Red, Hot & Blue 09 - A Prince Among Men (12 page)

Vicki wanted more too, and even though he didn’t seem to be worrying about it, she had to. Worrying came naturally to her. “Won’t other guys stop by here? And don’t you have work to do or something?”

“I’ll hear the radio if any calls come in.” He brought his hand up again to wrap around the back of her head as he pulled her in for another kiss.

She was starting to forget her list of concerns as he devoured her mouth. Vicki pulled away one more time, finding it even harder than the last. “What if someone comes in?”

“It’s midnight. No one is coming in for a good eight hours. I may be good, but I think we’ll be done by then.” He flashed her that sexy, heart-melting smile and she was done too. Done fighting. Done worrying. Done denying her body what it craved so badly.

“Okay.” Her voice came out sounding husky.

After he moved from her mouth to nibble on her ear, he slid his hands lower. He moaned when he discovered she wore no underwear beneath her sweatpants. “God, I love how you sleep commando.”

She giggled until he slid one finger inside her and her breath caught in her throat.

“Mmm, and I love that you’re wet and I’ve barely touched you.”

A year of no sex tended to heighten the senses, she guessed. Or a man who knew exactly how and where to touch her.

“I want to touch every part of you. Kiss every inch of skin. Taste you.” As talented as Ryan’s hands were, he wasn’t too bad in the verbal department either.

While her heart pounded, he slid her sweats down, and his body followed the path. The cot creaked beneath his weight as Ryan did all he had said he wanted to. He tasted her, feasted on her with both tongue and teeth. He worked her clit with his mouth until a body-wracking orgasm had her writhing beneath him. She was shaken and breathless and so sensitive she had to pull his head away from her throbbing flesh.

His eyes were mere slits as he looked up at her. “I wish we could both be totally naked, skin to skin. I want every inch of me to touch every bit of you.”

“We can’t. It’s too risky.”

“I know. But I can do this.” Raising the hem of her T-shirt, he nuzzled one breast, then the other, teasing, tasting each sensitive nipple in turn.

She wanted to touch him too. Craved the feel of his lean muscles beneath her fingers. “Can you at least take the body armor off?”

He smiled. “Yeah, I think I can do that.”

At least now she had the freedom to run her hands over his broad, firm back as she nibbled on one of his earlobes. The action had him sucking in a breath. She made a try at getting his belt off, but her valiant effort didn’t yield the results she wanted.

“Now, Ryan. Please.” Vicki was frustrated by more than his uncooperative, Army-issue belt.

He grinned, but his eyes held no humor, only need as he quickly undid the buckle himself. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Vicki watched as he unbuttoned the fly of his pants. She barely resisted the urge to lick her lips in anticipation. “You don’t ever have to wait for me to ask.”

The sound he emitted after hearing that could only be classified as a growl. He halted short of unveiling the one thing she was waiting for most. “I’m tromping on enough rules already. I at least want to make certain you want this before I take you.”

She reached for him and touched his wrist. “Don’t worry. I want this. I want you.”

“Who am I to deny a lady what she wants?” Ryan’s voice had a gut-twisting, raspy quality to it. He freed himself and slid on what she assumed was another stolen condom procured from Wally. She didn’t care where it had come from as he lowered his body over hers.

He was inside her in an instant, sliding in easily just like he had their first time together. She was more than ready. Judging by the hardness and the size of him, he felt the same.

The cot shook with their motion as he rocked against her, rubbing her still-sensitive spot with each thrust. Vicki shook too, beneath Ryan. He hit her in all the right places, stoking the fire that she’d banked and ignored for the past year. She felt the tension building, felt herself ready to topple over the edge. Grabbing his ass cheeks, Vicki pulled him in deeper. As if he knew what was coming, Ryan throw his head back and squeezed his eyes shut. She held him deep inside of her as her muscles spasmed and gripped his cock.

Just as he’d done that first morning when they’d made love, he waited for her to almost finish, like he was savoring every second of her climax. When the pulses slowed to nearly a stop, he thrust fast in time with the aftershocks of her orgasm. Finally, with a low groan, he came himself.

A light sheen of perspiration glazed Ryan’s face. His arms shook as he held his weight over her. Still basking in the afterglow of her own pleasure and that of watching his face when he came, Vicki raised the hem of his tan uniform T-shirt and clasped her lips around one taut nipple.

She tasted the salt on his skin. A moan that sounded as if it stemmed from pure pleasure rumbled from deep within Ryan’s chest the moment her tongue darted out to tease his chest. The sound cut straight through her until it tugged at parts lower, parts that again demanded attention even though her heart rate had barely recovered from the last time.

Vicki kissed across his chest, enjoying the feel of his strong, hard body beneath her hands. Leaning in to nibble once more on one dark, pebbled nibble, she halted when she saw the small round bruise and the imprint of teeth marks on him. “Oh my God. Ryan, I did that to you.”

“Yeah, you did.” He didn’t sound upset by it, but more proud.

“I’m so sorry.” Horrified, she glanced at his face and found him grinning.

“I’m not. I liked it. Feel free to bite me while you’re coming anytime.”

“I bite when I come? I didn’t know.” Surely she would have noticed that before on one of her boyfriends in the past. Though maybe this was a new development brought on by Ryan and having inappropriate sex in a war zone where they had to be quiet.

He nodded. “Yup, you do. Don’t worry. Those kinds of war wounds don’t bother me one bit.”

She smiled. Yeah, good sex was messy, and sweaty, and yeah, sometimes painful, in a good way. She and Ryan, so far anyway, had some really good sex.

With a sigh, Ryan pushed himself off her. He swung a foot onto the floor and stood. “As much as I hate to, I’d better get dressed.”

“Do you have to leave?”

“No. I’ll be right here until the morning, but I think I better get my pants on at least.” He touched her face before beginning to refasten the buttons. “Hawk said this morning that he feels a big one coming on. He’s hardly ever wrong.”

Feeling silly with her shirt pulled up to her neck and her sweats down around her ankles, Vicki righted her own clothes. “Hawk feels a big what coming on?”

“That sounded kind of dirty, didn’t it?” Ryan flashed her a schoolboy grin as he pulled on his bulletproof vest. “Sorry. I meant a big enemy attack. Hawk is tuned into the bad guys so well that he gets a gut feeling before they attack. It’s kind of eerie actually. He says he feels it coming like a storm rolling in.”

“So what do you do?”

“We listen to him and stay ready. It could be tonight, in which case it’ll be my job to hop on the comm and radio for air support. Or it could be totally quiet tonight and I won’t have a thing to do. No one knows for sure, but we don’t ignore one of Hawk’s feelings.”

A moment ago, Vicki would have been sad that Ryan was totally dressed now, but in light of Hawk’s prediction, she was wondering if she should pull on her own body armor and sleep in it for the rest of the night. “But what can you do to prepare for it?”

“Watch. Wait. And don’t put off anything you want to do, because no one gets a guarantee for tomorrow.” With that, Ryan bent down and kissed her one more time. It was gentle and sweet but definitely not chaste.

When he broke the kiss and straightened up, Vicki could think again and remembered something that had struck her as very familiar. “That milblog that I read, the guy said almost the same exact thing you just did. Almost word for word, about having no guarantee for tomorrow.”

Ryan’s face got a funny expression on it. One Vicki couldn’t quite read. “Yeah, about that—”

He never got to finish his sentence as an explosion rocked the air.

“Incoming.” A soldier’s distant shout from somewhere outside the tent followed the deafening, ground-shaking boom.

“Shit.” Ryan sprang into action, turning for the flap leading to the main part of the operations center.

Vicki jumped up from the cot, ready to follow him anywhere rather than be left alone. “What’s happening?”

As if her question reminded him she was here, he spun back. “We’re under attack. Get your body armor and a helmet on now.”

He glanced around, located the items where she’d left them before retiring, and after flinging it all at her, he shoved her far into the back of the small room between two heavily loaded wooden storage shelves and away from the door.

Ryan ran into the main section of the tent. Panic set in. She could face this with Ryan by her side, but she couldn’t do it alone with nothing but boxes and files for company.

It might not have been the safest thing to do, but Vicki followed Ryan to the front of the tent. She secured the helmet beneath her chin as she watched him shove his own helmet onto his head. He grabbed a weapon and cracked open the door. Through the tiniest of spaces, he peered out into the darkness.

The sounds of men running and shouting came through the narrow opening. Ryan slammed the door shut and went to sit at what looked like a console just as a radio sprang to life.

“Pettit, call for air support. Repeat, we are under attack and need air support. Over.” Hawk’s muffled voice came through the static.

Ryan sat in the chair and grabbed the microphone. “Roger that. Over.”

“Tell them to hit the river bed hard. That’s where the bastards are hiding. Over.”

“Got it, Hawk. Over.”

Vicki watched, frightened and wide eyed, as Ryan called whomever to order air support to hit the riverbed. He spoke to a British man, judging by the accent of the voice that was coming out of the radio, and then Ryan called back to Hawk. “Close air support. Two minutes, Hawk. Repeat, two minutes. Over.”

“Copy that. Out.” With the sound of battle almost obscuring the garbled call, Vicki heard Hawk’s response. Then she heard the first part of Hawk’s shouted orders to his men as he cut the transmission.

It was all so surreal, and at the same time far too real. Hawk had been right. This was no place for her. She wasn’t a combat reporter. This was the kind of life Mel lived. He loved the fight, the action. He thrived on it. He’d been properly prepared for it. All she wanted was to see how a few women lived and then finish her story. Mortars possibly being aimed at the tent where she slept was not part of her original plan. But then again, neither was Ryan.

His calls made, Ryan rose from the chair by the console and went to the door again.

“Are you leaving?” Panic tinged Vicki’s words.

“As much as I’d like to, no, I can’t leave. I’m TOC guard.” He had answered her question, but his attention was on what was happening outside.

Tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know what that means.”

Her voice must have told him she was upset. He glanced over his shoulder at her. “You should be in the back. It’s safer.”

She laughed tearfully. “We’re in a tent. How safe could it be?”

Checking one more time outside, Ryan shut the door with a sigh. “Come here.”

She went to him and he wrapped his arms around her. “I’m sorry. Being trapped in here instead of out there with Hawk and the rest of my squad is killing me.”

“I’m trapped in here too.”

He squeezed her harder. “I know. But there’s nothing I can do to protect you from inside here except maybe throw my body in front of yours and hope the mortar or RPG hits me and doesn’t go through to get you. Out there, with my men manning the rocks, and the second and third squads taking the other positions, we can take out the guys shooting at us. I’d far rather prevent them launching shit at us than try to duck and avoid getting hit with it after the fact. Do you understand?”

She did, but it didn’t make the thought of being alone and without Ryan during an attack any easier. To distract herself, she asked him another question. “What’s TOC mean?”

“Tactical operations center. As TOC guard, I have to man the communications until someone else gets here to do it.”

She knew she was shaking, and Ryan obviously felt it too. He stroked her back and kissed the top of her head. “We’re going to be okay.”

“How do you know?” She was so close to hysteria she could barely say the words. Just what Ryan needed in the middle of an attack, a hysterical woman. She’d probably distract him from his job and get the whole base blown up. She was really not cut out for this life.

Ryan lifted his head. “Shh. Listen.”

She couldn’t hear a thing past the pounding of her heart and her own heavy breathing. “What?”

He smiled. “That sound. That’s our fixed-wing air support.”

As if on cue, the night seemed to explode with gunshots and explosions. Vicki jumped, and Ryan held her tighter with one arm while opening the door a crack with the other.

Then there was silence. Total and utter silence, which seemed even more out of place after the noise of the battle.

“And that is the sound of the good guys winning.” He grinned before releasing her from his grasp.

She missed his touch immediately. Instinct or self-preservation had her wrapping her arms around herself as her body still vibrated. Ryan sat at the communications console and fiddled with some controls. He began to talk to someone.

Through the haze of fright and shock, she heard a British voice on the radio and then Hawk’s voice again. She could barely comprehend what was being said between Ryan, the man who must be a pilot or something judging by the conversation and Hawk.

What Vicki did get was that all of them seemed to be celebrating. She was pretty sure these men could have been killed tonight, and yet they were acting like boys after winning a football game.

Unable to stand up any longer, Vicki sank down on the floor and hugged her knees tightly to her chest. What the hell had she gotten herself into? Not only coming here to Afghanistan, but also falling for Ryan. This was far worse than falling for a journalist she worked with. Ryan was a professional soldier. He ran toward enemy fire when anyone else, anyone sane, would run away from it.