for John’s long legs, but they were not new and looked vaguely familiar.

  As well they should. They were his own.

  Ah, Johnny…. He bit his lip. “You kept them? All this time?”

  “I kept meaning to give them to Oxfam or something, but… I thought I might see you again, sooner or later, and I could give them back.” He shrugged, with a slightly guilty grin. “That’s the half-truth. The whole truth is that I just didn’t want to let go of them. They were all I had left of you.”

  Kevin didn’t know what to say. He had spent the last year or so in an odd kind of isolation, feeling that there had been no one who could possibly understand the tightrope he was walking, no one who would care. And all that time there had been someone waiting, someone he had deliberately turned his back on to chase a prize that had crumbled to dust just as he’d grasped it.

  He finally looked up and met warm dark eyes. “I’ve been a fool.”

  “Welcome to the club,” John said. “Come on, get dressed. Did you drive here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. After we eat, we can restock the larder. It’s a lot easier with a car.”

  “What happened to yours?”

  “Up on blocks in a friend’s barn. Wasn’t worth the cost of running it here.”

  “How do you manage?”

  “Connections. Let’s go, Kev, we need some exercise. Vertical exercise,” he amended, aborting Kevin’s smartass response.

  Although clouds threatened off the horizon, for the moment the air was bright and clear. There were people about, walking and driving, but
not the tourist crowds Kevin had expected. He kept pace as John headed purposefully down the lane. “Connections?”

  “Mrs. Herbert, she lives just over there.” He nodded toward a narrow terraced house with a bright show of chrysanthemums beneath its front window. “She was a Wren in World War II. Retired now, of course—she’s nearly ninety. Can’t drive her old Mini anymore, so I take her shopping every week or so.”

  “From the look of your cupboard, the old girl must be down to her last digestive biscuit. Do we need to stop in and pick up her shopping list?”

  “No, she’s in London with her family this week. Her granddaughter came down on the train and drove her back. I was just waiting for a dry day to take my bike to Tesco’s.”

  “You have a motorcycle?”

  John laughed. “Just two pedals and panniers. It’s part of my new routine. When I was in the Balkans, I got to the point where I couldn’t function. Completely dissociated, just sat around like a lump, not responding to orders, not doing my job. Even after the active hostilities ended, some of us stayed on—well, you know that. We still have troops over there with the NATO forces.”

  Kevin nodded.

  “I was lucky. My CO knew I wasn’t putting it on. They sent me off to a medical unit for observation. What would you rather have, Kev, a real breakfast or something more substantial?”

  “I’d like eggs—a fried breakfast, if you know a good restaurant.” Kevin didn’t react to the abrupt change of subject. He knew John had tried to kill himself when he was under observation, but he was speaking about it in a perfectly normal tone, and Kevin wasn’t absolutely sure he wanted to know the details.

  “I know just the place, if you don’t mind feeling like you’re eating in your auntie’s cottage.”

  “If Auntie can cook, I’m all for it.”

  “When I got to the base hospital, I was really in trouble,” John said, as though there’d been no verbal detour. “They made sure I wasn’t on drugs—I told them I wasn’t using anything, but they didn’t want to believe me, so they ran a bunch of tests. I was in officers’ quarters then, going in twice a week to talk to a therapist, but the rest of the time all I could do was sit around feeling guilty.”