SCAR_A Dark Military Romance Read online

  I spank her bottom again, my palm covering one cheek entirely, cupping her cheeks. I can’t really feel what lies beneath the thick fabric, not entirely, but the gentle swell and roundness of her cheeks is just evident enough to make me want to see more.

  This woman is driving me to distraction. My cock is rock hard, even though I know there’s no chance of getting laid. This isn’t foreplay. This is discipline.

  “You are going to do as you’re told, young lady,” I lecture as I start spanking her in earnest. “You are going to listen to my orders and you are going to follow them. If you don’t, you’ll find yourself right back here over my thighs, having your bottom spanked.”

  “Ow!” She complains in return, gasps and yelps and similar sounds escaping her with every swat. I’m barely spanking her really, but she’s rolling her hips and squirming against me for all she’s worth, and it’s enough to grind my cock into a near painful state of arousal. If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think she was doing it on purpose.

  I spank her a little harder, hoping to settle her, though that’s a counter-intuitive thing to do and it doesn’t work at all. The harder swats make her yelp and grind and… was that a moan?

  I rub my hand over her wriggling cheeks and give her another firm swat nice and low. The sound she makes is definitely carnal.

  “Little girl, are you listening to me?”

  My hand slides from around her waist and tangles in her hair, giving me leverage to lift her head up and pull it back, the other hand sliding down over her cheeks, my fingers finding the space between her thighs. If there wasn’t so much fabric down there, this would be lewd.

  Her hips rise, pulling her pussy up into my hand. She wants this. She’s giving herself to me. If we were anywhere other than a box in the middle of the desert, if I didn’t know what she’d been through, I might give into the desire to take her the way I want to. But I’m still worried for this woman, and as tempting as it might be to take advantage of the heat between us, that’s not what this moment is about.

  MARY

  What the hell is happening? It doesn’t hurt. Not in terms of how I’ve come to understand pain over the years. There’s heat in my ass and fire running through my veins. This is embarrassing as hell, and the last thing I expected him to do to me.

  I’m shocked, but not as angry as I should be. When he first called me little girl, pure anger flashed through me. To my ears it sounded derisive and dismissive, as if I wasn’t strong enough or good enough to be here with him.

  Then he made me feel his strength. Then I got to feel what I always wanted, his strong arms wrapped around me - maybe not how I thought I wanted it, maybe not entirely how I do want it, but being held over his lap and talked to in those low, masculine tones triggers the needs I push away, the needs that made me so angry when he first began to encroach on them and now are starting to flower within me.

  “You’re going to do as you’re told,” he murmurs, his palm rubbing over my heated cheeks. “You’re going to get some sleep, little girl. You’re going to lie down, get comfortable, and get some rest.”

  His voice is deep and soft and calm. There’s no anger in what he’s doing to me, even though I could easily accuse him of brutality and the worst kind of domination. He is dominant. I don’t think he knows any other way to be. But he knows how to handle it, and me, and in spite of my stinging bottom I’m… impressed. Impressed and aroused.

  With just a handful of swats, he’s completely addled my brain. I’ve gone from wanting to scream in his face to wanting him inside me, and that’s obviously out of the question. The fact that he’s sliding his big hand between my legs is probably incidental. He can’t be doing it on purpose. He wouldn’t…

  I feel his fingers drag across the very core of me. There’s a lot of cloth and stuff in the way, the jumpsuit, jeans underneath, underwear under that. It’s a shitload of clothing to be wearing in the desert, but it makes me feel safe. Hides the scars. I could wear less, but I’d feel people’s eyes through the fabric, seeing what I don’t want them to see.

  His hand slides back over my bottom and lands with another heavy swat.

  “You understand, brat?”

  “Yes.” What other answer can I give? He’s got me at his mercy, balanced on the edge of pleasure and pain, panic and relaxation. I could sink into his grip and let him have his way with me, or tumble into anxiety. Even I don’t know what I’m going to do. I haven’t been with a man since the laboratory had me. I planned to never be with one again. I won’t show my scars. I won’t let anyone see what was done to me.

  His hand slides back down between my thighs, but not across my pussy. He finds the inside of my leg and holds me there by the upper thigh. I’m not sure what he’s doing, but it’s obvious he’s not done with me, and he’s not going to let me up yet.

  “Why are you here, Mary?”

  “What?”

  “I mean why did you come to a place like this? Is this your way of self-destructing?”

  I would never have had this discussion if he hadn’t broken down my resistance, taken me off guard, and held me like this. I wouldn’t have been able to. Some small but powerful voice in my head would have told me that I couldn’t. Right now, that voice is silent. I don’t know where it went, but I can speak now.

  “I came here to live,” I say softly. “I… I tried to go back and hide. I tried to be normal. But normal felt fake to me. It felt… hollow. I don’t think it’s for me anymore. I don’t think it ever will be.”

  KEN

  She can’t possibly know it, but what she’s describing is the precise reason I keep re-enlisting. In between stretches of service, it’s also why my private work has always returned me to these parts of the world. It’s common for people who have been in war to feel as if they’re unable to settle into everyday life anymore. Mary was never a soldier, but what she’s been through is probably equivalent in a lot of ways. Hard times make hard people, but general society doesn’t have much space or time for hard people. Especially nowadays. Now it’s the softer the better. Safe spaces and things. That’s fine for them, but it’s not for us.

  A lot of people back home don’t understand. They think that people like Mary and I must not feel fear. Truth is, we’re just afraid of different things. Places like Afghanistan are safe havens for those of us who need danger to feel not just alive, but normal. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s true. Out here, things are hot, disgusting at times, depressing for some, and certainly not nice. But this sandy hell calibrates you, makes something simple like a shower seem like heaven. Everything is ultra real out here. Nobody smiles and tells you to have a nice day because they’re hoping for an extra dollar on their tip, or because they’ve been made to by some manager. The men and women out here don’t have time for any pretense besides simple military bearing. Life is difficult, but it’s also easier in some ways. Eat, shit, survive.

  She gets that. But I’m thinking unlike military personnel, who at least have comrades who understand the lure of war, she’s probably been alone with what feels like a horrible secret and a twisted soul. I’ve always felt connected to her in some intangible way. Now I feel even more for her. I’m going to guess she never got therapy for what happened to her. She has ‘feelings are weakness’ written all over her.

  “Alright,” I tell her. “Then I won’t send your ass home yet.”

  “Gee, thanks.” Her sarcasm returns full force. Only because she hasn’t had a good, long, proper spanking yet. I’d love to strip her bare and paint her ass bright red. Hell, I will do that soon enough, either when she’s ready, or when she doesn’t give me any other choice.

  “I wasn’t kidding earlier, Mary. I expect total obedience from you. Most embeds spend their time shitting themselves in the back of LAVs, but I’m guessing that won’t be what you do.”

  I can feel the smirk, even though I can’t see it.

  “I’m not afraid of the Taliban.”

  “Well you should be,” I l
ecture her. “This is their world. They know this land like the back of their hand. This is where they grew up. They know every rock, every tree, every road. And they know exactly where to bury their bombs and lay their traps.”

  “And we’ve been here for over a decade,” she snorts. “Long enough for us to know the same stuff, right?”

  “It’s not the same.”

  It really isn’t. The people here are built from this land. We are foreigners in it. Hiding from a world which moved on without us and left us, we’re warriors out of time and space. The people we fight are something else. I’ve seen the way people here blend with the territory, melt into mountains, slip into sand. We have two advantages keeping us alive: training, and technology. Take away our resources, and all we have left is our wits. Sometimes they’re not enough.

  There are a lot of stories that never get told in this part of the world. I hope she doesn’t discover any of them.

  “So, are you going to let me up?”

  She asks the question with that smart ass casual tone which tells me she’s already gotten a little too comfortable over my thighs. That fits with what I know about her. Put some pressure on her, make the situation more intense, and she’ll relax. If I was to be gentle with her and speak to her softly, she’d probably panic. That’s my suspicion anyway.

  I need to know. So I lift my hand and I start stroking her bottom gently, rubbing up to her lower back. It’s a nice soothing touch, designed to calm, and most people would find it relaxing. I see tension creeping into her muscles right away. She tenses up and everything feels harder than it did before. She’s not soft and relaxed anymore, she’s waiting for something.

  “Let me up, Ken.”

  There’s an edge to her voice that wasn’t there before. I could keep stroking her, soothing her. I could let her up. Or I could do what I planned to do all along - smack her little butt nice and hard.

  “Ow!” She gasps and I feel her body relax again, draping over my thighs. A smile twitches the corner of my lips. Oh yes, she’s going to be fun to domesticate. And maybe, in doing it to her, I’ll do it to myself.

  I give her another swat to the other cheek, then let her up, trying not to smile too broadly as she scrambles to the other side of the CHU - all of three feet away.

  MARY

  Fuck. He disarmed me and I wasn’t even armed. My face is hotter than my ass, which is still stinging.

  “Don’t do that again please.”

  “I won’t if you don’t deserve it,” he says evenly, his handsome features so composed as he sits there, straight backed and powerful. “But I’ll put money on you deserving it sooner rather than later. Ready to get cleaned up and go to bed?”

  “Fine,” I agree. He’s won this round and I don’t have the energy for another one. It’s way too early to be going to bed. Even with a 3 am start time, I’m going to get more than ten hours sleep if I somehow manage to fall asleep now.

  “Good girl,” he says, his deep voice rumbling through me, going right to my core. God. I can’t even look at him. He spanked me. He fucking spanked me. I mean, not really. It wasn’t like he pulled my pants down… why the hell am I thinking like this?

  “I’m going to take a shower.”

  The shower is a tiny box-like space with a shower head that has seen better days and a floor that squeaks and flexes beneath my toes as I step under a fairly futile spray of water. The notion of washing my hair under this is a struggle, but I set to work anyway because it gives me time to think.

  I’ve been out here for months now. I’ve seen some stuff. Mostly I’ve seen the backs of military men and smelled their sweat. At night, in the bars that inevitably spring up in bases, sometimes I hear their stories. These are some of the bravest and best people I’ve ever met.

  Ken isn’t like most of these men. Something sets him apart. Something it’s hard for me to put a finger on. He’s… wilder somehow. When I look into his eyes, I get a feeling right in the pit of my belly. It’s a similar feeling to the one I get when I visit a zoo and look at a tiger behind wire. Not quite fear, but awe.

  He’s an impressive specimen. There are a lot of men out here who are brave and muscle bound, but he’s the only one who gives me that feeling when I look at him. Maybe that says something about him. Or maybe it just says something about me.

  I don’t know. I’m confused as hell. But I am glad for the privacy this little “bathroom” provides. There’s literally just a shower and the toilet on the other side. Basin big enough to bathe a mouse in for washing your hands. I’m guessing they don’t get used much out here.

  I don’t like being naked much these days. The scars could be worse, but I wish they weren’t there at all. It’s not that they’re grotesque or dramatically disfiguring. You could mistake them for simple surgery scars, because that is what they are, thin, clean lines traversing my waist and abdomen.

  Most people wouldn’t know what they were. Might think they were appendix scars, or maybe c-section scars. But I know what they are, and Ken will know what they aren’t, is my guess.

  I’ve been marked forever, externally and internally. Physically and mentally. I can forget about it when I get dressed, but the minute my clothes come off, I see those marks again and I can’t pretend it was all some horrible nightmare.

  He can’t see me naked. I won’t let him.

  That decided, I dry myself off as best I can and climb into the fresh clothes I brought with me. Blue long sleeved shirt and pajama pants. They’re for men, really, but they’re loose and they’re comfortable and the collar makes them practically semi-formal.

  When I get out of the shower, he’s turned the AC up a bit. It’s cool inside the CHU, and my bed is waiting for me, corner of the blankets turned back, my pack and boots stowed beneath. I didn’t do that. He did.

  He’s sitting on his bed, laying ammunition out in order from biggest to smallest. The biggest is almost comically large.

  “Is that a 50 cal round?”

  “Uh huh. Desert Eagle,” he says, pulling back a piece of fabric over a case to reveal the drab olive of the monster weapon. Basically a handgun on the proverbial steroids.

  I should know more about guns, but I mostly leave the shooting to other people. It’s not like they let embeds have weapons anyway. The rules of engagement are tight out here, and that’s caused most of the problems I’ve encountered so far. It’s not good enough to spot enemy actors. They have to have effectively engaged a unit first, which, in practice, means someone gets to be shot before the units around me can do a thing about it.

  “Get into bed.”

  I bristle at the order, but we do have a deal and I don’t want him to grab me and smack me again. Pajamas don’t offer the same level of protection my clothes did earlier.

  I get into bed and lay down. Neither of us say anything. He turns the main light off and puts a smaller one on next to his bed. He can’t know this, but I never sleep in the dark anymore, so that little glow is perfect as I reluctantly close my eyes and attempt to go to sleep at an hour I haven’t slept at since I was about four.

  KEN

  She’s more tired than she thinks she is. We all are out here. As soon as the light dims, she’s done for. After about ten minutes, her breathing starts to slow. Five minutes after that, she’s fast asleep.

  I feel a sense of peace I haven’t felt a long time, having her here, in my room, watching over her as she gets some rest. It’s as if some anxiety I didn’t even know I’d been carrying around has been satisfied. Even though we’re basically strangers. Even though we hardly know one another at all, she feels like she’s mine.

  I’ve got to be careful of that though. She might not feel the same way. Probably doesn’t, in all likelihood. She seems to remember me, but how well. And I don’t want her to succumb to me just because she feels some misplaced sense of loyalty or worse, like she owes me something.

  Once I’m finished getting ready for tomorrow’s work, I grab a shower and get into bed as well
. 0300 comes quick.

  3

  KEN

  We’re rolling in a Frankenstein. A not so armored vehicle that’s been done up by a few genius engineers who can’t walk past a bit of steel without welding it to something with wheels.

  Hillbilly armor, they call it. Just shit welded on wherever it’ll fit. It’d be nice to have the full sleek military machines you see in movies and training videos, but in real life, the military industrial complex is held together with duct tape.

  If she’s afraid to be rolling around in this patchwork quilt of spare parts, she doesn’t show it. I’m not sure she actually realizes what we’re in. It was pretty dark and she was still half asleep when I got her out of bed and into this thing.

  There are three other guys with us. This is basically reconnaissance, roll out into the depths of a Middle Eastern night and see what’s happening. They like to move at night when it’s cold, and when they think we’re not watching. Heat sensing technology lights them up like Christmas trees though. Right now it’s a pitch black ocean of dark danger out there.

  We move slow. There are bombs everywhere. It’s not safe to take the tracks we usually take, and it’s not safe to go off-track either because they’ll put them in both places. We have a Soteria device located above the cab that scans for the things, but nothing is perfect. Basically, we’re playing minesweeper.

  “Fuck,” the driver’s buddy curses as a blip lights up on the monitor. There’s a damn daisy chain of the things laid out near the ridge we’re wanting to ascend. The people we’re fighting aren’t high tech, but they understand the basics of war which never change, like securing high ground.