Active Duty: Gay Military Erotic Romance (21 page)

There was much about the dude to like. Hell, to love. And you didn’t have to search too hard for the reasons.

Collins wasn’t tall—he measured somewhere around five-eight. But he was big in other ways besides simple physical height. His smile, for starters—Collins would grin, sometimes snarl, revealing a length of perfect white teeth.

“Don’t get too jealous,
amigos,
” he drawled the next time Weare and he crossed paths in the showers. Collins stood at the sink in his slides and a towel, flossing. “I got a mean sweet tooth, so these pearly whites’ll be dropping out of my mug any day now.”

His teeth. His handsome face and classic jaw, which showed perpetual five o’clock shadow, regardless of the time of day. Tight, muscled body. And his scent, which Weare loved—a man’s sweat mixed with something sweet. Candy.

On patrol through Tikrit, Weare stole another hit of the lieutenant’s smell and soon understood its source: Collins had a bag of candy in his pocket, another stored in his ruck. American candy. Kisses and lollypops and little chocolate bars. Candy from home.

Finally, it all made perfect sense. The candy wasn’t just to satisfy one man’s personal sweet tooth. There was another mission, one beyond patrolling streets and maintaining a fragile peace that seemed destined to unravel and would in the weeks ahead.

Collins strutted at a safe distance from the civilians, called out something in Arabic, and was mobbed by local kids, who streamed over to him, speaking in excited voices.

“Candy! Candy!”

He doled out the chocolate bars and gumballs.

“You gotta win their hearts if you want to win the war,” he said to Weare.

The man was a genius. And by then he sure had won Weare’s heart.

* * *

When he was younger, one of Weare’s favorite things to drink was chocolate milk. You squeezed syrup into a tall glass, poured in cold whole milk, stirred it with a spoon and drank the concoction through a twisty Krazy Straw. You couldn’t reuse the straw for long, as the things tended to grow rank as the milk residue trapped inside soured. But there was something magical about that simple recipe. It defied words, logic. It was one of Weare’s happiest memories.

Weare mentioned it in passing to Collins during one of the lieutenant’s goodwill missions. The other man flashed a cocky smirk, and Weare melted on the inside, his pulse driven into a gallop by Collins’s shades, his unshaved face and the lollypop stick hanging out of that smile full of clean white teeth.

A week later, Weare found a package sitting on his bunk. He opened the simple brown wrapper and couldn’t believe what waited inside. Not only had Collins gotten him a bottle of chocolate syrup, the real stuff from home, but a twisty straw as well.

“Dude,” Weare sighed, “are you for real?”

“Maybe. No thanks though, little buddy.”

When Weare did anyway, Collins grabbed him in a playful headlock and kissed the top of Weare’s buzz cut.

“I said,” he drawled, “think nothing of it. Seriously, the pleasure was all mine.”

Night fell. Snores filled the barracks following lights out.

“Hey, dude,” Collins whispered.

Weare sat up to find the other man seated on the edge of his bottom bunk. “Huh?”

“Shhh,” Collins said, with a sweet breath that smelled of mint.

Weare drew in a deep lungful. Among the scent, he detected maleness, fresh sweat, musk. He’d woken hard and quickly grew stiffer. “What is it, man?”

“This,” Collins answered.

And then the new lieutenant leaned down and crushed their mouths together. The kiss was sweet in taste, bitter in concept because it was also forbidden. Weare tensed, broke their liplock and cast a worried glance around the barracks room filled with sleeping phantoms.

“I thought…” Collins said, and moved away.

The distance grew to what felt like kilometers. Weare panicked—more from the fear of losing Collins, less over worries of being found out. “You thought right.”

Weare hooked a hand around the lieutenant’s neck and pulled him back. This kiss was equally awkward and verged on painful, but necessary in painting them both as criminals guilty of the same crime. Collins’s tongue tested Weare’s boundaries. Weare opened wider, inviting access. A low, happy growl rose up from the other man’s throat. Weare’s hand slipped down and caressed the rough stubble of cheek, chin and throat en route to the lieutenant’s chest.

“Dude,” Collins sighed. “I can’t fucking stand this. Not another second.”

“I know. I want you, too, man.”

“Well, here I am. Let’s you and me do this, all right?”

Collins’s touch boldly sought other flesh. Weare bit back a moan as fingers walked over his stomach and under the elastic waistband of his underwear. Collins gripped his cock, and Weare worried he’d either come from that connection alone or pass out.

“You like that?” Collins taunted in a lusty whisper.

Weare muttered an affirmative.

“If that’s so, you best prove it, dude.”

Collins released his grip and straightened. Before he could think clearly, Weare reached for the other man’s crotch. The front of Collins’s shorts stood tented in the near dark. Weare tugged downward. The lieutenant’s erection snapped out—an uncircumcised beaut wreathed in dark curls, with two fat balls hanging loose and full beneath. No more lusting from afar in the showers; Collins was his, all his. And he was the lieutenant’s.

Collins planted a hand on top of Weare’s head and guided him down. Lips met cockhead and noose of foreskin. A funky tang ignited on Weare’s tongue.

“Suck it,” Collins urged. “Oh, dude, suck my fucking dick…”

The smell, the taste, was as much
home
to Weare as Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas trees, candy bars and ice-cold watermelon at the height of August dog days, the fragrance of mowed summer lawns and the smoky haze in the air that telegraphs snowstorms are on their way during long, cold Maine winters.

He opened wider and swallowed the other soldier’s cock deeper, almost to the balls. Those he tickled, rolling the meaty pair around in their sac and stirring their sweaty smell.

“Oh fuck, yeah, keep doing that, dude,” Collins sighed.

Weare tugged. Collins responded with a grunt and shifted on the lower bunk. Weare sucked harder, faster. The sleeping bodies elsewhere in the dark added a level of excitement he hadn’t dreamed possible. But on this night, all things
were
.

The taste of the lieutenant’s precome strengthened. Nothing, Weare thought, could make this memory better, because eventually the sun would rise and they’d still be in this arid wasteland superimposed over the same space as the cradle of civilization, and neither man would be able to speak about the rebirth of
sorts that had happened here because of rules, regulations and rhetoric over what could be asked or told.

Liquid warmth exploded across Weare’s tongue, salty and slightly sweet. Weare swallowed it down. The pressure and hot male stink in the air intensified. Time froze. The world held its breath.

Eventually, Collins spoke. “Turn around.”

Weare exhaled and shifted on the bunk. “What—?”

“Trust me.”

Collins yanked down the younger man’s shorts, baring his ass to warm breaths and more of those possibilities. Before Weare could comment or protest, cool, dense liquid drizzled over his most private flesh. Joy replaced worry. Weare shoved his face into his pillow to bury the laughter.

After setting down the bottle of chocolate syrup, Collins lowered his mouth to Weare’s asshole and feasted.

Now they stood together in a different country, a different time and political climate. They were the same men, however.

Collins smiled. “You’re here.”

“Couldn’t keep me away,” Weare said. “And now that I am…no more secrets. No more lies.”

“Great to see you,” Collins said.

Weare leaned closer. “Truly, dude. I’ve missed you. Oh, how much…”

Collins reached into his front pocket. The motion of his fingers captured Weare’s focus, and his mind drifted. From that wonderland between his legs, Collins produced a fresh lollypop and handed it over. Cherry. “Welcome home.”

Weare accepted the gift. Home? It sure felt like it.

SEMPER FI
WRESTLERS

Bearmuffin

M
aster Sergeant Bill O’Conner couldn’t think of a better job to have than to be wrestling in the Marines. He got to coach hunky, muscular wrestlers every day and traveled to bases around the world recruiting studs for the United States Marine Corps All-Marine Wrestling Team.

This month he was at the wrestling camp at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County. The All-Marine team was reestablished each year with tryouts, “wrestle-offs” that were held to see who would ultimately make the team. More than anything he wanted to have an all-gay team that he could be proud of.

Now that it was cool to be gay in the military, he was able to recruit more openly gay wrestlers to the fold. He was fifty and had been a Marine since he was twenty-five. He remembered the old days of military homophobia and now with the new freedoms he would be able to hook up with other like-minded athletic studs without fear of reprisal.

His confidence and innate wisdom, in addition to his natural
authoritative and commanding presence, inspired a kind of old-fashioned hero worship in his men. Old-fashioned in the sense that it would not be going too far to say that Master Sergeant O’Conner elicited the kind of undying allegiance and love known in ancient times in Greece or Rome.

He was tall and built like a tackle, all of it pure solid muscle. Not only did he have a football player’s rugged good looks but his chin was strong, his jaw angular. His crew cut was razor sharp. His deep-set dark eyes, thick brows and trimmed mustache made him the perfect Marine Daddy, especially with that distinguished touch of gray at the temples.

And no one appreciated a daddy more than Sergeant Tom Hansen, from Boise, Idaho.

Sergeant Hansen stood three inches shorter than O’Conner’s six-foot-two. Even so, he had a sizzling symmetrical physique. He was Ivy League handsome with brown hair flecked with gold. His eyes were a pale blue and they enhanced his dazzling smile. O’Conner was beside himself with lust and wanted to kiss Sergeant Hansen’s mouth for hours. He wanted to stick his tongue down Hansen’s throat, grab his buns of steel and hold him tight. Then O’Conner would rub his hefty cock all over Hansen’s amazing, ripped midsection and spooge all over those hard-as-steel six-pack abs.

O’Conner went crazy watching Hansen wrestle. O’Conner wanted to wrestle that six-pack-abbed, hard-bodied hunk so bad he could taste Hansen’s jockstrap sweat. Yeah, he’d pin Hansen. He’d grab his thick thighs, spread them apart and suck his asshole for hours. Then O’Conner would sit on Hansen’s face and let him rim him. Then he’d fuck the living daylights out of Sergeant Hansen.

The feeling was mutual. Hansen instantly noted the black fur fanning over O’Conner’s broad pecs and he could see tufts
of it poking out through the neck hole of O’Conner’s regulation white T-shirt stretched over his barrel chest. His thick nipples tented his shirt. He was attracted to O’Conner’s mesmerizing masculinity, his powerful erotic charisma.

Hansen saw how O’Conner’s blue gym trunks exposed his hairy, burly legs. O’Conner’s jockstrap peeped out over the waistband of his shorts. Many a time Hansen had fantasized about getting O’Conner’s jockstrap, sniffing it and jacking off while he tripped out on O’Conner’s ripe, masculine smells.

The Marine wrestling camp was two months long. Naturally, hard-core physical training and wrestling were involved that pushed the wrestlers to their limits. They really had to prove to O’Conner that they had what it took to be an All-Marine wrestler. And if a hot and sweaty practice bout led to some hot man-to-man action on or off the mat that was all the better.

Three pairs of wrestlers grappled on the mats, scuffling and groaning, their hot young bodies streaked with sweat. Within minutes the gym was permeated with the arousing odor of manly jock-sweat. The stench excited O’Conner. His cock twitched and his balls rumbled with lust. With a pair of alert, narrowed eyes, O’Conner watched Hansen wrestle Corporal Smith.

O’Conner was thrilled with Smith’s beefy farm-boy masculinity. Smith was a tower of solid muscle slabbed onto his perfectly proportioned frame, which was highlighted by great pecs and washboard abs. His light brown hair was streaked with gold. His killer smile and cobalt blue eyes instantly mesmerized everyone. Smith hailed from Minnesota.

Endless hours in the gym had honed Smith’s muscular frame to spectacular perfection. The nineteen-year-old stud sported a tight, hard bubble butt that took your breath away, even more so when it was framed by the straps of a white jock that
emphasized the deep, rich tan of his smooth skin. Smith always wore his jockstrap a size too small. He loved the way it lewdly displayed his meaty cock and big balls.

O’Conner’s heart thumped whenever he got a gander at the young wrestler’s hot pecs, powerful muscles and terrific bubble butt stuffed inside his wrestling singlet. Smith had thick nipples, the kind that O’Conner could chew on for a week.

As O’Conner watched Corporal Smith grapple with Sergeant Hansen, he became more agitated. He couldn’t resist squeezing the ever-thickening bulge inside his jockstrap.