Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 86556 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86556 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
“Same,” Dustin admitted. “And we really better pick a movie before I forget why taking my shirt off would be a bad idea.”
“A very bad idea.” Wes laughed, and the sound washed over Dustin, made this whole call worth it to know that he lightened Wes’s load, even a little. “Okay, I’m thinking straight-up classic American cheese. Forbidden Planet? We can have sympathy for off-limits things.”
“All the sympathy.” Dustin was a heartbeat away from asking Wes to pull off his shirt. But he wouldn’t. Couldn’t. “Let me see if I can queue it up on the big screen here.”
And just like that they were back on safe, non-flirty footing, Wes moving around so that he could see his monitor, Dustin getting the movie ready on his end. And he wasn’t sure whether it was sad or wonderful or both that he enjoyed Wes’s commentary almost as much as he would have sex—simply spending time with him like this felt like a gift. Something to treasure because he couldn’t let it become habit even though his whole body was screaming for more of this connection they shared. Why did it have to be Wes who made him feel this way? Wes who inspired urges in him that he’d never had before, like the need to comfort? He tried hard not to think too much about those questions, to let Wes’s laughter at the movie be all the soothing his soul needed. This was enough for tonight. It had to be.
* * *
Hurry-up-and-wait was the part of every mission that Wes liked least. He separated himself from the main group as they were all at a standstill, waiting for the next phase of the mission. The guys were all clumped in groups of two and three, eating MRE food pouches and talking in low voices, but Wes just wasn’t up to much socializing and was having a hard time making himself eat. He leaned against a big boulder, trying to take a load off. They were in rugged, mountainous terrain in a country where they weren’t welcome and where super-covert was the name of the game. And making things go boom in a super-secret fashion? Well, that was why they had him along, and he was trying hard to keep his focus on the job ahead.
But it was hard.
“Hey.” Dustin approached him, picking his way across the rocks. Below them was a vista of more mountains, no civilization evident in the barren valley. “You eat, Lowe? Senior Chief said he was worried you’re not keeping your strength up.”
“I ate.” It wasn’t a lie—he had eaten, just probably not enough. Wes was careful not to look too hard at Dustin. Strangely enough, things were less strained between them since their conversation the night before they’d deployed.
“How are you doing, really?” Dustin dropped his voice, sounding a lot more like Dustin of the late-night phone calls and less like Lieutenant Strauss.
“Trying not to be distracted,” Wes admitted, because that Dustin, the real one, was harder to lie to. “The surgery was supposed to have been yesterday.”
“You know the Red Cross would have gotten a message through to Command if there was...a true emergency. No news is good news.” Dustin’s voice was as soothing as a hand on Wes’s neck would be.
“I suppose. I wouldn’t put it past my mom to not want to tell me if she thinks I’m deployed.”
“Then you’ll cross that bridge when we’re back stateside. Nothing you can do about it here,” Dustin said firmly.
“I guess.” Wes tried to sound optimistic. Dustin was beyond nice, talking to him like this.
“Does it help if I tell you that I’m thinking about them for you too? Rooting for a good outcome. My own mom’s a big believer in positive energy.” Dustin laughed softly. “Right now her big ‘positive energy push’ is that I won’t be deployed and miss my brother’s wedding. But anyway, she’s always saying how that helps.”
“That’s...” Sweet of you. But Dustin wouldn’t want to be thought of as sweet, wouldn’t want the reminder that he was dangerously close to the line between them. “Good,” he finished lamely. “Appreciated.”
“Stay strong,” Dustin said, voice rolling over Wes like a caress. God, he wanted to touch Dustin so badly. He was cold and dusty and sick with worry over Sam, and he hadn’t realized how much he needed this until Dustin came over. “And stay alert. I need you at your best for this next leg. We get it done nice and smooth and we can all be heading home before too much longer.”
“Understood.” Wes shifted his weight from side to side, both to keep warm and to keep from reaching out to Dustin, who was already pulling away from him mentally, back to the lieutenant with a job to do.
A few hours and a lot of hiking later, it was showtime—the team moving into position, just like their desert training exercise with the shipping container, only in this case it was a cave. They needed to locate contents pertinent to national security interests, then blow up everything else out of concern for those same interests. All without anyone getting whiff that the US had been on this soil. And without bringing down half the mountain.