Encounter with a Commanding Officer

Her gentle observation sliced right through him, hitting its mark. It certainly wasn’t the first time he’d been accused of that. Just as he’d been accused of using his career and tours of duty to keep from putting down roots back home.

He could still recall every stage of his father’s cycle of self-destruction when his mother had died. His father had lost all control, all reason, and he hadn’t cared who he hurt in the process. Even a six-year-old boy who was trying to cope with the loss of his mother.

Ash couldn’t remember how old he’d been when he’d sworn to himself that, whatever happened to him for the rest of his miserable life, he refused to become like his father. He would never let anyone close enough to be so torn apart by their loss. That way, he’d never be in so much pain that he’d hurt anyone, and he’d never, ever lose control.

‘I don’t want to have to think about someone else,’ he lied, the proximity without contact only cranking up the sexual tension another intolerable notch. ‘I’m an infantryman; my life is too dangerous to inflict on a girlfriend or a wife, and certainly not a family.’

‘Rubbish,’ Fliss retorted evenly, her hands finally raising to his chest, her fingers running gently over the contours of his body, tracing the ridges of the shameful circular scars as though she saw none of the ugliness behind them.

‘You protect yourself because you had an appalling childhood and you got hurt. But I’m not asking you for more than you’re willing to give, Ash. I’m accepting it will only ever be this moment between us.’

He needed to shut this down now. Keeping things as just sex would be one heck of a task. It would be so easy to fall for a woman as unique as Major Felicity Delaunay.

He moved to step away from her but instead Ash found himself placing his hands on her hips and drawing her close, her skin decadently smooth beneath his fingers. Then he hooked two fingers beneath her chin, tilting her head up to his as he lowered his mouth to finally claim hers the way he had back in that supply room what felt like an eternity ago.

Her lips parted for him with a soft sigh, her eyelids seeming to grow heavy as they fluttered closed and her body moulded to his, skin to skin but for her insubstantial bikini and his shorts. For now he resisted the urge to peel either away; he was barely holding onto his self-control with his fingertips as it was, and he could already feel Fliss’s nipples through the material as her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. Ash rubbed his thumb along her jawline before tugging the hair elastic from her ponytail and slipping his fingers into the silky curtain as it tumbled down, even richer and more luxuriant than he’d imagined it would be.

‘So beautiful,’ he marvelled, not merely referring to her hair.

The clipped sound she made was accompanied by her dragging his mouth back to hers and Ash indulged in the kiss without reservation, tasting every millimetre of her lips, her mouth, as her tongue danced with his in perfect synchronicity. She was clinging to him as if all the strength had gone from her legs, and it only made her feel all the more delicate in his arms.

Tantalisingly slowly, he allowed his hand to trace a line back to her chin, gliding slowly down her neck to the fluttering pulse, the smooth collarbone and the generous swell of breasts he ached to touch, to lick, to tease. With deliberate precision, he glided his hand down to cup one full breast and let his thumb sneak beneath the red triangle to graze over one straining peak.

Fliss trembled beneath his touch as she breathed his name with such bliss that he couldn’t help himself. He lowered his head and took one peak in his mouth, his hand caressing the other. As she rocked her lower body against his there was no mistaking the heat emanating through the thin layers of material from her very core.

‘Ash...please.’

White-hot need tore through Ash, infinitely hotter than the sun beating down on their bodies. It would be so easy to tear off what remained of their clothes, wrap those endless legs of hers around his hips and thrust inside her. But if this was the one chance they were going to get then he owed it to both of them to make sure they didn’t rush it.

He didn’t hear his pager when it first went off, the sound slowly permeating through the hunger of their exploration. For a split second he was tempted to ignore it.

‘You know I have to get that, don’t you?’ he managed hoarsely.

Reluctantly, Fliss released her grip and he eased her back, struggling to retrieve the pager, given her position and his arousal.

He shot her a rueful glance then checked

his pager.

His blood ran cold, nausea surging and churning. When he finally spoke he didn’t even recognise his own voice.

‘I have to go.’

The message he’d been dreading had finally arrived.

CHAPTER SIX

FLISS SANK INTO the metal chair in frustration.

Delays weren’t uncommon—especially during Relief in Place—with the sheer volume of air traffic, thanks to the change of troops at the beginning and the end of tours of duty, but she still didn’t relish the prospect of being stuck at the Air Force base for the next thirty-six hours, waiting for a new part that had to be flown in for the aircraft.

At last they were finally out of the overheating tin can on the runway. Seven hours stuck out there in the blistering sun, after what was supposed to have been a brief, routine refuelling stop-over, had been quite enough.

But it wasn’t just about where they were. Or the delay. It was the fact that Ash Stirling was still in her head. A dark bleakness stabbed at her. He hadn’t sought her out the previous day. He hadn’t summoned her. He hadn’t even got a message to her. Something, anything, it wouldn’t have mattered.

Logically, Fliss knew the way tasks were at Camp Razorwire; they had a habit of swallowing up days before you even noticed it. But she couldn’t shake the rejection and it attacked her more violently than it had in many, many years. It was over. Done. She needed to relegate to the past an imperfect experiment. But if she closed her eyes she could still feel the sheen of moisture on that impossibly hard body, take in the citrus and leather scent, hear the sensual huskiness of his voice.

Dragging herself back to reality as she exhaled a deep breath, Fliss pulled her bergen in between her legs and began to untie it to grab a couple of items packed closest to the top.