He couldn’t keep the wry tone out of his voice. ‘Indeed.’
Checking the corridor, she closed the door behind them and gestured to him to join her beside a clear countertop.
‘Take your shirt off, and whatever layers you’re wearing underneath, and let me see that wound properly.’
So clipped, so professional, but Ash thought he heard the faintest quiver beneath. For a moment he debated the wisdom of being in this claustrophobic room, half-naked and alone with a woman he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off, at least in the privacy of his own head.
And what about the scars?
He’d never worried about his scars before. He was an infantry soldier; other men who’d seen them knew better than to ask, and women who’d seen them had swallowed whatever superficial story he’d thrown at them.
But the Major?
Ash had a feeling she would be able to see right through him.
He locked his jaw irritably. Since when did it matter to him what she—what anyone—thought? Hooking his fingers under the layers, he pulled them over his head in one smooth movement before folding his arms, seemingly casually, over his chest.
With something approaching satisfaction, he heard the air whoosh out of her lungs, saw her pupils dilating as she backed up further. She was fighting it, this attraction. And yet, even as she did so, her eyes didn’t stop raking over him, with the results as real as if she’d actually raked her fingernails across his skin instead. His body burned up with desire.
They just had to get through this before he gave in to his baser instincts and, for the first time in his career on an active tour of duty, mixed his Army life with his personal one.
Every time he thought he was back in control, she slipped beneath the surface and unravelled all his iron-clad control like a kitten would toy with a ball of yarn. Suddenly, he didn’t want to fight it any more. He wanted to know how it would feel to give in—just this once—and steal one perfect kiss from those plump, quivering lips.
One kiss.
No, he’d survived ambushes, engaged in fifty-hour firefights and fought with the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. He’d pick any one of those over letting this woman get close enough to sneak behind his armour.
Just one kiss.
It was a constant battle between his baser instincts and his brain. Only an animal couldn’t control their baser instincts, he warned himself contemptuously. Besides, this woman could hurt him more than any enemy could.
But just one kiss.
* * *
The man was magnificent.
Her heart couldn’t work out whether to race or to miss beats, her eyes seemed riveted on the well-honed physique to which even her imagination hadn’t done justice and her nostrils filled with a fresh, citrusy shower gel scent mingled with the undertones of leather. Ever since she’d mentioned the shower, standing back in that corridor, she hadn’t been able to stop mentally placing him under the hot flow of water as it cascaded over those broad shoulders and down that all too sculpted physique. His proximity was so damned consuming.
‘Can you see it from there, or are you going to come a little closer?’ Deep and sensual, his voice reverberated through her, body-slamming her and sending heat pooling between her legs.
‘I need supplies first,’ she hedged.
Another eyebrow quirk. ‘Without inspecting the wound?’
She felt decidedly rattled. Whatever had happened to ‘stick of rock’ Fliss, with Army Rules and Regulations stamped right through her? She scrambled for an excuse not to step closer until she was sure she wouldn’t do something as improper as running her hands over him.
But what would it be like to feel those beautiful muscles bunching beneath her palms? Those callused fingers grazing her soft skin?
‘I can tell from here it’s going to need suturing,’ she lied, coughing to clear her throat.
In all her years within the military she had never—not once—fantasised about a fellow soldier. Fliss stopped abruptly.
Come to think of it, she had never in her life fantasised about anyone.
She hadn’t been able to see what purpose a fantasy served. No one before had ever set her pulse racing or filled her with such a raw need that her whole body actually trembled at the thought of their touch.
And then the Colonel had come along and she’d stood in that tent and felt as though she’d been hit by an armoured tank. Being in the field with him and seeing him in action, working with him in such harmony as though they’d known each other for years, had only intensified the attraction.