Darling & Commander

The General: 21

Brock Cortes POV:

I hear the thunderbolts but don't dare move. Not when this moment is the closest I may ever be to Galla. When the water comes down, the smell of smoke begins to fade away with the fire induced by lightening.

"Galla." I croak out, feeling the rain begin to spatter on us both. "You cannot tell me you were enjoying yourself as he laid you out like a four coarse meal and hurt your body if not bad enough at your soul."

Her body trembles, and I dare not look at her as I hold her frame against the nature. I'm too apprehensive to find that I have dug too far when her chest vibrates with her weak reply.

"I could not do it." Her voice breaks. "I could not tell him I was hurting, that I felt unsafe, because I had convinced myself everything was supposed to hurt. That was just existence in a nutshell. But mentally- Brock I was begging. Begging for him to stop with his fingers, just to hold me and talk. Not anything else, I just needed someone, anyone to stop and listen to me. I do not find myself with that issue any longer, but alas I cannot help but wish for my chastity back."

"You should not find yourself without that issue. I know you still do, do not tell me you do not."

"I truly do not wish for anyone any longer." She tugs my face up to look at hers by my hair, wet now as a consequence of this thunderstorm. "I have you."

My throat dries up.

"If you still insist on accompanying me in this reclused vitality." Galla shyly mutters, and I can almost promise I cease breathing for moments to come.

"Darling." I murmur, chest to chest, face to face as I push the sopping hair from her face. "I want my life and yours as one for the rest of our days. I cannot imagine returning home only to think of you day and night when you are the only thing I want. My occupation does not satisfy me any longer; I find my only satisfactory days are the ones I spend with you."

"Commander-"

The loudest shatter of thunder yet explodes in the stratosphere, and we both jerk. I let her down as she frantically smooths the wringing wet dress. 

Ah, hell. 

Today was not the day she should have returned to wearing her signature achromatic of white, and I attempt to dodge my gaze from the diminutive undergarments displayed through the drenched material.

My face is undeniably heating as the lightening screams again, and Galla suddenly doubles over laughing at the scenario. Her head jolts back in fits of cachinnation as the bucketloads of aqua coat her smooth skin in a shiny layers of glaze. She jumps, startled when the next bolt of electricity roars, grabbing my hand and dashing down with me in tow. 

I quickly catch up to her pace, howling along to her titters and cackles. We jump over the hollowed logs, brush and bark pinching our flesh but we are going to quickly to stop and give a tinker's cuss. The showers fall and fall and fall, and we get closer and closer and closer...

I rend open Galla's house's door with all the strength I can muster, yanking us inside and slamming the house enclosed.

The silence envelopes us for a moment, thunderstorms becoming faint as my darling's eyes trail down my doused body, mine down hers. I cannot bring myself to be discreet about any of this lure anymore, and I know she can't either.

Quite clearly when she begins to peel the dress off of her rind without removing her gaze from mine.

"Darling." I gruffly choke on my words, inept with the direction of my gaze when I cannot help its darting across her curves.

"Commander." Galla lets the garb plunge to the ground with a soppy slap against her wooden floors, stepping across the distance between us leaving a trail of liquid in her wake.

Cross my heart, I feel the entire cabin quake in the tension.

"I cannot do this after you confided in me, Galla, it would not be proper-"

"I do not want proper-"

"But you do not want improper!" I shake my head as my hair falls in my eyes.

"Do not tell me what I would like!" She yells back, and I stun as her gaze softens. "I apologize. But do not hold what I have confided in you about against me; that occurred three years ago."

"How old- darling! You were seventeen!" My eyes widen. "You are still just a child."

"Oh, please, as if you stand taller than me because of three years. If I am a child you are barely a teenager." She scoffs, tugging the strap of her underthing higher up her dainty shoulder.

"I have experienced much more than you have." I snap, closing in on her. "Which one of us works a full time occupation? Which of us pays rent and mortgage? Which of us have seen more death than ten of the average male combined?"

"Oh, so you really want to play it this way." Galla nods, scowling at me when she tugs my dripping shirt collar to pull my face closer. "Which one of us has made a living in the wilderness for all of her life? With no relatives I should know of, taking care of an entire sector of the forest as a child!?"

We are both breathing heavily, the sound of our hearts thumping in sync as her bare skin leeches against my wet garments.

"You will catch a cold if you bare these any longer." She sighs, liberating the collar of my shirt, which I take the moment to peel off leisurely, courtesy of lingering mixes of tension and spite.

"You will catch a cold if you do not dress yourself." It kills me to say this, but I grit it out between grinded teeth anyways.

"I believe that to be merely an excuse in order to avoid contact." Galla shakes her head, wet locks falling in front of her angered face as she collects dry clothes from her dresser. "But if you must insist, I will hold this to you another evening."

The slow pace she takes as she begins to pull on her shirt absolutely detonates my insides, and I seize her.

"Brock-"