A Prince Among Men Page 9

  “You’re back.”

  He laughed at her statement of the obvious. “Yup. Safe and sound.”

  “I’m glad you’re back safely. How did it go?”

  This was not his normal pillow talk, but considering the time and place, he guessed it wasn’t unexpected. And the blush that tinted her cheeks told him she wasn’t feeling as casually about this as the conversation let on.

  “It was long, I kind of fell down a mountain and sprained my knee, but we all came home alive so it was a success.”

  She frowned. “You fell down a mountain? Oh my god. That’s horrible. You could have been killed!”

  “It sounds worse than it was, really. I only slid about twenty feet. I’m fine.” He didn’t want to talk about this now so he made light of it, but he loved she was concerned for him.

  Vicki’s face softened as he stroked it lightly with the back of his fingers. Then her eyes opened wide. “You must have been exhausted when you got back and I was in your bed. I’m so sorry.”

  They’d just had the best sex he’d had in recent memory, if not ever, and she was apologizing for being in his bed? She was one amazing woman. He shook his head. “Don’t worry. Really. It’s fine.”

  She winced. “But still…I’m sorry.”

  An evil grin tugged at Ryan’s mouth. “Well, if you are that sorry, I’m sure I can think of a way you can make it up to me.”

  Her eyes dropped just as his dick began to rise. He watched as surprise and then just plain desire showed clearly on her face. “I was going to ask if you were still tired and wanted me to leave you alone so you could sleep, but I guess the answer to that is pretty obvious.”

  He let out a low growl in response and rolled back over on top of her, prepared for another wild, toe-curling ride.

  Lifting her t-shirt to sample one dusky nipple with his mouth, Ryan knew he had to take every day like it was his last.

  He was tired, yeah, but he could sleep when he was dead. What he had in mind to do to Vicki, he definitely had to be alive for.

  Chapter Ten

  Vicki hadn’t felt this good in…in at least a year. She tried not to think about that too much. She really didn’t like the connotations she kept reading into that fact because she also hadn’t had a romantic relationship in a year. The cause and effect was not one she was willing to accept. She was smart, moderately successful, mostly satisfied with her lot in life, so why then did it take a man to make her feel happy?

  Although, Ryan was not just any man. And what they’d shared together had been really, really great sex. But still, the feminist side of Vicki refused to admit it took a man to complete her.

  And then Ryan walked into view and her breath caught in her throat and she felt her face flush. Maybe it didn’t take a man to complete her, maybe it took Ryan.

  He smiled the moment he saw her and she couldn’t help but smile back. He winked at her, and a schoolgirl giggle threatened to well up from deep within her chest.

  Right there, in the middle of what Ryan had called the ‘War Room’, Vicki felt her heart get suspiciously squishy. She clamped down on it hard. This was not the time nor the place, meaning during wartime in Afghanistan and not during a squad meeting in the War Room, for her to start to fall for Ryan, no matter how cute he was or how good the sex had been.

  She lowered her eyes to the notebook in her lap and pretended to look busy flipping through the pages when Ryan walked over and sat down in the empty chair next to her. “Hi.”

  Except for the overwhelming sexual chemistry between them, she felt exactly like she had in fifth grade when Dan Molloy, the boy she had a crush on, sat down next to her in class. Looking up, she let her eyes drop to watch his lips as he grinned. She felt her cheeks begin to heat up worse than before.

  “Hi,” was all she had time to say when thankfully, Hawk entered the room and called the meeting to order. Apparently the team had been briefed that she was there because except for a smirking nod from Wally, the rest basically ignored her. It was kind of like she was invisible until Hawk’s eyes narrowed in on her.

  “Put the notebook away, Miss Vanover. I said you could sit in on the squad meeting, not take notes or write about it. And you should be grateful I’m even allowing you to be here. Don’t make me change my mind.”

  After that unnecessarily mean statement, the team did notice her and snickers could be heard from various men around the room. Blushing with embarrassment, Vicki closed her notebook with a snap and folded her arms, scowling at Hawk with a “happy now?” look on her face.

  Hawk bobbed his head, his form of a thank you she guessed, and then went back to ignoring her as he addressed his troops.

  Ryan’s shoulder bumped hers lightly. “Don’t mind him.” He spoke so softly, only she would be able to hear it.

  Vicki nodded. Ignoring Hawk was easy, but Ryan? Ignoring him was not so easy. His closeness made it nearly impossible to concentrate on what was happening at the team meeting, and she had really wanted to pay attention since she couldn’t take notes.

  As it turned out, by the end she barely remembered a thing covered during the short time. There was a lot of talk about duties, schedules and maintenance. Of course, it didn’t help that Hawk spoke in what sounded like a foreign language to her. Oh, she was quite sure it was English, just the military kind, which was like a foreign language to a civilian, she supposed.

  Meanwhile, she could feel the heat radiating off of Ryan’s arm, he was so close as they sat. He didn’t move, so neither did she, as he waited for the War Room to clear after Hawk had dismissed the men. Then there was just the two of them and Vicki’s body started to pay attention, even though her brain had refused to just moments before.

  Alone with Ryan, she watched as he moved closer, his head lowering towards hers until their mouths met for a much too brief kiss. Pulling away, his tempting mouth formed a silent curse. “We can’t do this here. If I kiss you again, I’m not going to want to stop.”

  Vicki liked the thought of him having no control around her. It had been a long time since she’d felt as if she had power over anything, forget about over a man. “What about if we went to your hut?”

  Ryan shook his head. “God, I love how you think. But, no, that won’t work. Wally is going back there to sleep. He has guard duty tonight.”

  “Where then? Where can we go?” Vicki realized she sounded desperate and not at all like they’d had sex, twice, only a few hours ago.

  He thought for a second. “The latrine?”

  She screwed her face up with such a look of displeasure he didn’t even wait for her to answer that question.

  “Alright, alright. No latrine. I have another idea. Stay here. I’ll be right back.” He squeezed both of her arms, as if to plant her in that spot until he returned, and with one last look to insure she hadn’t moved, he took off out the door at a run.

  Ryan arrived at his hut breathless. “Hey, Wally. You’ve got TOC guard duty tonight? Right?”

  “Yup.”

  “Wanna switch nights with me? I’ll take yours tonight and you take mine later in the week?”

  “But you just had it like two days ago.”

  Ryan shrugged. Since when did Wally keep track of his schedule like a mother? “Yeah, so?”

  Wally frowned. “So, you’re telling me you are volunteering to be TOC guard and sit up all night answering calls on the night after we had an all night mission when you had guard duty just a few days ago.”

  What was with the inquisition? “Yeah, I am.”

  “Why?”

  Dammit, Wally. Ryan smothered a growl and came up with a plausible lie on the fly. “I…uh…slept half the day today and then got up and had too much caffeine. I know I won’t be able to sleep a wink so I figure I may as well get it over with tonight.”

  Wally shrugged. “A’ight. Whatever. I’ll go tell Hawk about the change.”

  “Great. Thanks, Wally.”

  Great didn’t cover it. Unbelievably fantastic was more
like it. An entire night with Vicki alone in the Operations Center while the rest of the camp slept.

  Now he just had to tell Hawk that Vicki would be sleeping on a cot in the back room of the Operations Center, and then tell Vicki to expect him at midnight when the shift started. His body started to get excited just thinking about it!

  Ryan ran back outside and found Vicki standing in the doorway of the War Room watching something outside. He followed her line of sight and smiled. Their seemed to be a heated volleyball game, but it was the players that surprised him most. Apparently it was the Afghans versus the Brits and the calls being shouted, half Pashtun, half proper, and sometimes not so proper British, was pretty hysterical.

  Vicki looked up at him in surprise. “They’re playing volleyball.”

  Ryan grinned at her. “Yup. And we have a golf range, too. I told you, all the comforts of home.”

  She laughed at him even though he wasn’t joking. “Yeah, sure. So where did you run off to before?” Vicki turned away from the game and toward him.

  The sound of her laugh, the twinkle in her eyes, the memory of her body beneath his, absolutely consumed more brainpower than he had at the moment.

  “Ryan?”

  Mesmerized, he realized he’d been staring at her tiny heart-shaped mouth, picturing what it would look like wrapped around his erection. He hadn’t answered her question, nor could he remember what it had been so he could answer it now. “Hmm?”

  Vicki laughed. “You are so tired after not sleeping enough last night that you can’t even answer a simple question. I knew I should have left you to sleep more.”

  “Nope. In fact, I’m not feeling tired at all.” The lower parts of his body were definitely wide-awake, proving his point. “Damn, I arranged for us to have tonight together, but I’m not sure I can wait that long.” He laughed helplessly at his own neediness.

  A hesitant look crossed her face.

  Uh, oh. Ryan frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  Vicki shrugged as her cheeks turned an adorable shade of pink. She was embarrassed and oh so cute. “It’s just…I mean, I love that you want me, but I keep reminding myself that I’m the only woman here. It’s not like I have any competition for your attentions, you know? You haven’t had sex in so long, I could be any woman and you would still want me.”

  Ryan shook his head emphatically. “No, Vicki. That’s not true. Yeah, I’ve been here a long time with nothing but my right hand and my imagination to keep me company, but that’s not saying I’d be attracted to just any woman who strolled into the confines of that concertina wire. In fact, there have been women through here this deployment. Not often, but it happens occasionally, and I didn’t sleep with any of them. And I was in Bagram for a few days where there were plenty of women. Wally got laid, but I wasn’t even looking for that while I was there.”

  The look on her face said that the strategy of proving to her she was special by listing all of the many women he could have had sex with and didn’t was not working out so well. Ryan sighed. “What I’m trying to say is, it’s you, Vicki. It’s definitely you, specifically, that I want.”

  “Why? What is it about me, specifically?”

  Oh boy. She could be a tough little thing when she wanted.

  He smirked when he realized it was all his own fault for not just shutting up and kissing her when he had the chance. Now it looked as if she was going to make him work for it, but Vicki was worth the work.

  “I want to be with you because…” Ryan considered his words carefully, but when he thought about it, he had no trouble coming up with his reasons. “You are afraid of spiders but you’ll stand up to Hawk. You care enough about women you’ve never met that you came halfway around the world to a war zone to write a story about them. You are so interested in the lives of soldiers you don’t even know that you take the time to read their blogs...”

  And he would have to remember to confess to her it was his blog she was reading before keeping that secret got him in trouble, too. But, not now. Now, he had a list to finish. “I want you, specifically, because you make even body armor look good—sorry, but it’s true—and because when we made love, we fit together like we were made for each other, and, finally, because you actually enjoyed eating a MRE just for the experience of it. I’m sure I can come up with a few more reasons if you give me a minute, but that’s a start.”

  “No, it’s okay. That’s enough.” Two small fists grabbed his Kevlar vest and hauled him in towards her as she stood on tiptoe and smashed her mouth against his. Still kissing her, Ryan backed them both into the empty War Room so they wouldn’t be seen.

  As she opened her mouth and teased him with her tongue, the kiss intensified, causing his gut to twist with want and making Ryan realize his guard duty that night, and his time alone again with Vicki, couldn’t come soon enough.

  He nibbled on her lower lip, taking the passion of the kiss down a notch while trying to talk his lower parts into behaving by telling them they had to wait until later.

  As his finger traced down her neck and lingered at the top button of her shirt, she pulled away. And as much as he missed the kiss, he was a bit grateful the wildcat Vicki had become was calming down a bit, considering it was broad daylight and they were in the War Room.

  “I just want you to know, it had been a really, really long time for me, too.” Vicki stared him right in the eye, as if she needed to make the point very clear.

  Ryan kind of liked the idea of being the only man in Vicki’s bed for a really, really long time. He grinned. “Don’t worry. You haven’t forgotten a thing.”

  She smacked him. “I’m serious. I vowed not to date or have sex with anyone I work with, meaning reporters, photographers, editors, managing editors...” She hesitated on the last one, looking like the words tasted bitter on her tongue. Ryan wondered who the managing editor was that made Vicki take a vow of celibacy against the entire journalism profession.

  “That was about a year ago.” She said the last and waited for his reaction.

  He raised a brow. A year. Wow. That was even longer than he’d been without sex and he was deployed on a firebase in Afghanistan with no women! Ryan chose not to comment on that. “Then I guess it’s lucky for me that I hold none of the aforementioned occupations. So unless you’re gonna add soldier to that list of men who are off limits…”

  She smiled and shook her head. “Nope.”

  Ryan could get used to this woman. He held her a bit tighter. “Good. Now, let me brief you on the plan for tonight.”

  Chapter Eleven

  After a restless and pretty uncomfortable, not to mention short, sleep in what amounted to the back room/storage closet of the glorified tent that Ryan had called the Operations Center, Vicki woke up sore and a little cranky.

  She’d only been banished to sleep here for one night so far, but still, she missed Ryan’s bed. She missed Ryan.

  Until she heard his voice coming from the outside room. Then, she saw him as he walked through the makeshift door and toward her, smiling. “Vicki.”

  Even though she was still sleepy, his sexy voice sent a shiver down her spine while at the same time, putting a smile on her lips at the sound of her name coming from his.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “Did you sleep at all? That other guard didn’t bother you, did he?”

  Mmm, she liked he was so protective. Vicki shook her head. “No, he didn’t bother me. What time is it?”

  “Midnight. I would have come earlier, but I had to wait for the shift to end for the guy I’m replacing.”

  “Did you get to sleep at all?” she asked.

  Ryan shook his head. “Nah. I had to help the guys with some things, and then I did some stuff on my computer until it was time for duty.”

  All of these soldiers must need far less sleep than the normal person. At least, less than she did, anyway. She slid further over in the narrow bunk. “Do you want to sit down? You must be ready to drop.”

>   “I’m okay.” Ryan grinned mischievously. “Actually, parts of me are pretty wide awake.”

  She glanced down and took note of the clearly defined outline of one of those parts through his camouflage pants and felt her cheeks heat. It was the memory of the vast pleasure that one particular part had given her that had her thinking, against all better judgment, that they could actually have sex here in this public building on the narrow uncomfortable cot.

  Ryan did sit, perching on the edge of the metal rack that was masquerading as a bed, making her wonder if it would hold their combined weights or if they would both end up on the plywood floor, until he leaned over and touched his lips to hers. Vicki went from wondering to really hoping the cot would support them, because she really wanted him.

  She’d never really been into kissing in the past. But after being with Ryan, Vicki realized that was because she’d never really been kissed before. Ryan attacked kissing the way she imagined he did everything in life, full-out and with all he had. His big rough hands captured her face, making her feel cherished and safe. His lips could be gentle one moment and demanding the next, but either way, Vicki could tell one hundred percent of Ryan’s concentration was centered on kissing her and she loved that feeling.

  He kissed her that way now, and although she had wanted to ask him another question about their privacy, her other concern, she was having a terrible time pulling back from his captivating kiss.

  She finally managed it, only to have him lean in and follow her, saying. “Mmmm, I want more.”

  He chased her lips with his, and caught them easily, taking possession of her more than willing mouth, again.

  Vicki wanted more, too, and even though he didn’t seem to be worrying about it, she had to. Worrying came naturally to her. “Won’t other guys stop by here? And don’t you have work to do, or something?”