Red, Hot & Blue 09 - A Prince Among Men (11 page)

She lowered her gaze to the notebook in her lap and pretended to look busy flipping through the pages when Ryan walked over and sat down in the empty chair next to her.

“Hi.”

Except for the overwhelming sexual chemistry between them, she felt exactly like she had in fifth grade when Dan Molloy, the boy she had a crush on, sat down next to her in class. Looking up, she found herself focusing on his lips as he grinned. She felt her cheeks begin to heat up worse than before.

“Hi.” That was all she had time to say before Hawk entered the room and called the meeting to order. Apparently, Hawk had briefed his team that she was here. Knowing him, he’d probably warned them to steer clear, because except for a smirking nod from Wally, the rest pointedly ignored her.

It was as if she were invisible until Hawk narrowed his eyes at her. “Put the notebook away, Miss Vanover. I said you could sit in on the squad meeting, not take notes or write about it. Be grateful I’m even allowing you to be here. Don’t make me change my mind.”

After that unnecessarily mean statement, the team did react to her presence. She heard a few snickers from various men around the room. Blushing with embarrassment, Vicki closed her notebook with a snap and folded her arms. She scowled and shot Hawk a nasty look.

Hawk bobbed his head, his form of a thank you she guessed, and then went back to ignoring her as he addressed his troops.

Ryan’s shoulder bumped hers lightly. “Don’t mind him.” He spoke so softly, only she would be able to hear it.

Vicki nodded. Ignoring Hawk was easy, but Ryan? Ignoring him was not so easy. His closeness made it nearly impossible to concentrate on what was happening at the team meeting, and she had really wanted to pay attention since she couldn’t take notes.

As it turned out, by the end she barely remembered a thing covered during the short time. There was a lot of talk about duties, schedules and maintenance. Of course, it didn’t help that Hawk spoke in what sounded like a foreign language to her. Oh, she was quite sure it was English, just the military kind, which was like a foreign language to a civilian, she supposed.

Meanwhile, Ryan was so close she could feel the heat radiating off his arm as they sat. After Hawk had dismissed the men, Ryan didn’t move. He didn’t get up as the war room began to clear, so neither did she. When there was just the two of them remaining, Vicki’s body started to really pay attention, even though her brain had refused to just moments before.

Alone with Ryan, she watched as he moved closer, lowering his head toward hers until their mouths met for a much too brief kiss. Pulling away, he formed a silent curse. “We can’t do this here. If I kiss you again, I’m not going to want to stop.”

Vicki liked the thought of him having no control around her. It had been a long time since she’d felt as if she had power over anything, forget about over a man. “What if we went to your hut?”

Ryan shook his head. “God, I love how you think. But no, that won’t work. Wally is going back there to sleep. He has guard duty tonight.”

“Where then? Where can we go?” Vicki realized she sounded desperate and not at all like they’d had sex, twice, only a few hours ago.

He thought for a second. “The latrine?”

She screwed her face up with such displeasure he didn’t even wait for her to answer that question. “All right, no latrine. I have another idea. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

He squeezed both of her arms, as if to plant her in that spot until he returned. With one last look to ensure she hadn’t moved, he took off at a hobbling run.

Ryan arrived at his hut breathless. “Hey, Wally. You’ve got TOC guard duty tonight, right?”

“Yup.”

“Wanna switch nights with me? I’ll take yours tonight and you take mine later in the week?”

“But you just had it like two days ago.”

Ryan shrugged. Since when did Wally keep track of Ryan’s schedule like a mother? “Yeah, so?”

Wally frowned. “So you’re telling me you’re volunteering to sit up answering calls all night in the operations center one night after we had an overnight mission even when you had guard duty just a few days ago?”

What was with the inquisition? “Yeah, I am. Hell, Wally, it’s not like I’m out on patrol or something. It’s just sitting there next to the communications console in case a call comes in. I’ll hear it even if I do doze off.”

“But why do you want to switch?” Wally shook his head and continued to look confused.

Dammit, Wally. Ryan smothered a growl and came up with a plausible lie on the fly. “I…uh…slept half the day today and then got up and had too much caffeine. I know I won’t be able to sleep a wink, so I figure I may as well get it over with tonight.”

Wally shrugged. “A’ight. Whatever. I’ll go tell Hawk about the change.”

“Great. Thanks, Wally.”

Great didn’t cover it. Unbelievably fantastic was more like it. An entire night with Vicki alone in the operations center while the rest of the camp slept.

Now he just had to tell Hawk that Vicki would be sleeping on a cot in the back room of the operations center, and then tell Vicki to expect him at midnight when the shift started. Certain parts of his body started to get excited just thinking about it.

Ryan ran—okay, more like limped at a fast pace—back outside. He found Vicki standing in the doorway of the war room watching something outside. He followed her line of sight and smiled. There seemed to be a heated volleyball game, but it was the players that surprised him most. It was the Afghans versus the Brits. The calls being shouted, half Pashtun and half proper—and sometimes not-so-proper—British were pretty hysterical.

Vicki looked up at him in surprise. “They’re playing volleyball.”

Ryan grinned. “Yup. And we have a golf range too. I told you, all the comforts of home.”

“Yeah, sure.” She laughed at him like he was joking, but he wasn’t. There really was a golf range. It’s just that no one risked getting shot at to go out to retrieve the balls so they’d run out.

“So where did you run off to before? Ryan?”

Mesmerized, he realized he’d been staring at her tiny heart-shaped mouth, picturing what it would look like wrapped around his cock. He hadn’t answered her question, nor could he remember what it was so he could answer it now. “Hmm?”

“You’re so tired after your mission last night you can’t even answer me. I knew I should have left you to sleep more.” Vicki shook her head.

“Nope. In fact, I’m not feeling tired at all.” The lower parts of his body were definitely wide awake, proving his point. “Damn. I arranged for us to have tonight together, but I’m not sure I can wait that long.”

He laughed at his own neediness until a hesitant look crossed her face. Uh, oh. Ryan frowned. “What’s wrong?”

Vicki shrugged as her cheeks turned an adorable shade of pink. She was embarrassed and oh so cute. “It’s just…I mean, I love that you want me, but I keep reminding myself I’m the only woman here. It’s not like I have any competition for your attentions, you know? You haven’t had sex in so long, I could be any woman and you would still want me.”

Ryan shook his head. “No, Vicki. That’s not true. Yeah, I’ve been here a long time with nothing but my right hand and my imagination to keep me company, but that’s not saying I’d be attracted to just any woman who strolled into the confines of that concertina wire. In fact, there have been women through here this deployment. Not often, but it happens occasionally, and I didn’t sleep with any of them. And I was in Bagram for a few days where there were plenty of women. Wally got laid, but I wasn’t even looking for that while I was there.”

The look on her face said that the strategy of proving to her she was special by listing all of the many women he could have had sex with and didn’t wasn’t working out so well. Ryan sighed. “What I’m trying to say is, it’s you, Vicki. It’s definitely you, specifically, that I want.”

“Why? What is it about me, specifically?”

Oh boy. She could be a tough little thing when she wanted.

He realized it was all his own fault for not just shutting up and kissing her when he had the chance. Now it looked as if she was going to make him work for it, but Vicki was worth the work.

“I want to be with you because…” Ryan considered his words carefully, but when he thought about it, he had no trouble coming up with his reasons. “You’re afraid of spiders, but you’ll stand up to Hawk. You care enough about women you’ve never met that you came halfway around the world to a war zone to write a story about them. You’re so interested in the lives of soldiers you don’t even know that you take the time to read their blogs…”

He was going to confess to her it was his blog she was reading, but he’d kept it a secret so long he had to figure out a way to tell her and not get in trouble. But right now he had a list to finish. “I want you, specifically, because you make even body armor look good—sorry, but it’s true. Because when we made love, we fit together like we were made for each other. Because you actually enjoyed eating a MRE just for the experience of it. I’m sure I can come up with a few more reasons if you give me a minute, but that’s a start.”

“No, it’s okay. That’s enough.” She grabbed his body armor and hauled him in toward her. She stood on tiptoe and smashed her mouth against his. Kissing her, Ryan backed them both into the empty war room. He didn’t want to stop, but he also didn’t want to be seen.

As she opened her mouth and teased him with her tongue, the kiss intensified, causing his gut to twist with want.

He nibbled on her lower lip, taking the passion of the kiss down a notch while trying to talk his lower parts into behaving by telling them they had to wait until later. His duty in the operations center that night, and his time alone again with Vicki, couldn’t come soon enough.

She pulled away, and as much as he missed the kiss, he was grateful Vicki had ended it. It was broad daylight and they were in the war room.

“I just want you to know, it had been a really, really long time for me too.” Vicki stared him right in the eye, as if she needed to make the point very clear.

Ryan kind of liked the idea of being the only man in Vicki’s bed for a really, really long time. He grinned. “Don’t worry. You haven’t forgotten a thing.”

“I’m serious.” She smacked him on the arm. “I vowed not to date or have sex with anyone I work with, meaning reporters, photographers, editors, managing editors…”

She hesitated on the last one, looking like the words tasted bitter on her tongue. Ryan wondered who the managing editor was that had made Vicki take a vow of celibacy against the entire journalism profession.

“That was about a year ago.” She said the last and waited for his reaction.

He raised a brow. A year. Wow. That was even longer than he’d been without sex, and he was deployed on a firebase in Afghanistan with no women. Ryan chose not to comment on that. “Then I guess it’s lucky for me that I hold none of the aforementioned occupations. Not unless you’re gonna add soldier to that list of men who are off limits.”

“Nope. No plans for that.” She smiled and shook her head.

“Good.” Ryan could get used to this woman. He held her tighter. “Now, let me brief you on the plan for tonight.”

Vicki woke up sore and a little cranky after a restless and pretty uncomfortable, not to mention short, sleep. She was in what amounted to the back room/storage closet of the glorified tent Ryan had called the operations center.

She’d only been banished to sleep here for one night so far, but still, she missed Ryan’s bed. She missed Ryan. Until she heard his voice coming from the outside room. Then she saw him as he walked through the makeshift door and toward her, smiling.

“Vicki.”

Even though she was still sleepy, his sexy voice sent a shiver down her spine and put a smile on her lips at the sound of her name coming from his. “Hi.”

“Hi. Did you sleep at all? That other guard didn’t bother you, did he?”

Mmm, she liked he was so protective. Vicki shook her head. “No, he didn’t bother me. What time is it?”

“Midnight. I would have come earlier, but I had to wait for the shift to end for the guy I’m replacing.”

“Did you get to sleep at all?” she asked.

Ryan shook his head. “Nah. I had to help the guys with some things, and then I did some stuff on my computer until it was time for duty.”

All these soldiers must need far less sleep than the normal person. At least, less than she did. She slid farther over in the narrow bunk. “Do you want to sit down? You must be ready to drop.”

“I’m okay.” Ryan grinned mischievously. “Actually, parts of me are pretty wide awake.”

She glanced down and took note of the clearly defined outline of one of those parts through his camouflage pants and felt her cheeks heat. It was the memory of the vast pleasure that one part in particular had given her that had her thinking, against all better judgment, they could actually have sex here in this public building on the narrow, uncomfortable cot.

Ryan did sit, perching on the edge of the metal rack that was masquerading as a bed, making her wonder if it would hold their combined weights or if they would both end up on the plywood floor. He leaned over and touched his lips to hers. Vicki went from wondering to hoping the cot would support them, because she really wanted him.

She’d never been into kissing in the past. But after being with Ryan, Vicki realized that was because she’d never really been kissed before. Ryan attacked kissing the way she imagined he did everything in life—full-out and with all he had. He captured her face with his big, rough hands, making her feel cherished and safe. His lips could be gentle one moment and demanding the next. Either way, Vicki could tell one hundred percent of Ryan’s concentration was centered on kissing her, and she loved that feeling.

He kissed her that way now, and although she had wanted to ask him another question about their privacy, she was having a terrible time pulling back from his captivating kiss.

She finally managed it, only to have him lean in and follow her.

“I want more.” He chased and easily caught her lips with his, taking possession of her more than willing mouth again.