Encounter with a Commanding Officer

Was that breathy sound really her voice?

They had inched closer. She hadn’t noticed it, but they had. Now the soft caresses of his shallow breaths tickled her cheek.

‘Tell me how it is that you don’t have a boyfriend or partner somewhere, worrying about you?’

Pain sliced through her more than she’d have wished. But, like every time before, it was about the sense of rejection rather than losing Robert himself.

What was so very wrong with her that the people who were supposed to care about her didn’t think she was special enough for them to stay?

She took a step back from Ash, as though putting physical distance between them might ease the feelings of inadequacy. What if she told him and it caused him to think less of her as a woman?

‘Who says I don’t have someone?’ She’d meant it to sound nonchalant but it just came out brittle, cold.

‘If you did have someone, you wouldn’t be here now,’ Ash pointed out, unperturbed. ‘You certainly wouldn’t have allowed yourself to respond to me the way you do. However strong the attraction, you’d have shut it down back in your CO’s office the other day.’

He was right; she would have.

‘Fine,’ she snapped. ‘There’s no one.’

‘But there was?’ he pushed, perceptively.

‘It’s none of your business.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘What about Simon?’

‘Simon?’ Fliss stopped her inspection and shot him an incredulous look.

‘Your CO.’

‘Yes, I know who he is.’ She shook her head. ‘There’s nothing...like that going on.’

‘He wouldn’t mind if there was.’

‘You’re crazy,’ Fliss snorted, wondering where that had come from. ‘Besides, I don’t do that.’

Before she could think anything else, however, Ash had slipped one arm around her waist, the other hand closing around her wrist, his legs parting as he pulled her in between them. She was far enough away that there was a clear gap between his body and hers, but so close she could almost feel him.

‘Good to know,’ he muttered.

She should push away. But she didn’t. She couldn’t resist him. Her body literally ached with the need to press against him. But, if she did, she was afraid she might forget all her principles entirely.

‘I... I just said. I don’t do this,’ she choked out.

‘Do what? This?’

His thumb pads stroked the inside of her wrists, causing her pulse to lurch yet again, and Fliss wondered if he could feel it. The silence hung between them, his heartbeat drumming steadily, strongly, beneath her palm as invisible threads seemed to wrap around them.

She was frozen. She knew she should pull away but she couldn’t.

Someone was going to get hurt and she knew exactly who. But, even as she struggled to pull away, eyes the hue of mountain shale bound her tight, as entrancing and as perilous as a fathomless mine shaft. If she got too close to the edge she would tumble, and there would be no climbing out.

And still she didn’t move away.

Slowly her hand lifted involuntarily to rest on his chest.

Another inch closer and his breath rippled over her lips, sending electricity zinging around her body. He was going to kiss her and she wasn’t going to do anything to stop him.