Unraveled

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Gray

AS SAM DRIFTED OFF INTO another lazy rest, I took the opportunity to look her all over. Too bad she wasn’t nude, but I knew no amount of cajoling would convince her to sit in this boat without any clothes on. Shame because then I could have inspected every inch of her in the sunlight. I’d have put sunscreen on more than just her legs.

When she awoke after a short nap, I gave her a sandwich and ate two before she finished half of hers. I liked providing Sam’s meals. There was something intensely satisfying about that. Probably a feeling that harkened back to our cave-dwelling ancestors, not that spreading mayo on bread was the same thing as going out and killing a wooly mammoth for food. But I could totally do that if she needed it.

“Tell me about your husband,” I said, surprising myself.

“Really? You want to know?”

“Why not?” He was, after all, dead. I wasn’t jealous of a dead man. Right? Right.

“The only person that really wants to talk about him anymore is his mother, Carolyn.”

“Is that as horrible as your tone suggests?" I squeezed her a little closer to me.

“Pretty much. The Will she describes isn't like the real Will. He's like a boy who never grew up. All perfect and innocent."

“And he wasn't?"

“No. He was crazy and wild. There wasn't a challenge that he didn't like to accept. He never believed in turning the other cheek. He wanted to suck the life out of every moment like—” She stopped then and swallowed hard. “Like—”

“Like he thought he was going to die young?” I finished for her when she couldn’t.

“I don't think he was actively pursuing it but living on the edge was a very real thing to him, not just words in a song. It's why he was so keen on the ROTC. Why he volunteered for pararescue training right out of Basic. Why he asked for deployment again and again until I feel like they sent him over just to shut him up.”

I didn't say anything right away, just mulled over what she didn’t say. How she was disappointed at being left behind and didn’t understand what it was that drew Will away from her. “I knew guys like that. Bo is kind of like that. He never saw a fist that he didn't want to test.”

“Bo?”

“Yeah, the big blond guy.”

“He seems so laid back, like you. The other guy, Noah, is intense.”

“And Will was intense?”

She thought for a moment. “He was focused.”

“On things other than you,” I said gently.

“He focused on me,” she protested and then swayed a little, dizzy from the sun, maybe needing some sugar.

I didn’t challenge her. Instead, I grabbed her arm and steadied her. Holding her with one hand, I fumbled in the cooler and pulled out an ice-cold Coke. Popping the tab, I held it up to her lips and tipped it back. She sipped a little and allowed the sweet syrup to coat her tongue.

"More," she commanded. She drank deeply, not realizing how thirsty she’d been until I’d forced the cold Coke down her throat.

Taking the can from her, I put the opening to my mouth, placing my lips right over the area she’d drunk from and swallowed the rest of the soda in one gulp. Crushing the can in my hand, I threw the empty aluminum toward the other end of the canoe.

"I'm sorry," I said finally, meeting her eyes. "I didn't mean to suggest that he didn't love you."

"I know,” she sighed. "I'm just sensitive about it. My mom always said that he shouldn't have gone into the Army and that it was selfish of him to do so. Is that how your girlfriend felt?”

“No, she was excited.”

“How come you joined?”

I lay back down and tugged her on top of me. Rubbing my thumb up under the hem of her thin cotton T-shirt that said, “I’d rather be knitting,” I stroked that small piece of warm flesh, enjoying the shiver it caused.

“My pops was an enlisted. Retired from the Marines after thirty years of service. Highly decorated. My dad retired from the Marines after twenty years of service. Neither of my elder two brothers joined. They set up a custom chop shop in southern Cal. Pops would tell me how great the Corps was, what a fraternity it was. When I was seven, he gave me a knife that had Semper Fidelis engraved on it which is Latin for always faithful. When I was seventeen he took me to the recruiting station and pretended to be my father and got me signed up before my dad even knew what hit him. But for a while it was all good. My old man was proud of me and Pops was over the moon. Then a year into my contract with the Corps, my dad runs for and wins a congressional seat. After that the Corps isn’t good enough for me. He drops hints there’s something better out there for me. Says I should go to college. Be a lawyer.”

“Son of a bailiff,” she murmured.

“What’s that?” I cocked my head because I wasn’t sure I heard her right.

“Your name, it means son of a bailiff.”

I grunted. “Didn’t know that. I think my mom read a romance book and fell in love with the hero. We all have romance book hero names. Lucien is the oldest. Then James and then me. Grayson.”

She gave me a tiny smile that made me want to lick her lips. “I like it.” Her eyes went unfocused and then her smile turned almost sly.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking right now, but it started out dreamy and turned to naughty.”

She laughed guiltily. “You can see all that?” She pressed her hands against her cheeks as if she could hide her blushes, and then I couldn’t resist. Her lips were pink and a little shiny from the Coke or maybe her saliva. I dragged my tongue lightly over them until she parted her mouth and her small tongue met mine. This time our kiss wasn't fervent or grasping. It was slow and thoughtful like our conversations. Her flavor, mixed with sugar of the cola was the best thing I’d had on my tongue in forever.

I didn’t know what I’d been hoping to find here, so many miles from home, but it wasn’t Sam and her understanding smiles and sweet touches. I wasn’t sure why Will had run from this, because maybe, if I’d had Sam, I wouldn’t have wanted to enlist. Her hands brushed over my closely cropped hair and down my face. My muscles tensed as she ran her fingers over the planes of my chest and then lower. I held my breath in anticipation, hoping she wouldn’t stop at my waistband. When she drew back, panting a bit, I whimpered like a disappointed baby.

“I want to hear the rest of the story.”

I sighed but got the message. “So at Christmas time, Pops asked me if I’d signed my reenlistment papers, and I hadn’t. ‘What are you waiting for, boy? Your CO to come over here and give you an engraved invitation?’” I mimicked my Pops gravely voice. “My dad interrupted him. ‘Speaking of your CO, I’ve heard talk that you should be going to Officer Candidate School.’ Pops replied in his gravely voice, made so by all the yelling he did as a drill instructor, that OCS was for washed out enlisted and that a true Marine was a grunt. He reminded my dad that I could be NCO, a non commissioned officer. Then the two got into a yelling match about how I was going to uphold the Phillips family name the best.”

“Sounds painful,” she winced. Based on earlier conversations it was clear she knew all about painful family engagements.

“The worst thing is that they both love me so I know they want the best but they’re engaged in this power struggle over what I should do next.”

"Will's dad wanted him to be a lawyer. Our parents are law partners. I think Will was trying to escape that as much as anything. He wasn't cut out for the office and legal briefs."

"How about you?"

"No. But Bitsy, my sister, might be one. Heck, she might even be president someday. For sure a judge. She's so smart. So my parents don't hassle me about it. They do think I should go back to school. I dropped out after Will died.”

"I can't imagine."

"You ever do it? Death duty?” she asked.

"No, and I never will. I think you suffer more PTSD delivering constant news of someone dying than you do by being there."

"It can't be fun. I wish I'd held it together better. The chaplain kept saying I was so young."

"Lots of young widows out there now."

We both stared at the water, thinking of the story I’d told that first night.

I spoke first. "Having her try to kill herself was like failing again. We couldn't save him and we almost lost her." My hands were fisted on my knees. Reaching over, she laid her palm over my balled hands. I had a very tough time processing grief but Sam understood. She got me in a way I don’t think anyone had before. Not my pops or my parents or even my brothers. She rested her head against my shoulder and squeezed my hands tight.

This girl stirred some kind of tender emotion in me. Her observation the other day about the difference between wives and girlfriends was spot on. Carrie had been so hungry for the wife position but it was because she wanted a higher status. And she ended up with none

“You'd have made a good military wife," I told her. Sam thought about others. That was the mark of a good military wife. Military people had to be selfless. Both the people who served and those that stayed behind. It had to be a calling for both of them.

She gave a small laugh and shake of her head. "What makes you say that?"

"You care a lot about the other people, almost more than yourself. And that's not always a good thing. You keep downplaying your loss, saying somebody else's loss was greater or somebody else had it worse."

"I'm just really fortunate, you know? And I guess I'm tired of feeling sorry for myself. I've done that for two years. And I have a lot of regrets. I don't want to have any regrets anymore."

"What do you regret?"

"I regret not moving to Alaska when Will got shipped out." She plucked at her shorts. "He wanted me to. We could've gotten married then, or I could've just moved there. It's not like I wasn't without resources like some of the others." Sam turned a bit and shoved my sunglasses off my face, so she could look in my eyes. "Tell me about the girl who cheated on you?”

The question caught me off guard, and I stuttered my response. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“You don't do relationships. You have ultra-impersonal sex hook ups. And you flew off the handle when you thought I was cheating on someone. It’s a big issue with you. Can you tell me what happened?”

No, not really. “I’d rather make love to you.” I brushed my hand up her back and up to the base of her skull. She rolled her eyes but didn’t pull away.

“I can’t imagine how you ever survived deployment to the Middle East.”

"You may be surprised to hear this, but I can go without for long periods of time.”

“Is that right?” she mocked.

“That’s right. I have a very active imagination.” With a small movement of my hand, I had her face tilted at the perfect angle. I could kiss her lips or snake my tongue along the column of her throat. I choose the latter.

Against her skin, I told her what I envisioned. “You’re taking your T-shirt off. You’re braless and the fabric catches on the bottom of one your breasts so that it bounces when the shirt finally comes off. I catch it in my mouth, sucking on your nipple. You moan loudly when my mouth covers you.” I reached between us and unzipped my shorts, pulling out my hungry, ready cock. Her hand wrapped around the tip and squeezed. Choking back my groan, I continued. “Your shorts come off and as you’re standing in front of me, I can see by the wetness between your thighs that you’re aroused.”

Her hand paused mid stroke. “Um, don’t stop,” I choked out.

“How can I be standing in the boat? I barely made it over to your side without tipping us over,” she asked.

“I bet you never fought dragons when you were a kid either, did you?”

“Oh right, we’re imagining things.” She smirked. “Go on, I’m naked and wet.” The words sounded so dirty coming from her that I felt myself jerk in her direction. “You like that?”

I laughed hoarsely. “Yup.” Hearing my partner tell me exactly what she wanted and how she wanted it has always excited me. Half the time I was talking to crank her chain but the side benefit was that it worked me up too. I moved my hand to cover hers. She picked up the motion again, and we covered my length together, rubbing it up and down. My head fell back and I returned to my fantasy.

“You’re standing there naked, and you pull on your ti-nipples.” She probably didn’t like the word tits. “And with the other hand, you start stroking yourself. I’m watching carefully so I can make the same moves when it’s my turn to touch you. Then you bend down and take me in your mouth.”

“Am I still fondling myself?”

“Yes, you have great balance.”

Sam bent over and placed my hard shaft inside her mouth. Our fingers were still entangled and I could feel her lips and tongue all over us. She sucked me hard, my dick popping out of her mouth with a loud noise. “What happens next?” she asked. Had she done that on purpose because she knew how much I enjoyed the sounds of our sex? I let out a shaky breath. I allowed my hand to fall away and she began to work me over. Her fingers couldn’t quite fit all the way around the shaft but she kept making twisting motions and, combined with the suck of her mouth, I was pretty close to shooting my load. It was hard to think. “Yo-you’re sucking me and I can hear how wet it’s making you as you finger yourself.” Gathering her hair up in my hand, I pulled her off my cock and up against my chest. I took her mouth in mine, bruisingly, but she only kissed me back harder. Somehow we managed to get her shorts off without falling into the lake. In another second, I tugged a condom on. Letting her set the pace, I focused on kissing her, exploring every inch of her mouth. Under her shirt, I rubbed her nipples until they were plump and erect.

My heart was pounding like I’d run a dozen miles as I waited for her to sheathe me with herself. When she did, I groaned, long and loud. I’d spent a week imagining Sam in all kinds of filthy positions. Initially she moved slowly, enjoying the feel of her inner flesh rubbing against my cock but we were both too worked up to be leisurely. Rocking against me, she clutched at my shoulders, her elbows digging into my chest as she used me for leverage. I loved it. I wanted to bottom out inside her, to get deeper into her than I’d ever been.

She looked powerful moving on top of me. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her face was flushed. We were moving in some kind of unworldly rhythm that I’d never achieved before. Passion was written on every surface of her body—in the tenseness of her arms, the tightness of her cunt around me, in the way she rode me with such abandon.

The tight, hot glove of her squeezed me hard, making the drag out of her body amazing. Was it possible to lose your mind fucking? Because I felt mine spiraling away from me with each downward drive of her hips. Did she know how much she affected me? How much I wanted this all of the time? How I could not wait to see her again after a week of absence? I’d missed her. I’d fucking missed her. And now that I was inside her, I didn’t want to leave.

I moved my hands from inside of her shirt to grab her hip and plunged the other hand between us, using a thumb to rub against her engorged clit. We were both panting hard, and I could feel myself nearing the edge. I needed her to come. Tearing my mouth away from her, I began to whisper to her again. “You are so hot and tight. I love having you ride me. You feel fucking perfect.”

“God, yes, talk to me,” she cried, her eyes fluttering open.

I shoved up with my hips in a furious rhythm. “Your cunt is squeezing me like a vise. Your cheeks are flushed and your eyes are glassy and I’ve never seen a girl look so into this. I wish we had a mirror right now so you could see how fucking hot you are. Don’t stop,” I begged. “Christ, my balls…”

I couldn’t talk anymore, but I didn’t have to because she came apart in my arms. Her whole body tensed and she shuddered, crying out, “Oh God, Gray.”

My balls felt like they’d nearly exploded when I came. “Almighty fucking…Sam.” I clutched her to me as we both trembled in the aftermath. I could have fallen into the lake and drowned and never realized it because I was that senseless. I’d never had a fuck as good as Sam Anderson and was afraid I never would again.

I lay there against the hard bench and the cooler and hugged her close. There was no explanation I could think of—at least not one I was ready to accept—as to why our physical connection was so spectacular.

“It’s so good with you,” Sam muttered. She’d collapsed on top of me, tucking her arms between us, her warm nose in the crook of my neck. Not knowing how to respond, I just kept up rubbing her back in long strokes from the base of her neck to her spine. Then, when I was about to let the post orgasm stupor take me under again, she asked about Carrie.

This time I just vomited out the whole story. I suppose I could’ve blamed it on the timing but I think I wanted her to know. Sam seemed to understand everything else, maybe she’d get this too. And maybe I owed it to her. “When I was in high school, I was tall and gangly. I had no game, and the girls knew it. Like they sensed I was weak and ran far away.” I grinned but it faded quickly as Sam looked at me knowingly.

Sighing, I snugged her up against my side and pressed her back onto the cooler so she couldn’t look at me. Or I couldn’t look at her. One of the two. With an exaggerated sigh, I pulled my sunglasses back down and continued the story. “We moved a lot up until my junior year, and then my dad got stationed at Pendleton. First day of school, Carrie walks right up to me, takes my hand and shows me around. She eats lunch with me, has me drive her home, and that’s it for me. It blew my mind that she wanted me, of all people.”

“And then she broke your heart.”

"Guys don't get heartbroken, honey. We just get pissed off."

She made a humming noise that could mean anything. I continued. “I’d always known that I was going to join the Corps, and I was up front about it. She loved the idea. Sometimes she’d squeeze my arm and say that the military was going to make me a man. Around Fallbrook, there are plenty of military, and not just Marines. I always felt like she was taking a step down to be with me. When I joined the Corps, it changed me a lot. Not just how I looked, but my whole attitude about things. I was way cockier after boot camp and even worse after I finished the school of infantry.”

“Is that when you got this?” She tapped my arm where the bottom of my tattoo peeked out of my shirt sleeve. We were both bare-ass naked from the waist down but had kept our shirts on. That was kind of fucked up. Sitting up, I reached down and picked Sam’s shorts and panties off the bottom of the boat. Thankfully they were dry. She pulled them on and then settled into the seat opposite me. I handed her another Coke and took one for myself. I needed the caffeine and sugar to get me through the story. I wished I’d brought some beer.

“Yup. All of us after we got out of SOI. We ran off to the first tattoo parlor we could find and got ourselves all tatted up. Semper Fi,” I said mockingly. “And all of this thrilled Carrie. Her boyfriend had turned into something other girls wanted, but it also made her insecure. She flirted a lot with other guys to make me jealous. We fought a lot and had crazy make up sex. I didn’t realize at the time that we were fucked up. Inside the bubble it felt normal. We got to see each other fairly regularly. She'd drive up to base and we'd stay at a hotel on the weekends if my battle buddy wasn't around.

“A few months into my deployment, I hear that she's been coming down regularly, every weekend, which at first seemed like she was just trying to be part of the network. I'd thought about proposing to her when I got back from my deployment. It was only going to be seven months. Then I hear she's been seen with a recruiting officer. The same goddamn 2nd Lieutenant that had signed me up. I got leave halfway through deployment, but I didn't tell her."

"I know the end of the story but already I don't like it."

"Yeah, me neither. Want me to stop now?"

"Nope." She tapped her can against mine and then took another sip. I downed the sugary sweet soda and then crumpled the can in my hand.

"I get back to base and I wait in my car outside the LT's recruiting office until it closes and then I follow him. LT can afford to live off base, and he's got an apartment in Oceanside with some other officer. I wait outside of his condo. If he doesn't meet up with her, then I've wasted a whole afternoon and evening of my tiny leave with this and that pissed me off but I had to know.

"He goes in, does whatever inside, and then an hour later, she shows up in the car her daddy bought her when she graduated from high school. She's wearing barely any clothes and fuck me heels. He comes outside and starts making out with her, playing grab ass on the street. I almost get out of my car then but something tells me to wait. He takes her keys and they get in and drive to a small private beach down along the coast, between San Diego and Oceanside and then…”

I stopped when Sam reached for the can in my hand. I saw that I’d been squeezing it so hard some of the metal had pierced my skin. With a sigh, I released the can so I wouldn’t continue to make myself bleed, even though recounting this whole episode seemed like I’m reopening a scabbed-over wound. "Then they start fucking in the car. I didn't get it then. I thought maybe she saw me and was giving me the ultimate middle finger. I found out later that his roommate had told him that he either stopped screwing around with a deployed Marine's girlfriend or he'd report him to his superiors, so they had to resort to screwing in her car whenever they wanted to get off."

"I got out of the car and rapped on her window, staring at her ass gyrating like she’s a stripper, until they finally heard me. She starts sniveling and crying and saying that he forced her. That didn't fly with me, so she changed her story. She was trying to help me get ahead. He just sat there like a dumbass, sitting on his thumb while he let her twist in the wind. I figured he was the kind of guy that if I decked him, he'd report me, and I wasn't going to fuck up my career for this bitch or that asshole."

"No touching the officers." Sam knew immediately why I couldn’t have beaten the officer like I wanted to. Enlisted men don’t ever touch officers. That was an automatic Article 15 or non-judicial punishment at the very least.

"Right. So I tell this girl that I dated for over three years, the girl I thought about proposing to, that I didn't want to see her cheating ass ever again. I left and got sick drunk and returned to A-stan."

"But that wasn't the end of it."

Stretching out my hand, I threaded a few strands of Sam’s honey-blonde hair through my fingers. It felt like silk, finer than anything I’d touched before. The sunlight made her hair look a thousand different colors. I knew I could stare at it for weeks and not see the same thing. I could barely remember Carrie’s hair, and I knew I hadn’t ever been this fascinated with it. "Nope. The LT sends me an email while I'm deployed, telling me that I better get to the health center because my bitch gave him syph. And that he wasn't the only guy she was fucking while I was gone."

"Is that true?"

"Don't know, but I checked out fine."

We sat there as she took in my sad little tale. I kept sifting through her hair. She didn’t try to tell me that I should’ve given Carrie another chance or that deployments were hard on everyone. She didn’t try to offer any sympathy or, worse, pity. The wound I thought I had re-opened lacked the sharp pain that usually accompanied thoughts of her perfidy. Maybe I’d only had a little poison inside of me and we’d bled it out.

Her hand squeezed mine tight and then she turned and kissed my hand.

“I’ve never been to San Diego. I’d like to visit sometime.”

“You can come and visit me,” I joked but then I realized I was serious. I wanted her to visit me. I wanted to stay connected to her in some way.

“Maybe I will.”

I wanted to change the subject and talk about something other than cheating girlfriends, dead husbands or the Corps. "Tell me about your knitting."

She told me about how a widow from the Yarn Over Knitting Club had reached out to her after Sam's story was told in their local newspaper, and how she hadn't wanted to go but her therapist thought it was a good idea.

"You still could have stayed home," I pointed out.

"I don't think my parents would have let me. I had moved out of my condo when Will and I got married but then after he died, I didn't do a very good job caring for myself so I had to move back home for a while.”

The thought of a grieving Sam not feeding herself made me sick to my stomach and I curled an arm around her and brought her closer to me. It was strange but when she talked about how much she loved Will, that actually made me feel better. Like she was different and that she would've been faithful, unlike so many other women I knew. And men, too, I guess. The military didn't foster fidelity. Even though there were rules against it, adultery and cheating ran rampant through the Corps. It was almost expected that one of your comrades would sleep with your girl the first chance he got. If you didn't get cheated on, it was like you hadn't been tested in battle. I didn't know how other people started trusting enough to start up another relationship or maybe they just knew going in that they were going to cheat, that their partner was going to cheat and that they just lived with it.

I didn't want that. I wanted a relationship, but it could wait until I got out. Or when I was done deploying for long months. I just didn't believe that any relationship could survive long separations, but here was Sam. She'd stayed true to her husband while he was training in Alaska. She'd been true to his memory long after his death. If there was ever a girl that could be true, maybe it was Sam. I pulled Sam up from her seat and tucked her into my side.

I hadn't lied to her when I said that I didn't cuddle, so having her warm body snug against mine without the urge to flee, when we weren't enjoying some post coital glow, was weird. A good weird, but it was definitely hitting different nerves and neurosensors in my brain. I liked it. There was something really relaxing and almost comforting just holding her as the waves of the water slapped gently against the boat. It was so good that I just drifted off to sleep.

Samantha

“DID YOU SEE THE BIG piece of green felt in my condo? It hangs above my sofa."

"What's it for?" Gray's words sounded slurred and drowsy like the heat was lulling him to sleep this time.

"An afghan I was knitting. The felt holds the yarn pieces up so you can stare at the pattern. It's a flag but I'm supposed to do a technique called intarsia and I really suck at it so I haven't finished the star part." Gray fell asleep as I was explaining how intarsia knitting techniques had stymied my ability to finish my flag afghan, and I wasn't even the tiniest bit upset that he did. Gray often had a hard time relaxing. His eyes were always roaming around as if he was trying to identify all potential targets. His story about how he'd been cheated on hurt my heart. I wondered if he knew he was still grieving that.

Oh, he wasn't grieving the loss of his girlfriend so much as the betrayal of that trust he'd given her. And his sense of justice was offended too. He was over there in the dust and danger of Afghanistan making a huge sacrifice and she and an officer weren't even trying to match his sacrifice. He was so hurt he was holding himself apart. His friends with benefits situation sounded awful. The girl he slept with treated him like a human vibrator? That sounded too terrible for words. And yet, he not only pursued this setup, but was proud of it in some weird way.

That he wanted to have sex with me was out of character but in a good way, as if he and I were both stretching outside of our comfort zones because something we wanted was just out of reach.

Eve was right. I realized that now. Will's death had broken my heart. Actually, his death hadn't just broken it. For a while I thought my life had been buried with him. And like I told Gray, I only knew how to do serious relationships. Casual sex didn't sound appealing. It took me a while to get used to having sex with Will, which told me that based on my physical reaction to Gray, I must have a few feelings for him. When he was holding me and I could feel the deep rumble of his chest against my own body, I wanted to sink into that. And the body that I thought was too muscular when I first saw him in the bar had become a source of constant fascination. When he'd rowed us to the middle of the lake, I couldn't stop staring at the way the muscles under his skin undulated and flexed.

The light dusting of hair had felt wonderful against my breasts. Will hadn't had a lot of chest hair but Gray not only had hair around his chest but there was a lovely trail that bisected his stomach and led the eye downward. I'd heard Eve call it the treasure trail and it did beg for me to do some exploring.

And his erection. I smiled a little to myself, glorying in some heretofore unrealized feminine power, but Gray was erect around me a lot. His heavy cotton cargo shorts didn't hide it, and neither did the swim trunks he'd worn during the slip and slide party.

But it wasn’t just his physical power that attracted me. It was fun to talk to him and to do things like going out on a boat and pretending to fish. Gray watched out for me, too, always making sure I had enough to eat or drink. There was a tenderness in his gestures, a sweetness too. Carrie had been a fool, but I wouldn’t be.