Chapter 12 - Boyfriend.
It was early morning, the sun had begun to hit the horizon when Harm returned to bed after another check of the security cameras. All was well, he was satisfied and when he crawled back into bed, he moved up as close to Mac as he dared without waking her.
A soft light snuck in through the blinds and it was just enough for him to see Mac laying on her side facing him. There was a hand tucked under her chin, her face relaxed with a content expression. His burgundy comforter was wrapped around her and all he could do was watch her sleep.
She was so lovely laying next to him, her delicate features that made her so easy on the eyes. Delicate features that he wanted to trace with the tip of his finger. He kept his hands off until the need to touch her became too much to bear and he found his arm draping across her torso.
His hand drew lazy circles on her spine over the covers and the rhythmic caress did wonders to relax him as well. Harm nearly fell asleep when a soft voice spoke. "Mmm…I prefer you under the covers with your hands on my skin."
He didn't know why that sounded so erotic or why his stomach did that flip flop thing. At one point Harm would have given Heaven and Earth to stop feeling the things he did for his partner. Once the floodgates opened, they never stopped and it was physically impossible to stave his near-constant desire.
She wasn't perfect. Sarah Mackenzie had enough bumps and bruises to last a lifetime. Her flaws were just as epic as his. But, that was perfect for him because she understood the emotional baggage he carried.
"Aye, ma'am." Harm slipped under the comforter, scooted as close as possible and as he did her long, toned leg wrapped over his thigh. A heel at the small of his back tugged him closer and when his body was flush with hers, Harm recalled that Mac was nude.
The boxer briefs did little to hide his growing erection that swelled when his body pressed against hers. Mac raised her arms to stretch and doing so her breasts brushed against his chest, the tickling of his coarse hair made her giggle. "Mmm, why is this bed so comfortable?"
"It is, isn't it?"
"Mmm hmmm." Mac murmured against his lips. The arm that was stretched dropped down across his torso and her fingers traced the length of his spine. She loved splaying her hands on his back while they made love, to feel his taut muscles move as he loved her. Harm would shake when her hand trailed downward and her nails bit into the skin of his six.
There was something different that she felt with each caress. Her fingers traced the jagged edges of scars and patches of skin that were bumpy and raised.
"More scars," She quietly thought but, unlike the one across his cheek, Mac didn't want to know the answers or have him relive whatever horrors another classified assignment had assaulted him with. There was hope that he would heal both physically and mentally whenever she found the way to set him free. Harm was right, heavy talk could wait as she eased the pressure against his back and let her fingers roam down to his hip where they teased under the elastic of his boxers that she helped him out of. "You're overdressed, Commander."
He kissed her, slow and deep stopping only to sweep his tongue against hers. His own hands reached and searched, not stopping the gentle caress until she was covered with goosebumps. He squeezed her six, caught Mac's gasp with another kiss and when her hand moved between them, he drew in his breath. Her palm pulsed against his flesh and his whole body tingled when long strokes forced a moan out of him. "Mac-"
"I want you, Harm. I missed you."
"Me or the good sex?" He teased and for his insolence, she squeezed him a little harder. "Ouch. Play fair."
Mac shifted so that her leg was higher up on his waist and the heat of her sex pressed against him. But he didn't enter her, not yet and the barely there pulses of his body into hers ratcheted her desire into a raging fever. "The sex is pretty good. But, I missed this. I missed you. Oh..."
The lock of her body felt wondrously sweet when Harm sheathed himself fully and Mac immediately tightened around him. She cried out the softest moan as he pulled out enough to make her miss the fullness of him.
"I missed you too." He moved slowly, the kind of love making that was more for a sense of connection than for pleasure. "I missed my best friend."
"Am I just your friend?"
"Boyfriend?" He smiled and pressed kisses to her neck, down to her collar. His tongue swept across her skin and he tasted the salty sweetness he missed so much.
"That sounds inadequate…Oh!" To prove how inadequate he wasn't, Harm thrusted deep into her with quick movements that had her panting. "Lover? You're my lover."
"Mmm, that sounds sexy as hell but it's also inadequate."
"What then?"
"I don't know. But I'll never feel about anyone the way I feel about you."
"I love you too." Mac responded and then she pushed him back onto the mattress. "Let me show you how much."
Harm stood in the kitchen tossing chopped vegetables into a large bowl of scrambled eggs.
He knew what Mac liked and his thick, oven baked omelet was a weekly staple since the inception of their partnership. Harm picked up the recipe while on tour with the air wing and had put his own spin on the dish. It was filling, kept for a few days and packed healthy protein.
Mac was watching him over the brim of her coffee mug and took notice that he hadn't dropped even an ounce of meat into the dish. With a pout, she waved a hand towards the oven. "I thought it was a Spanish omelet?"
"Spanish-ish."
She wrinkled her nose when he added par cooked potatoes, cheese, salt, pepper and a quarter cup of cream before whisking it all together and pouring the mixture into a deep pie pan that was placed in the oven. "There's no chorizo. Spanish omelets have chorizo."
"Not all of them and you used to love this just the way I made it."
Mac hopped off the stool and walked to his side, her body purposefully rubbed against his as she reached for the carafe to refill her coffee. "Pretty sure I'd love it more with chorizo."
"My chorizo or a chorizo."
She yelped as Harm suddenly grabbed and kissed her, slapping at his chest when he put her down. "You're terrible."
"And you're desirable." And he couldn't stop touching her. Touching, tickling, caressing. The robe she wore made it easy to touch Mac's bare skin. It wasn't cinched tightly and exposed more than it covered. "So desirable."
Harm backed her against the cabinets while he undid the sash, letting the ends drop to the sides. It made it easier for his hand to make contact with her hip, flat tummy and then around to her six.
Mac's hands were working on pulling down his boxers and a shirt that needed to go as well. Brunch wouldn't be ready for at least a half hour, why not work up an appetite, she figured until her arms wrapped around him and her hands touched the scars again.
He was kissing her when her hands fell and Harm knew she'd finally taken notice. His body was something of a roadmap full of the twists and turns that plagued his life as a CIA officer.
While the odd marks on his back weren't attached to any particular assignment, they served as a driving force on his own, personal endeavor to eviscerate a certain spook.
"They don't hurt." Harm said and then turned so that she was able to see the exposed scars. The skin was raised and bumpy but only on certain spots like the larger keloids above his left shoulder. "It's not classified…You can ask."
"Harm, I don't think-"
"Those were a parting gift from The Farm."
"The Farm?" Her fingers went back to the scars, tracing each one so delicately as if she had the power to heal him. There had been enough rumors from the CI's secret training facility, some of which seemed implausible but seeing his scars, she began to wonder. "How? Why?"
Harm had his reasons and, at the top of his list, was the one and only Clayton Webb. It was always Clay and he despised living in the shadow of such a petty man with petty ideals and a penchant for lies. "They're chemical burns."
"Chemical burns?" Her stomach lurched for a moment and Mac swallowed hard to keep herself from being sick. She couldn't imagine what kind of chemical was used to scar him and part of her didn't want to know but he seemed determined to tell her.
"Yeah. You know, most of us spend, at least, six months at the Farm, longer if we're needed for special assignments. I was in and out in two." Designated 'a quick study' and because of his military background, Harm was rushed through.
Meeting techniques, urban combat, terrorist training and even the SADRAT cycle was learned at breakneck speed. And then came the torture tests with days and days of interupted sleep, his every move being monitored and the screaming. They were always screaming as a way to invoke stress.
"A lot was like SERE training we pilots go through, you know? Maybe a little more intense. And then came the last week, we were preparing for an assignment in Portugal."
He was to remove a manhole cover and drop into the bowels of a sewage drain. Inside were a mass of communication fiber optics that Harm needed to tap with special tools used to record all chatter. "They had the whole thing set up at the Farm. Even practiced what to do if the cover was soldered shut. It felt real."
Because it was real even the perceived threat of being caught, the tension and stress of what could happen. The darkness, the noxious smell that was so dizzying he nearly threw up. "I was almost done and I felt this liquid dripping over my back. It was cold at first and then it just burned."
Harm immediately came out of the drain and as a result failed the assignment. A good CIA officer would have remained inside, finished the job no matter how much pain and suffering they felt. He was tossed into a cell for several days and treated like a prisoner of war.
"No food, a little water and no medical care. When I was finally taken to the infirmary they said I was lucky it was mostly superficial and didn't hit the bone. Your boyfriend was trying to kill me, I think. I don't have proof but-"
"Boyfriend? What boyfriend… Webb?" Her hand suddenly came off of his back as if she were burnt. Of everything stupid Harm had ever told her, this was the dumbest. The thought of any kind of intimacy with Clayton Webb nearly made her throw up yesterday's breakfast. "He is not my boyfriend. That's…He's… How could you say that?"
"I was joking, Mac."
"Well, it isn't funny, Harm. You're not the one having to pretend around him. You're not the one praying for a TAD in order not to spend each day skirting his advances. And you don't have to hear him insinuate horrible things about the man I love. You're not there."
Mac suddenly felt exposed and cinched the robe tightly around her body to cover her nakedness. Her arms folded across her chest and her eyes looked everywhere but at him. "It's not funny."
"You're right, it isn't funny."
"Then why did you say it?"
Jealousy had always been the trigger for his aggressive attitude towards any man that even looked her way. Even when Mac wasn't his, the evil veil of green envy made him spew nonsensical words meant to hurt. He perfected the craft until it became an artform.
He just never realized why his statements about the men she kept company with had hurt Mac so much. Now he knew.
She loved him and was settling because the one she wanted most couldn't seem to figure out his feelings for her. "Mac…I said it because…aww hell."
He stood in front of her, a thumb swiping at a single tear that fell from her eye. He felt like a heel and mentally chastised himself for being such an ass. Not just an ass, a jealous one. Harm was jealous despite knowing Mac would never entertain romantic overtures from Webb.
"I'm a jealous prick. I've always been a jealous prick when it comes to you."
"Jealous of Webb?"
He nodded. As laughable as it sounded, knowing the spook had tried any advance towards her made him consider murderous intents. "He's spent more time with you than I ever have. A few months was all we had and he's been there for a year."
"Harm-"
"Do you know why I sit outside of your apartment? I wait to make sure he won't spend the night."
"He hasn't. He won't. Don't you trust me?"
It was never her fealty that came into question, just the thoughts of Webb sneaking back in when she turned out the lights - of him violating her that made an uncontrollable rage shake his being. "I do trust you. What I don't trust are his intentions to keep you 'safe' or whatever sick design he has in that sick mind of his."
He pulled Mac tightly into his arms and kissed the crown of her head. "Mac, I don't know what I'd do if he hurt you. He'd be a dead man. In my book, he already is but the reaper hasn't found him yet."
"I'm careful you know? I never leave my place without my side arm. I have a few strewn across the apartment, another under my pillow at the ready."
And that hurt as well, having to live in constant fear. "That's not a way to live."
"It'll pass. We just need to hold on a little longer." Mac pulled out of his embrace and slid her hands into his. "For the record, the only one I want is you. My only boyfriend is you."