Sexy Af

Solas yelled, "Fuck" and dropped Reed while moving back. Reed immediately put his hands in the air like a prize-fighter.

"And the crowd goes wild folks," he said. "Once again another contender has learned to his cost that Alexander Reed is the greatest 'gay chicken' fighter in the world."

Solas rolled his eyes while Reed looked at him.

"I keep telling you baby, it's all about commitment."

I giggled and Solas narrowed his eyes and looked at me.

He took a few steps toward me and said, "No comments from the peanut gallery."

Reed jumped forward, "Hey man, you can't be talking to my deployment wife like that. That's the future mother of my children as soon as she comes to her senses and swears off other men."

I giggled again.

"Yeah, well the future mother of your children is my roommate."

"Wait, you two know each other?" Reed asked.

"I was about to ask you the same thing," I replied.

"This defeated adversary was a fellow squad leader back when we were both in the grunts," Reed said.

"I'd kick your ass in a fair fight," he grumbled.

"Which is exactly why I don't fight fair," Reed said. "Honestly, sometimes it's like you don't even know me."

After that day I saw a lot more of Solas. He'd come around and grab Reed and the two of them would head to the gym and workout or play basketball, or go get dinner. Reed still did lunches with me and he invited me to dinner a few times but despite living together, so to speak, there was still tension between Solas and I, so I would always decline.

******

Deployment:

Day 60

(Solas)

I'd just finished with my duties for the day and was back in my room. I changed clothes to a pair of black gym shorts and a beat-up black t-shirt with the video game logo Mortal Kombat on the front. I grabbed my computer and was about to watch a movie when Ligero walked in.

Ignoring her, I put on some headphones as she ducked behind the small curtain she'd hung up next to her wall locker to allow her to change. I wasn't paying any attention to her so was caught off guard when she tapped me on the shoulder.

I looked up, like me, she'd changed to some gym gear. She wore tight black spandex bottoms and a matching black sport bra, she'd taken her hair out of the tight military bun that was required in uniform and let it fall loose past her shoulders.

Signalling me, she pointed to my earphones. I took them out and closed my laptop.

"What's up?

"I'm bored, was just wondering what you're watching."

"It's that movie, 'Fifty Shades of Grey.'"

She raised an eyebrow, and looked at me funny for a second.

"I heard that was almost a porno," she joked.

"Heard the same, but I thought I'd see. Kind of doing it weird because this is the third movie and I haven't seen the other two yet."

"Would you mind if I watched too?"

"Not at all," I said warily. We'd started to get along better, but that was mostly because we avoided each other. I'm sure she was just bored, but I was hesitant to start becoming her friend.

Still, I didn't see the harm so I moved around on the bed and positioned the laptop so we could both see it, then I propped a pillow against my foot post so I could lean against it. She grabbed one of the chairs and brought it to the edge of my bed and I hit play.

The movie started and we sat in silence to watch it together. Partway through was a scene where the girl was tied standing up with her arms and legs spread to the corner of an elegant metal frame.

"Kinky," Ligero whispered.

I nodded.

"Wow, this is kind of crazy. You ever do anything like this?" she asked.

I looked at her, "Never like that, but I think it's cool. I've tied girls up before, I admit its kind of a thing for me.

She laughed, "Why doesn't that surprise me."

"How so?"

"Just that you need to tie a girl up to enjoy them."

I frowned, "What do you mean?"

"You know, it doesn't surprise me that it'd be all about you. You strike me as that kind of guy."

I'm sure my face matched my emotions because she tensed up.

We looked at each other uneasily for a few moments, before she spoke.

"Look, I wasn't trying to insult you. It's just that I can see that you'd be that kind of lover, all about you before her."

I held up a hand to stop her from explaining anymore.

"Let's just watch the show."

After that there was unmistakable tension between us. She could tell I was insulted and neither of us said a word for the rest of the movie. Truthfully, I wasn't paying it the slightest attention after that and as soon as it finished, I snapped my laptop closed and left the room without a word.

*****

Deployment:

Day 75

I opened the door, walked inside and turned on the light to our room. When I turned around, I stepped back in surprise. Ligero was sitting on her bed red faced and crying. She scowled at me as I stood there.

"Uhmmm, everything okay?" I asked hesitantly.

"Fuck off."

My eyes went hard and my body tensed, I was getting ready to be very impolite but caught myself. I didn't like her, and I really didn't care about her issues but it was obvious something was upsetting her. Swallowing my pride, I turned back around and turned the light off before I left the room. I went to the base recreation center and grabbed a couch. Fortunately, I had my iPhone, it didn't have reception but I could tether to the local Wi-Fi and I kept a lot of books on my Kindle app.

We were never close but we usually acknowledged each other in greeting. However, the next few days were passed in strained silence as she worked through whatever demons had upset her.

*****

Deployment:

Day 80

"What's up?" I asked.

"Hey, I just wanted to apologize for the other day. That was uncalled for."

I shook my head, "Don't worry about it. You seemed to have some heavy shit on your mind."

She snorted, "You can say that again."

"How long have you been together?"

Her eyes snapped toward mine, "Who told you?"

I shook my head, "Nobody told me, I didn't ask around or anything. It's pretty obvious. You're on deployment, nobody cries like that unless, one, the spouse cheated, or two, somebody died."

"How do you know it wasn't a death?"

"Because you've been grumpy for days. It was understandable for you to snap at me that day. If it had been a death, the next few days you would have been sad. You haven't been sad, you've been mad. That means somebody hurt you."

She kept staring at me with a frown, finally it broke and she shrugged, "Yeah, he cheated on me. Got another girl pregnant."

"Ouch," I said flinching. "Sorry."

"I actually shouldn't be as upset as I am."

"Why's that?"

"It's a long story."

"Fair enough, I don't need to be in your business."

She looked at me for a minute, I could sense she wanted to talk about it but wasn't sure. I assumed she didn't have a lot of girlfriends on deployment and that most of her support structure was back home.

Her eyes started watering so I grabbed a Kleenex from a box on the dresser and handed it to her. She wiped her face and started talking.

"To start with, he's in the National Guard, but he's activated full time. Our unit had to go support his during that bad hurricane and we met."

"Started out simple, we kept in touch, light texting, some flirting and stuff. He was a couple hours away so I thought we were keeping it light with the whole long-distance thing, but right before deployment he ended up moving into the area, then he asked if I wanted to get married."

"At first, I thought he was kidding, then I thought he was crazy. Then he told me how he was looking for someone to marry because he needed the extra pay, and he needed a place to stay. His extra money was being used to care for his mother's hospital bills, I fell for the whole sick mother thing."

"He was charming and good looking and he seemed like he really cared so I went ahead and did it. It was kind of fun, it felt like letting loose. I figured there was enough attraction and respect that we could build into something solid."

"Now I just got an email from another Marine. She asked me how I knew him and I told her, then she told me he had gotten her pregnant. Worse, they'd been seeing each other for months before I left. She admitted that she was having an affair, her and her husband were split."

"Any chance the kid could be her husband's?" I asked.

"I asked that too, he's on deployment, so that would be a little tough."

"Ouch," I said.

"Right," she nodded while sniffling and wiping her nose with the Kleenex.

"So despite my rank and everything it turns out I'm a stupid little girl that doesn't have the sense god gave a donkey," she said.

"Not sure I'd go that far," I joked. "I'd rate you at least as high as a toddler. I mean you can tie your own shoelaces and stuff."

She snorted and rolled her eyes, "Fine, a toddler then."

I frowned while lost in thought. When I looked up, I said, "Not to compound this, but it kind of seems like a setup. I have a little criminal investigative experience. You didn't give him access to any of your bank accounts or anything?"

She got a frown on her face and snapped, "No, but Daren wouldn't do that. He's an ass and a womanizer, not a thief."

I held up my hands to her anger, "Sorry, wasn't trying to get in your business. My apologies."

After that she was a little cool toward me. I didn't want to pry, so I didn't ask any more questions but I could tell she was thinking. She may have not liked my comment, it probably made her feel a little dumb, but I was positive she was replaying past conversations with her husband in her mind.

*****

Day 85

(Solas)

I went to work as usual and when I got there I sat down at my computer and opened my outlook folder. Scanning through the dozens of emails I noticed something unusual. I had a message from Ligero. Clicking the icon, I opened it up. The title was unusual, "How stubborn girls say they're sorry..."

There was no message, just a picture meme. It said the same thing as the title and showed side-by-side pictures. The left was the backside of a beautiful woman wearing a black leather miniskirt, the right side was the same picture but the miniskirt was hiked up to her waist and showed the girls ass in a skimpy red thong.

I assumed Ligero realized she was wrong and this was her cheeky way of saying she was sorry. I smiled but dismissed it and didn't give it another thought. I went through my day and got back to my room after dinner. I wasn't paying attention to anything until after I changed into my standard shorts and t-shirt. Then I happened to glance at her bed. She was facedown and reading and she was only wearing a pink thong with a black tanktop. With her beautiful hair in a ponytail and those cute little glasses perched on her nose, she had that whole hot, nerdy girl vibe perfect.

I waited to see if she'd look my way but she ignored me. After a few minutes I sat down on my bed to play on my computer and she cleared her throat. Looking up I watched as she turned to face away from me, propping herself up on one arm as she continued to read.

I had a perfect view of her thonged ass. She ignored me but stayed like that for a long time. We passed the night in silence and eventually we went to sleep.

The next morning, I got back to work and opened the email she sent me from the day before. I hit reply and typed two words, "Apology accepted," then hit send.

*****

Deployment:

Day 90

(Ligero)

I sat on my bed looking at the divorce paperwork. I'd downloaded it, then filled it out, then had Reed check it for me. I had emailed my husband, Staff Sgt. Daren Vann and told him that I was sending it to him for signing and that he needed to file it asap.

I couldn't believe how dumb I'd been in this whole scenario. Falling for him so quickly and agreeing to marry him. What the hell had I been thinking? In hindsight my stupidity was easy to see, it was actually galling and I really had a hard time believing I'd been so freaking dumb.

When Solas had pointed out it looked like fraud I got mad. Mostly because he was right. Looking back at all our conversations I realized that he had slowly made me pay for almost everything.

At the beginning he'd wined and dined me, but then as we started to see each other more. I remembered I'd paid for plane tickets, for us to go out to eat, tickets to the movies. All kinds of stuff, all because he had medical bills to cover for his family.

Thinking back, I realized, I never even saw his family. I wasn't sure they actually existed. That was when I decided to divorce him. I'd been toying with the idea of forgiveness. He'd written and emailed me numerous times, apologizing for his mistake, promising we could work it out.

Now though, I was looking at him in a new light. Now it was easy to see the selfishness, the deceit.

Every time I thought about it, I hated myself. How I ever fell for such a slimy no-good, rat bastard was beyond me.

Idlily, I glanced up and noticed Solas had left his cammies on his bed, he must have gone to workout with Reed.

Thinking about him brought a fresh wave of embarrassment. Christ, I had no idea what had been going through my mind when I flashed him the other day.

Our relationship had been strained since day one, and it had mostly been my fault. He was a good guy, he'd even agreed to let me stay in his room so I didn't have to share a bay with a dozen other girls.

I wouldn't have done the same in his position.

The only time he'd been a bit of a jerk was when he walked in on me taking selfies for my husband. He hadn't even tried to look away. Fortunately, he only saw me from the side and back. At the time, even that had annoyed me.

But I had to admit, I'd felt a very tiny thrill when he'd commented about not having seen a hot girl in months. It was gratifying to know I'd affected him. If I was honest with myself, he affected me a bit in ways too. Now that we practically lived together, I'd seen him without his shirt on multiple occasions, and a few times in just his briefs. Wow, he stood a finger width under six-foot and looked like he weighed 180 pounds of lean muscle. Smooth skinned, with little body hair, he had made a guest appearance on a few of my nighttime fantasies.

I'd been really surprised when he'd found me crying, I'd been rude as hell on purpose, I wanted to fight with somebody. To my surprise he'd left me alone, and didn't give me any chance to argue over the next few days.

When he finally did talk, he'd given me insight that I hadn't considered.

I smiled as I thought about my apology. I really hadn't planned on going that far. I'd been at work and tried to look up something funny on the internet to send to him as an apology. Instead I'd ran across that sexy picture. Even then I hadn't planned on duplicating it the way I did.

I'd sent it to him and for some reason it stuck with me all day. I'd gone back to the room and changed over but when I was about to put on my shorts, I stopped. I couldn't get that meme out of my head. Finally, I folded my shorts and started reading, wearing my panties and a tanktop.

My heart had been pounding nonstop when he finally came in. I pointedly ignored him but it had been easy to tell when he noticed me. He literally stopped breathing. I'd had to fight back from laughing when it happened. After that it was easy to relax, once again I felt a small thrill about the way I'd affected him.

It made me feel good after my colossal stupidity. I'd decided to turn on my side with my back to him for a while to let him get a really good look. Once again, I could easily tell by his breathing that he was watching me. I was surprised he hadn't passed out. I had to stifle a giggle at the thought of him falling out of bed after forgetting to breath for so long.

It was fun to tease but I had to be careful, I didn't want to give the wrong impression. There was no way I was ready to mess around after the fiasco my soon to be ex had created in my life.

*****

Deployment:

Day 110

(Solas)

We were in the room relaxing, both of us on our respective bed reading on iPad's. I happened to check my email and got a message I'd been waiting for. I looked over at Ligero.

We'd somewhat made up and were much nicer to each other but I'd hardly call her a friend at this point. Still, it was worlds better than when we first started.

I sat up and called over to her, "Hey, I need to ask a favor."

She put down her iPad and said, "What's up?"

"You said you're going out of the wire this week, right?"

She nodded, "Yeah, for three days on Wednesday."

"Cool. Would you care if I brought somebody in our room? I've got a thing I want to do."

She raised an eyebrow.

I laughed, "No, not like that, but it is a girl."

She gave me her best "Uh huh" look.

"Okay, let me give the long explanation. You've seen those shows on television about the super smart detective that notices all kinds of stuff and is brought in by local police as a consultant."

She nodded.

"That's me."

She raised an eyebrow.

"I'm serious. I took some intelligence tests when I was a kid, apparently I scored very high."

Again, she looked less than impressed.

"Anyway, I have a Masters Degree in forensics and criminal psychology and I work a lot of cold cases. I put a lot of effort in my off-time to get federal credentials so that I can work cold cases across the country."

"They just let you work police cases?"

"You have to remember, most little cities don't have full time specialist detectives. They may have a detective but they'll see one or two homicides in their life. So they don't get a lot of experience with them."

Continuing, "I have federal credentials and despite what movies show a lot of police units will gladly outsource the investigation. Particularly since we aren't around afterward to take credit, so they will."

"That seems shady," she said.

I shrugged, "I don't really care, they still have to pay for our services, so I'd rather get a good rep with agencies so they'll keep giving cases. If the downside is they want credit on the backend, more power to them."

"Makes sense," she said. "So what are you doing?

"A re-enactment of a crime scene. I was going to set up the scenario and see if it sparks some insight."

"Sounds neat."

I raised an eyebrow, "Did you just say neat? Okay grandma, glad it sounds neat," I said laughing.

She scowled playfully and grabbed her pillow and threw it at me, "Don't be making fun of me when I'm about to do you a favor."

I stopped laughing but held a big smile as I tossed the pillow back at her. She caught it and pouted, "And don't be teasing me about my grammar or I'll beat you up."

I snorted, "Yes, ma'am."

"Hmph. Yeah, go ahead, you can use it whatever day I'm not here. Just don't do anything weird or kinky to my bed."

"Noted."

*****

Deployment:

Day 115

I checked my laptop again, looking at the images. Ligero left in the early morning and I had a break from my normal military duties. Since I had a few days to myself I was planning on doing some consulting work. I'd set up the room the way the crime photos showed as much as possible. While I was checking them one last time, I heard the door open behind me.

That was weird, I was expecting a Marine to come by but I didn't think she'd walk in without knocking. I turned around to look and Ligero was standing there.

"Oh shit," I said.

Obviously, something came up if she was still on base, she was supposed to be gone for the next few days.

She held up a hand to stop me from getting up, "Relax, our convoy got delayed about six hours so I thought I'd come back by and watch if you don't mind."

I shrugged, "No problem."

At that moment there was a knock on our door. Ligero opened it and ushered the small blonde Marine standing there inside.