The Arrangement Ch. 04

With a wink to Samuel, a slower tune drifted on the still, cool night air. This voice was male, but equally throaty and seductive. Daniel's smile was brighter than any of the lanterns that dotted the landscape. Her eyes were once more glued to those hypnotizing lips as he repeated the singer's words, "Would you dance if I asked you to dance?"

Jill's heart froze in her chest. The air seemed impossible thin as she struggled to move it in and out. Her mind was thrown into turmoil. She forced her eyes to meet his gaze. The azure depths of his eyes were hazy. An erotic invitation to the unknown. It was probably all just a show for his friends, she knew that. But some part of her wanted to believe that even just a tiny portion of it was just for her. In that moment, she decided to give into this temptation. To go with the flow. To be hypnotized by it all.

Surrendering her last reservation, she melted against him, moving slowly with him as the music drifted around them as the other couples joined them on the makeshift dance floor. Her arms wrapped about his neck as she leaned her head against his shoulder. It was just beginning to throb a bit from the alcohol and more than likely the stress of the past few days. In the ridiculously high heels that went with the get-up that Simone had chosen, they were practically eye-to-eye.

His hands slipped lower to rest against her hips, drawing her even tighter against him. The hard ridge beneath the rough material was pressed against her, making a mockery of her earlier taunts about being a 'real couple.' Standing this close she could feel the pounding of his heart as it strove to match the wild music of her own. She could feel its life force in his neck pulsing beneath her cheek. She bit her lip to stave off the temptation to kiss and lick at his pulse beating so steadily there.

This moment seemed more 'real' than anything she had felt. In a very long time. She smiled against the warmth of his shoulder. Tears gathered in her eyes. She knew this feeling well. Safety. Perhaps it was not as certain, as full-realized, as it had been once. Perhaps this man was not the best friend, lover and husband of her youth. But the two of them were more alike than different. And this moment could be a start, a new beginning. If she let it.

For the first time, she faced a truth that she had been avoiding these past weeks. She could not just casually exchange one hero for another. It was more complicated than that. As much a like as David and Daniel were, they were individuals. They were different men. As familiar as this new life was, she needed to let the old one go. As the tears spilled over, she felt the power of the song wash like a benediction over her. She was most definitely in over her head, she thought as she followed her new husband's lead.

Her mind battling to come to terms with it all, she heard some temptress whisper "Will you?"

The man in her arms turned to look at her. Through the haze of tears it was clear. Clear blue eyes that stared back at her, not the laughing brown ones that had a taken a part of her heart with them. She smiled as she realized that a part was not all. There was plenty of heart still beating, quite loudly in fact, inside her chest. And just as loving Daniel's daughter would never take anything away from the love she felt for her sons, neither would caring for this man ever change any of the twenty wonderful years she had shared with David.

He answered her with a tentative one of his own. "Will I what?" he asked in a low throaty voice.

"Kiss away the pain," her answer echoing the singers.

Their eyes held for a moment. She watched as dark clouds gathered in the blue skies of those eyes. She felt him stiffen a bit and she worried that she had said something terribly wrong. The memory of his cold kiss earlier burned in her mind.

She opened her mouth to take it all back. Instead his mouth covered hers. And fire erupted. The chill of the night melted away at the touch of his tongue against hers. She tasted the beer, but it was overpowered by another taste. Daniel. It was more intoxicating than the wine she had drunk. More powerful than any drug. And she feared she might be addicted already.

"I'll do my best," he whispered against her lips as the music stopped.

***

Daniel laughed around the bottle beer as his friends surrounded him. The truth was he felt like anything other than laughter. This show was grating on his nerves. He had tried to slip away quietly with Jill after that song. Its words and her pleas haunted him as much as the question that was burning in his mind. The question that he hid from them all.

"Yeah, well, you just remember I owe you for this one," he said addressing Samuel. His friend had no way of knowing exactly how much. And the rest of this night would have to tell. Samuel slapped him on the back as the group entered the same front door that he had opened for his new wife barely more than a week ago.

New wife; words that played like a bad movie in his mind, a movie in which he was now the male lead. The problem was he was not very good in the role. The truth was he was no one's hero. At least not when it mattered most. Oh sure, he could fight. Win battles that few other men could even face. Hell, he could even change diapers. But at the one thing that mattered most…as a husband…he was a complete and utter failure.

"You can thank me later, buddy," laughed the man that seemed to be cut out for the part. "Simone, you girls better be finished in there cause we kept the man waiting long enough," his friend called out as the gang pushed Daniel down the hallway towards the bedrooms. Towards heaven or hell itself.

Simone and a group of the wives stepped out of the doorway just as they approached, "You think we'd let you down now, suga'?" she drawled as Samuel wrapped his blushing bride of almost twenty years in a bear hug and brushed a kiss across her ruby red lips. The others pushed Daniel through the open door.

Jill was sitting on the edge of his bed. Her head was down as she stared at the sea of brown carpet. Blond hair fell about her features, but the stiff way that she held herself told him that she found this moment as impossibly embarrassing as he did.

But embarrassment was not the only emotion that he felt as he took in the view of his wife with her legs dangling off the bed. If the flowing sundresses that hugged those luscious tits and the tight jeans that caressed her full bottom had been temptation, this was hell itself, he thought as he took in the white satin and lace that encased her full-figure.

Gone was the lacy robe that had been draped about her shoulders as she had gyrated about him earlier. Her pale skin glistened in the dim light of the lamps that sat next to his bed. He watched hypnotized as her chest rose and fell. He was not sure if he feared or hoped for the gentle swell in those satin cups to overflow their boundaries.

And those impossibly long legs that he could only imagine wrapped about his waist were covered still in the sheer white lace stockings that were attached to the tiny strap of silk that he supposed was a garter belt. With the scarves that had flown about her legs as she danced gone, he could see it and those lace panties she wore. They had him trying to push the door closed before anyone else caught sight of her.

Daniel felt blood coursing through his body. "You can take my breath away," he whispered as they shoved him towards her.

But their audience was not to be denied this night. "Naw-aw, buddy," laughed Samuel. "You know this show ain't over."

He cursed whatever fool had started this tradition. But he knew Simone was right, it was one almost as old as his unit itself. And he of all people should know the importance of such things, but this night he was in no mood for their games. He just wanted to be alone with his new wife. He wanted to settle some things.

"It's over when I say it's over," Daniel barked. "And I say it's over. You guys have had your perverted fun. Go home to your own wives," he ordered.

Simone giggled as she snuggled against Samuel. "Oh no, you don't, boy. If you think that milk toast kiss you tried to pass off in front of the chaplain is gonna satisfy us girls, you got another think coming."

Reaching across the room, she grabbed Jill's hand and pulled her from the bed until she was standing right in front of him. Simone gave him another of those looks, "NOW, you may kiss your bride. And make it good, boy. Us wives got to have something to tease these old men with."

Daniel looked down into Jill's green eyes. "I'm sorry, but they aren't going to leave unless we…" his words trailed off as he lowered his head.

The moment his lips brushed hers it burst across him like a tidal wave. Desire. Need. Pure fucking lust. He was hard in an instant. The way she melted against him, melding their bodies, entwining their legs, was driving him insane. Or was the taste of wine and woman as her tongue met each bold thrust with her own. Her arms draped about the heated skin of his shoulders had his body begging and pleading with him to finish what they had begun the night before.

With a groan deep into her throat, he wrapped his arms about his wife's waist and drew her tighter against him. Partly because he wanted, needed, to feel those soft curves pressed against every single inch of his hard body. But also partly because he did not want to have to murder his friends and comrades for looking at his wife in that fucking white cloud of temptation.

The loud cheer that went up from their assembled guests barely registered in his mind as he tasted and feasted on her lips. His hands moved over the satin, wishing it were nothing but the softness of her skin.

He smiled against her lips when he heard the quiet click of the door closing. His mind replayed their earlier conversation about 'not rushing' things. He knew that he should step back now. Offer his wife the bed for the next couple of nights while the girls were away with friends for their 'honeymoon.' He could slip away to watch stupid late night horror movies and drink himself to sleep.

But what he should do and what he wanted to do were two different things. Even though he knew the alcohol and the situation itself clouded her thinking, he did not care. He did not want her thinking, did not want cool reasoning to have any part of this night. He wanted to fuel the flames that had her burning against him as hotly as he himself was igniting. If honor, niggled at the back of his mind, it could go fuck itself, because his body had every intention of ending a very long dry spell by fucking his new wife.

He maneuvered them until he felt the edge of the bed against his shins. Gently, lest he arouse her from the wine and kiss induced stupor that he wanted to feed this night, he lowered them both to the bed. His hand moved with more confidence than he was feeling up from her waist until it cupped her breast. His fingers ran along the edge of the material as his tongue danced against hers.

She whimpered as he broke the kiss. He looked into those cloudy green pools as he brushed the offensive material back to reveal the soft, full perfection of a man's dreams. He knew that if he did not want this dream to end too quickly, he had to keep her drugged with the seduction. Keep reason and sanity at bay…at least until dawn.

So he did what he had wanted to do since the the moment that Britney had splashed water across that damned dressed. He lowered his head and tasted the sweet heaven and hot depths of hell that was his wife's nipple. He drew the turgid peak deeper between his lips and was rewarded with a louder whimper as she arched against him.

Their bodies laying side by side on the bed, he could feel her hips moving in slow circles against his. The dry humping as they had called it as teens was driving him insane. One of his hands moved to her hips to still the incessant rhythm as his other hand cupped and squeezed at her bared tit. His teeth lightly scored the firm flesh and she practically came off the bed. This time the whimper became a moan.

His wife's responses were a more heady concoction than the half dozen or so beers that he had drank over the course of the night. More heady than anything he could remember, even the adrenaline rush of battle.

Daniel knew he was moving fast, but it was not fast enough for him. His fingers slipped beneath the patterned lace of her underwear. Panties that revealed far more than they hid as they stretched tightly across the white skin of her lush bottom. He tugged and pushed at them in time with the rocking of her hips against him. He had them half way down her thighs when she lifted that round ass and moaned as his tongue lathed her damp nipple.

"Fuck this," he spat as he tore the damned things off her. His words breathed across the tips of her breast.

The lacy scrap was still wrapped around his fingers as he explored the softness of her round bottom, mapping it with his touch. His mouth and tongue refused to surrender their prize as he toyed with it incessantly. "Please," she whimpered.

"Please what?" he breathed across her skin as he continued to toy with the darkened peak. He knew the answer he wanted. 'Please fuck me,' rang like a refrain in his head.

He threw the damned lace across the room as his fingers moved between her soft thighs. He groaned against her flesh as they moved over soft curls and delved lower still. He smiled around her nipple as he found her as wet as he was hard. Her hips lifted then, enveloping his hands between her legs as two of his fingers disappeared into the warmth that another part of his body was coveting.

"Aw," she screamed as he felt her flesh clamp tight about his fingers. "Yes," she moaned as he began to move them deeper inside of her. "Oh god, yes," she whimpered as she arched her hips into his bold caress.

Daniel was about to burst out of his god damned jeans. But the choice was surrender the heavenly softness of her ripe breast or the wet welcome of her tight channel. It was not a choice he was ready to make just yet he thought as his teeth tugged more firmly at the the soft flesh, his fingers greeted almost instantly with a rhythmic tightening of her muscles.

"D…" she whimpered as he continued the all out assault on her senses. The end game of this mission so close that he could almost feel it. "Da…" she moaned once more. Daniel was preparing to surrender the tender softness of her breast as she crested and crashed against him. The need to discard the tight confines of the thick material was driving him mad with distraction when she gave a final moan, "Da-vid."

Daniel shut his eyes at the stabbing pain that ripped through his chest. He had taken more than one bullet to the Kevlar vest. He knew the stinging shock of that pain, but it was a fraction of what he felt at that moment. His fingers slowed inside her impossibly tight body as the aftermaths of her tremors continued to squeeze softly at them.

He knew that her words, misspoken though they were in her drunken and lust induced dreams, would not stop many men. Hell, most men. But he was not one of them as that damned honor came bubbling back to the surface. Indecision and pain warred in his heart as he stilled. His head rested against the soft pillow of the breast that moments before he had been teasing and tormenting.

But it was his new wife that ultimately made the decision for him. The soft rise and fall of her chest soon gave no doubt that after the powerful release of her orgasm, she had found the peace of sleep. Something he knew he would not find this night. Not even at the bottom of the bottle of Southern Comfort that awaited him in the kitchen cabinet.

Softly he turned, withdrawing his fingers with regret. He rolled to the edge of the bed. His head hung in defeat. "Fuck, when you going to learn, man. You just aren't cut out for this," he whispered as he stood up. Going to the closet he pulled out the spare blanket and tucked it about her. Her blond hair spread across the quilt brought another stabbing pain to his gut. "I'm so sorry, Jill," he said as he bent to place a kiss on her forehead. "You don't deserve a fuck-up like me." He flicked off the lights and drew the door closed even more softly than their guests had earlier.

In the darkness, he stumbled down the hall to the kitchen. The moon light was streaming through the window over the sink as he reached high into the cupboard next to it for the only comfort he would find this night. The famous alcohol was far from the sweet comfort he had hoped to enjoy. Unscrewing the cap, he brought the bottle to his lips and swallowed. He looked out at the array of bright stars and lifted the bottle.

"David, my friend, here's to you. Wish I were half the man you must have been," he said as he drowned his sorrows in another long drink. The liquid burned his throat with heat and fire that was only a dim reminder of the flames he had held in his arms just moments before.