Page 49 of My Forbidden Commander

“What did Doc say?”

A muscle in his cheek twitches. “Doc gave me a lecture that would’ve made my father proud. Told me I’m setting back my recovery.” He rubs a hand down his face. “Then she reminded me I’m cleared for light duty. Light. Not pull-ups. Not anything that pulls.”

“Well.” I cross the room and lower myself down onto my knees in front of him, resting my hands on his thighs. The urge to make him feel better is impossible to deny. “Let me pull on something that won’t tear a stitch.”

He huffs, but the corner of his mouth twitches, so I take it as permission and get his belt open. I get him free and take him into my mouth, moving slow, because I know that works best when he’s wound up tight. For a minute it works. His hand finds my hair. His breathing goes rough. But then his hips stop chasing my mouth, and his hand in my hair doesn’t grip anymore; it just rests there. I pull back and look up at him.

He’s staring at the wall past my shoulder. Somewhere else entirely.

“Hey.” I sit back on my heels. “Where’d you go, Colonel?”

He blinks, focusing on me like he’s waking up from a dream. “Sorry. I’m here.”

“You’re really not.” I stand, and his cock, half-hard and now abandoned, twitches like it’s protesting my decision. “The Doc got in your head.”

Gabriel shakes his head. “It’s not that.”

“It’s a little that.” I reach for the hem of my shirt and pull it over my head, tossing it toward the footlocker. His eyes track my movement even though he’s distracted and irritated. “Fine. New plan.”

“Reyes—”

“Call me Noah when we’re here,” I correct. “Or maybe Specialist with that Colonel tone if you really want to turn me on.”

He huffs, and I shuck my boots, then my pants, taking my time because I know he likes to watch me strip. Even if his head is in the med hut, getting chewed out by a doctor half his size. By the time I’m naked in the lantern light, his eyes have stopped drifting. They’re on me. I let him look.

Gabriel’s eyes glide over my hard-earned muscles, and I can’t help but flex a bit. Then his gaze caresses my tattoos—the flag and eagle, the rose with a compass I got two weeks after Orsha Valley, the small block of numbers on my arm that only three people know the meaning of. He watches all of it, and by the time he reaches my cock, hard and curved against my stomach, his own has gone from half-hard to leaking against his belly without either of us touching it.

“There you are,” I say, pleased with myself.

“You did that on purpose.”

“I do everything on purpose, sir,” I drawl. “It’s kind of my thing.”

I take the tube I brought with me out of the pocket of my discarded pants, and climb onto the bunk and straddle his thighs, careful of the shoulder. Then I pour lube over my fingers and reach behind myself without breaking his gaze. When my fingers breach the tight ring of my ass, my mouth falls open, a small sound slipping out that I don’t bother to muffle.

Gabriel groans. “Christ, Noah.”

“Just getting started.”

I work myself open, fast and efficient. I’ve done this enough times to know exactly what I need and how quickly I can get there. Every time I moan, Gabriel’s hand fists in the sheet beside his hip like it’s the only thing keeping him from grabbing me and taking over, ruining his stitches again.

When I’m ready, I pull my fingers free and reach for him instead, slicking my palm and wrapping it around his cock. He hisses, hips jerking up.

“Wait.” His hand catches my wrist. “Didn’t you say you wanted to wait? Until my shoulder⁠—”

“I did say that.” I lean down, my lips brushing against his ear. “I can’t wait anymore, sir.”

I pull back enough to look at him, at the way his cock is drooling against my palm, flushed and thick and desperate for exactly what I’m about to give it.

“And judging by the state of you,” I add, “neither can you. Respectfully. Sir.”

He doesn’t argue. He just stares at me, his chest rising and falling fast, and lets me position myself over him, my knees braced on either side of his hips, his cock hot and slick against my entrance.

I sink down slowly.

The stretch burns for the first inch, familiar, sharp, and addictive, and I breathe through it, one hand flat against his chest to keep myself steady. Gabriel’s body goes rigid beneath me, a string of curses tearing out of him that I’ve genuinely never heard him string together before, not even under fire.

“Fuck—fuck, Noah, you feel—” he cuts himself off with a growl, jaw clenched, hips trembling with the effort of not thrusting up into me too fast. “I’ve never felt anything like this. Fuck. Never.”