Encounter with a Commanding Officer

His hands explored her body, tracing every contour, firing every nerve-ending. Fliss opened her mouth to invite him further inside and he complied. Tasting her, teasing her. She pressed her body harder against his, the solid length of his erection unmistakable between them. It was a turn-on to know just how much he wanted her and instinctively she rocked against him.

He made a low, guttural sound in the back of his throat. Nerves and boldness mingled and Fliss rocked against him again.

‘Be careful,’ he warned her.

‘What if I don’t want to be?’ she whispered back shakily.

He stilled, pulling back from her so he could look her in the eye. ‘Don’t you?’

She hesitated before offering a helpless shrug. ‘I don’t know.’

She wanted to do something out of character, go a little crazy. But she’d been trapped by her own set of unbending rules for so long that she didn’t know how to break free.

‘Do you trust me?’ he demanded gruffly.

She thought back to the soldier she’d spoken to out in the field. The way every man who had worked with Ash only had good things to say about him.

‘Yes,’ she murmured.

He gave a curt, almost imperceptible nod, then leaned in to resume their kissing. But this time it was different. So intense and passionate her toes actually curled with pleasure. She ran her hands languidly over his body, exploring the taut, bunched muscles of his shoulders, his back, his obliques. Every inch of him was honed and uncompromising, without an inch of soft skin. And for tonight it was all hers. She only wished she knew exactly what to do with him.

It had never been like this in the past. The physical side of her limited relationships had been pleasant enough, if a little perfunctory. But nothing about Ash was pleasant. He was powerful, thrilling, dangerous. Fliss could imagine sex with him wouldn’t be any less so. She just needed to convince him that she was ready for him to stop holding back. She let her hands drop to his backside, slipping her fingers in the pockets and hesitantly pulling him tighter against her.

As if reading her thoughts, Ash pressed her against the wall. With one knee, he nudged her legs apart and slid a steel-like thigh against the heat there. His lips blazed a sizzling trail all the way down the sensitive cord of her neck so that she couldn’t help but dip her head to the side with a soft sigh, her hands barely holding onto his body as weakness trickled into her limbs.

Every part of her body was coming alive under his touch. He made her feel wanted. Needed. She arched her body towards him in subconscious invitation.

Dropping a hand lazily over her breasts, over nipples aching to be touched, Ash circled her ribcage, his strong hands and fingers splayed over her skin making her feel dainty and feminine. Then he flicked a thumb up and over the aching bud, his kisses dipping into the hollow at the base of her neck. Gasping, Fliss snapped her head back up.

‘Ash...’

She didn’t want him to stop but she couldn’t help her reaction. Her well-worn shackles of propriety had reasserted themselves, making her feel constrained and awkward. They were so much more exposed up here than they had been in the camp—in more ways than one.

‘Shh, I promise you that no one’s around,’ he murmured. ‘No one can see us, or hear us.’

She wished she didn’t care. They were only kissing, for pity’s sake. Why couldn’t she be caught up in their little bubble, just as those few couples they had passed on the way up had been?

‘You didn’t seem this uncomfortable between the shipping containers and tents back at camp,’ he pointed out gently.

‘I was more comfortable there,’ she hedged. ‘It was familiar. Elle and I sunbathed there a few times—in rare moments of down-time, that is—and no one had ever stumbled on us before. Plus, it happened so fast, I didn’t have time to second-guess myself.’

‘Do you want to stop?’

There was no censure in his tone, no accusation, just a simple question. He wasn’t trying to push her faster than she was prepared to go, although Fliss could tell how passionately he wanted her. A shiver of delight cascaded through her.

‘I don’t want to stop,’ she realised aloud. She just needed reassurance.

‘Shh, listen,’ he told her. ‘Close your eyes and listen.’

Obediently, she did.

‘What am I listening for?’ she asked after a moment, opening her eyes again. ‘Aside from the faint sounds of the parade below, I can’t hear anything.’

It was still and silent and, with the last lanterns much further down the path, the only light was the glow from the stars, and their eyes had long since adjusted to that.

‘Precisely.’

She could hear the smile in his voice.