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Carter shook his head. “I don’t know. This just...seems like you, now that I think about it.”

“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment,” Marco chuckled, pulling back the blankets and letting himself flop onto the mattress.

“Wasn’t meaning it as an insult,” Carter huffed.

Marco grabbed his shorts by the waistline and shoved them off, kicking them to the floor. “I know.”

Carter hesitated as Marco shifted around the bed, completely unaware of the show he was putting on or ignoring it. Carter suspected it was more the former than the latter. At first, Carter had thought Marco wasn’t aware of how good he looked, but he felt it was more that the man didn’t care, that he was utterly indifferent to his looks. That was a confidence Carter could respect, and he could appreciate watching every inch of Marco’s skin on display as he made himself comfortable.

“Coming?” Marco asked, looking up.

“Something like that,” Carter muttered.

Marco looked down, spotting the half-hard tent in Carter’s shorts. “Well, you definitely could be if you get down here.”

Carter snorted, pushing his shorts off. “Charming.”

Marco’s eyes swept his body, and Carter knew then that while the man might have been playing before, he suddenly wasn’t anymore. When he approached the bed, Marco turned the light off beside the bed and pulled Carter down to him.

Minutes later, after searching through a dark drawer in Marco’s bedside table for supplies, Carter pushed himself inside the man again. It was slower this time, their passion and need tempered. Marco could cling to him this time, but the grip around Carter’s cock was still tight enough to be just shy of painful.

When they came, it was together. Carter felt his orgasm approaching fast, and he knew he wanted it while listening to Marco’s cries. The other man didn’t disappoint when Carter wrapped his hand around his cock and stroked him to his steady strokes. Warmth pooled over his fingers as Marco came hard, and he came just as strongly as he buried himself one last time, just shy of gasping out the other man’s name.

After they cleaned up, Marco rolled over without hesitation and laid his head on Carter’s chest. Even more inexplicably, the man sighed contentedly as he wrapped an arm around Carter’s middle.

It felt ridiculously long before Carter curled his arm around Marco’s back. With the other, he held onto the wrist of the arm wrapped around his middle and marveled at how easily his fingers circled Marco’s wrist. Despite their obvious size difference, Marco seemed somehow larger than that. But lying in the dark, feeling how easily Marco fit against him and how fragile the bones in his wrist were in his big hands, Carter felt a shiver run through him.

“Going to be here in the morning?” Marco asked, voice quiet and rough with drowsiness.

“Probably not,” Carter winced, quick to amend his statement. “Gonna have to check back in at the base early. Don’t need them thinking I’m in jail again.”

“Mkay,” Marco murmured.

The silence stretched long enough that Carter thought Marco had fallen asleep. That was, until the man’s quiet voice, barely distinguishable in his sleepy tone, rose in the darkness again.

“Don’t have to stay. But hope I hear from you again.”

Carter closed his eyes at that, forcing himself to take a deep breath. Even he could hear the hope in Marco’s voice before sleep finally took him, his breathing becoming deep and even.

He had no idea what the hell he had done to earn this sort of trust and affection from a man who barely knew him. He had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do with it. How could he possibly be the sort of person Marco thought he was? And if Carter was honest, who he believed Marco deserved to have.

He never knew how long he lay there, listening to Marco’s soft breathing before sleep finally came for him.

MARCO

He wasn’t surprised when he woke up and found himself alone in bed. Marco squinted at the empty space next to him, quietly wondering how the hell someone as big as Carter managed to move so softly that he hadn’t jostled Marco awake.

The sheets were also cool, so Marco figured Carter had left early, and Marco had slept late. The pillow Carter had used was still crumpled, and Marco resisted the urge to press his face into it. He had spent what conscious time he’d had the night before breathing in the smell of Carter. Marco hadn’t been surprised that the man didn’t use cologne, smelling only of clean soap and yet somehow like fresh, fertile earth. It was a strange combination, but Carter was admittedly a strange man, and Marco was okay with it.

Sighing, he pushed himself off the bed and climbed out before he gave in to temptation. Marco wouldn’t let himself get hung up on the two of them, not when he didn’t even know what they were, if they were anything at all. As much as he could feel excitement and hope stir in his gut whenever he thought of Carter, he didn’t want to get them too high.

He wasn’t going to break his own heart.

He retrieved the small shorts he’d worn last night, smiling as he felt a familiar ache in his ass. Marco had quite a few hookups in the past that seemed great at the time, while in the light of the next day, they had been looked back on with instant regret. If Carter turned out to be just another hookup, Marco knew he wouldn’t look back on it with shame or regret.

Yawning, he padded down the stairs and made his way to the kitchen counter on the opposite side of the kitchen. Tapping the power button of the Keurig, he grabbed a pod and a mug as it hissed and gurgled to heat the water. Another tap and it began to brew until the cup was full of steaming coffee, and he poured in the creamer and sugar.

He was taking his first sip as he stepped into the living space and stopped as he caught sight of his phone on the table beside the couch. Frowning at the blinking light, he finished his sip before picking it up. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the text and the name of the sender.