#cackling.

It’s just a crush.

John would never suspect anything of you.

Especially not something as heinous as being attracted to his protege, his sergeant. The man that had played a good part in bringing your husband home safe after every gruelling mission.

The thing about John is that, you’re not even sure he’ll see it as something heinous.

“Well, ‘s quite natural, love,” you can almost imagine him saying now, “he’s a good lad.”

It’s not that you don’t love your husband. You do. Of course you do, how can anyone even ask a question like that?

Maybe it’s the thrill of chasing something you can’t conquer. The thrill of something new, something fast, something young. It sickens you, your greed.

Your desire for something outside your perfect, loving marriage.

You let your John open the door to a smiling Kyle. He’s in a cotton black t-shirt and worn out jeans. The black of the flimsy fabric stretches over the ridges and planes of his hard muscle, sleeves perfectly enveloping around his biceps.

“Hey, dove,” he says once he sees you, brown eyes lit up at the sight of you. A gentleman as always in the transfixed manner his eyes stay up. Never so much as wandering, fleeting. He respects his boss.

The same could hardly be said about you in earnest. Your gaze would occupy itself with wandering and fleeting shamelessly. Making nest in the swell of his jeans over his ass, the strained bulge of the denim in the front, the flexing of the triceps every time he’d offer you a second serving.

He allows himself small, imperceptible mercies, still. A hand lingering at the small of your back, the occasional compliment, a less-than-chaste kiss on the cheek, the eagerness to be the one to pass you the salt.

John notices. Every single time, he notices. But he’ll never bring it up.

So what if, later that night, he pistons his cock into your sopping hole harder than usual? So what if he pushes your face down against the mattress, desperate to remove any semblance of your need to impress his sergeant—smudging your makeup, crinkling your blouse, ruining your hair? So what if he snaps you out of your pleasure-addled, hazy fantasies of Kyle fucking you instead, by making you cry out his name? As he brandishes his claim on you? His wife?

ACT II: THE STALK RISES

Price watches as his men engage in various activities onboard the exfil heli—sleeping, calling their loved ones, wiping down their gear. His own forehead is riddled with grime and dirt, set in a deep furrow as he replays the mission over and over again. Wringing it in its maw until it’s a withered skeleton of itself.

One slight misstep, one infinitesimal delay in judgement—and he might not have retained his conscience to over-analyse. It only takes one time.

"Boys can't wait to scurry home after this one, Cap," Gaz says as he sits down, voice steady and cool as ever, "can't say I blame 'em."

Price grunts in response, a half-assed agreement.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spots Gaz shaking his head. Unstrapping his gloves. "Excited to see the missus, I bet, sir?"

He wants to knock the air out of his lungs. For the sake of his country, he decides against it.

It had been a mistake to introduce his wife to his sergeant. Not because of how smitten she'd grown—no, that was redundant. He trusts her implicitly, and he'll give her just about anything if it serves to make her happy. It felt wrong, dirty, inhumane—for them to be speaking of her during times like this. Threaten to taint her innocence and goodheartedness with the necessary evil they were forced to carry out and indulge in.

Gaz seems to sense the shift in his captain's demeanour at the mention of you. He loosens himself up, laying back on the seat.

"Got somethin' on my mind, Gaz," he says, suddenly. Pensive as he fiddles with the gold band around one meaty finger.

"Sir?"

"If somethin' were to... 'appen to me," he continues, voice adopting a quiver so rarely seen in the captain.

Gaz listens intently, hooked down to the last syllable.

"I'd want you to take care of 'er." It's out. No take-backs. Not like he wants the option.

In an even rarer turn of events, Gaz falls silent. Snapped shut in his stupor at his captain's demand. Enticing enough to be labelled an offer, ambiguous enough to be labelled a threat.

"Of course, Captain."

Price's shoulders slump then, posture relaxing as he assumes his usual Duchenne expression. He lands a hearty pat to the sergeant's shoulder, quiver persisting when he says, "Good man."

ACT III: THE NECTAR DEPLETES

Your gaze is empty, forlorn as you stare at the marble headstone. People bring flowers and flags.

Cpt. John Price, it reads. Martyr for Queen & Country. Loving son, brother, husband. Buried in a beautiful oak coffin, wearing his suit and medals. What was once glowing, is now reduced to char and ash.

Your knees wobble with the effort of holding your body up, and winter breeze stings at your ankles. Your eyes are sunken and pallid, lips purple and chapped as you mutter thank yous to the condolences.

You don't even have it in yourself to protest the warm hand wrapping around your shoulder, guiding you back inside the cathedral. It's quieter here, darker.

"Drink up," the voice belonging to the hand says. Kyle holds a glass of water to your lips, tipping ever so slightly.

You oblige him, lips parting and maw unclenching to let the mineral water dribble past. His hand now rests on your chin, wiping away the droplets run astray.

There's a gaping wound in your chest, lungs punctured. The air sinks out rapidly, and you find yourself collapsing in the pews. Large tectonic plates of marble separating to engulf you whole, gullet to your floods. Your vision doubles and spots, your hearing drowning in the staccato of shrill ringing and pressurised throbbing.

ACT IV: THE LEAVES WILT

You wake next in your own home, legs splayed over your couch.

"All good?" You feel the depression of the couch as he settles next to you, hand holding you upright by the waist.

You nod muddily, eyes still adjusting to the sudden light.

"You were out for an hour, dove. I was just about to call 900."

The reality of your situation sinks in, and the same knot of dread builds in your chest. Blossoming ugly behind your sternum, moss over your beating organ. You can hear the furious pulsations of your vessels by your drums—thump, thump, thump.

"You need to take care of yourself," he brushes a strand of hair out of your face, "what'd you eat before the service?"

Your lips part and your head aches with effort of ransacking your memory for breakfast. You don't remember much these days. Everything is a blur, a choir of hushed mutters and a surreal miasma of horrifying dreams.

You turn your head, gaze resting on him. Focusing on something for what feels like the first time in days. He's solid and strong, a rock in your marshy foundation.

"Dove? Talk to me. Please."

That betrays a hint of vulnerability you haven't seen in him before. His hand hovers awkwardly in the air near your cheek, so close without touching that you can feel your skin tingle.

As though possessed, your hands retrieve his. You finally feel the warm-blooded caress of his palm on your skin. Every scar, every callous lies flush against your cheek.

If you close your eyes, you can pretend it's your John.

"Dove, I..."

You open your eyes, met with a kind, forgiving set of brown. Bloodshot, but innocent all the same. They search your gaze with an unabashed, voracious intensity.

Bringing his hand closer to your mouth, you kiss his palm. He sucks in a sharp breath, the Adam's apple bobbing with restraint.

You don't close your eyes this time. You look him straight as you slobber open-mouthed kisses all over his hands, bringing his thumb now to your lips.

His gaze is clouded with plume, tortured. This is what the captain wants, is something he has a hard time coming to terms with. But when he sees that look in your eyes—starved, depraved—he knows. He knows that you see this for more than a quick shag.

You need to be relieved.

His thumb disappears behind the threshold of your mouth, rough skin seeking solace in the warm, wet envelope. Your tongue dances around the digit, your pupils blown with an ebony lust.

You hollow your cheeks out, sucking his thumb further inside. He feels the velvety cushions of your mouth embracing his thumb.

He sighs shakily, free hand reaching to undo his belt haphazardly.

You don't skip a beat in registering that he's on the same page as you.

He doesn't so much as utter a word when he takes your jaw in his hand. His lips don't touch yours, only lingering tantalisingly above. He doesn't so much as discard of even his belt as he pulls his cock out, twitching of itself. It's bare, skinned, longer. Everything your husband wasn't.

He pushes you down on the couch, your own hands pawing at the hem of your skirt to pull it up. He does you the service of pulling the gusset of your knickers to the side. He hacks up spittle, a vulgar glob landing on your folds. The pads of his fingers purposefully rub under the hood of your nub, spreading the combined slick of your ambrosia and his saliva.

That's it—he doesn't really even prepare you. Pushes his cock inside you with one fell swoop, body collapsing unceremoniously atop yours. His face buries itself in the crook of your neck as his hips administer the reckless, deep slams to your cervix. You cry out, hands floundering to hold onto something as he rams into you. Wrecks you. Shatters you.

His own grunts are quiet, muffled. Preferably to do you a favour—allow yourself to imagine John.

But how could you? He couldn't be more different from your husband if he tried. Where John was slow, he was fast. Where John was loving, he was determined. Where John was reverent, he was deliberate.

He lifts his head to look at you as you clench violently around him, eyes screwed shut with the onslaught of sensation from your orgasm. It doesn't take long for him to spill inside you, warm and tingly release coating your walls.

His body goes limp. Your vision returns to a normal, clear one.

"Thank you," you say, sheepishly. Words lost in the hot skin of his neck, if you're lucky.