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Christian watched him walk stiffly into his office and continued to stare after him. Since when did General Winter, the workaholic who barely knew the meaning of a proper night’s sleep, take a nap in the middle of the day? The thought was even more troubling than knowing something was bothering the general. It was one thing for him to be worried, but for it to coincide with uncharacteristic exhaustion?

“What the hell?” Christian muttered, turning back to his computer.

Fixing the schedule to put everything back an hour was no big deal. Christian’s Saturday might be packed for the first half, but General Winter normally had an easier day. It was nothingto move things around and reschedule the medic’s visit for Monday.

Yet the ease of his work also meant he could ponder what was wrong with the general. On some level, he figured he shouldn’t be bothered. Everyone had their off days, after all, and sometimes that went on for more than a day. And it wasn’t like the general was a young man. For all Christian knew, General Winter could be in pain, or just slowing down.

Christian wrinkled his nose. “Nah.”

Okay, sure, the man wasn’t getting any younger, but a person didn’t just start to run into the ground overnight. If the general had started to slow down due to age, Christian would have seen the signs long before now. Plus, he made sure the general saw the medics just as often as he insisted the other soldiers on the base did. Christian wasn’t supposed to know the results of those exams, but he had an understanding with the clinic that if there was anything he needed to know to keep the general healthy, it should be passed along quietly.

“Dammit, Christian. Don’t do this to yourself. Just...focus on something else,” Christian chided himself.

That something was combing through the message system. If there was one thing Christian was not the best at keeping up with, it was purging messages. When he was responsible for both his message box and that of the general, it could fill up pretty quickly if he wasn’t diligent. Most of the time, though, it ended up being hundreds of messages in each box that he had to go through and delete, save, or mark for later consideration.

However, it did the job of refocusing his mind. Christian’s inbox had been the first on his list, and he was dismayed to find several hundred messages waiting. Most of the time, it just required a brief look, but some required him to read the contents. The task took almost an hour, and it kept his thoughts from his worries.

“Done is done,” Christian proclaimed proudly as he closed his inbox.

Then again, there was still the general’s inbox.

Sighing, he opened it and began combing through it. Opening the first message, he scanned its contents before deciding it wasn’t needed. His decision to throw it in the trash folder stopped him in his tracks when he realized there was already something in the folder. It honestly didn’t matter if he was the one who read it or the general, it would always be Christian who inevitably decided to delete emails. General Winter left the decision of what to keep and what to get rid of up to Christian, if only because there might be something in the messages that Christian might need.

But Christian hadn’t cleared the old messages in quite a while.

“Dammit, general,” he muttered as he opened the folder.

He stopped, raising a brow at the demanding title. Opening it brought his other brow up.

“Don’t want people to see this?” Christian read aloud.

There was an attachment, a video file from the looks of it. Christian’s heart pounded as he hovered the cursor over the link, pondering what to do. On the one hand, it was clearly not meant for his eyes. On the other, there was obviously something very wrong with this message, and he wasn’t sure he could leave well enough alone when it looked like someone was threatening the general.

He clicked it.

It took the computer a couple of minutes to download the file. A two-minute-long video popped up on the built-in player.

“All that for two minutes? Must be HD,” Christian muttered, clicking the play button.

And immediately froze.

The first few seconds of the movie were taken from the perspective of someone lying on their back. A bedroom could be seen in the background, with pants thrown over a desk chair, a laptop, and a closet. Far more interesting to Christian was the very naked man who stood in the center of the shot.

General Winter.

The camera stayed panned up, just low enough that Christian could see it didn’t look like the salt in the general’s hair had crept to his groin yet. Amidst the utter shock of what he was seeing, some part of Christian’s brain couldn’t help but think the general was inverygood shape for someone closer to fifty than forty. In the sunlight coming from somewhere behind the camera, Christian could see just about every detail of the general’s body from the waist up. His body was still tight with muscle, though perhaps it didn’t have the definition of a younger man. Sparse hair trailed down the general’s flat stomach and up to his chest. His arms looked even more impressive out of his uniform, and Christian’s breath stuttered as he watched the muscles shift and flex.

He was never happier that he’d long ago muted the sound from the computer after being irritated half to death by the message alert noise. Christian watched as the general bent down, a wicked smile on his face as he ran his hands up the pair of legs of the person filming. Christian didn’t need the camera to pan down to show the filmer’s straining, eager cock, or to know that the person being stroked by General Winter was a man.

Well, that certainly settled whether or not the general was into men.

Christian sat frozen with a mixture of complete shock and growing arousal as the video continued to play to the end. He watched as the general, his boss, a man he’d nursed a quiet attraction to for almost a year, worked his way up the filmer’s body. Light kisses were laid upon the other man’s skin, trailingup the man’s inner thighs to his hips. The camera shook a little as the general’s mouth continued to wander, taking his time as he explored the other man’s body.

The clip finally ended with the general’s face in full view. Christian sat there, staring at the image, transfixed by the sight of General Winter’s expression. Of all the emotions he’d seen on the other man’s face, Christian had never seen pure arousal before. Lust practically radiated from General Winter’s eyes as he stayed locked in the screen. And while it wasn’t actually aimed at Christian, he couldn’t help but feel the effect of the expression.

Slowly recovering his composure, he cleared his throat and forced his eyes away from the image. His uniform pants were uncomfortably tight, and Christian did not want to continue staring. Though he hadn’t seen everything, and it was obvious the clip was part of a longer video, Christian knew damn well he was going to be adding that to his memory banks for later use.

When his eyes settled back on the screen, he tried to avoid the small window where the stilled video sat. Instead, Christian looked at the email behind the video and read what was there again. Though it was apparent the email was threatening, he couldn’t understand its point. Obviously, someone wanted something from General Winter and was using the video as leverage.