A Prince Among Men Page 8

  And therein lies the problem. Yes, an organization such as Power for Women is free to conduct its work, but what is disheartening is the fact that the need for such an organization exists: the fact that women are still being forced into marriage against their will, many at incredibly young ages; the inhumane treatment of Afghani women in general by those related to them; the lack of governmental recourse and interference in the face of this blatant abuse.

  In addition to providing shelter to needy women and girls, Power for Women promotes the role of women in government. Will women in the government change things? Will the presence of so many American and British men in the region interacting with the local men and spreading a more enlightened Western opinion toward women work to change the male attitude in Afghanistan? One can only hope, but like all things, any change will be slow, an evolution barely traceable over the short term, hopefully visible in the long run.

  Leaning back, Ryan drew in a long, slow breath. He couldn’t help but view Vicki in a different light after reading that. She wasn’t just a silly reporter who would more than likely get in their way if not get herself killed for the sake of a story. Vicki really did want to help, to make a difference in the lives of women who couldn’t help themselves.

  The door opened, startling Ryan. He jumped up guiltily from the chair as both Hawk and Wally came back in, hoping the screensaver kicked in soon before they noticed he had been snooping.

  Hawk tilted a head toward Ryan’s bunk. “Sleeping Beauty’s not up yet?”

  Ryan shook his head.

  “Well, my offer still stands. Feel free to put her in my bunk.” Wally waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

  Ryan frowned. “I don’t think so.”

  Wally posed the next most logical question. “So what the hell you gonna do?”

  With a sigh, Ryan eyed the rack. “Hell if I know.” He looked to his leader for an answer. Hawk, in the midst of pulling off his boots, glanced up. “Don’t look at me! If it were me, I’d wake her the hell up and tell her to get out of my bed.”

  Ryan knew he would probably end up sleeping on the floor himself rather than kick Vicki out of his bed, the floor where vipers, spiders, rats and other assorted wildlife liked to scurry. He wasn’t afraid of them like Vicki was, but still, he shivered at the thought of sleeping down there among them when there was a perfectly good bunk that belonged to him.

  “I can’t tell her to get out, Hawk. I invited her to stay here.” And he really didn’t want her pissed off at him. That wouldn’t exactly help him wiggle his way into her heart, or any of the other places he’d like to wiggle into.

  Ryan had kept his voice low to avoid waking Vicki. Hawk didn’t bother to do the same. “Then crawl in there with her and maybe she’ll wake up, have a fit, and leave on her own so you won’t have to kick her out.”

  “But what about regulations?” Ryan would be damned if he’d get his butt in trouble for being a nice guy and just sharing his bed with a woman. He looked to Hawk for an answer.

  “Well, I just happen to be able to answer that question, Pettit. We recently had a briefing on it, in fact. In true military fashion, the commander of the Joint Task Force signed a new order that amended General Order No.1 back in April. Now, it reads about as clear as mud but it states that while sexual contact is still highly discouraged for all personnel, and totally off-limits in certain circumstances depending on rank…”

  The words sexual contact put some pretty vivid images in Ryan’s tired yet overactive brain cells as Hawk continued to spew regulations at him. Ryan fought to catch up.

  “…it does clearly state that males and females deployed in Afghanistan are allowed to visit each other’s sleeping quarters if all servicemen sharing those quarters agree and the door is kept open at all times. I have no objection to her being here as long as you promise to shut up and let me sleep. Wally? Any problem with her being here?”

  “Hell, no. I don’t mind. If I wasn’t so tired, I’d join you in that rack, Pettit.”

  Hawk shook his head at Wally’s perversion. “Good, we all agree, then. And as far as the open door thing, since my rack is the one directly in front of the door and I have no intention of being a sniper target while trying to get some sleep after an all night mission, I, as your superior, give you permission to have her in here with the door shut. Now, go to sleep, Pettit.”

  Suddenly too tired to care anymore, Ryan gave up worrying and fighting. If his superior said Vicki could stay, then she’d stay. Hawk would be the one to suffer the consequences if he’d made the wrong call, not Ryan.

  Ryan was about to balance on his wobbly, swollen knee to take off his boots, and then thought better of it. He sat in the desk chair instead and kicked off his already untied boots. After a moment’s hesitation, he took off his cammies, too, pulled on PT shorts and a t-shirt, and went to stand beside the bed.

  His pillow was under the blanket, lying lengthways along Vicki’s body as if she’d started the night hugging it and then rolled over in her sleep to face the wall instead. As gently as he could, Ryan pulled back the blanket, moved the pillow to the head of the bed, and then crawled into the bunk next to Vicki, only to be immediately assaulted with sensations that spoke of the pure femaleness of her.

  The bunk seemed much smaller than Ryan remembered, so much smaller than it seemed without a woman in it. In the tight quarters of two sharing a bunk built for one, Ryan couldn’t escape the warmth of her body, the softness of her hair as it brushed his face, the scent of her skin, all sweet and womanly. He immediately regretted changing into the thin cotton shorts as his body reacted to hers. Hell, he should have left his body armor on, too, maybe that would have offered them both some protection against Ryan’s uncontrollably strong attraction to her.

  He released a long, slow breath of frustration, tried in vain to find a comfortable place to put his arms so he wouldn’t either touch Vicki or fall off the mattress, and finally, closed his eyes and succumbed to exhaustion.

  Chapter Nine

  Vicki crawled her way up out of a deep, dreamless sleep. The kind of sleep you fell into when you were bone-deep tired. As consciousness took over, she opened her eyes and tried to focus on the wall next to her. Without her contact lenses in, she was pretty much blind as a bat, but she did finally remember where she was even if she couldn’t exactly see.

  Hazy sunlight streamed in, illuminating the wall and telling Vicki it must be already late in the day. That didn’t surprise her. She’d stayed up so late, she expected she’d also sleep late.

  It was a bit disorienting, waking up in a strange place. Vicki was not only in a strange place, but in a stranger’s bed, in a mud hut in Afghanistan, no less. During her first night at the isolated forward operating base, she realized she had gotten a surprisingly restful sleep considering where she was and how long it had taken her to feel tired enough to go to bed the night before.

  The pillow she’d hugged until she’d fallen asleep, the one that she swore smelled like Ryan did after he’d returned from his shower before the mission, was still pressed up behind her as she faced the wall. Funny, it hadn’t felt that hard and lumpy last night. She pressed back against it again, testing it and finding it unyielding.

  Cheap Army pillow. Not at all fluffy. She must have been too exhausted when she finally fell into bed to notice before.

  She could only imagine how exhausted Ryan would be when he got home.

  Then, panic set in. Ryan. The mission. Shouldn’t the mission be over by now? Ryan said they’d be back in the morning.

  Frightened, Vicki rolled over to try and see the rest of the room—and came face to face not with a pillow, but instead with a large, hard, unmoving body. As her heart kicked into overdrive, Vicki’s still sleepy, caffeine-deprived brain tried to reason the situation out. She couldn’t see the other bunks in the room because of the shelves blocking her view, not that she would have been able to tell if the other two men were in them without her contact lenses, anyway. But up close—a
nd she certainly was extremely close—she could make out Ryan’s peacefully sleeping features clearly.

  Dark smudges marked the skin beneath each of his closed eyes, a testament to how much he still needed to sleep more to make up for working straight through the night.

  She’d gotten busy working on her computer and didn’t go to bed until sunrise, which was about six that morning, she estimated. He’d come home after that. From how rested she felt now, she must have slept for hours, so it had to be late morning or early afternoon by now.

  When exactly had he gotten back and crawled into bed with her? And how could she not have woken up? She must have been pretty exhausted herself after working on her laptop so late.

  A crisp quick knock on the door startled her as she heard the words, “Sergeant Hawkins?” spoken outside. She held her breath and waited.

  The rustling of bedding and a very deep male cough from across the room made Vicki’s blood freeze. She and Ryan were definitely not alone. She heard rather than saw Hawk rise from his bunk and open the door to speak with whoever was outside. There was a brief exchange and then Hawk shut the door, got dressed and left.

  The sound of Hawk leaving must have woken Wally, because the moment the door closed, Vicki heard a loud groan and what sounded like stretching as he got out of his bed. She smothered a childish giggle as he tripped and cursed while getting dressed. Then the door opened and closed again and the hut was silent except for Ryan’s soft breathing.

  Now what? With both of the other men gone, it seemed really inappropriate for Vicki to stay in bed with Ryan, but she didn’t want to wake him by getting up, either. She was trapped between his body and the plywood and poster-covered wall of the hut.

  As she reviewed her limited options Ryan let out a sigh in his sleep. The sound made Vicki smile, until, still totally out of it, he suddenly reached out with one arm, latched on to her hip and pulled her closer to him. Snuggling in tighter, he let out a long, low groan and then started to snore softly, his warm breath caressing her cheek.

  Vicki swallowed hard. Ryan’s closeness, the touch of his big, strong hand possessively holding her, it was all too much for her, especially in her already sexually deprived state.

  She took a shaky breath, trying to control her racing heart and her raging hormones. It didn’t work. Vicki felt the tug of longing deep inside of her. Moisture flooded her lower region as she felt the desperate need to be touched. As if she had willed it to happen, Ryan shifted again in his sleep, and his body pressed closer against hers. She closed her eyes and smothered a moan of frustration as she felt the outline of his arousal pressed against her.

  Morning hard-on, she told herself. It had nothing to do with her. Hell, he was probably dreaming about his girlfriend back home or something. But damn, she’d give anything to be the one he was thinking about at the moment. More than that, she would give anything to feel that long, hard length pounding into her, releasing the unbearable tension building deep inside.

  Vicki wasn’t sure how exactly it happened, but suddenly her legs moved ever so slightly as she lay on her side facing Ryan. The shift brought the tip of him right to the apex of her thighs. Vicki squeezed her eyes tighter and shivered when he brushed the place that so badly craved attention.

  His hips moved and he pressed against her harder. It had been so long for her and Vicki realized that if Ryan moved like that a few more times, she’d be coming. She felt like a molester, taking advantage of him in his sleep, but god, it felt so good and she wanted him so badly.

  Apparently, Ryan wasn’t unaffected by the contact, either. While she watched, he unconsciously moaned low in his throat as he pulled his lower body tighter against hers and his hand slid lower to grip her ass.

  Vicki sucked in a shaky breath, letting her eyes drift closed with the pleasure of the feel of him. She slowly, gently, rocked her body against his over and over until a small sound of pleasure escaped her lips.

  Afraid she’d disturbed him, Vicki’s eyes flew open to check, only to find Ryan had indeed awakened and was watching her from beneath heavy lids.

  “Ryan.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say after he’d basically caught her humping him in his sleep.

  The discovery of what she’d been doing didn’t seem to bother him, quite the opposite.

  Ryan touched one finger to his lips. “Shhh. Hawk and Wally,” he whispered softly before very slowly closing the already narrow space between them. One of his hands cupped her face as he touched his lips gently, tentatively, and much too briefly to hers.

  Pulling back slightly, he watched her face. When she didn’t protest, but instead brought her own hand up to his cheek as she told him, “Wally and Hawk left already,” Ryan let out a low groan and smashed his mouth back against hers.

  Vicki flung one leg over Ryan’s hip, pulling him in closer to where she needed him to be. With that, his kiss became more frenzied. His tongue parted her lips and she welcomed it with her own. At the same time, his erection worked its way between her lower lips, and although she wore sweatpants and he wore shorts, the friction was enough to have her moaning with pleasure.

  Ryan echoed the sound with a groan filled with longing. “I want you.” His voice, gruff and sexy, cut through her to the core.

  “Oh, god. Yes, Ryan.”

  With a sharp intake of breath at her response, he was on top of her with one smooth roll. Then she saw him wince as if in pain. “Ow! Shit. Fuck.”

  “What?” she asked in concern, looking down to see how she could have hurt him.

  “It’s nothing. Tell you later.” A strong hand pulled the waist of her pants down and moved back up to stroke the newly uncovered, bare skin. She couldn’t continue to wonder or worry as he traced his fingers across her hip and continued on to slide between her thighs. He moaned again as he delved inside, testing her.

  “You’re already wet.” She watched Ryan’s throat work above her as he swallowed hard over his discovery.

  His weight on top of her. The desire clearly written on his face. The long, roughened fingers that lingered, stroking her, stoking her own need. Vicki couldn’t wait any longer. She reached between them and slid her hand beneath the waistband of Ryan’s shorts, freeing his straining erection from the confines of the fabric.

  Vicki could see the shiver run down Ryan’s spine at her touch. She stroked him one more time, a long, slow movement, up and down. The sharp breath he drew in sounded almost painful, but not like his “ow” had before, more like painful in a good way. In the “if I don’t have you right now I’ll die” way. She knew how he felt. They’d both been tortured enough. She angled his tip at her entrance. “Now. Please.”

  Ryan didn’t need to be told twice. She was so slick, he was so hard, it took only one shift of his hips and Vicki felt him plunge blissfully deep inside her.

  Somewhere in the back of Ryan’s extremely happy brain, he knew they were in danger of being discovered, but his even happier cock was too busy pummeling into Vicki’s warm, wet and welcoming body to care.

  Reaching beneath her, he lifted her hips up off the bed and reached new and amazing depths within her. Her muscles tightened around him as he watched the rapture on her face. The very male part of his pride took immense pleasure in the knowledge that he was doing this to her, bringing her so much pleasure that she couldn’t catch her breath.

  He angled his stroke and immediately saw her reaction as he bumped her G-spot. Eyes closed, mouth open, Vicki threw her head back against the pillow…

  And then he heard the door open.

  If he thought his heart had been beating hard before, it was nothing compared to now as, while Ryan remained buried hilt-deep inside Vicki, Hawk walked into the room.

  Vicki immediately stilled beneath him, frozen in fear. Hawk had walked in on the down stroke, so Ryan was sunken inside her about as deeply as he could get, and he remained there, afraid to move a muscle.

  To Ryan’s over-heightened senses, the room seemed to reek of sex and
he couldn’t believe Hawk wouldn’t smell it even over on the other side of the room. He slowly, hopefully silently, lowered his weight onto Vicki, hoping that if Hawk peeked around the shelving to check on him, it would look like he was just sleeping on his stomach beneath the blanket.

  Yeah, right! Fat chance of Hawk believing he was just sleeping on top of Vicki, but there wasn’t much else Ryan could do without making a ton of noise and drawing more attention to them.

  The small shift in weight had an unexpected result. Ryan felt the contraction of Vicki’s muscles grip his cock as he sensed her breathing quicken beneath him. Under the blanket, her hands grabbed both cheeks of his ass and held him against her hard. Vicki was starting to come and he could only hope she wasn’t loud when she did because, judging by the intense pulsing gripping his cock, it was going to be a big one.

  He pressed his shoulder against her mouth and she bit down hard as her insides went wild around him. Ryan bit his own lip to keep from reacting aloud. Squeezing his eyes shut, Ryan felt every rippling contraction inside of her, felt the decadently sweet pain of her teeth as they sank into his skin, all while at the same time listening to Hawk moving around on the other side of the room.

  Finally, thankfully, Ryan heard the door open and close. He let go of the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding as he allowed his body to do what it wanted to so badly.

  While Vicki still quivered around him, Ryan thrust hard and fast, plunging deep until he felt the tingle in his balls that heralded the point of no return. With a stifled shout into the pillow, he pulled out just in time and came harder than he thought possible. Good thing they were alone because there was no way he could have remained silent during the orgasm that shook him.

  It left him weak and wobbly above her. Unable to hold himself up, he collapsed, landing most of his weight on the mattress next to Vicki. They both lay there panting for what seemed like a long time, until Vicki rolled her head toward his on the pillow.