Red, Hot & Blue 09 - A Prince Among Men (8 page)

“Okay. I will. I promise.” Her smile illuminated her face.

His hand faltered and the helmet clattered to the floor. The sound knocked him out of the trance caused by Vicki.

Ryan resisted the urge to physically shake his head to rid himself of the haze that had clouded his brain when Vicki had smiled at him. He finally broke eye contact, glanced at her screen…and found his blog up on her laptop.

He nearly faltered again and tripped into her lap as he leaned forward to make sure he was really seeing what he thought he saw. Something niggled at the back of his brain, and he struggled to bring it forward.

Noticing his interest, Vicki moved farther to one side so Ryan could see the laptop better. “Have you ever read any of these milblogs? I started reading them regularly for research, especially once I got approved to come here. They’re pretty interesting. This guy, Groundpounder, is my favorite.”

Her favorite.

Then it hit him. He glanced at her luggage tag again and read her full name written there, which only confirmed his suspicions. His biggest fan, the woman he flirted with online and then jerked off to in the shower, screen name Vicki V, was reporter Victoria Ann Vanover, Vicki for short, and she was sitting right here before him.

It took him a second to wrap his brain around this new development. Ryan bit his lip to stop himself from telling her who he was. Instead, he decided to play dumb a bit longer and pick Vicki’s brain. “Why is he your favorite? What do you like about him?”

Vicki shrugged. “Lots of things, I guess. He’s really a talented writer. He makes the reader, well, at least he makes me, laugh one minute and cry the next.”

What he wrote reduced Vicki to tears? Ryan felt ridiculously happy at that revelation. What exactly did that say about him?

“And the imagery he uses, it’s so descriptive you practically feel like you’re there. He’s amazing.”

Vicki thought he was amazing. That thought made Ryan even more squirrely in the drawers. Feeling guilty about letting her go on and on about how wonderful she thought he was, Ryan considered confessing, but then he realized that would mean confessing he was also the one who wrote those very sexually suggestive comments in answer to hers. He’d written all that stuff under the assumption they would never meet, yet here she was. What if she’d written it thinking the same? That online flirting was one thing, but she’d never follow through in real life?

But still, Ryan couldn’t keep her in the dark. Withholding the truth didn’t sit well with his conscience. He would just have to take his chances at rejection.

He opened his mouth to tell her when she interrupted his good intentions.

“Hey, Ryan.”

Phew. A reprieve. “Yeah?”

“Can I ask you something?”

His sex-deprived brain imagined what she might want to ask and how he would answer her. Will I help you out of those restrictive clothes? Yes, of course, I will. “Um, sure. What is it?”

“I asked Hawk when you guys could take me out into the countryside to meet the locals, and instead of answering me, all he did was talk about the moon and poppies. Was he pulling my chain trying to avoid taking me?”

At that question, an image popped into his head. The vision of his hands, chained and bound, unable to move. Vicki, clad in leather, torturing him with her tongue as he writhed with pleasure.

What the… Where the hell had that come from?

Ryan raised his eyes to find Vicki watching him expectantly, waiting for an answer to her perfectly innocent and logical question, not knowing at all that she starred as the dominatrix in the porn movie currently running in his head.

“Um. No, he wasn’t, uh, yanking your chain.” Ryan’s face felt hot. And jeez, was he starting to sweat? He launched into his answer to Vicki’s question in hopes it would calm his libido, which had apparently sensed a female nearby and had kicked into overdrive.

“Hawk meant that when there’s no moon showing the Taliban take advantage of the darkness and their movements and attacks are more frequent. And now that they aren’t all busy harvesting and transporting the poppies they use to produce the heroin that funds their little militant efforts, they have all the time in the world to plan and stage attacks. Our region gets pretty hot. The squad may have to travel outside of base under those conditions, but you don’t.”

Vicki’s face paled a bit. “So knowing the enemy is out there and the likelihood of your getting attacked when you go into the countryside is very high, you guys still leave the safety of base?”

While Ryan debated how to tell her that the base wasn’t all that safe, just safer than outside in the mountains, Vicki continued, “How can you do that? Why do you do it?”

He shrugged. “It’s my job.”

She still looked doubtful, so he went on. “And I do it for the guy standing next to me, just as he does it for me.”

Vicki let out a short laugh and shook her head, still looking baffled.

Ryan raised a brow. “What?”

“You guys, soldiers I mean, are a different breed. You’re not like other men.”

He considered that for a moment, weighing his chances with this girl. “And in your opinion, is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

Vicki’s face softened as her eyes met his. “I haven’t decided yet.”

Suddenly it was very tough to breathe as the squirrels moved from his drawers up into his chest. He had better start talking before he started kissing her. “So, um, you can sleep in here tonight.”

Vicki’s expression showed her surprise. Her gaze swept the room that was already nearly wall-to-wall beds.

Ryan decided he better clarify before she assumed she’d be sharing one of their beds, not that he would mind. Nuh, uh. Not one bit. “The squad’s going to be out all night on an overwatch mission. You’ll have the place to yourself until we get back in the morning.”

She nodded, looking a bit relieved until she frowned. “This all-night mission is tonight?”

Vicki’s hand landed lightly on Ryan’s forearm. He felt a shiver run through him. He nodded. “Yes.”

“Do you want me to go somewhere else so you can take a nap before you have to leave?” she asked.

“A nap? Um, no, that’s okay. I’m fine.”

In spite of the feeling being this close physically to her caused in him, Ryan broke out into a smile. He pictured suggesting to Hawk at the next meeting that they schedule naps before night missions. Ryan nearly laughed out loud at the thought of how well that would go over.

The amount of time they had to crash only amounted to a few hours of rest total per day. Last night had been an exception. Ryan had actually gotten a fairly solid night’s sleep. Judging by his overactive cock, he was raring to go.

However, he did need to shower and relieve this tension. Wouldn’t do any good to get killed by the bad guys because he couldn’t keep his mind off his Vicki-induced hard-on.

While he was at it, he might as well brush his teeth and change into a fresh T-shirt, underwear and socks before he left for the overwatch. Starting out a mission horny and with already smelly and sweat-soaked clothes did not a happy soldier make. Neither did going out hungry. He’d have to grab some chow before he left too.

Maybe if he satisfied all the rest of his body’s needs, he could keep his mind off wanting Vicki.

Ryan managed to stop thinking of himself and his horniness long enough to remember something. “Hey. Did you ever get to eat?”

A wide grin lit Vicki’s face. “Yeah. It was my first MRE.”

Ryan laughed. The woman actually got excited over eating the thing that was the bane of every soldier’s existence—Meals Ready to Eat. He could fall for a girl like this.

His stomach began to flutter at that thought. Taking a deep, steadying breath, Ryan blamed it all on the squirrels.

The new moon worked both for and against them. As Ryan had explained to Vicki before he had to tear himself away from her, the baddies used the darkness to cover their movements, just as Ryan’s squad hoped to cover their own as they pushed farther into the countryside.

The squad had departed the relative safety of the base in the black of night, weapons locked and loaded. The light was so low it was difficult to see even while wearing their night-vision goggles. The world before Ryan’s eyes appeared in shades of green as they trudged the many kilometers silently. Or as silently as a group of men could while carrying assault rucksacks.

Far from base, Ryan’s squad was basically on their own. The mortar tube they had with them just in case things got bad helped him feel a little bit better. Although, if he screwed up because he couldn’t manage to keep his thoughts from straying to the woman in his mud hut, no amount of weaponry would save him from Hawk’s wrath.

Behind the lenses of his night-vision goggles, Ryan’s eyes adjusted to the low light conditions. Things became clearer and more distinct with each careful step he took. He tried to stay alert, keeping watch for any nooks or crannies in the mountains that might hide the unseen enemy.

The night was silent around them as the men moved as rapidly as possible without compromising safety. They only had a short time to reach their destination, but that they arrived there unseen was equally important.

The ascent became steeper and was riddled with rocks, loose dirt and gravel that gave way underfoot. It sucked, but this path was the best option for them to move into position undetected.

Ryan had no idea what time it was. He didn’t dare turn on a light to see his watch because it could be seen. The same reason why Hawk couldn’t shine a light on the map of their route he’d memorized before they’d left. In spite of all the technology and gadgets available to the modern-day soldier, tonight Ryan’s squad relied on the same things soldiers hundreds of years ago had—their instincts, a paper map they couldn’t see in the dark and their leader’s ability to keep them from getting lost or killed.

Clear and bright in the night sky, the stars twinkled. It seemed as if you could reach right up and touch them. Stars were never this bright near the bigger bases or cities where Ryan had spent most of his life. Too many lights there. Only on a mountaintop in the middle of a desert could you get a night sky like this. The sight almost made it all worth it…almost.

Feeling strangely romantic, Ryan thought about what it would be like to lie under the stars on a blanket with Vicki at his side…or maybe beneath him. Mmm.

His foot slipped and he nearly went down. Catching himself with one hand, Ryan took that as a warning to stop letting his dick do the thinking or it would get them all killed. He pushed aside thoughts of the sweet woman asleep in his bedroom and went back to concentrating on the mission.

As he grew more tired, choosing his steps became harder. In the darkness, Ryan chose badly. One moment he was walking beside Wally, and the next he was falling as the rock ledge gave way beneath him.

Ryan plummeted twenty or thirty feet down the side of a mountain. The only sound was that of tumbling rock and a grunt he couldn’t silence. He stopped falling suddenly with a wrenching pain in his knee. He managed to keep his mouth shut in spite of the pain.

Squinting up the mountain, he was relieved to see the dark outline of the rest of the squad kneeling at the edge, peering down at him.

“Pettit. Report.” Hawk’s voice came through Ryan’s earpiece.

“I’m okay. I don’t think anything’s broken.” Ryan realized his whispered reply sounded shaken.

Judging from the sound, the rubble had continued to fall far below his resting place. His leg had gotten caught in a crevice or he’d be at the bottom by now with those rocks.

Two of the men—it looked like Walker and Moraches—started down the mountain toward him. He could use the help. The quicker they got back on track the better, because at the moment they were sitting ducks. He pulled himself up toward the two teammates who were working their way down.

It was slow going. When the three of them finally stood again upon the path, Ryan’s knee buckled when he put weight on it.

Wally moved closer to Ryan and shot him a questioning look. As much as his squad all liked him, Ryan knew it would really suck for them to have to carry him the rest of the way, and then back home from there in the morning.

He tested his left knee again, gingerly putting weight on it. He winced but signaled to the squad he could walk. It would be sore as hell for a while, but he was more pissed off at himself for falling than he was injured.

Seeing Ryan could walk, Hawk nodded and the group was on the move once again. The only indication of what had happened was Ryan’s limp. They had no choice. Their squad had to be in place to secure the area before the main force arrived.

Finally, they reached the endpoint and Hawk called to the higher ups to report their arrival.

They’d been on the move for hours and Ryan’s knee was rapidly blowing up to the size of a balloon, but the night had just begun. They prepared to spend many more hours atop a mountain peak unseen and silent above a known insurgent strongpoint located only a few hundred meters away. Through thermal viewers, the men would take turns watching the specified area.

It took less than half an hour for his damp feet to begin to feel numb. Strange to say, but Ryan was grateful for the cold. It gave him something to focus on besides the ache in his knee, the enemy, how tired he was and Vicki.

Hawk, as leader, assigned a sleep schedule. The men slept in shifts while others kept watch. Shivering, Ryan laid his body out on the hard rocks and closed his eyes for his turn to rest. He fell asleep with visions of Vicki dancing in his head.

Thankfully, all things, both good and bad, eventually come to an end. So too did this overwatch mission. That it had been uneventful with no enemy contact made Ryan even more grateful given the state of his knee.

Red-eyed from exhaustion, sore from lying on hard, unforgiving rocks and shivering from the cold, Ryan and the rest of the men rose upon Hawk’s order. Silently and efficiently, they packed the mortar and whatever else they had taken out of their rucksacks over the course of the night. In full daylight now, they started their trek home.