Chapter Text
My whole existence is flawed.
You get me closer to God. (Nine Inch Nails, 1994)
Saoirse was relieved to make it before the sandstorm hit, and with everyone still in one piece, to boot. After Coalition forces withdrew to advance into Iraq five days earlier, King Khalid Military City had become a ghost town. Saoirse happily welcomed such newfound quietness.
After just five days of sitting vacantly, everything within the confines of the lab was covered in dust. A thin layer of dust, no doubt, but the invasiveness of the contaminant was enough of a pain in the ass for an already irritated Saoirse to put her research out of her mind for the rest of the evening. All the same, it was more imperative to shift her attention instead to Sergeant Michaels, laying half-naked and stretched out upon one of the gurneys.
His condition deteriorated so rapidly during the trip that Saoirse had abandoned most of her hopes of getting him to the lab alive. Still unconscious, his breathing was laboured and his was skin warm and dry at the touch. Given how dehydrated and exhausted he already was, Saoirse estimated Paul would be touch-and-go for most of the evening.
Once Sergeant Michaels’ IV catheter was secured to his arm and saline was flowing, Saoirse finally took a breath of calm air and allowed the tension built up in her shoulders to dissipate.
Leaving Paul alone to rest in a closed-off stall, she found Jacob where she’d left him, waiting anxiously in her office for an update on his superior, hunched over her desk with his hands clasped together, propping up his chin. “Jake, you should get some rest too.”
Jacob didn’t budge. “I’m not tired,” he argued childishly, even though the bags under his eyes sure begged to differ. Saoirse rolled her eyes at his petulance and took her seat across from him at her desk, fretting at the sight of more dust. She knew she had her work cut out for her, but it started to seem like an appropriate job for the following day. “Don’t make me sedate you, Specialist. Go catch a nap.”
“Fine, I will if you join me.” The sudden smoulder in Jacob’s eyes intensified. “I’m not sleeping well, remember?”
Well, Saoirse couldn’t argue with that. After all, this was the first time in months that she didn’t have a rigid schedule to adhere to. The Sergeant was stable enough to let her guard down for a few hours as the saline drip did its job. “Tsk, tsk. Always the attitude, huh. When’s the last time you showered?” Albeit pervasively obvious, Saoirse didn’t want to admit that she found the scent of his body odour intoxicating.
Jacob shrugged and casually sniffed at his armpits, grimacing at their rankness. He could only imagine the utter foulness below the belt after five long days of unchecked ball sweat. “Speak for yourself.”
“You think you’re in a position to give me any lip?”
He smirked, and Saoirse knew that smirk too well by now. It was the same smirk that, immediately, and without fail, made her knees weak. “Just keeping you on your toes, Major.”
“Jacob.” Saoirse grumbled as she fought to smother a tension-defusing giggle.
“Saoirse.” He was standing now, taking her hands in his. She eyed him from the top downwards, from the buzzed crop of red hair on his head to his pulsating jugular beneath his rigid jaw, and to the beads of sweat forming on his collar that dripped into the unwashed fabric of his dingy undershirt. Even while fully clothed, Saoirse spotted the outline of his muscular abdomen, along which her favourite part, his coarse patch of ginger belly hair, descended towards his groin.
While Jacob amusedly watched Saoirse’s hungry eyes wander all over his body, he felt a stir beneath his trousers. He needed that shower. Desperately. “I’ll be back in ten.” To Jacob’s annoyance, from the lab, the closest showers were located back at his old bunkhouse. Much to his surprise, however, the 82nd Airborne bunkhouse and bathhouse were both unlocked. Not that there was anything of significant value left behind, for that matter.
Jacob almost forgot to grab a clean, fresh set of clothes and a towel from the laundry room along the way. Cleanliness in the army was nothing more than a luxury. During the long, arduous week of combat, Jacob quickly became nose-blind to the rankness of body odour despite his heightened sense of smell.
The beauty of being effectively alone on base was having freedom to take as long of a shower as he wanted. Jacob let go of his accumulated tension as he stepped into the lukewarm stream, imagining his woes washing down the drain with the rest of the muck and filth. As he scrubbed his upper body’s mottled skin, Jacob shuddered and winced. Not from any pain, per se, but from his sudden realization of just how hideous he’d become. Not that I was much for eye candy to begin with, he pondered in solemnity.
His attention quickly shifted to the unlocked bathhouse door as he heard the unmistakable echo of footsteps on swift approach. The door swung open, and through the doorway, Saoirse entered wearing nothing more than a towel.
Jacob’s heart fluttered when the towel slipped away to reveal her womanhood. “Fancy meeting you here,” Saoirse said, gasping as she stepped into the lukewarm stream. Jacob chuckled when she shivered. Despite how abruptly the temperature changed, Saoirse agreed that after spending five days in full gear under the scathing desert sun, the shower’s cool stream was nothing other than refreshing.
Without much room in the stall to begin with, Jacob stepped out of the stream give her what room he could afford, watching his fiancée silently as she carefully lathered her skin. He felt paralyzed as the water’s flow outlined her physique. His stare didn’t go unnoticed. “Speak your mind, Specialist.”
“Just enjoying the view.”
She smirked. “Didn’t anyone teach you that it’s rude to stare? At least make yourself useful and scrub my back and shoulders, please.” She winked and collected the many unruly locks of her long, auburn hair and drowned them with generic, aloe-scented, Army-issued, shampoo and conditioner combination.
“Yes, ma’am.” Averting his gaze from her soap-swathed bosoms, Jacob wasted no time grabbing the crumpled washcloth he had used and lathered it with soap.
While waiting for him to begin scrubbing, Saoirse felt his arm wrap tightly around her lower belly, and on instinct, she turned around face him and aggressively push him back against the stall wall. “You’d best be careful, Jake.” She whispered, with a hint of menace, into the pulsating nape of his neck. “I’m still in fight or flight mode. One wrong move and…” Jacob’s breath hitched as she playfully bit his bottom lip.
His knees trembled at the familiar stirring of longing and desire deep in the pit of his belly. “You are going to be death of me, woman.” Jacob pulled away and stepped out of the shower to towel off and get dressed.
“What’s the matter?” Saoirse asked teasingly as she finished rinsing the last of the product from her hair. “Feeling wound a little too tight?” She then turned the water off and grabbed her towel, wrapping it around her torso.
As Jacob groaned exasperatedly, the amusement in his eyes disappeared. “Half an hour ago, you were bitching at me to go to sleep. The longer you take, the longer it’ll be before I fall asleep because we both know that I’m not going to bed without fucking you in it first.”
“Then put your money where your mouth is.” Saoirse growled playfully, wrapping her arms around his neck as he scooped her up and made for the bathhouse door.
Soon, in the quiet comfort and solitude of their makeshift bedroom, Jacob lowered his beloved onto the mattress before slipping out of his shirt and lounge pants, watching as Saoirse scooted towards the head of the bed.
“Are you trying to run from me?” Jacob growled as he climbed upon the bed.
Saoirse moaned as she felt him clutch her hair. She absolutely lived for the roughness of his touch. “What if I am?” Saoirse teased, pulling him closer by the chain around his neck that held his dog tags and pressed herself into him for a frenzied, messy kiss.
With an aroused, frustrated snarl, Jacob broke away from the kiss and flipped Saoirse onto her belly, pulling her hips backwards into his, pressing his readiness against her.
Jacob wanted release, and he wanted it desperately.
Stroking several fingers along her spine, Jacob leaned forward and planted dozens of kisses along her damp shoulder blades, leaving little bite marks as evidence of his fervour. “I’ll teach you why running from me is a bad fucking idea.”
“I live for bad ideas,” she retorted, watching eagerly over her shoulder as Jacob’s smoulder grew into unbridled fury.