“That’s great.” I swallowed past a dry spot in my throat. “Thanks for bringing them, sir.”
Charles gave me a long look, then clapped a hand against my bicep and gripped it. “If you hurt my daughter, I’ll kill you. I don’t care if it’s legal or not.”
I knew it might not be a friendly threat, but it didn’t scare me. Nothing could, except for the possibility of losing her.
“I won’t hurt her, sir. I love her.” Keeping my eyes on his as I made the admission wasn’t easy, but I knew it needed to be done. Charles and I had seen each other several times before I’d deployed and had spoken often, but I’d never said those words to him. It was time for me to come clean to him. “Once I get home, I’d like to take you for a drink some time. There’s a question I need to ask you.”
Something that looked very much like relief flashed in his eyes, but then he swiped it away. “I thought there might be. We’ll have that drink soon, son. For now, I need to be getting to the airstrip. I just came to see with my own eyes that you were okay and I had to deliver those letters.”
I nodded. “Thanks for coming by. I’ll see you soon.”
Five minutes later, Charles was gone and Eden and I were headed to rejoin the training exercise. The letters burned a hole in my pocket all day, but I had to wait until after dinner to read the first one.
Lying back on my bunk after a shower, I folded one arm behind my head and slid it out of the envelope. A single light bulb that was on its last legs hung in the center of my tent, but it gave enough light to read by. As I unfolded the sheets of paper, a whiff of bergamot and vanilla hit me. I groaned at all the memories the scent brought rushing back.
I would never, ever admit it to anyone, but I might have brought the paper to my nostrils and breathed it in for a long minute or two. Only once neither my cock nor my heart could take it anymore did I lower the letter down again.
Seeing Sofia’s neat, loopy handwriting brought a smile to my face, but my throat tightened. God, I missed my girl so fucking much.
Dear Lincoln,
I hope Dad actually gives you these letters. A part of me is convinced he’s going to chuck them in the ocean when he drives over the bridge to get to the airport. Maybe he won’t, though. He seems to be coming around to the idea of us. Not that he’s got much of a choice, but I’m glad he’s supporting us now. It will make things easier.
How are you holding up, love? I miss you so much more than words can say. Still counting down the days until you get home. By the time you get this, it will be less than thirty.
Five months down, one more to go.
I have such a big surprise for you when you get back, but I don’t want to ruin it by telling you here. Suffice it to say, for now, that I love you and that I’m reminded of your love for me with each passing day. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world, and I can’t wait for you to get back so we can start our lives together.
Luckily, class is keeping me pretty busy. Otherwise, I’m sure I’d have gone crazy by now. It’s been a lot of extra work, but my graduation date has been revised again.
I’m so proud of you for being wherever it is that you are, and I hope you’re proud of me, too. Can you believe we’re really doing this? That we’ve already gotten this far? Because I can’t.
Anyway, I’m going to stop writing now. If I don’t, I might not have enough left to say for the letters for the rest of the weeks. I really want you to have one love letter a week until you come home.
Stay safe, baby. I love you with all of my heart and soul. And also with every orgasm I have ;-)
Sofia.
P.S. I’ve got a middle-schoolish poem I thought you might enjoy.
Roses are red, violets are blue. Lincoln Dobbs, Sofia loves you.
What do you think? I might have it written in the sky on the day you get home.
By the time I’d reread the letter for the third time, the first tears I’d felt in more than a decade rested on my lower lashes. My throat was tight again, but swallowing didn’t make it go away.
Eventually, I curled up with her letter clutched to my chest and fell asleep in the fetal position. Thank God I had a tent to myself because I would never have lived that display down. The weirdest thing of all was that I wouldn’t have cared.
The girl who had my heart was thousands of miles away, and the gaping hole in my chest ached tonight. I missed her so much that it hurt to breathe.
But she was right.
Five months were down, and there was only one left to go. Surely, I would survive that. When I got home, though, I was locking the two of us away somewhere for at least a month. There was no one else I wanted to see, no one else I wanted to spend time with, and no one that would come between us and our time together.
Epilogue
Lincoln
The last month had been a bitch. It had flown by, but it had also hurt five times more than the first five had. I’d read Sofia’s letters so many times that the paper was soft now, smooth from being handled so much and so often.
When our plane touched the
