Page 36 of My Forbidden Commander

I know I shouldn’t. I know the smart play is that I change nothing about how I act. That’s the play that keeps Okafor’s eyes off me and Hayes’s mouth shut, and I do try. I keep my hands steady during weapons maintenance. I laugh at Walker’s jokes at the right volume, no more, no less. I eat my chow at a normal pace and don’t stare across the mess hut like a man possessed.

And then Gabriel walks past with a clipboard, and my eyes go to him like a compass finding north, every single time, and I can’t make them stop.

I catch Okafor noticing. Twice. The first time, he’s leaning against the ops hut doorframe with his arms crossed, and his gaze drifts from me to Gabriel’s retreating back and lingers there a beat too long before it swings back to me. The second time is at afternoon tasking. I look up from the map table, and he’s already watching me, those dark eyes doing that unreadable thing, like he’s filing something away for later.

It should scare me straight, but it doesn’t. I survived worse things than a suspicious sergeant. Okafor’s long looks don’t measure up against what I survived in that cellar.

By the time the light disappears over the ridge, all I can think about is 2200, and the empty meters between my bunk and his door.

Lights out comes late. Petrillo and Spencer are the last ones talking, something about the new stove pipe seals, and then, finally, even that goes quiet, and the hut fills with the sound of five men breathing.

I give it twenty minutes. Should be long enough for sleep to take hold, but not long enough for my nerves to fail me.

The cold outside bites through my shirt the second I clear the door, and I move fast and low along the backs of the huts. Gabriel’s hut is dark except for a thin gray line of light under the door. I knock softly, twice, just like last night.

The door opens before I lower my hand. Fast. Like he’s been standing on the other side of it, waiting, maybe counting minutes just like I have.

I don’t give either of us time to think about that. The second the door is shut behind me, I’ve got a fistful of his shirt and my mouth on his. He tastes like coffee, and I murmur against his lips before I can stop myself.

“Thought about this all fucking day.”

Gabriel groans, but then his hands come up to my shoulders and push, putting a few inches of air between us.

“You can’t look at me like that,” he says. “Not in front of everyone.”

I bite my lower lip. “Like what?”

Gabriel exhales slowly before answering. “Like you know what my dick tastes like.”

Slowly, my lips stretch into a grin. “I don’t, in fact, know what your dick tastes like, sir.” I look at the front of his slacks, deliberate, pointedly. “Just what you taste like when you come. There’s a difference.”

“Reyes—”

“But I do know,” I go on, walking him back a step, “exactly the kind of punishment that fits a soldier who keeps disobeying orders.”

His jaw works. His eyes have gone dark, the gray almost completely swallowed up by black.

“You want to hear it, sir?” I push, holding his gaze.

“Say it,” he growls. There’s no fight in the word, just desire pretending to be an order.

“You choke me with that hard cock of yours,” I say. “Until I learn my lesson.”

He makes a sound like I’ve hit him, and I take advantage of it, shoving him back the rest of the way until his shoulders meet the door with a soft thud. I kiss him again, harder this time, and he kisses me back like he’s trying to prove something to himself, one hand fisting in my shirt, the other sliding up into my hair and gripping, not gentle at all.

Then I break it off and sink to my knees.

The floor is hard and cold through my pants, and I don’t care at all. I look up at him from down here, and hold those storm-gray eyes, because I want him to watch this. I want him to see exactly who’s doing this to him and that there’s no taking it back.

My hands find his belt, and he doesn’t stop me. His chest rises and falls too fast above me, and when I get his slacks open and drag them down over his hips, his cock springs free already hard, flushed dark at the tip and leaking. A broken sound leaves him.

I interpret it as begging, so I wrap my hand around the base and look back up.

“Yes, sir,” I murmur, and lean in.

The first taste of him makes me moan. He’s salty and warm, and I take my time working my mouth down his length slowly, listening to the way his breath stutters above me. His hand tightens in my hair, not guiding me yet, just holding like he needs an anchor.

“Noah.” It comes out wrecked. “Fuck, your mouth…”