A Few Good Men (10 page)

She stood next to Maureen’s desk, arms crossed. “Hey, did you know there is an erotic romance author who is also named Summer who writes in her blog about the same kind of dating game that you and your gay friend are playing?”

“Um, no. Is there?” novelist closet?
Shit.
Was this going to be her big coming out of the erotic

Tiffany’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying. You stole the idea for that whole dating thing from her, didn’t you?”

How stupid could the girl be to think there could be two women and their gay best friends who were serial dating?

Maureen hid the sigh of relief over Tiffany’s apparent lack of common sense as best she could. “You’re right, Tiffany. You caught me. That’s what I did. I stole the idea for the dating thing from her.”

Tiffany nodded knowingly. “And the name Summer too?”

Maureen hung her head in false shame. “I stole her name too.”

Tiffany looked victorious. “That’s what I figured. It’s okay. I bet that’s not her real name anyway.”

No shit, Sherlock
. “Mmm. You’re probably right. Sounds fake to me. So how did you come across her blog? She’s not very well known.” Maureen’s heart beat a bit faster with excitement. Was she becoming famous?

“My soldier told me about it. He and his buddies have read her book and now they read her blog too.”

Tiffany’s soldier. Maureen’s heart began to pound. The only soldier she knew who’d read her book was Jazzy. Could it be? No. Jazzy would not cheat on his wife and especially not with Tiffany. Oh God, what if Tiffany was emailing John?

She did her best to play it cool as her pulse sped. “Really? You’re still corresponding with those military guys you told me about? The soldier and Marine, was it?”

Tiffany nodded.

Maureen wrestled to control her voice as she asked, “What’s your soldier’s name? I’m uh…just wondering if maybe I’ve seen it on the support website, is all.”

“Hector Morales. He’s a Texan. I’ve always wanted to date a Texan. And he’s a sergeant. That’s a good rank, right? It means he’s an officer or something, doesn’t it? Do you know him from the websites?”

Maureen let that name sink in for a second as she tried to calm her nerves. Morales. Jazzy’s driver. She remembered Jazzy had written he gave the book to him.

Jeez, what a coincidence. What were the chances of that? But at least Maureen could rest assured that Jazzy was the kind of guy she thought he was, totally devoted to his wife and too smart to fall for the likes of Tiffany. More importantly, the man of her dreams wasn’t Tiffany’s man either.

She realized Tiffany was still waiting for an answer, probably hoping she had swooped in and stolen one of Maureen’s guys. “No. That name doesn’t sound familiar.” Then, feeling spiteful and wanting to burst Tiffany’s bitchy bubble she added, “And if he’s a sergeant, he’s still an enlisted man, not a commissioned officer.”

Maureen shocked herself that she knew that. She’d picked up a lot of military knowledge on the support sites and from corresponding with the troops. Maybe she should write a military romance next. Hmm, there was an idea.

Tiffany frowned for a second and then shrugged it off. “That’s okay. Doesn’t matter much anyway. I’m pissed off at him. It’s been like days and I haven’t heard from him. He hasn’t answered my emails. He hasn’t been on IM. I think I’m gonna dump him. Besides, things are going really well with the Marine. He’s a lieutenant. That’s a real officer, right?”

Maureen felt a sudden wave of relief. Morales hadn’t written Tiffany either, which had to mean the Internet was down at Jazzy and John’s camp or they were under a communications blackout. That was why John hadn’t written back.

But actually, on second thought, that wasn’t much to be relieved about because communications were shut down when someone was very seriously hurt or killed until their families could be notified. Damn. Had John been hurt or killed? Had the whole tank been blown up and she’d lost Jazzy and John both?

This was horrible. Unthinkable. How could a person live with this fear day in and day out?

Seeing Tiffany was still standing there waiting for confirmation that a lieutenant was a real officer, Maureen managed to nod to appease Tiffany and her rank greed, but she couldn’t keep her mind off what might have happened to the men she’d come to think of as friends so far away.

Maureen had to calm herself down. She had no proof anything bad had happened to any of them. She redirected her thoughts to something else and let herself wonder if poor Morales was the one from among Tiffany’s new acquisitions who’d made plans to come to New York to meet her during Fleet Week. Jazzy’s platoon was scheduled to be out of Iraq by then, barring any further troop extensions. Poor guy had no clue he was about to get dumped in favor of a Marine. If he were a typical Army guy,
that
in particular would not sit well. There existed a good-natured yet definite rivalry between those two branches of service.

Maureen could definitely let a warning about Tiffany accidentally slip to Jazzy in her next email. The question was, should she? And while she was at it, how tempting would it be to start feeling around to find out more about John from Jazzy? How unethical would that be to exploit her friendship with Jazzy to find out more about John? That would be really wrong of her. Could she bring herself to do it?

Hmm, it was a very tempting idea indeed. But in the meantime, she had the correspondence drought to deal with. She had to do something. Sitting there doing nothing would drive her insane, so she opted to play it off light. If she wrote and pretended that everything was okay there with them, then maybe they would be all right. The power of positive thinking and all that crap.

Opening her email account—her boss was away at a meeting so it was safe—Maureen stared at the blank screen.

She glanced up from her computer and realized Tiffany was glaring at her from across the office. She raised an eyebrow in a “What?” gesture. Tiffany stared pointedly at Maureen’s legs beneath her desk.

In the back of Maureen’s brain, she had been aware of an annoying tapping. Now she realized it originated from under her own desk. With embarrassment, she halted her foot from its mindless tapping against the floor, a nervous habit she’d always had and never conquered.

Tiffany turned back to her computer, looking satisfied. As if Maureen had been bothering her while she was actually working. Ha. Not much chance of that. She was probably flirting with some new soldiers in one browser while emailing her Marine in the other.

Not feeling as small as she should at those bitter, spiteful thoughts, Maureen went back to her contemplating. Today’s burning question…what could she write about to John that wouldn’t sound like overt flirting or her fishing for him to write back, even though that was exactly the situation?

She had pretty much exhausted the subject of the weather, both telling him about what it was like there in New York and inquiring what the weather currently was in Iraq. It wasn’t Easter yet so she couldn’t wish him a happy holiday and she wasn’t sure if she should anyway, especially since she didn’t even know his religion.

Hell, she was a writer. She just needed to get creative. In the new message window, she decided to do just that.

Dear John,

Hmm. I just realized what a funny way that is to start a letter. Hehe. Get it? Dear John letter…

Anyway, I guess I am a bit giddy today since I did a crazy thing in a moment of obvious insanity. I volunteered to judge thirty entries in a writing contest being run by an organization I belong to. Let me tell you, if I have to read one more story about alternate universes I may scream. Sci
-
fi has never been my thing. Currently I am reading an erotic futuristic vampire pirate story. Lots of sucking in that one—hehe. Last night I finished one about a mermaid and the fisherman who catches her. You can just imagine what happened then. Needless to say, I am now an expert in mermaid sex. Hehe. This experience has been an education, to say the least.

So how are you doing? I am sure my life seems pretty boring compared to where you are, mermaid and vampire sex aside.

Please tell Morales and Gonzo I say hello and give Jazzy a big wet get-well kiss from me. I know he is well on the road to recovery since he told me himself that he has been sneaking into the MWR against doctor’s orders, but I still keep him and his family in my thoughts always.

Stay safe,

Summer

Reading it over, Maureen felt satisfied it contained a good mix of humor, casual flirtation and friendliness. Her high school English teacher had been correct. Writing really was a skill that helped in countless situations in life.

Maureen proofread it one more time and sent the email and then decided to head to the coffee machine. She had a submissions box full of unsolicited manuscripts to wade through for her boss. If past experience served to teach her anything, it was that she would need lots of coffee to get through it. Chocolate wouldn’t hurt either. She might have to hit the candy machine in the lobby later, depending upon what she found when she opened the dreaded Pandora’s submissions box.

Chapter Nine

The sensation of sliding into the warm, wet heat of the woman beneath him sent tingles up John’s spine. God, he’d missed sex. It had been so long, it was amazing he hadn’t come the moment she’d wrapped her legs around his waist.

John increased his pace. Her muscles gripped him and she let out a soft moan. He thought he’d lose it right then and there. He plunged into her over and over, each stroke more intense than the last, but damn, he wished the bed would stop squeaking. It was annoying enough to cut through his pleasure, which was pretty incredible because there was so much pleasure.

The noise dragged John up from the dark haze of sleep. He woke to find himself face down in his rack fucking the hell out of his mattress.

Groaning, he flopped over onto his back. Embarrassed, appalled, throbbing, he threw one arm over his face and let out a breath of frustration. Thoughts of Summer had him humping the mattress in his sleep.

He reached down and rubbed his erection through the fabric of his boxer briefs, then slid his hand beneath the waistband. He was hard as a rock. There was no way he could fall back to sleep in this condition, and he really needed to sleep. That was what he told himself anyway, as he pushed the underwear down over his hips, spit into his palm and then grabbed his length.

John closed his eyes and imagined the hand rubbing him belonged to Summer. He gripped himself harder and stroked faster until his breath was coming in gasps and his arm began to tire. He pictured her lips closing around him and that was it. He bit his lip to hold in a shout and shot off like a rocket launcher.

Lying breathless with the hem of his T-shirt soaked with his release, John stared up at the ceiling, wide awake.

Now what?

He’d just jerked off to Jazzy’s pen pal, and he had a bad feeling it wasn’t going to be the last time. Even as ashamed of that as he was, he realized he missed hearing from her.

The damned Internet was still down. Ever since the new battalion had moved in and tinkered with the satellite dish, the Internet hadn’t worked at all. They hadn’t had any outside communications for going on three days now. Normally John wouldn’t have even noticed it was down. But now, since meeting Summer, he noticed all right, and it was driving him crazy.

Had she been on more dates? He couldn’t even get to her blog to read if she had. Had she emailed him? If she had emailed him, what was she thinking that he didn’t respond?

The only good thing was that the MWR was pretty much always empty now with the web down. So John was able to pop in and try to log on every time he was free. He tried sometimes even when he should be doing other more important things—like sleeping. It was totally ridiculous. So was the hole he felt in his world without hearing from Summer daily.

With a sigh, he decided he wasn’t going to be able to rest. Not with that bout with his own hand as he’d pictured Summer still so fresh in his mind. He figured he might as well try to log on one more time before attempting to go back to sleep.

John planned on it being a very quick trip. No need to get totally dressed. He threw on a clean T-shirt, his uniform pants and a pair of rubber shower shoes and headed to the MWR.

As expected, it was empty. He sat and hit the button to wake up the sleeping computer. Things started to happen on screen and amazingly, the damned Internet connected. John looked around. He was the only one there. Until the word spread that the computers were back up and running again it would probably remain deserted.

Damn. If ever there was an opportunity for cyber sexing in the MWR, this was it. The fact that particular thought had even crossed his mind shocked him. He’d really taken a turn for the gutter. Shaking the disturbingly arousing image of cyber sex with Summer from his mind, he opened his inbox.

Three emails from Summer and one from the store he’d ordered from saying his underwear and sock order had shipped. Good news all around.

His heart began to pound and he felt as if he’d won the lottery. He opened the first email and realized he was smiling, as excited as a child opening a gift on Christmas morning. Even better, he had three to read, and this time, with no time limit and no audience, he wouldn’t rush. Instead, he intended to devour every word fully.