Sandra Hill (18 page)

“Put your knees on my hips, sweetie. That’s the way.” He helped her adjust herself so that her inner knees pressed against his hips, and her ankles crossed behind his ass. “Good thing we’ve been working you WEALS on upper arm strength this week. You could probably stay like this for hours.”

“I swear, you will pay for this, you lout.”

“Whatever you say, baby. By the way, do you know what the best thing is about this position? I get to do whatever I want with your body, and you can’t do a damn thing about it.”

She was silent for a moment, digesting his words as she realized that she was in fact wide open to whatever he wanted to do. And there were lots of things he wanted to do.
Where to start, where to start?

“And your point is?”

“I’m going to make you come, and come, and come.”

She groaned. “What have I done to deserve such punishment?”

“Not punishment. I’m putting my mark on you, baby. No matter what happens with us in the future, it’ll never be as good for you with another man. You’ll always remember this night and know we had something special.”

“And you? Mayhap I will spoil you for other women as well.”

“Sweetheart, that’s already a given.”

Then words became useless, except for one long whimper of ecstasy, on both their parts. First he brought her to climax just by playing with her dangling breasts. When her inner folds began to milk his cock, he immediately moved his hand to her clit, strumming it to full-blown, swollen attention. Only then did he begin the long strokes that would bring them both to completion. But he didn’t want that to happen too soon. So he strummed her inner folds till they were swollen and dripping against his fingers. With her in this kind of frenzy, he used his other hand to touch her in that place between them, nestled against his stomach, that spot most women did not like to have touched, or thought they did not like to have touched.

So, stroking her from both sides, as well as inside, she began to cry out her orgasm…an orgasm that went on and on and on, stronger and stronger, as his strokes became shorter and harder, and his fingers became ruthlessly demanding.

He had no idea how many times she came before he was unable to hold back any longer. With the cords standing out against his arched neck, his hands on both her hips holding her in place, he bellowed out his coming, nipping at her shoulder like a wild stallion.

Afterward, he picked her up and sat back down in the tub, with her straddling his lap, her face in the crook of his neck. They were both panting, unable to speak. Half the water from the tub was on the floor, but who the hell cared! In that afterglow of good sex, he kept caressing her shoulders and back, rocking forward and backward, more in a soothing than sexual manner. He was murmuring, “Omigod. Omigod.”

When his pulse came down to about a thousand beats per minute, and his brain began to clear, he realized something important.

He’d forgotten to use a condom.

And then the fun began…

It was still dark when Zachary drove her back to the military base. Danny had come back to care for Sammy after his “night on the town,” whatever that meant.

She glanced about at her surroundings. Lights on poles illuminated the roadways and metal vehicles they passed or saw parked along the side. Some of the buildings were dark, but there were lights in many of them. Even though it was the middle of the night, there was still activity going on at a military base. They had to pass through a special, guarded gate even to get onto the base.

She was a different person than the one who had left here two nights ago on the way to her welcoming fete at Madrene’s keep. For one thing, she felt a not-unpleasant ache betwixt her legs. For another, her lips and breasts were no doubt swollen from Zachary’s unrelenting erotic ministrations. And she for a certainty knew what multiple orgasms were now.

When she had time to think about it, she would blush at some of the things she had allowed the rogue to do to her. Hah! She would blush even more over things she had done to him.

She had slept intermittently through the night. In the tub. And betwixt bouts of bedsport. But every time she fell asleep the most gruesome dreams—rather, night terrors—came to her. All taking place at the abbey. All involving her father and brothers and hirdsmen torturing the good nuns to reveal where she was supposedly hiding.

“Why so quiet, babe?” He reached over and took her hand in his. The other steered the wheel on the car.

“These images keep flickering through my mind.”

“Of us having wild monkey sex?”

“Nay! I need no mind pictures to recall
that
.” She squeezed his hand tightly in reproval. “I believe I am having visions of things happening right now, in the past.”

“Are you talking about the nightmares?” He’d had to shake her awake from one of them.

She nodded.

“Maybe it’s just guilt or something.”

She shrugged. “Mayhap. But I am beginning to think there was some method to this madness of my time travel.”
And it is a madness in itself that I am accepting the concept of time travel.

“And that would be?”

“Perchance the gods sent me here to learn modern fighting techniques so that I can gather an army and go back to fight against evil…in particular, the evil perpetuated by my father and his followers.”

Zachary was oddly quiet.

She turned in her seat to look at him. “What?”

“I don’t want you to go away.”

A thrill of pleasure coursed through her at his words.

By the light of the dashing board, she could see his face grow grim. “I don’t want you to go away…
yet
,” he amended.

She had to smile at that halfhearted amended statement of his feelings for her. “Dost think I could? Go back, I mean?”

“I have no idea.”

“Something is happening to me. Something even stranger than the time travel. I sense being tugged back.”

He flashed a quick glance of alarm. “It was just a dream. You can’t just go back,” he insisted.

She shrugged. “You and Torolf’s men went back.”

“That was an accident.”

“Are you sure about that?”

He arched his brows at her.

“Mayhap, where there is a need for a hero, the gods—or your One-God—send warriors hither and yon to fight the good battles.”

“You think I’m a hero, huh?”

She could tell he was trying to change the subject. “Would you go back with me?” she asked softly.

He drew back, taking his hand away.

She had surprised herself, not having planned to ask such a question. Not even sure she wanted to go back herself.

“Absolutely not! Are you crazy?” He must have realized how he sounded, because he immediately tried to take her hand again, which she would not allow. “I can’t risk going away, not with Sammy’s situation.”

She stared at him, unblinking.

“No way! I wouldn’t try to go back in time
with
Sammy, either, if that’s what you’re thinking. Even if I could. He’s in enough danger here without me putting him in the middle of some Dark Age uncivilization.”

He pulled up in front of the women’s sleeping quarters. When she tried to open the door, he pressed a lever that locked her in. She turned her face away from him, not wanting him to see her tears. Tears, for the love of Loki! She was not a weeping woman, or ne’er had been till she met him.

“Don’t go away angry,” he urged, trying to pull her into his arms. “You’re going to hate me enough during the upcoming WEALS rotations. At least let us keep this special bond we seem to have separate from the military crap.”

“You mean sex?”

“Well, yeah, you must admit we’re incredible together.”

“And that is everything to you?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” he snapped, then immediately regretted his words, tugging on her arm to pull her closer. “Come on, give me a good-bye kiss. I don’t want you angry with me, not after what we’ve shared these past two days.”

She knew better than to allow his embrace, knowing the effect he had on her. In a trice, she would be in his lap, rubbing their nether parts raw. “I am not angry. Just disappointed.”

“I enjoyed being with you, Britta.” He used a forefinger to trace circles on the back of her neck. “I care about you.”

Minutes later she was tiptoeing into the chamber she shared with the three other women, who were thankfully sleeping. She knew she’d hurt Zachary when she declined his kiss and pushed out of his arms. She knew she was being unreasonable in expecting him to grant her such a great favor, putting his son at risk. She knew he’d just given her the best two days of her life, and for that alone he deserved a token of her thanks. But she was in a contrary mood. And she was very worried about what might be happening back in her own time.

It took her a long time to fall asleep.

It was just past dawn when she and the other women throughout the sleeping quarters, not just their room, were awakened by a loud ruckus. First a shrill, loud, long blast of a whistle. Men—the instructors, it turned out—were banging on the doors and yelling into objects held up to their mouths that magnified their voices. Weapons were firing out in the hall, and flares of light were going off.

“Fall out! Fall out!” one person screamed. “Out of your racks!”

“On your feet! On your feet!” someone else yelled.

“Get up, you lazy maggots,” the instructor known as F.U. hollered through the now-open doorway.

“Go, go, go!” It was Cage—rather, Instructor LeBlanc—joining in the yell-fest.

Thus far, none of them had entered the sleeping chamber, just opened the doors, presumably respecting the privacy of the women. At first, that was.

“Oh, great!” Terri whispered. “Do they have to use those bullhorns? I have the hangover from hell.”

“I just hope those aren’t live rounds they’re firing from those machine guns,” Donita remarked, even as she jumped out of her sleeping pallet and stood at attention, like the other ladies.

“Nah. They’re blanks,” said Marie. “And firecrackers.”

“You are the sorriest group of pretend warriors I have ever had the misfortune to meet,” Commander MacLean said, storming into the room. So much for privacy! He needed no bullhorn to increase the volume of his voice. It was ear-splittingly loud on its own.

Disoriented, Britta was having trouble rising to her feet like the other women. Her brain told her to follow what the others did; her aching body had other ideas.

“Petty Officer Asado, either ring out or get your lazy butt in gear,” the commander yelled, right in her face. For a brief second, Britta thought about saying that she would tell Madrene on him, but that would mean she expected special treatment, which she did not.

Instructor F.U. looked at her in passing. Then his head snapped back to look at her more closely. “What the hell have you been doing, Asado?”

There was a brief lull in the yelling and noise as everyone, including the women, turned to look at her, then smile. She was wearing the finger sleeping
shert
that covered her with a modicum of modesty, so she had no idea why they were all gawking.

“Way to go, girl!” Terri whispered behind her hand.

“Guess she knows what an orgasm is now,” Donita added in a low enough voice the men couldn’t hear.

“Ya look lak ya been wrestlin’ a gator,
chère
,” Marie added.

Obviously, what she’d been doing the past two days was evident in her appearance.

The commander just shook his head, as if she was a hopeless case. Or more likely that opinion was directed at Zachary.

Master Chieftain F.U. was not about to remain silent, though. “Well, well, well. Someone in this room got laid this weekend. And laid. And laid. And laid. Dare we ask who the lucky fellow was, Asado? Or was it a woman?”

“What a jerk!” Terri murmured.

“Enough of that, Uxley,” the commander said, motioning for the chieftain to leave the room. But to Terri, the commander said, “Did I hear someone complain? Was that you, Evans? Did you dare to complain? Drop and give me twenty and make it quick.”

Terri dropped to the floor and began doing pushing-ups.

Master Chieftain Simms, the black-skinned instructor, shoved his way into the little room, too, passing F.U. on the way out. While he shouted, he was firing his weapon at the ceiling. They could barely hear him say, “Are you giving me a look, Ms. Leone? Are you giving me a look? I think a little cargo net, carrying a fifty-pound backpack, might be just the thing.”

Donita glared at him, and Master Chieftain Simms grinned at her, flashing white teeth against his dark skin.

“I’ll give you ladies three minutes to dress and get yourselves down on the beach for some surf appreciation,” Commander MacLean said, glancing at the timing bracelet at his wrist.

They were already rustling into their exercising clothes when the box on the wall started to crackle.

“Attention, attention!” she heard a familiar voice announce. It was Zachary. “Welcome to week two of WEALS. It will be my pleasure to show you a little torture, Navy SEAL style.”

Zachary had warned her that he would be one of her tormentors in the next weeks. She just hadn’t realized it would happen so quickly.

This is the way the big boys play, honey…

The grinder had been made to resemble a war zone, designed to scare the spit out of the newbies and force some of the weaker ones to quit.

The predawn darkness was illuminated in an eerie fashion by flames blasting out of M60 machine gun muzzles. Red and green smoke created by M18 grenades. Noise of bombs bursting blared out of the speakers. While at first glance, it might all seem like a cruel Halloween fright-night tableau, it was in fact a replica of what they might face in battle. If they couldn’t handle the shock here, they sure as hell couldn’t survive on a live op.

Not all the trainees were shocked or amused. He heard one of them remark, “Men and their silly war games!” That one would be spouting a different tune come nightfall, if she hadn’t already rung out, Zach guessed.

Another one said, “It’s gonna take more than firecrackers and a Freddy Krueger SEAL to scare me off.”

He mouthed to Cage, “Me, Freddy Krueger?”

Cage laughed. “Nah, you too pretty. Mus’ be F.U. she’s talkin ’bout.”

First thing up for the women was a quick tour of the O-course…also known as the Oh-My-God obstacle course.
Quick
being a relative term. There were more than a dozen different obstacles here that had to be climbed, crawled, lifted, or shoved, all to use every muscle in the body. The cargo net, the Tower, a tire sequence, the Weaver, and lots of other good stuff. Everything was timed, though those times were reduced for the WEALS. Some SEAL trainees not-so-lovingly dubbed this the “Kiddie Playground from Hell.”

And it wasn’t just trainees who used this course. Well-seasoned SEALs were required to run the evolution before any live op. An oft-quoted saying around the compound was: “The more SEALs sweat in peacetime, the less they bleed in war.”

An hour later, and the women were being marched down to the beach by the commander and by F.U., and a half dozen other instructors, for a quick, cold dunking, a roll in the sand, and a five-mile run along the shore. Just for a wake-up call. The instructor-to-trainee ratio would be high during the next week or two to ensure safety during exercises that could be unsafe.

Most of them didn’t like inflicting pain on the trainees but knew there was a reason for the torment to come. F.U. yelling into a bullhorn, on the other hand, just enjoyed it.

Even the cold water, irritating sand, and energy-draining runs might seem like wasted exercises, but they also replicated battle scenarios where comfort was the last thing a warrior might have. Just how long could an operator stand in water or remain immobile when being driven crazy by the itch of a sand rash? And the constant running, well, everyone knew it developed stamina and leg muscles.