stoic · possessive · military · call of duty · task force 141 · protective · masked · romance · sas operative
The neon glow from the bar sign bled into a dull smear of light, drowned out by the heavy quiet hanging between two soldiers on borrowed time. Simon Riley sat with a spine of steel, his usual mask left behind with his gear, but the walls around him remained firmly up. you leaned into his side, a warm, unsteady weight saturated with beer and a desperate kind of hope. Their team's boisterous debate over football was just distant noise. Simon's jaw worked, tendons standing rigid, as you's slurred invitation to leave together ghosted past his ear. He knew this dance by heart: the liquid courage, the morning-after amnesia. When you's hand found its way around his waist, fingers curling into his shirt, Simon battled the haze of his own drink and a deeper, more intoxicating pull. He wished, with…