Captain O'Reilly's Woman - Ashes of Love 1 (16 page)

But when she whimpered softly, he rolled away from her and dropped down on his back beside her. Breathing hard, Samantha flipped down next to him.

“
Ohmygawd
that was great,” she practically howled. “And that thing...you did to my ass...”

“Did you like it?” David grinned, forcing himself up onto one elbow and lifting heavy, damp strands of Samantha’s hair away from her face.

“Liked it?” she shouted. “Loved it.” Then she started to laugh and rock back and forth.

“Shh,” David cautioned then laughed along with her. “Keep it down or the MPs will show up.”

“Please promise me you’ll do it again,” she whispered hoarsely. “Phew. It was
worth
coming back just for that. We should leave the cottage more often if the sex is going to be this great. Now come here and hold me before I go insane.”

Smiling at the mercurial changes in her, David lay on Samantha’s damp, cooling body and she wrapped her arms around him, snuggling into his warmth. She kissed his shoulder then her head dropped back and she sighed as her entire body started to relax. A quiet, satisfied and utterly feminine smile spread across her face.

He watched her, enthralled by her response—by her and he kissed her forehead and hugged her tighter.

Eventually, he felt Samantha’s excitement ramp back and she lay beneath him quietly, caressing his sweaty back then holding him gently. When he finally did roll off her, she kissed him. It was a long, poignant meeting of mouths, full of quiet pleasure—with him and the things he’d done to her. Then she rose off the bed gracefully and, naked, padded out into the living room.

David followed her. Together, they picked up their discarded clothing, switched off the lights and walked back to the bedroom. She tossed their clothing into a hamper in the bottom of his closet then stepped into the bathroom, beckoning him to follow by cocking a finger at him.

She turned on the shower, tied her hair up haphazardly and stepped inside. Again, David followed. She washed them quickly, doing little more than rinsing the sweat and spent seed off their bodies before turning off the water, grabbing a towel and rubbing it briskly across his back. David sighed with pleasure as her small, efficient hands worked his muscles through the thick barrier of terrycloth. His back first then the rest of him. Every inch of him tingled with pleasure when she was done. Then, feeling purely self-indulgent, he leaned against the countertop and watched with a voyeur’s delight as she smoothed the towel across her body.

Samantha let him watch. Worrying her lower lip as she cupped her breasts through the towel then rubbed it across them slowly. Letting one corner dip, she revealed her swollen, berry-bright nipple as she stroked her abdomen. Turning away, she showed him her pert ass then bent forward seductively to towel her legs. She lifted one and rested her foot on the closed toilet lid so she could caress the inside of her thigh, higher and higher until he groaned and threw his head back from the sheer delight of it. His cock started to harden again when she slid a corner of the towel across her mound then between her legs. She rubbed herself slowly for his benefit.

“What time do you have to get up in the morning?” he growled.

“O-five hundred,” Samantha answered.

“You keep doing that and I can guarantee you won’t get enough sleep tonight.” He glanced down at his cock pointedly.

Samantha looked at his nakedness with unfeigned lust then pouted prettily. “Tomorrow night,” she purred. “Promise me you’ll stick that in me tomorrow night.” She hung the towel up to dry then closed the distance between them, stopping when her soft, warm breasts nuzzled his chest. “Maybe even stick it in my ass.”

David groaned then hugged her tight. “Oh and I’m supposed to get to sleep after you say that? Hmm?” he groused then bent to her and kissed the base of her ear. He switched off the light and led her back to bed. David sat down on the edge of the mattress so he could adjust the alarm for her. “We’ll need to get two of these. Or one with two settings,” David said, more to himself than her before he stood and pulled back the sheets. He realized she’d put fresh linens on the bed.

He hadn’t changed the sheets before going on leave with her. He hadn’t wanted to hope for so much. Hadn’t dared to think that far ahead. But he could now, as far as forever and he lay down on his back and held out his arm for her. With a smile lifting the corners of her lush mouth, Samantha turned off the lights and slipped into bed beside him. Nestling her naked body against his, she lay her head on his arm. His arms held her to him.

The last thing David remembered doing before sleep claimed him was brushing his lips against her forehead and stroking the side of her breast with the tips of his fingers.

*
   
*
   
*

David had barely registered the sound of the alarm going off in the pre-dawn darkness when he began shivering. Samantha was easing her delightfully warm, delightfully soft body away from his. He groaned when she hit the switch in the head, flooding the hallway and the bedroom doorway with light. David rolled over and dragged the covers over his face.

“Come back to bed, woman,” he choked out miserably. “What kind of asinine bastard sets a duty roster that drags a woman out of her lover’s bed at O-five hundred?”

“You,” Samantha replied with forced sweetness. She kissed the top of his head then slapped the alarm into silence. “Get your tasty behind out of that bed, Captain, and re-set that thing or you’ll be late.”

His groggy brain and taxed body protested and he faded in and out of wakefulness. The sound of the shower running then a hairdryer prevented him from falling fully back to sleep.

“You haven’t re-set it, David,” Samantha admonished him as she padded back into the bedroom. She opened a dresser drawer and selected a serviceable, satin-trimmed bra and panty set, along with a khaki shirt, cargo pants and a light field jacket. She dressed quickly and sat on the edge of the bed to do up her jump boots.

“
David
,” she called out, laughed at him and smacked his backside.

“All right...jeez,” David barked and sat up blearily. But the kiss he gave her was warm and engaged when she pressed her mouth to his. He wove his arms around her waist and pulled gently. “Come back to bed.”

He made a low sound of protest when she stepped away from him. “I love you,” Samantha said gently. “Now re-set that thing so you can catch some more sleep before you have to get up.” She watched him fondly as she slid the trailer keys into her pocket then stepped out into the hall, turned off the lights and the exhaust fan in the head and left the trailer for the mess hall.

*
   
*
   
*

“David! Hey. You in there? Dave?”

David awoke with a start when someone started pounding on the front door. “Shit,” he muttered as he glanced over at the clock. Grabbing a blanket off the bed, he wrapped it around himself and hurried out into the hall. “Coming,” he barked out, unlocked the door and yanked it open.

His ADC snorted in his face. “Jeez you look like hell,” was all the man said before he walked in and set the big thermos he was carrying on the kitchen counter.

“Come right on in, Tom. Make yourself at home,” David grumbled to the empty air in front of him then shut the door. He hiked the blanket up higher then secured it around his waist. His mood improved only marginally when Sergeant Tom Stevenson uncapped the thermos and poured hot coffee into a mug from David’s cupboard. Tom shoved the mug at him. “Thanks,” David muttered. He took a sip of the scalding brew and forced himself to swallow. The second mouthful went down easier.

“Er, good leave?” Tom said dryly. David spun around. His ADC was standing behind him now, beside the nearest sofa. He straightened and there was a lacy, pink and decadently low-cut bra dangling from his index finger.

David snatched it away but not before Tom had eyed the size of the cups with open approval.

“Is she still here?” Tom asked conversationally.

David shot him a look and took another sip of his coffee.

“I’m only asking because the alternative isn’t good, David. I know you were checked in at the front gate last night with passengers numbering one. Female. The guard on duty failed to ask her for ID or for you to sign her in—an oversight that a week’s worth of KP duty is no doubt well on its way to correcting. No visitors have left the base this morning and, judging from the state you’re in, it’s no wonder.”

“Smug bastard,” David muttered and retreated down the hall, coffee mug in hand. He dropped the blanket and Samantha’s bra in the bedroom before going into the head and grabbing his electric shaver.

“So if she’s not still here and she’s not a visitor, that means she’s Army.”

David froze.

“I don’t recall seeing any transfer orders for an incoming female officer. All the ones currently on base are married or dykes. That leaves the enlisted women.”

David sighed then tipped his head back to shave his jaw. “Yeah. I know,” he admitted coldly.

“So who is she?”

Looking up, David saw his ADC’s unmistakable silhouette standing in the doorway. Short and stocky, Tom looked like a balding bull terrier. He folded his arms across his chest. David opened his mouth to explain but Tom didn’t give him a chance.

“Look, David, if you’re banging an enlisted—”

“
Hey
,” David shouted. “We’re not banging. We’re...” He held his tongue, getting a grip on his anger. He switched off the shaver then turned on the shower. “We’re not
banging
,” he repeated, gentling his voice, then finally answered Tom’s question. “Cooper. Samantha Cooper.” He stepped into the flow of water.

“
Corporal
Cooper?” Tom blurted out. He dropped his head back dramatically. “Oh your ass is grass, friend, if anybody finds out about this. Look...you’re the best CO I’ve ever served with and I have not come this far with you to watch you throw it all away.”

Tom was many things—many
good
things—but he had a tendency to try and bully his Captain. David got a perverse pleasure out of listening to him squirm. “Hey, Tom, I’m sorry,” David apologized in an appropriately remorseful voice.

“Shoulda known something was up. Shoulda put it together when the two of you took leave at the same time,” Tom muttered to himself.

David had to hand it to him—Tom had the best memory of anybody he’d ever met. Which he delighted in using to catch David off-guard at odd moments. David hid his grin as he savored the payback he was about to administer. “Yeah. You’re right. Listen, does anybody else know?”

“No. ‘Course not,” Tom huffed. “I made sure the in and out headcounts matched.”

“Hey, you’re the best, Tom.” David shampooed his hair quickly then ran the bar of soap across his body. Remembering, for the briefest of moments, how Samantha’s hands had felt on his body last night as she toweled him. He rinsed quickly. “I’ll owe you forever if we could keep this between ourselves.”

“At least tell me you won’t see her anymore,” Tom demanded imperiously.

David turned off the water. Stepping out of the enclosure, he wrapped a towel around his hips that was still damp from Samantha’s shower that morning. “Can’t promise that, friend,” David answered with quiet honesty. He slapped Tom’s shoulder for good measure as he walked past him and headed back into the bedroom to dress.

*
   
*
   
*

David would have let Tom in on his relationship with Samantha later that morning if the man hadn’t still been acting so smugly superior. And he would have told him after lunch—except all hell broke loose after lunch. The town’s power grid fried and it looked like it would take a few thousand man hours to rebuild. The Army had handed over control of the system to the locals only a few days earlier. Either somebody had screwed up or not been fully trained because the whole system had switched back on itself and most of the conductors had to be replaced.

That was bad enough. But sending people back to the dark ages just when they’d started to take cold beer and street lights for granted again had created a near mutiny. Everybody in town was pointing fingers, mostly at each other and it was all David could do to keep a lid on things.

He sent in crews to work around the clock. He logged a lot of hours himself to ensure that all the appropriate locals were fully trained and up to speed. He scheduled extra military police who often did more good just by hauling buckets of water and entertaining bored children than policing the streets. David didn’t know how he would have made it through if Samantha hadn’t been there for him. Despite her full workload, she took care of him. She made sure he ate and had clean and pressed uniforms to wear, demanded he sleep instead of staying up late and doing paperwork. But by the middle of the second week, things were easing off. The power was back on in town and in most of the surrounding countryside. Those areas still without would be up and running in another day or two.

When he finally had a chance to sit back and take stock of the past weeks, he realized with a start that Samantha hadn’t bled yet.

“Could you be pregnant?” he broached the subject one morning when her alarm went off. Switching on a light, he watched her face for a reaction.

Samantha smiled thinly. “Let’s not get excited okay?” she said calmly. But there was an unmistakable light in her eye before she looked away and padded off to the head. “Cycles can be unpredictable. Another couple of days and I’ll be officially two weeks late. I’ll run a test then.” She knew a lot of first pregnancies spontaneously aborted before then but she wasn’t about to share that with David. He followed her and sat on the closed toilet seat while she stepped into the shower. “We’ve been having sex a lot and that’s a whole new set of variables and, well, pounding for my body,” she said bluntly, almost talking to herself as she washed her hair. She laughed softly. “I’m surprised I haven’t come down with a raging case of cystitis the way we’ve been going at it.”

Not sure what she was talking about and not really sure he wanted to, David kissed her good-bye and went back to bed to grab another hour of sleep before getting up for the day.