Chapter 1212 Tour

The man who still sent her good-morning texts at 0600 sharp even though he knew she was usually already running this base on the move by then.

In the photo they were on the pier back home, wind whipping her hair across his cheek while he laughed, eyes crinkled, arm slung around her shoulders like the world was simple and safe.

He looked so... civilian. Soft around the edges. Safe.

The kind of man who would never understand why she sometimes came back from the range with her pulse hammering and her thighs slick beneath her fatigues.

"I’m sorry," she whispered to the photograph. The words tasted like ash.

She pressed the heel of her hand against her sternum, trying to push the ache down.

It didn’t work. Nothing worked tonight.

She lay back on the cot, the thin mattress creaking under her weight. Closed her eyes.

Tried to summon Douglas’s face—his gentle smile, the way he kissed her temple when she was tired, the quiet way he said "I love you" like it was a promise he’d never break.

But the darkness behind her eyelids betrayed her.

Instead she saw Ross.

Ross, shirtless in the locker room after the late-night training rotation, sweat still glistening on the ridges of his abdomen.

Ross, leaning against the tiled wall with that lazy, dangerous smirk, towel slung low on his hips.

Ross, thick and half-hard already just from watching her peel off her sweat-soaked shirt, the way his gaze had dragged down her body like a physical touch.

And then—God help her—the dream sharpened.

The way he’d stepped close, close enough that she could feel the heat rolling off him.

The rough scrape of his calloused palm when he’d cupped the back of her neck and tilted her face up.

The low, gravelly sound he made when she didn’t pull away.

And then lower.

His cock.

Ohhh my..

Thick, heavy, flushed dark at the tip. Already leaking when he’d finally shoved his pants down just enough.

The sheer obscene size of it—veined, proud, curving slightly upward like it knew exactly where it wanted to go.

The way it had twitched when she’d wrapped her fingers around it, barely able to close them.

The hot, velvet weight of it in her palm.

The bead of precome that welled at the slit and slid down the underside while he groaned her name like a curse.

June’s breath hitched.

She rolled onto her stomach, pressed her face into the thin pillow, tried to wake up from the dream.

Her hips shifted involuntarily, seeking friction against the coarse sheet. The pressure only made it worse.

She was wet.

She’d been wet since the moment he’d crowded her against the lockers, since his mouth had crashed into hers and his tongue had pushed past her lips like he had every right.

Since he’d ground that fat length against her stomach and let her feel exactly how much he wanted her.

She clenched her thighs together, hard. A pitiful whimper escaped anyway.

"I’m engaged," she said aloud to the empty room, voice trembling. "I love him. I love Douglas."

The words sounded hollow. Desperate.

Because even as she said them, her hand was already sliding down her body, under the waistband of her briefs, fingers finding the slippery evidence of her betrayal.

She was soaked. Dripping. Her clit throbbed under the lightest brush of her fingertips.

She bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.

In her dream Ross was there again—looming over her, one thick forearm braced beside her head, the other guiding himself to her entrance.

The blunt head nudging, stretching, promising to split her open in the best, most shameful way.

She circled her clit faster.

"I’m sorry," she gasped again, but the apology dissolved into a broken moan.

Her hips rocked against her own hand. The cot creaked rhythmically now.

She pictured Ross’s big hands gripping her thighs, spreading her wider, that smug, filthy grin on his face as he sank in inch by brutal inch.

Pictured the way his abs would flex, the way his breath would stutter when he bottomed out.

Pictured him fucking her slow at first—teasing, letting her feel every ridge—then harder, deeper, until the metal frame rattled and she couldn’t remember her own name, let alone Douglas’s.

Her orgasm hit like a shockwave. Sharp. Violent.

Silent except for the ragged sob she muffled into the pillow.

When it passed she lay there shaking, fingers still tucked between her legs, sticky and trembling.

She opened her eyes and the photograph stared at her from the nightstand.

Douglas’s smile had never looked so far away.

June turned her face to the wall, tears slipping hot and quiet down her cheek.

She didn’t sleep.

June tried to rationalize what Ross had done.

She already knew he was fucking Bella from the couple’s report.

Up until the strip search, the two of them had still been able to talk like normal people: easy, almost friendly.

Then came the gloved hands, the cold table, the humiliating exposure... and afterward, Ross had looked at her differently.

Not with pity. Not with professionalism.

He’d looked at her like he wanted something.

And then he started making moves.

Subtle at first—lingering glances, and then the direct sexual teasing, the way his voice dropped lower when he said her name.

Testing. Arousing.

"Does he like me too?" The thought slipped in before she could stop it. "Does he want to fuck me the way he fucks Bella?"

June shook her head hard, as if she could physically dislodge the idea.

No. He was just playing power games. Using her vulnerability the way men like him always did.

Hate was easier. Hate made sense.

She clung to that hate like a life raft, letting it crowd out the heat pooling low in her belly, the traitorous pulse between her thighs whenever she replayed the way his eyes had dragged over her skin.

Eventually the war inside her exhausted itself.

She curled tighter under the thin blanket, chasing the little sleep she had left, telling herself the ache would fade by morning.

It always did.

Almost.