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“It’s Burke, you asshole. I haven’t been a sergeant for years now. How the hell are ya?”
“I’m great,” I answered while staring at a curious Noah. “You?”
“Good. Me and Damon are living together now, and he was going through some old pictures, and I saw the one with us in front of that tent, white like it was snowing. Remember the one?”
“I do,” I said, laughing. “You’d just covered Diaz in baby powder, and he threatened to shoot you.”
“Good times,” he said. “Say you still with that… guy?”
The last time we’d spoken, I was with Harvey. Burke, who was actually Sgt. Burke Monteleone had just met Damon Street at a club and brought him by the apartment. That was the last friend I’d had hosted after the fit Harvey had had. “No. I’m far from there. I’m actually on a ranch now. I have… someone new, and he owns this amazing ranch. You should come visit,” I offered, then fear struck me, as I hadn’t even asked Noah. He smiled and nodded, so I relaxed.
“A fucking ranch? Are you kidding me? That’s… great, Eli, really. And, for the record, I’m glad you’re away from that fucker, Harvey.”
“Me too, believe me. Listen, I’m serious. I’d love to see you.”
“Let to me talk to Damon and see what we can do. I’ll text you the answer, then we can set it up, if all’s okay.”
“Sounds great, man. Talk soon, huh?”
“You got it.”
After the call ended, I reached out to Noah, grabbing his hand. “I’m really sorry. I should’ve asked.”
“It’s your home too, Eli. Stop with that shit. So, who is this guy?”
Sarg… okay, Burke. He was an old and dear friend. “He… saved my life in the war. That explosion, I was hit in the leg, couldn’t run, so I was trying to crawl. He came and got me, dragging me behind a truck before another explosion hit that would have killed me. We have a history besides that. And… don’t get mad,” I pled.
“You fucked?”
“No! No, no, not that. See, one time, before I was hit, obviously, I got leave and I took off to Turkey. I’d heard through the grapevine that they had this amazing underground club, like the kind I was into, you know.”
“BDSM club, got it?”
“Yeah.” I took a drink of my coffee, finding it had gone mostly cold, and went on, “It was wild, very dark, and by dark, I mean there were few lights in the place at all. Candles, man, all over, but not enough to light up this basement I was in. I went through the place, and it was co-ed, so there were women too. The smell of perfume, of sex, of sweat and old booze just reeked. There were a lot more women than men, and I had almost given up on the place, and then I saw Sarg. Burke. His name is Burke Monteleone. Anyway, he was sitting in this corner, watching this man get the fuck whipped out of him by this woman. He was grinning like crazy until he saw me. He hurried over to me, dragging me into a quiet corner, and I could tell he was freaked. I was a private, you know, and catching him in that place, well. It’s not exactly a place you want your superiors to know about. I was freaked too, but seeing him there, I felt better, like, tit for tat.”
“Right, right, but he didn’t feel the same.”
“Not at first. We got to talking, and we talked all night. We flirted around with the idea of us doing a scene, once he admitted being a Dom and I admitted being submissive, but that on top of our knowledge about being in that place, well…”
“So, you never? It would have been convenient.”
“Not really. Entanglements like that are not only frowned upon, but outright denied. Some did, sure, but it usually ended badly. And by badly, I mean, well, people died over there. You didn’t want to be blown to pieces in front of someone that was in love with you. Even the fucking, you know it can lead to feelings.”
“You two were smart about it. Good. So, you kept up the friendship.”
“Yeah, sure did. We even rode our bikes around the country when we got back and I healed up from my wound. We saw each other a lot until Harvey. They came to visit once, when he first got with Damon. Damon is a Dom too, so they were moaning about it, having to take turns at bottoming and everything. After that visit, though, I never heard much from Burke.”
“Let’s fix that. After this snow hits, and it clears up some, tell ‘em to come out for a few days. We’ll give them a little vacation and see if you can get some friends of your own around here.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Wewatchedthesnowcoming down from the front window later that day, and by watching the snow, I mean we couldn’t see anything else. Sometimes, when the wind shifted, we got a glimpse of the red of the barn.
He held me from behind, kissing my neck as we watched the world turn into a white wonderland. We were warm; the fireplace putting out pleasant heat and the smell of sweet burning pine.
“I could sleep for three days. I don’t think I knew what a day’s work was until I came here.”
“I’m sure that’s not true. From the start, you gave me your all.”
