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- Herausgeber: GallagherWitt Publishing LLC
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Lieutenant Commander Connor Marks is starting over. His kids are grown up. His divorce is final. He’s settled into his new command and a beautiful house in Spain. Nothing left to do but move forward.
And maybe explore his bisexuality after all this time.
Unfortunately, his options are limited. He doesn’t speak enough Spanish to connect with the locals, and getting involved with other service members can get… complicated.
When HM1 Alex Barlow stumbles across a hot guy on a hookup app, of course it’s that gorgeous new physician Alex sees all the time at the hospital. Of course he’s looking to hook up with a guy. Of course he’s exactly Alex’s type.
The only problem is that Connor is an officer while Alex is enlisted. The fraternization regs are crystal clear—they can’t even be friends, never mind hook up.
Never mind be more than hookups.
But the Navy’s regs can’t cool the chemistry sizzling between Alex and Connor.
And nothing—not even their own stubbornness or Alex’s toxic, persistent ex—can stop them from falling in love.
CW: Discussion of past abuse, brief on-page violence; combat-related PTSD.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
L.A. WITT
CONTENTS
Copyright Information L.A. Witt
Artificial Intelligence
About Better Late Than Never
1. Connor
2. Alex
3. Connor
4. Alex
5. Connor
6. Alex
7. Connor
8. Alex
9. Connor
10. Alex
11. Connor
12. Alex
13. Connor
14. Alex
15. Connor
16. Alex
17. Connor
18. Alex
19. Connor
20. Alex
21. Connor
22. Alex
23. Connor
24. Alex
25. Connor
26. Alex
27. Connor
28. Alex
29. Connor
30. Alex
31. Connor
32. Alex
33. Connor
34. Alex
35. Connor
36. Alex
37. Connor
38. Alex
39. Connor
40. Alex
41. Connor
42. Alex
43. Connor
44. Alex
45. Connor
Epilogue
Also by L.A. Witt
Also by L.A. Witt
L.A. Witt
Copyright Information
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Better Late Than Never
First edition
Copyright © 2025 L.A. Witt
Edited by Cecily Green & Mackenzie Walton
Cover Art by Lori Witt
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact L.A. Witt at [email protected]
Ebook ISBN - 978-1-64230-399-5
Paperback ISBN - 978-1-64230-360-5
Hardcover ISBN - 978-1-64230-361-2
No artificial intelligence was used in the making of this book or any of my books. This includes writing, co-writing, cover artwork, translation, and audiobook narration.
I do not consent to any Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarize, train from, or otherwise replicate any part of this creative work, via any means: print, graphic, sculpture, multimedia, audio, or other medium. This applies to all existing AI technology and any that comes into existence in the future.
I support the right of humans to control their artistic works.
ABOUT BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
Lieutenant Commander Connor Marks is starting over. His kids are grown up. His divorce is final. He’s settled into his new command and a beautiful house in Spain. Nothing left to do but move forward.
And maybe explore his bisexuality after all this time.
Unfortunately, his options are limited. He doesn’t speak enough Spanish to connect with the locals, and getting involved with other service members can get… complicated.
When HM1 Alex Barlow stumbles across a hot guy on a hookup app, of course it’s that gorgeous new physician Alex sees all the time at the hospital. Of course he’s looking to hook up with a guy. Of course he’s exactly Alex’s type.
The only problem is that Connor is an officer while Alex is enlisted. The fraternization regs are crystal clear—they can’t even be friends, never mind hook up.
Never mind be more than hookups.
But the Navy’s regs can’t cool the chemistry sizzling between Alex and Connor.
And nothing—not even their own stubbornness or Alex’s toxic, persistent ex—can stop them from falling in love.
CW: Discussion of past abuse, brief on-page violence; combat-related PTSD.
CONNOR
Judgment of Absolute Divorce.
A Decree of Divorce is hereby granted to Aimee Lynn Marks and Connor Daniel Marks. The marriage existing between the parties is hereby terminated, effective the date signed below.
The document on my screen went on for a few more paragraphs of dense legalese, but I didn’t need to read the whole thing. The important part was… it was over. Our marriage. All the legal steps. Everything. We’d been separated for almost three years, and as of today, our divorce was final.
My lawyer had sent me a PDF to read and submit to Navy Legal and personnel since the hard copy would take a week or so to reach me here in Spain. I’d forwarded it to those departments, and really, I hadn’t even needed to read the document itself; my lawyer’s email had said it all:
Connor,
The divorce decree is attached. Congratulations—you’re a free man!
Jennifer
I was a free man.
In my silent office, I sat back in my chair, closing my eyes as I released a long breath. Relief settled over me as profoundly as it had when I’d received word that I was heading home from each of my two boots-on-the-ground combat deployments a lifetime ago. It was a different kind of relief, though—as volatile as my marriage had been at times, there’d never been the fear or the threat of IEDs and rocket attacks. No blood. No violence.
Still, this relief brought with it a deep calm. A sense that life was going back to something like normal. No more fighting. No more worrying what the next day would bring.
Aimee and I wouldn’t be staying in regular contact after this. She had her own career, and we’d split the money from the sale of our house last year. She was fine financially and hadn’t wanted alimony even after I’d offered. What she wanted more than anything was a clean break. Apart from things like the kids’ college tuition or eventual weddings, we had no reason to continue communicating. Both boys were adults, and while she and I were reasonably civil, there was too much animosity for us to stay friends. Honestly, that was fine with me. I also wanted a clean break.
Still, I hoped she’d be happy going forward; she was a good person and a great mom to our sons, and even if we’d been a mismatch, we’d had good times together. I genuinely wished her the best.
I wished myself the best, too. My life was mine again. I was single. I’d jumped on these overseas orders to kick off the solo life, and now, three months after arriving in Spain… I was free.
I opened my eyes and stared up at my office ceiling. I’d been married since I was nineteen. A father since I was eighteen.
Now I was forty. Single. Living on another continent for at least four years.
So… now what?
I let my gaze drift down to my desk where my phone lay dormant beside my keyboard. I’d perused a few hookup apps since I’d arrived in Rota, but I hadn’t made a profile. I was admittedly nervous about using them for a few reasons, not the least of which was that the people on said apps were either locals or part of the military community.
It was risky, casting a line within the military community, especially in places like this where that community was quite small. Far too many opportunities to create an awkward and potentially rank-threatening situation with the wrong person. I’d worked too damn hard to get where I was only to derail my career by inadvertently swiping right on someone in my chain of command, someone who was married, or someone who was enlisted. Or all three.
So… yeah. Getting involved with people in the military on a base like this was risky at best.
The locals presented a different challenge. I’d swiftly discovered after arriving here that this area’s population generally spoke limited English if they spoke it at all, which many didn’t. A few did, but it wasn’t as common as I’d naively expected. And why should they? This was Spain, not England. The problem was that my limited Spanish—which I was working on!—didn’t really lend itself to the kinds of conversations I’d want to have with a potential hookup.
See, I wasn’t just looking to get laid. I wanted to meet a man. After all these years, I finally had the freedom to explore the side of myself I hadn’t noticed until long after I’d had a ring on my hand. It was going to be awkward enough getting physical with another guy for the first time in my life; a language barrier would only make that worse.
I scratched my neck and sighed into the silence of my office. Maybe coming here had been a bad idea after all. Maybe I should’ve taken orders in the States.
A knock at my door startled me, but I recovered. “Come in.”
The door opened and one of my corpsman, HM3 McCoy, poked her head in. “Sir, your 1100 appointment is here.”
Right. Right, I still had patients to see.
“I’ll be right there. Thank you, HM3.”
She nodded, slipped out, and shut the door.
I gave the divorce decree on my screen another glance. Then I closed the document, pocketed my phone, and headed out to see my next patient.
The single life could wait a little longer.
* * *
An hour after I left work, I was more optimistic that I had, in fact, made the right choice in taking orders to Spain. The dating/hookup pool was still discouraging, but the pool I was sitting beside? The one in the walled villa I was renting for a song out by the ocean in Sanlúcar de Barrameda? It was perfect.
I’d enjoyed a quick swim to unwind from a long day, and now I was relaxing in the shaded cabana with an ice-cold beer in my hand. The beautiful house, manicured garden, and turquoise swimming pool didn’t solve the issue of how to put myself out there in this country, but I really couldn’t complain.
Thumbing through one of the dating apps I’d found, I hemmed and hawed about how to do this. The only non-military profiles I’d found so far that indicated they spoke English were students at the nearby university in Cádiz. Way too young. Once I filtered out anyone under thirty, the well dried up substantially.
I sighed and put my phone down beside me on the table. Gazing out at the sparkling cerulean water, I took a pull from my beer. Maybe I needed to work a little harder on learning Spanish. The base had a few classes. The one I’d taken had been helpful for day-to-day life, but it hadn’t taught me much about connecting with men for sex or dating.
¿Cómo se dice, I want to try sucking dick?
The thought made me snort.
But then my gaze drifted back to my phone. Maybe I was going about this the wrong way. Maybe instead of figuring out how to approach guys, I should put myself out there and see if anyone came to me. Then I could follow their lead. Hell, I could come right out and say I was new to this, had never been with a man, and really wanted to find out what it was like.
In my job—both the military and as a physician—I’d always had the attitude of “take charge and get it done,” but maybe in this situation, I needed to fall back into the mindset I’d had as a medical student: when in doubt, defer to someone with more experience.
Fuck it. Why not?
I put my beer down and snatched up the phone again. I pulled up the app that had seemed the most promising. Or, well, the one that had seemed most intuitive to navigate, anyway. After a couple more second thoughts, I finally bit the bullet and made an account.
I was a free man.
And now, for the first time in my adult life, I was putting myself out there.
Please don’t let this blow up in my stupid face…
ALEX
God, these apps were trash.
Okay, that wasn’t entirely fair. They were great when I lived someplace where I was fluent in the common language, and where the people who spoke the same language as me weren’t all military or military-adjacent.
Rota… did not qualify as either of those things.
There were fewer than 10,000 Americans here, and a pretty good portion of those were dependents. Of the actual service members and civilian contractors, a whole lot less than 10,000 were both single and gay or bi men. Of those vanishingly rare unicorns who were, an irritating number were off limits because the Navy was a goddamned buzzkill sometimes.
Take, for example, the commanding officer of one of the airwings. He was jaw-droppingly hot—all the swagger and sexiness of a fighter pilot, and well into his silver fox era. Like me, he wasn’t out. The only reason I knew he was queer at all was because I’d run into him in, of all places, a club in Barcelona. That had been one of the hottest nights of my life, after which we’d sworn each other to secrecy, gone our separate ways, and never even let ourselves make eye contact in the produce aisle at the commissary. If anyone ever found out about that, our careers would be done.
Fuck’s sake. Maybe I should’ve been an officer after all. At least then I could hook up with another officer.
Not that I made a habit of hooking up with anyone who wore a uniform. Though Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was a distant memory, it had been firmly in place when I’d first enlisted, and I was still spooked by the experiences of some friends who’d had bad experiences coming out in the post-DADT military. Most had been fine—I knew several who were quite openly married to same-sex partners without any fuss, including the CO of the hospital where I worked—but it had only taken a few to commit me to staying in the closet until I retired.
That commitment to keeping my sexuality and my personal life private had been galvanized last year. I’d had an ill-advised fuck-buddy-turned-boyfriend-I-guess arrangement with a civilian contractor for a little over a year before it had gone tits up. The less said about that shitshow, the better, but it had definitely spooked me away from getting involved with guys on-base. Americans, anyway; the Spaniards all seemed happy to keep things discreet, and the American and Spanish forces—for all we shared a base—didn’t interact as much as people thought. So I could fuck my way through the Spanish Marines and no one in my chain of command would ever know.
Fine by me. Those guys were hot.
I glanced up from my phone to make sure no one had slipped into the waiting area while I’d had my nose buried in the app. Nope. Slow day in Radiology, which was never a bad thing. I’d spent enough time in combat zones to eagerly embrace the boredom of a lull, considering I knew all too well what the alternative was. Sitting here with my boots on my desk and a hookup app on my screen was not the worst way I could spend my day.
I could’ve done without the sexual frustration, though. At least when I was busy, I wasn’t thinking (much) about how empty my bed was these days. Some of that was my own fault; lately I hadn’t been putting a lot of effort into fishing in my very, very limited puddle. Some of it was… Well, that very limited puddle.
Eighteen more months, I reminded myself as I pointlessly scrolled the stupid app. Eighteen more months, and then I’d be retired. I’d be a civilian, and I’d be stateside, and I’d be—
Whoa, wait, what the fuck?
I sat up so fast my phone almost tumbled out of my hands. I steadied it, and for a panicked second, I was terrified I’d accidentally swiped the profile. The last thing I needed was to alert the guy that I’d found him on the app.
Because that photo…
No, that’s not…
Is it?
Something about him was familiar, though. That wasn’t uncommon here, of course—I’d found a lot of guys on the app who I also recognized from the base. It was almost a game sometimes to find an American and see if I knew who he was.
But this photo pinged me differently than “oh, hey, that’s the redhead at the post office” or “ah, I had a feeling that one cop was into dudes.”
I pulled my phone closer, peering intently at the image. It was the typical shirtless bathroom selfie, and he had a sexy body, that was for sure. A few tattoos. Smooth abs. Narrow waist. This wasn’t someone who’d have any trouble passing the Physical Readiness Test, that was for sure.
Nothing about his physique tipped me off about who he was, though.
No, it was the hint of his jaw. Most of his face and head were cut off, but he’d left enough to show his sharp jawline, and that tickled something in my brain. Hit some synapse that recognized him as more than a generic rando who I’d seen around base.
I tapped the profile and, very carefully avoiding an accidental swipe, thumbed through the photos. Still nothing of his face, which—no shit. Most guys were discreet on this app until they’d at least made a connection. There were a couple more angles of his jaw, though, and the familiarity held fast.
One shot of his arm showed a tattoo that tripped another synapse. I covered part of the screen with my hand so that only the bottom of the design showed—sort of like how his cropping of his face only showed his jaw—and my heart jumped into my throat.
“You have got to be shitting me,” I whispered. I knew that ink. I fucking knew it because I’d seen it peeking out from beneath a short sleeve.
A short camouflage sleeve.
But…
No. No, that wasn’t him. No way.
I moved away from the photos and read the profile.
Connor. Age: 40.
Distance: Less than 1 km away.
My heart was absolutely slamming into my ribs now.
No. Fucking. Way.
Recently divorced, the intro read, and recently arrived in Rota. Never been with a man before but I’d like to give it a try. Casual and discreet for now. Open to more later with the right guy.
I put my phone down and covered my face with both hands, almost muffling my groaned, “Are you serious?”
Because between the jaw, the tattoo, the location, and the description, if that wasn’t Lieutenant Commander Marks…
Oh my God. Just passing him in the hallway almost made me trip over my own feet. Like that airwing CO, he was unreasonably sexy. Built like someone who actually enjoyed going to the gym. A charming smile that made any male-attracted person in the vicinity lose their train of thought. Brown eyes so dark they were almost black. Hair that was nearly as dark except for the dusting of gray around the edges. There was a rumor that his female patients—including the married ones—always put a little extra effort into their appearance when they were going to be seeing him. He’d only been here about three months, and I was pretty sure half the base was buzzing with, “Have you seen the hot new doc at the hospital?”
So, yeah. Dude was fucking gorgeous.
And he was queer, too? Queer, and looking to hook up with a guy?
I usually preferred men who had experience, but if Marks wanted someone to guide him through the motions of sex with a man—holy fuck yeah, I volunteered as tribute. Especially since, being divorced, it was highly unlikely that he was a blushing virgin. He probably knew his way around having sex. This would just be sex with a few adaptations.
Sex with the gorgeous doctor with gray-sprinkled dark hair and tattoos and that smile that turned me completely stupid.
The gorgeous doctor… who was an officer.
“Fucking hell,” I grumbled.
Why couldn’t I find an enlisted guy who was this attractive? I mean, okay, there were plenty, but they were always straight, married, in my chain of command, or became deeply unattractive the instant they opened their mouths (looking at you, MA1 Weyland).
“I’m so stupid,” I told myself, and I shoved my phone into my pocket before raking my hand through my short hair. “So fucking stupid.”
Maybe I needed to ping Isidoro again. He was a Spanish Marine who I’d hooked up with quite a few times; his English was about as good as my Spanish, but we managed well enough for some scorching hot nights together. He was still stationed here, wasn’t he?
I didn’t know for sure. Mostly because we hadn’t texted or fucked in…
In three months.
Since I’d zeroed in on that hot ass doctor who’d made me forget that other men even existed.
Yeah. I was stupid.
And I wasn’t going to get any less stupid any time soon because Lieutenant Commander Marks wanted to find out what it was like to bang a dude.
Fuck. My life.
It was bad enough being a grown-ass man on the cusp of forty and having a crush like teenager. Seeing him on that app, seeing him as everything I would ordinarily swipe right on so fast I’d break my damn phone—that was just mean.
Ugh. I’d already known I needed to distract myself from him, but now I needed to step that up. Text Isidoro again. Maybe hop a train to Sevilla and hit up the clubs there. Or take a trip to Madrid or Barcelona. Could my liver handle another weekend on Ibiza? Kinda seemed like it was worth a try.
Yeah. That was what I’d do. Book a ticket to—
The waiting area door opened, and a Marine who looked about fourteen stepped in.
Well, it wasn’t the distraction I wanted, but it was a distraction.
I’d take it.
* * *
“Guess I should watch where I’m going next time,” the Marine said with a laugh as he gingerly pulled his blouse back on. “How long do you think I’ll be on light duty?”
“That’s up to your primary care manager,” I said blandly. “All I do is take the pictures.”
He held my gaze, then chuckled, and a moment later, he was on his way back downstairs to his PCM. I hadn’t told him that he had slightly-worse-than-hairline fractures to his radius and ulna—that kind of diagnosis was above my paygrade, even if the fractures were clear as day on the X-rays I’d just taken.
The kid didn’t seem all that surprised when I’d pulled the images up on the screen to make sure they’d come out all right. He’d come to medical because his wrist was sore and swollen after a fall yesterday, and both he and his PCM had been concerned he’d fractured it. Now he was on his way back to her with confirmation that, yep, he’d fractured it.
I didn’t think he’d need surgery, but he would be in a cast for the next six to twelve weeks. Been there, done that.
I shuddered at the memory. At least he’d just taken a fall at work. It probably hadn’t been the best day of his life, but he’d been joking about it and didn’t seem overly bothered apart from the pain. If I had to guess, the injury was less a result of tripping over a toolbox and more that he and some of his buddies had been bored and horsing around. Marines—what can you do?
Sailors did shit like that, too, which was how I’d wound up on light duty a few enlistments ago after a sprained ankle. The two times I’d broken bones? Well, those had been years ago, but I relived the incidents in my nightmares more often than I cared to think about.
I absently flexed my long-healed left hand and tried not to think about the past. I rolled my shoulders beneath my utilities, which were suddenly a little too hot in this office that had suddenly become way too stuffy.
Fuck.
I sat down at my desk again and fanned my face with a file folder. I still had like five hours left before I could bust out of here; time to pull my focus away from bad memories.
It wasn’t even that broken bones triggered me. I wouldn’t have lasted as a radiologic technologist—or even a corpsman at all—if I couldn’t cope with broken bones. That memory was just tender today thanks to a rough night.
Stupid nightmares.
I tossed the folder aside and wiped a hand over my face. Maybe it was time to see a therapist about this. They had civilian therapists who could do televisits now, right? I could probably find one back in the States who’d help me sort all this shit out. I’d pay for it out of pocket, too; even after the Brandon Act, I wasn’t taking the chance of my insurance telling my chain of command about it.
What can I say? After eighteen-plus years on active duty, I had trust issues.
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. You can’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, our paygrades 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. He would take no for an answer, but he was just manipulative enough that he wasn’t easy to say no to. 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.
There wasn’t much we could do in terms of getting his chain of command involved. He hadn’t technically done anything wrong, and anyway, he was a civilian contractor, so he’d have to step a lot farther out of line than that to even get a talking to. All we could do was pass his name around to anyone we knew and, whenever we saw new guys pop up on the apps, extend that information to them.
And now I knew for a fact that Tobias had right-swiped on Marks. That didn’t mean Marks had reciprocated, but he might. Hell, most guys would.
So what the fuck was I supposed to do?
I could reach out to Crawford and have him private message Marks. That felt like outing Marks, though. Even though he had a public profile, he didn’t have his full name or face on it. Would he appreciate me letting someone else on base know he was queer?
“Shit,” I whispered into the silent office. I couldn’t just… not give Marks a heads up about Tobias. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who was easily manipulated, but he was new to being with men. An unscrupulous guy telling him, “No, no, this is totally what gay men do” could easily persuade him to do things he normally wouldn’t.
Shame I couldn’t get to Marks first and help him figure out his boundaries before someone like Tobias got his hands on him.
Which… it occurred to me how ironic it was that if Marks and I hooked up, we could both be severely disciplined just because of our ranks. Meanwhile Tobias could operate like a predator who knew exactly where all the lines were, and no one could touch him.
Fuck it. One way or another, I needed to talk to Marks. I’d probably die of embarrassment, and he probably would too, but at least he’d know about who Tobias really was. What he did with that information was up to him.
My chance came about an hour later when I was on my way back from doing an ultrasound in the emergency department. I was halfway from the ER to the elevators when Lieutenant Commander Marks came around the corner, brow furrowed as he read something on a chart.
I stopped so suddenly my boot squeaked on the floor. “Uh, Lieutenant Commander—do you have a minute, sir?”
He halted, his head snapping up, and he blinked. “Um…” He glanced down at the chart in his hand. “I’ve got a patient.” Furrowing his brow, he asked, “Is it urgent?”
“No. No, sir, it’s—” I cleared my throat. “It can wait.”
He eyed me uncertainly. “Uh…”
“I just need to—” Why was it so damn hard to access the thoughts I’d neatly arranged for this conversation? Probably because I hadn’t expected it to be happening right fucking now. And because while the overhead fluorescents weren’t flattering for anyone, they picked out his high cheekbones and the sparkle of silver throughout his short, dark hair. And I—
“HM1?” he prodded, sounding curious and maybe a little nervous himself.
Fuck. What was I—oh, right.
I shook myself. “It’s not urgent, sir. Just—I’ll be in Radiology for the rest of the day unless I get called back to…” I gestured over my shoulder at the ER. “If you have a minute…”
He still seemed off balance and even a little suspicious, but then he glanced at his watch. “Like I said, I’ve got a patient. I’ll, uh, I’ll come by Radiology afterward.”
I nodded sharply. “Thank you, sir.”
Then we continued in opposite directions, and I just hoped we could do this without both of us dying of embarrassment.
CONNOR
It was a genuine miracle I’d remembered how to speak during that conversation with HM1 Barlow. His initial words had barely registered at all because my mind went blank the second we made eye contact.
He was one of the first people I’d noticed when I’d checked into this duty station, and given how attractive I found military uniforms, that said a lot. There were some seriously hot men and women stationed here, but HM1 Barlow—oh hell. Camouflage utilities were sexy on most people, but they had no business looking as good as they did on him. And those blue eyes should not have screwed with my balance or my ability to speak.
Especially not when he actually needed to speak with me and I needed to have my military bearing. Maybe some dignity too. Those were both in severe short supply whenever I saw him.
Thank God, I’d managed to catch up and not make an ass of myself.
But now he wanted to talk with me? Alone?
I mean, people in this hospital had to talk to each other. That wasn’t unusual. I’d probably had conversations with everyone in this building already and I hadn’t even been here that long. Nature of the beast.
It was the part where he wanted to speak privately that unnerved me, and for the next hour, every spare second I had was spent trying to suss out what was on his mind.
Was this some confidential situation with a patient? Except that wouldn’t have been an “at your earliest convenience” type of thing. And he wouldn’t have been flustered like that.
A conflict with someone else in the hospital, maybe? One of my subordinates? But that wouldn’t make sense. Though I outranked him, we weren’t in each other’s direct chain of command. I’d send patients to him for imaging, and he’d send results back to me. His department was about as attached to mine as the pharmacy or obstetrics; we communicated and sent patients back and forth, but we didn’t answer to each other. Unless it was about one of my subordinates? Or one of his, if he had any?
Utterly delusional wishful thinking had me wondering if this was something personal. The way he’d blushed and stammered, I mean…
Yeah, right. He was probably straight. I wasn’t out. He had no reason to think I’d be receptive to anything.
And, oh yeah, there was that whole rank thing.
What a shame, I thought as I headed upstairs to Radiology. Because I’d had a thing for him ever since I’d checked into this command.
He was close to my age, that much I knew. I’d seen him in his dress whites at a recent change of command ceremony, and his service stripes indicated he’d been in for at least sixteen years. Plus he’d lost the baby face that a lot of the junior enlisted and even some of the senior enlisted guys still had.
Keyword, Connor: Enlisted.
He’s enlisted. Off fucking limits.
I rolled my eyes. Yeah, he was off limits, but that hadn’t stopped me from getting tongue-tied over his gorgeous blue eyes. It definitely hadn’t stopped me from wishing the Navy would change the uniform policy and require us to wear covers indoors because then I wouldn’t have to notice his sandy blond high-and-tight.
I shook myself. I was almost to Radiology, and I needed to get my head together. At the very least, not get an untimely and unprofessional hard-on.
Outside the door, I paused for a deep breath, then laughed at myself for being such a dumbass. We were adults. Well past the ages of awkward crushes and ridiculous shit like that. This was probably a professional conversation that he just wanted to have away from prying ears. They happened all the goddamned time.
Steeling myself, I went inside.
HM1 Barlow was nowhere to be seen, but there was a woman in civvies fidgeting in a chair. She gnawed her thumbnail and kept glancing toward the door that led back to the X-rays and other imaging equipment.
She glanced at me, and her eyes widened a little. I flashed her a quick smile, but it didn’t seem to help. Gesturing at the door, she asked, “Did they call you up to…?”
I cocked my head, but then my brain caught up. “No, no.” I shook my head. “I just need to get some paperwork for someone’s reenlistment package.”
The lie worked, and she relaxed, though not completely. I didn’t blame her; her child was probably in the back being X-rayed. Must not have been terribly young if they’d gone in without her, but I knew that anxiety. I’d seen it in my patients, and I’d been there myself as the worried dad at the doctor’s office or hospital. Many times.
“You two realize this is your fault, right?” I’d said to my sons last year, pointing at the gray coming in at my temples.
“Don’t blame us.” Landon had shrugged with all the flippancy he’d absolutely inherited from me. “Blame physics.”
The memory almost drew a laugh out of me, but I kept it back so I wouldn’t upset the nervous mother.
A moment later, the door opened, and a boy who was probably nine or ten stepped out. Not super young, but right about the age of “Mom, I can do it—I don’t need you to come with me.” And I knew the instant I saw him that he’d been sent up for a chest X-ray; the puffy eyes and miserable expression spoke of some kind of bug. Then he coughed into his elbow—a painful, rattling cough. Yeah, he had something going on in his lungs. Poor kid.
HM1 Barlow was right on his heels, his expression full of empathy. “I sent the images down to his pediatrician. As soon as he has a look at them, he’ll let you know.”
The woman nodded, trying to both smile at him and grimace sympathetically for her son. “Thank you.” Then she herded the boy out into the hallway. He coughed again, the sound almost making my chest hurt too.
HM1 Barlow cleared his throat, sounding quite a bit healthier than the son but almost as nervous as the mother had looked. When I turned to him, his expression backed it up.
Fuck. This wasn’t going to be a comfortable conversation, was it?
I shifted my weight. Despite the uniform regs forbidding us from putting our hands in our pockets, I almost did just because I was so damn nervous. “You, uh… You wanted to see me?”
“Yes, sir.” He swallowed. “Let’s, um…” He tipped his head toward the small office beside the waiting area, and we went in there.
From here, he’d be able to see through the window if anyone came into the waiting area, but we’d have privacy, especially after he’d shut the door.
Barlow leaned against his desk. He started to fold his arms across his chest, but then dropped his hands to the desk’s chipped laminate edge, where he started drumming his fingers rapidly. “Listen, um…” He cleared his throat again. “This is more personal than professional, sir, but…”
I shifted a little and leaned against the door. “Okay. So… off the record?”
He studied me, then nodded, and he seemed to struggle to look me in the eye. “Yeah. Off the record.” He took a deep breath. “I want to preface this by saying I don’t want to cause any embarrassment or awkwardness, but I feel it’s necessary to bring it up because there are some things you should be aware of.”
Well, this definitely wasn’t a direction I anticipated. I had no idea what to say, so I just silently waited for him to continue.
His jaw worked, and he stared at the floor between us. Then he sighed, took his phone out of his pocket, found something on it, and handed it to me. “I really, really don’t want to make anything weird, but I found this.”
I took the phone but almost dropped it because I instantly recognized my profile on the screen. Heat flashed through me, especially into my face, and I handed the phone back. “Right. Yeah. I…” I gulped. “There’s other service members on there, though.” I shrugged as casually as I could. “Is it… Is there a reason I shouldn’t be on it?”
“No. No.” He put the phone aside and scratched the back of his head. “No, it’s… There’s a lot of us on it. It’s—I’m on it, too. I’m not judging.”
He was on it?
No shit, he’s on it—how do you think he found your profile, idiot?
But still. He was on it. Which meant he was—
Oh for fuck’s sake. Of course the guy I’d jerked off to more times than I wanted to admit to was actually queer. And he was on that app, which meant he was on the prowl, which meant…
I had to fight back a groan that was equal parts embarrassment and frustration.
“Listen, there’s…” He hesitated, then picked up his phone again. “I wasn’t even going to say anything.” He was thumbing through something on the app, I thought. “The reason I asked to talk to you was that I wanted to give you a heads up to steer clear of him.”
Barlow again handed me the phone, this time with someone else’s profile on the screen. As I took it, confusion pushed its way past everything else. I peered at the screen, skimming over the bio and a couple of the photos. The guy in the profile was probably attractive, but I was too busy mentally short-circuiting to notice. He had about five years on me, and according to the app, he was less than one kilometer away. On-base, then. Big surprise.
Passing back the phone again, I asked, “So… what’s his deal?”
Barlow suddenly looked uncomfortable in a very different way. Not from this conversation, but from the topic. My neck prickled—oh, shit. What was this guy’s deal?
Barlow rested his hands on the edge of the desk again, and he met my gaze through long lashes. “To be perfectly blunt, Tobias is not a man I would trust with someone who doesn’t have experience.”
I wanted to bristle and snap back that I was hardly a virgin. I just hadn’t been with a man. On the other hand… I mean, fuck. There was a reason I’d been nervous about experimenting with other guys for a while, even while Aimee and I had been separated. I’d told myself I was just playing it safe and not taking chances with the Navy deciding it was adultery, but I’d been legally separated, so… not adultery. I’d just been nervous.
I shifted my weight against the door. “He’s not safe?”
“He’s not…” Barlow looked almost pained as he considered his answer. “I don’t know that I’d call him dangerous, but I wouldn’t call him safe, either, if that makes sense.”
My stomach curdled. “Seems like his chain of command should hear about it.”
Barlow scoffed. “He’s a civilian contractor.”
“Oh.” I rolled my eyes. “Of course he is.”
“Right? And I mean, he hasn’t done anything… actionable, I guess? He’s a dick—enough of one that I felt the need to warn you about him—but he’s not…” He trailed off as if he wasn’t sure how to finish that.
“I get it,” I said quietly. “And, um… I appreciate the heads up.” I hesitated. “And the discretion?”
He locked eyes with me. “I wouldn’t out you. I assume I can trust you not to do the same?”
“Absolutely.” I tried not to think too hard about why I was suddenly out of breath. “I won’t say a word to anyone.”
“Thanks.”
“Of course,” I rasped. “And, um… Thanks for the heads up, HM1.”
“Don’t mention it, sir.”
Then I left his office, and spent the rest of the day trying to remember how to concentrate.
ALEX
Through a series of clumsily translated WhatsApp messages, Isidoro and I reconnected, and yes, he was still in the area. Apparently he’d been gone for a few weeks to visit family in the Basque region, and after he’d come back, he’d started seeing someone. That had lasted all of a month, though, and he was now as single as I was.
Perfect.
And it was perfect. That Friday night, we shook the walls of his apartment in El Puerto de Santa Maria, the next town over from Rota. All the tension and frustration I’d been carrying all week long went down his throat, then an hour or so later, into his ass. By the time I collapsed beside him, shaking all over and drenched in sweat, I was exactly as wrung out as I’d desperately needed to be.
He sank onto his stomach, and his beard scuffed on the pillow, almost muffling the slurred Spanish profanity rolling off his talented tongue.
I gave a quiet, breathless laugh, but his words and the brush of his beard on the pillowcase jolted me uncomfortably back into reality.
You’re not him.
What the hell, Alex? Who did you think you were fucking?
Oh, I knew who I’d been fucking. I’d just… gone somewhere else in my mind for a moment, and that was where I’d been when I’d come in Isidoro. Both times.
Fucking hell.
I murmured to Isidoro that I’d be right back, kissed him on the shoulder, and then levered myself up out of bed. I stepped into the small bathroom and got rid of the condom, and as I washed my hands, I met my own gaze in the mirror.
What is wrong with me?
Isidoro was one of those passionate, attentive lovers who could usually keep my focus like no other. When his hands or mouth were on me, or when one of us was balls deep in the other, there was no thinking about anything except him and the things he did to my body. If he was kissing me, I was right there in the moment until he was good and done with me.
But tonight…
For fuck’s sake, Alex. Stop pining after what you can’t have.
I rolled my eyes, dried my hands, and schooled my expression before returning to the bedroom.
Isidoro had rolled over and cleaned himself up, and now he was lying there on his back, gazing at me with hooded eyes.
God, he was sexy. His olive skin was tanned and his near-black hair was cut short. That toned, tattooed body—oh, fuck me, I could lick every inch of it. I had, in fact. I had tonight.
Except tonight, I’d spent the whole time imagining I was exploring someone else’s body with my lips and tongue.
Something must’ve registered on my face, because Isidoro’s sultry expression shifted to one of concern. “¿Hay algo mal?”
Though my Spanish was limited, I’d picked up enough to know that one—“Is something wrong?”
Fuck. Not the time to be wearing my frustration over Lieutenant Commander Marks on my sleeve. Especially because, knowing Isidoro, he’d immediately worry that Tobias was the problem. He had firsthand experience with the asshole, though he’d been smarter than me and only hooked up with him twice, and I could tell when he was worried Tobias was sinking his claws into me again. We may have just been casual hookups, but that didn’t mean we didn’t care about each other.
I forced a smile and rejoined Isidoro in bed. “Nothing’s wrong.” I stroked his short hair and claimed a kiss before he could ask any further. He relaxed, and we just lay like that, kissing lazily and sliding our hands all over each other.
At least when we were making out like this, I couldn’t mistake him for anyone else. Not Marks, anyway. While American service members had to be cleanshaven, Spanish Marines were allowed to have neatly trimmed beards, and oh, fuck, they rocked that look. The highlight of my commute each morning was coming through the gate and being greeted by a sexy, uniformed man with a beard. Too bad Isidoro wasn’t on sentry duty anymore; those winks and grins we’d exchange while he “checked my ID” could carry me through the most awful shift.
He was here right now, though, and the coarseness of his beard kept me from forgetting whose tongue was teasing mine.
The problem was that it didn’t keep me from thinking about whose tongue wasn’t exploring my mouth. Whose hands weren’t drifting all over my skin. Whose body wasn’t pressed up against mine.
Seriously, what was wrong with me? I’d been attracted to men I couldn’t have before. It was frustrating, but not like this. And this was hardly the first time I’d thought about a guy I wanted while I was with someone else. I’d come, and I’d be satisfied, and the man I was with wouldn’t be any the wiser.
This time, I wasn’t satisfied, and Isidoro had caught on that I wasn’t entirely here. Yeah, I had him distracted for now, but sooner or later, he was going to ask again.
He didn’t keep me waiting long.
He drew back and met my gaze, his lips slightly swollen and his eyes very concerned. “¿Hay algo mal?” he asked again.
I shook my head, trailing my fingertips along his collarbone. “No. Estoy bien.”
His eyebrow arched. Maybe we didn’t share a language—his English and my Spanish were equally limited—but body language was hard to misinterpret. Then he sighed and let go of me. I had a second to worry I’d pissed him off and he was about to get up and boot me out, but then he grabbed his phone off his nightstand and came back.
The screen added a cool glow to his face and lit up his eyes and his furrowed brow as he typed something. I didn’t mind; this was the only way we could communicate beyond the most basic phrases we both understood. Most of the conversations we’d had went like this.
After a moment, he showed me the screen. Beneath where he’d typed out something in Spanish, the app had translated it to:
You are distracted. Have I done something wrong?
Guilt twisted beneath my ribs. I felt bad enough about not being completely here; that he was blaming himself hit hard.
I gently took his phone, tapped out a message in English, then handed it back so he could read the translation.
Work is distracting. I’m sorry. It’s not you.
He frowned as he read. When he flicked his eyes up to meet mine, I honestly couldn’t tell if he believed the lie or not. I hoped he did; I didn’t feel good about lying to him, but I was too ashamed of the truth. Too embarrassed that I was wrapped up in someone like a teenager with a crush on a rock star who didn’t know he was alive. And honestly, it would’ve been cruel, telling him that this whole time we’d been in his bed, I’d been thinking about Lieutenant Commander Marks. Sometimes lying really was the kindest approach, and this was one of those times.
Isidoro took the phone back and typed again. When he showed me the screen:
Is it only work?
Was I wearing my guilt on my face or something? Fuck.
I typed back:
Problems with someone else at the hospital. It will be fine. Just frustrating.
That was technically the truth, though I still hated being this cagey.
Fortunately, it seemed to be enough, and Isidoro put the phone aside. Pulling me back into his arms, he murmured something that I thought roughly translated to, “I can make you forget.”
And for the most part, he did. I was too close to forty for three orgasms in a night, but Isidoro was barely thirty, and he definitely had a third one left in him. A third one that I made sure to wring out of him slowly and decadently until he forgot that my mind had ever been anywhere but here.
When I finally left for the night around 0200, I was satisfied that he thought he’d distracted me from everything.
But the whole way back to my apartment in Chipiona, all I could think about was Lieutenant Commander Marks.
CONNOR
The air in my cabana was thick with the lingering heat of the afternoon. The sweetness of the flowers in my yard and the smell of my freshly cut grass mingled with the sharpness of the weed my neighbors were smoking on the other side of the high wall.
It was almost 2200 and the sun was still up, though it was easing toward the horizon and turning the sky warm shades of red and purple. I still wasn’t used to that—the sun setting so late in the evening. That was harder to adapt to than things like siesta and when restaurants were and weren’t open. They didn’t affect how things ran on-base, but it had been eye-opening the first time I’d tried to go to a Spanish supermarket during siesta or find something to eat at what I normally thought of as dinnertime. Culture shock was a strange thing, that was for sure.
I’d get used to it all. Every place had its own rhythm and its own sounds, and I’d adapt to Spain just like I had all my other duty stations. Probably just in time to move, but better late than never, I guess. And definitely better than trying to adapt to a combat zone again.
I sat back in the cabana chair and enjoyed the warmth, though I tempered it with a cold beer. I gazed out at the gorgeous yard surrounding the pool. It was perfectly manicured, and the only credit I could take for that was paying for it; my rent included pool maintenance and garden service. Both workers had been here earlier today, and they did amazing work. Everything was beautiful.
Beautiful, and… empty.
Outside the walls of the villa, the world was alive with the soft sounds of people enjoying their evenings. My neighbors talking and—from the sound of it—playing some of kind of game. The café half a block away was hitting its dinner rush, and the scrape of chairs on pavement, the clatter of silverware, and the chatter of people filtered through the peaceful night to me.
Inside these walls, though, everything was silent. Even the pool was glass smooth, not sloshing against the sides like it sometimes did. All the gentle noise outside emphasized how utterly quiet and still everything was in here.
It made me fantasize for a hot minute about what it would’ve been like to be stationed here when the boys had been younger. They’d no doubt be splashing in the pool, loving that there was still daylight—even if it was fading—this late at night. It was a Saturday night in July, so it wasn’t like they’d need to go to school the next morning. They could enjoy the pool without burning to a crisp like they would in the afternoon; their mother and I had cursed them both with the fair skin of my Irish and her Swedish ancestry.
The thought of them swimming here right now made me smile, but then it tugged at my heart. They weren’t little boys anymore. Quinn was twenty-two and living with his girlfriend. Landon had turned twenty just before I’d left for Spain. He was living with his mom while he went to a community college, and then he’d probably transfer to a university. Quinn would be graduating from college next year, and I doubted he’d wait that long before proposing to Savannah.
I took a deep pull from my beer. I was proud of my sons, and I was close to both of them, but I still regretted how much of their lives I’d missed, especially early on. I’d been in Iraq when Landon was born. In Afghanistan when Quinn had spent a week in the hospital with a respiratory bug. After that, I’d shifted gears and gone to medical school, so at least I wouldn’t be deploying for a while, least of all to combat zones. Didn’t mean I was the most present father, though, especially when I started my rotations.
