Until the World Stops - L.A. Witt Page 0,50

He rolled his eyes. “The day we were pulling into port, I had that tickle in the back of my throat, and by the time I checked into my room, I was toast.”

“You didn’t stay on the ship?”

Wrinkling his nose, he shook his head. “Fuck, no. I was already miserable. Figured I might as well enjoy sleeping in a comfortable bed, lounging in a bath, and having room service. Honestly, it wasn’t all that bad. Which says it all, really—spending three days cooped up in a hotel room with the flu is still better than being on the boat.”

I laughed. “Before I ever went to a ship, I’d have said you were exaggerating. But now that I’ve been on one…”

Casey chuckled. “At least I had fun during port calls on my second cruise. Never got laid on the ship, but the ports? Those were fun.”

“Amen to that. I don’t know how some of the married guys do deployments.”

“To be fair,” he said dryly, “some of them do things the same way we do. They just…don’t tell their wives.”

“Hmm, yeah. True. Okay, rephrase—I don’t know how the faithfully married guys do deployments.”

Casey made a jerking off gesture, and I nearly choked on my drink. He laughed and shrugged, almost passing for apologetic, but not really. “What? Am I wrong?”

“No. No. You’re not wrong.” I cleared my throat a couple of times and took another swig. “In fact, judging by the sounds coming from the rack above mine last cruise…” I grimaced.

He made a face. “Oh, he couldn’t even be quiet about it?”

“Nope. I think he was using too much lotion.”

This time it was Casey who nearly choked, and yeah, I might’ve been a little smug about that.

When he’d recovered, he said, “Jesus, I do not miss those days at all.”

“Neither do I. You think you’ll ever got back to the Fleet?”

“God, I hope not.” He grinned. “Gotta love being an MA—I can stay onshore for the rest of my career if I want to.”

“Yeah, that was part of what attracted me to the rate.” I paused. “Or, well, what sold me on it. That was where the Navy sent me, so it wasn’t like I had a lot of say in the matter.”

“Same.”

We drank in silence for a moment. He was watching Tilly napping on her perch in the kitchen window, so I stole the opportunity to watch him.

Now that he’d pointed it out, I had been spending less time on my phone thanks to my hookup apps being deactivated. That probably wasn’t a bad thing in general, but I missed the results of the time I spent on those apps. I hadn’t been laid in ages.

And goddammit, talking about those apps had me thinking about why I used those apps, and fuuuck this pandemic because I seriously needed to spend some time naked with another guy. I just couldn’t, because there was no telling who’d been exposed to the virus. Ugh.

My gaze slid back to Casey as he took a drink from his soda, and my heart sped up.

There was one guy on this planet who I’d already been exposed to. He’d already been exposed to me. If we were going to get the virus from each other, the damage was done. So what was the harm in doing the polar opposite of social distancing together?

I mean, aside from the obvious part where we’d only recently started to get along, and having sex could totally torpedo that and make the rest of lockdown exponentially more miserable. On the other hand, doing a little “you scratch my back, I scratch yours” (literally, given the marks he sometimes had on his back) without any expectations beyond some orgasms didn’t have to make things awkward. He was hot. I was pretty sure I’d busted him getting an eyeful of my ass a few times. So there was probably at the very least some mutual attraction.

Desperate times, desperate measures?

It was a risk, no doubt about it. The peace between us seemed delicate, and it was probably even more delicate than I realized.

But at the same time, we’d been getting along pretty well. And I’d been stealing more and more glances at him lately. And with his accounts deactivated, he was probably getting as twitchy as I was.

We weren’t on a ship or in the desert. We weren’t surrounded by shipmates. There were no rules except whatever rules we made and agreed on.

So why the hell were we still jerking off in our respective racks