I'll Be Home For Christmas (A Coming Home Novella) (3 page)

Because let’s face it, he wasn’t much of a catch. Scruffy redhead with a penchant for saying the first thing that came to mind, Carponti knew his weaknesses. And still, his wife, his beautiful, talented wife with a degree in criminal justice, chose him. He’d married her as fast as he could just to keep her around. Even when she’d gotten out of the army to pursue her degree, even when she could be with someone smarter, better looking—not better in the sack, though. Carponti had always taken care of her that way. He marveled at the ways he could bring her pleasure—just like the sound of her laughter, the sound of her coming was its own special pleasure.

All because she’d pulled him over for driving like an ass and said yes to a date with a sock puppet. He was the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet.

He lifted himself on his arms and looked down at her, stroking her blond hair out of her face and cupping her cheek. Her eyes were a little bit red and she was trying to hide it and failing badly.

“Don’t cry, babe,” he whispered.

“I’m trying not to.” She pressed her lips to his. “Sorry.”

He grasped for anything to say to make her laugh and came up empty. She shifted then, her body rubbing against his, and he smiled slowly, stroking his thumb over her damp cheek.

“We are really wasting this opportunity,” he said, kissing the side of her lips.

“What’s that?” Her mouth curled into a faint smile, the remnants of her laugh trembling through her body.

“I’m naked. What other opportunity did you think I was talking about?”

He loved it when she laughed. Her eyes lit up and her whole face smiled. He laughed and shifted, rocking gently against her. “It’s a shame you’ve got on so many clothes.”

She lifted her arms for him as he dragged the t-shirt over her head, leaving her in a bra and her jeans. She reached between them to unhook her pants but he stopped her, his hands covering hers. He shimmied down her body. “That’s my job,” he whispered, then he flicked his tongue over her navel.

He loved the little sounds she made as he tugged her pants off. “Your panties look so much better on you,” he said.

“I’m glad you approve.” There was laughter in her voice. She threaded her fingers through his hair, her nails tracing his scalp with tiny bites of electricity.

He framed her hips in his hands and pressed his lips to her center. She arched beneath him and shifted her thighs, opening to his touch. He held her there, his thumbs holding the fabric in place when she tried to shuck out of her panties. “I want to try something.”

She pushed up onto her elbows, looking down at him, a tiny frown knitted between her brows. “What, the night before you leave, now you want to get creative?”

He met her gaze, his eyes not moving from hers, and traced his tongue over the swollen mound beneath her panties.

“Oh, I am definitely going to miss your tongue when you’re gone.” She gasped and her breath caught in her throat. “Where on earth did you learn that trick?” she whispered.

She reached down to cradle his face in her palms and Carponti was lost for a moment in the love looking back at him. His wife, his beautiful, smart, sexy, funny wife. A tiny curl of fear licked at him. What if she got tired of waiting for him?

“I watched this sex-in-your-marriage video with Wilks last weekend on staff duty.” Nicole fell back into the bed and cracked up. “The art of making love or something. He’s going through counseling with his wife and the therapist is trying to save their sex life first. So I watched it with him. See if I could pick up any pointers.”

Nicole sighed and turned her head to look down at him. “You are a strange, strange man,” she said, smiling. But there was a fear beneath his smile. Fear that someday, the deployments would be too much. That the distance and the time spent apart would change them. That she’d stop wanting to make love, stop loving him enough to wait for him. Garrison, Carponti’s platoon sergeant, had recently gotten divorced. They both knew it was because Garrison had been gone too much. Carponti shoved aside the melancholy, focusing instead on her body. Her touch.

“And you’re wasting an opportunity to use that talented tongue of yours.” She arched into him, lifting her hips in silent offering.

The laugh snuck out of him and he rested his forehead against her thigh until he could control himself. “This has got to be the corniest thing we’ve ever done,” he said, stroking his thumb over the seam of her panties.

She scraped her nails over his cheeks, gently. “It beats spending the morning crying,” she whispered.

A lump rose in his throat and he crawled up her body, capturing her face in his hands. He kissed her then, fiercely, pouring a thousand unsaid things into that one moment. He wasn’t good with words or big gestures. There wasn’t a way for him to tell her how much he was going to miss her. How much he worried that she would be alone, that she might go through a day without laughing because he was gone. And the unspoken fear that he would leave her alone forever. He kissed her like a dying man, peeled her clothes from her body like it was the last time he would feel her writhe beneath him—because he was terrified that it was.

He paused a moment before he slid into her body, desperately grasping for something funny to say to lighten the moment, to make her laugh. But he had nothing as he fell into her embrace, sliding into her body and completing his soul.

He savored her in those final moments before her release crashed over her, shuddering through them both and taking him under with her.

* * *

“You’re not serious.”

Carponti turned around, his shoulders covered in flecks of red hair. “What?”

Nicole grinned as she leaned against the door. “Garrison is going to kill you.”

“Garrison is going to love my new hair cut. It looks just like his.”

Nicole arched one blond eyebrow. “Except for the bright red fuzzy patch in the center of your head.”

Carponti shrugged and rubbed his hands over his freshly shorn scalp. “I can’t wait to see what the sergeant major says.”

“Isn’t he going to be mad?”

Carponti brushed the hair off his neck. “We’re going to war. My hair isn’t on the list of things he’s going to worry about.”

Nicole looked down at the pile of hair on the floor and sighed. “Then why do it?”

Carponti smirked. “Because it’ll get a rise out of him and I live to make his blood pressure go up.”

She laughed. “You need a hobby. Other than blowing things up.”

He sidled across the room and hooked his thumb into the waist of her jeans and tugged her close until their hips met. “I have a hobby. Keeping you well satisfied.”

She sniffed but her lips curled at the edges. “You’re going to be derelict in your duties for a while.”

“But I’ll be home soon enough and then I’ll make up for it.”

“I think I’m going to need a deployment boyfriend.”

He grinned wickedly. “Did you already get one?” He backed her up against the wall, his body hard against hers. God but she loved this man. “Can I see it?”

A slow flush crept over her face and she tried to look away. He threaded his fingers with hers and lifted her arms over her head. Her back arched with the movement.

“Please?” he whispered against her lips. “That would be an awesome memory to take with me downrange. Just think of me, alone in the middle of the desert. One visual of you with your deployment boyfriend and it could make a lonely night go by so much faster.”

Nicole giggled until the laugh overwhelmed her and she was gasping for air. He released her hands and she threaded them around his neck. She buried her face against his throat and laughed.

“There’s something really wrong with you,” she said when she could breathe again. “I’ll send you a video.”

He brightened instantly. “Really?”

“Yes. And dirty letters.”

“Promise?” He nibbled along the edge of her jaw, guiding her slowly backward toward their bed, stacked high with his two duffle bags and all the crap he still hadn’t packed.

But he didn’t care.

“I promise. And you’re going to be late.” Her voice caught in her throat.

“Screw it,” he whispered. “This is the last chance to make love to my beautiful wife before I have to go traipsing across the desert like Lawrence of Arabia.” He nibbled at her earlobe while his hand slipped down her belly to the moist head between her thighs. “Tell you what. You send me a picture of yours and I’ll send you a picture of mine. Maybe I can get him a little horse and saddle and send you a picture. Maybe a Barbie camel. I can put him in a little man dress.”

She laughed and Carponti’s heart swelled in his chest at the sound of it.

“I’m going to hold you to that.” She traced her fingers over his scalp, her body soft and warm against his erection. “I want a picture of him in a man dress in exchange for a video of the deployment boyfriend.”

Her legs bumped into the back of the bed and he followed her down. Tangled between the duffle bags and his uniforms, he made love to her one last time before he got on a plane and headed to war.

Early December 2007

Northern Baghdad

Carponti walked up behind his platoon sergeant where he sat on his bunk in the wide-open bay that currently served as their home. Someone had put up a small electric Christmas tree in the corner of the bay. It was supposed to be cheery. Instead, it served as a daily reminder that they were stuck in the desert at Christmas. Carponti had thought about it but hadn’t had the heart to take it down. It wasn’t like the stupid little tree made a difference to anyone. Least of all his platoon sergeant.

Garrison was stressing the hell out lately and there wasn’t much Carponti could do about it. Except try to make his boss laugh. He had an idea he couldn’t resist. He fought the urge to laugh as he walked up behind Garrison. “Sarn’t G, the LT is looking for you again.”

Garrison turned his head and came face to face with Carponti’s thumb sticking out of his pants.

“Carponti, what the hell is wrong with you!” Garrison reached across the small space for Carponti’s pillow and threw it at him. But he cracked a grin, which was more than he’d done in the last two days.

“Mission accomplished.” Carponti removed his hand and buttoned his pants. “What’s your problem? You need a hug?”

Garrison sighed heavily, scrubbing his hand over his face. “I’m not in the mood to deal with the LT right now.”

“When are you ever? Just go find him before he shows up here and kills all the fun.”

Garrison lifted one eyebrow and stared at him until Carponti started to squirm. Carponti swore under his breath. Damn it, he needed to get better at lying to Garrison.

“What did you do this time?” Garrison asked.

“Nothing.”

“What did you supervise this time?”

Carponti sniffed and his mouth twitched. “Nothing.”

“I swear to God, Carponti,” Garrison growled. “What did you see happening and not stop?”

“Did you know we have some very talented artists in our platoon?” Carponti couldn’t stop himself from laughing because this was the second time someone had defaced the latrine with Lieutenant Randall’s ugly mug. “One of the troops drew a new picture of the LT on one of the latrine walls. It’s really a work of art. You can completely see the freckles on Randall’s nose and everything.” Carponti blinked innocently.

“Carponti!”

Carponti pointed over his shoulder. “The LT will be here any minute. I saw him walking into the latrine a few minutes ago.”

Garrison laughed quietly, scrubbing his hands over his face. “You’re not right in the head.” Garrison shook his head and swore beneath his breath. “I really don’t want to deal with him today. I’m liable to shove his ego down his throat the next time I see him.”

“That would be terrible, just terrible,” Carponti said.

“You’re not going to go find him, are you?” Garrison said. His leg was bouncing again.

“I mean, if it means that much to you, I’ll swing by the company ops and see if I can find out what he wants. But really, we both know I’m just saying that to make you feel better because the almighty platoon leader won’t deign to talk to a lowly sergeant like me.”

Garrison stood and slung his weapon over his chest. “I’ll go find him. Just to keep you out of First Sarn’t Story’s office for screwing with Randall again.”

“Taking one for the team,” Carponti said, slapping Garrison on the back. “I can’t tell you how much that makes me want to write you a Hallmark card.” He swiped his finger beneath his eye dramatically.

Garrison flipped him off as he walked out of the bay. Carponti watched him go, wishing there was more he could do to lighten the load. He would have gone to find LT Randall but it wouldn’t have done a damn bit of good and everyone knew it. Randall was an epic and unforgettable douche bag and he was making everyone’s life miserable.

Especially his platoon sergeant. Garrison liked to pretend everything was fine but Carponti could see the strain of this deployment. Garrison wasn’t sleeping well. Hell, no one was. The Surge, as deployments went, sucked. They were getting blown up every time they rolled outside the gate; they were down a half dozen guys who’d gotten hit at various times and, well, shit was just ugly.

Carponti was in the not-happy-but-sleeping group of soldiers that included him and… well, him. Everyone was wound too tight, waiting for the next influx of horrible shit to happen and fill up their rucksacks with even more bad news.

Carponti stuffed his hands in his pockets, slung his weapon across his chest, and headed out of the hundred-man bay, where his platoon was stacked up like sardines in a smelly can. The guy in the bunk next to him needed to take a goddamned shower. Carponti was willing to bet that stinky bastard hadn’t bathed since the initial invasion back in ’03. That was the only way to explain the smell.

Carponti adjusted his weapon and headed toward the company ops. Someone had decorated First Sarn’t Story’s door with bright red and silver wrapping paper. Story wasn’t exactly a jolly type of fellow and he’d sworn something fierce when he’d discovered the defacement. But he’d left it up.