Free At Your Service: Tammer by Lila Munro Page B

an easy decision to make and as a result, the Corps was responsible for more military divorces than any other branch of service. It was because he realized what Joel went through and had walked that mile, Tammer couldn’t let himself believe he was some savior sent down to pluck Nina from a bad situation. Yes, he’d been asked to help, but he’d not been asked to steal someone’s wife.
    But Tammer also realized he had other choices now and could offer Joel more of a choice than he’d initially conceived of. Tammer was no longer owned by the government and the choices he found himself toying with had him questioning his honor as a man and a friend. And as he lay awake listening to Nina breathe and watching her facial movements as she slept, he wondered how strong a friendship had to be to share something as sacred as a woman.
    The bigger question was how he kept Nina happy, managed to not allow her to push him away, and maintained the boundaries until he figured it all out. Seeing her miserable while a silent pissing contest went on between him and Joel was the last thing Tammer wanted. Joel thought he knew what was best for his wife, but Tammer had a feeling his continued absence jaded his opinion and while he didn’t want to trample on ten years of marriage and a lifetime of love and devotion, being directly involved lent to a perception not visible from ten thousand miles away. Tammer knew without a doubt when he broached the subject, a pissing contest was exactly what he’d start.
    Although Tammer had a hard time believing the thought of something more permanent hadn’t at the least crossed Joel’s mind at some point. He had to be almost half-way home with the concept if he was willing to hire a friend and not a total stranger. It seemed to him a total stranger might have been the easier choice.
    He wasn’t sure what time he finally fell asleep, but when he woke at just after seven to discover he was running late, Nina was gone and from the coolness of the sheet he figured she’d been gone a while. After borrowing some Scope and washing his face, Tammer pulled his clothes on and made his way downstairs wondering where she was so early. Surely speech writing didn’t start until a decent hour.
    It didn’t take him long to determine where she’d gone. Half-way down the stairs the dull, rapid thud of footfalls echoed from the back of the house telling him Nina was on the treadmill and apparently practicing for not just the female PFT but the male version. He was fairly certain she was running about an eight minute mile and when he rounded the corner, he discovered she was barely winded. He knew she couldn’t hear him because she had ear buds in and her eyes were closed as her lips moved in a mantra only she heard. So he leaned into the door jamb and watched her, ponytail bouncing with every step, sweat running down to fall off the end of her nose. The smell of adrenaline made him want to jerk her off the damn thing, rip her baggy shorts off, and fuck her into next week.
    Boundaries. They taunted him at every turn.
    It wasn’t until she opened her eyes and reached down to reset her iPod that Tammer approached her, touching his ears so she knew he wanted to talk.
    “What?” she huffed out, jerking one ear piece out and never missing a step.
    “I have to go,” Tammer said, placing his hands on the front of the machine.
    “’Kay. Have a…good day,” she managed between breaths.
    “Stop this thing or I will,” Tammer said, realizing she was blowing him off and not liking it one damn bit.
    Her forehead furrowed as she hit the reset button slowing the equipment a bit at a time until it stopped altogether. “What?” she asked, grabbing a hand towel off the hand rail and running it over her face.
    “Just how long have you been at this?” Initially he thought she was just getting her morning run in, now he believed from her curt attitude she wasn’t just exercising but exorcising.
    With a shrug, she