by Leila Haven
We waited, holding our breath in the stifling heat, until we were given our orders. Corporal Rafter was a smart man, it was the right decision lying to the major to ensure he kept his promotion.
“How many doors?” he asked.
“One at the front, one at the back, and another at the side. Three in total,” Simon replied. He was one of the youngest of our group, only a year older than myself. His experiences in the field were already starting to show on his face.
Rafter nodded. “One team at each door, the last will wait outside and move to where the most noise is. We go in and secure the men. Only shoot if it is really necessary. Remember, there are sick people inside. They might be the enemy but they are still ill.”
Everybody moved into formation and waited for the signal to go inside. Rafter gave it and we moved in. The moment we encountered the enemy their guns were trained on us, firing at will.
They weren’t going to give up lightly. Gunfire roared through the building, coming from everywhere all at once. Words were shouted in Dari, causing more men to emerge from other areas to assist in the fight.
Rafter and I moved together, shoulder to shoulder as we led the way with bullets. It wasn’t our preferred method but there was little else we could do with the onslaught.
Eventually, it was too much. There were dozens more terrorists than our intel had said. We were far outnumbered, outgunned, and we needed to get the hell out of there.
“Fall back! Fall back!” Rafter screamed. We backed out, never taking our eyes from the enemy as we did. They never stopped firing, making my ears ring with all the noise.
“That was a fucking disaster,” he swore as we regrouped in an alleyway. He kicked the wall with frustration as the other groups started to arrive. “Is anyone injured?”
Watson shrugged a shoulder, showing a red patch of bare flesh. “Bullet grazed me. Nothing a little vodka won’t fix.”
“You should go back to base,” Rafter said. He wiped at the sweat on his face. “I’ll call in a medic transport.”
“Don’t worry about it, it’s nothing,” Watson insisted before his face split into a grin. “You should see the other guy.”
“We’ll move onto target number two and come back to this one when we’ve got more men.” Rafter issued the order and everyone started moving. We all walked a little more shaken than earlier.
As we walked through the town, the silence was eerie. When people heard gunshots around this part, they ran for cover. It didn’t matter which side was firing.
Evidence of people living their ordinary lives in the area were starkly apparent. A children’s playground had a swing still moving even though its child had run away. A supermarket had closed its door and locked up, the open sign still swinging.
We were silent as we stalked through the streets, always watching for the stray bullets that could be fired our way.
Three blocks from our destination and our paranoia proved to be rational. A volley of bullets kicked up the dirt in front of us, sending us scattered for cover. We ducked into a small building, the door hanging from its hinges.
We risked a peek out the window and returned the fire. They were coming from a second-story window just a few houses down. They were firing from behind a curtain, hiding their faces like the cowards they were.
Rafter and I fired back until their bullets stopped. We left the house from the back door and kept moving, wary that the bullets might start again at any moment.
We stopped dead in our tracks.
A woman was lying in the dirt, her chest riddled with bullet holes. She was dressed in the local standard, a long tunic dress that fell to the ground with a headscarf secured neatly around her head. The dress had once been blue, now it was stained red. The groceries she had been carrying were strewn around her – including a jar of baby food.
Her eyes were open and staring ahead, eternally fixed in place now. Rafter crouched down to check for a pulse but there was too much blood for her to have survived her injuries.
The Taliban had done this to its own people. They had taken her life because she happened to be near us. We were the cause of her death, just another casualty in a war that seemed like it would never end.
“We need to keep going,” Rafter said, breaking through the grief stabbing at my brain. “Someone will find her and do the right thing. They’ll make sure her family is notified.”
“We can’t just leave her here,” I shot back. “She looks so young. She didn’t deserve this. It’s so wrong, we can’t walk away like it never happened.”
“We need to, Kincaid. You can’t see them but her people are all around. The moment it’s safe they’ll come out and deal with the body.”
He pulled me away from my position crouched over her body. I went reluctantly, trying to see the people he promised were there.
The place looked deserted but I knew looks could be deceiving. Rafter had been here before, he knew what he was talking about and he was my superior. As much as I wanted to help, there was nothing more I could do for her. The woman was gone, nothing was going to change that.
No matter how many times I blinked, I couldn’t get her image out of my head. I followed Rafter numbly. A small voice at the back of my mind was screaming at me to harden up, that I shouldn’t show any kind of emotion. I was a member of the US Military, I was supposed to be as hard as steel. People already thought I was weak just because I was female, being this upset over a person I didn’t even know was proving them all right.
I hardened in that moment, pushing all my emotions down until I could function with no hint of feelings being present. I need to be tough, prove to them that I was capable of detaching myself. As hard as it was, I pretended to be unaffected.
*
We went through the rest of the day like we hadn’t failed on that first mission. We fought hard and we did everything we could to contribute to the war effort.
It was only later when I was sitting in the rec room back on base that I felt the wave of emotion rush over me. There was nobody around, just me and one television set that only played white fuzz.
The tears started welling in my eyes as I remembered that woman. I imagined the baby and family that were waiting for her to arrive home and the fact she never would.
I imagined all the other people in the village. The child that had fled from the playground, running away from the gunfire like he’d been told. The shopkeeper that had closed his store and waited behind the metal door until it was safe to reopen again.
Their world was dangerous and it all seemed so pointless. My cheeks were wet from my tears as I silently sobbed.
I didn’t hear footsteps until it was too late.
I had been caught.
Chapter 9
Matt
҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉
Walking around base, I tried to convince myself I wasn’t looking for Kincaid but I knew it was a lie. We all had a rough day and I wanted to check on her, to make sure she was okay before I’d be able to sleep that night.
Going through what we had earlier that day was difficult for even the most hardened of soldiers and this was only her first tour of duty. I told myself I would have done this for any new recruit but I knew that was a lie too.
I found her in the rec room alone. Her shoulders were slumped forward and her body shook in small spasms. It didn’t take a genius to work out that she was crying.
This was exactly the reason why women shouldn’t have been allowed to be on the frontline. They had emotions, feelings that made them more delicate than a soldier needed to be. I didn’t want Kincaid to go through that. I had wanted to protect her from it so she would never know the nightmares soldiers lived with their entire lives. The night terrors lasted a lot longer than a career in the military did.
I sat on the sofa next to her. “You want to talk it over?”
Her head snapped up as she quickly wiped her face, trying to remove traces of her tears. Her eyes were puffy, nothing was going to remove evi
dence of her sorrow. “No, I don’t. I’m fine, just had something in my eye, that’s all.”
The sadness radiated from her, making my heart ache in a way it hadn’t in a long time. “It’s okay to be upset. It was difficult out there today.”
“I told you, I’m fine,” she insisted. Kincaid might think she could fool me, but that wasn’t going to happen. I could see the determination and the lies in her eyes. I could read her face like a book and it wasn’t telling a good story right now.
I sighed. “I’m only going to say this once so you better remember it. We need to feel, we need to cry, we need to be compassionate and remember that every death and injury counts. If we don’t, then we’re no better than they are. They have switched themselves off in the pursuit of their evil tirade. We should never flick that switch or it is the end of everything good in the world. Tears are not weak, they remind us that we are still human.”
Her head rose until her eyes seared into me. They were surprised now as well as sad. “Do you really believe that? Or are you just saying it to be nice?”
“You don’t know me very well, but those that do know I don’t say things just to be nice.”
“Will you keep this to yourself?” she asked. “They already think I shouldn’t be here.”
“It’s no one else’s business.” The way she said it made me think she’d been copping some flak from the others. I made a mental note to look out for it. Nobody should have an opinion about her being here, besides me. I needed to watch out for my entire team, everyone else should look out for themselves.
Our eyes locked together momentarily before she looked back away, still ashamed of the tears she had let out earlier.
Kincaid was still in her dirty khaki uniform, dust caked to her skin. Yet she was still the most beautiful woman I had laid my eyes on. Sexy as hell and dangerous too. She was every soldier’s wet dream.
Against all logic and reason, I became physically drawn to her. Slowly at first, but the force pulling me to her got stronger and stronger the closer I got. When she looked back up at me, I lost control. My entire being was swallowed up by the desperate need to kiss her.
In that moment, nothing else seemed as important as knowing how soft her lips were. I pressed mine against hers, feeling the kiss as sparks of passion exploded all around us.
In that single kiss I felt more need and desire than I’d ever felt before. I drew her closer to me, wrapping my arms around her to take her into my embrace. She felt right there, like my arms were always designed to hold her like that.
My cock instantly sprung to life. I usually tried to suppress all sexual urges when on tours, but that was because there wasn’t much to do about it even if I wanted to. But Kincaid… she made those thoughts fly out the window.
I wanted her. So, so much. Her body pressed against mine on the sofa, her hands resting on my chest between us. I could feel the need in her hot kisses, the desire to connect with someone else in this horrible place.
Our tongues merged together as the kiss deepened, becoming the start of something more than just an innocent kiss.
More than anything, I wanted her naked. I wanted to throw her on her back and remove every article of clothing she wore. I didn’t care about the consequences, I didn’t care about our ranking, all I needed was her and that sexy body of hers writhing with mine.
We pulled back from the kiss, breathless. Looking into her eyes, the sorrow had been melted by our fire. They only showed need and desire. Her body was ablaze just as mine was, ready to allow the spark to take us over until we were an inferno of desire.
My hands cupped her boobs through her uniform. They were more than a handful, pert and heaving for me to touch them. I wanted to feel skin-on-skin, experience the heat of her body as it combined with mine.
Her uniform was in the way. I started on the buttons, undoing them one at a time while she looked on. Kincaid was biting on her bottom lip, trying to keep the sexy smirk under control – and failing. I wanted to be the one biting on her lip, sucking it until she moaned with pleasure.
My lips found their way back to hers while my fingers continued on the buttons. She tasted like her salty tears and I wanted to erase all bad memories from her mind. I would have done anything to protect her.
Her hands fumbled for the zipper on my pants. She rubbed at the bulging swell of my crotch, my cock getting harder by the second. If she wanted to unleash my inner animal, I was more than happy to abide.
My cock responded to each of her massaging fingers. My hips rocked against her, making each touch harder and that much more satisfying. It had been too long since I had had any action. I was more responsive than I wanted to be. If we were anywhere else I would take my time with her. We would discover one another’s bodies well into the darkness of the night.
Maybe even into the morning, too.
But I was too tightly wound for that and Kincaid’s kisses were too much for me to handle. I wanted her and I wanted her now. It didn’t matter where we were or what our ranks were, we needed to be together with every inch of our bodies.
She let out a small moan, her lips vibrating as they pressed on mine. I could imagine all kinds of places I would like that mouth. Wrapped around my cock was just the beginning of all the dirty thoughts I had running through my mind.
“This is not how I imagined it,” Kincaid said with a small smile.
“You imagined this?”
Her sexy little cheeks turned rosy red. “It gets lonely at night in the barracks. You can’t tell me you’ve never pictured this moment.”
A crease wrinkled her brow as she worried about her words. I ran a trail of kisses over her forehead to make them go away. “I’ve pictured it before,” I confessed.
Her lower lip tugged out from her teeth before a grin broke out on her face. “I hope reality is better than fantasy.”
“It always is, sweetheart.”
The sound of her breathy giggle was better than music to my ears. My cock swelled harder for her, the woman was able to turn me on with just a glance. I wanted her more than I’d wanted anybody for a long time.
I returned to her top, deftly undoing the remaining buttons until her tits broke free. She was wearing a sensible black bra, shaping her boobs into perfect round globes. I slid my hand into the cup, feeling the weight and softness of her boob for the first time.
With just a flick of my wrist, her boob popped out of the bra. The pert little nipple was free, and as hard as my cock in my pants. There was no way to resist her, my mouth went straight for the tip of her tit, sucking on it until she moaned with pleasure.
My tongue drew circles around the tight bud, giving her a preview of exactly what else I’d like to do with that part of me. Images of Kincaid on her back, her legs wrapped around me and my mouth on her cunt filled my mind. I definitely wanted my tongue to be between her legs and lapping at her sexy juices.
I let her nipple pop out of my mouth, it was shining wet with my saliva. Now I’d had a taste of her, I wanted more. Kincaid was going to be my new addiction. I was already hooked and I hadn’t even been inside of her yet.
Her hands cupped my cheeks, guiding my mouth back to hers. My palm kneaded at her boob, never wanting to let it go while we kissed.
My senses were in overload, Kincaid filling everything I had and making me want more and more. Being next to her wasn’t enough, I wanted to be inside her. I needed to be inside her. My body was calling out for her, driven crazy with desire. She had ignited something within me and now it was too difficult thinking of anything else to go back.
What were we doing still in our clothing? I wanted Kincaid naked, I wanted my skin to feel hers as she pressed against me. Even the few inches we had between us now seemed criminal and too far.
Her hand went back to my cock, encircling the pulsing member and making all the breath leave my lungs. She notched up my arousal by a thousand percent. I definitely needed her now, every single inch of her.
“Sorry.”
Chapter 10
Sasha
҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉
My whole body went cold at hearing another voice. It had only taken a few seconds for everything to come crashing down around me.
Our heads snapped up and around to face the door. Rafter still had his hand holding my boob and there was no way to hide what we had been doing.
Private Simon stood in the doorway, a look of stunned silence plastered across his face. He started backing up before he quickly turned to leave.
“Shit,” Rafter said. His hands left my body as he stood. He was still doing up the zipper of his pants as he ran out of the room. A string of swear words followed in his wake.
It may have been a hundred degrees outside but in the rec room it may as well have been the artic. I shoved my boob back into my bra and redid the buttons on my khaki shirt. Having Rafter run out without saying anything was like being slapped in the face.
Plus, we’d been caught. Simon had copped more than an eyeful and there was no way to tell if he was going to run straight to the major with what he’d seen. We knew there was already a snitch amongst us from breaking protocol the previous day.
Maybe that snitch was Private Simon?
Relationships between soldiers were discouraged, relationships between soldiers in the same troop was forbidden. Too much could go wrong when there were too many emotions involved out in the field.
If someone told my Uncle Arthur about what just happened between Rafter and I, there would be serious consequences. And it wouldn’t be Rafter going home, it would be me. I was the least useful of us.
The major would also have issues with someone touching his dear niece. All the men in my family liked to think I was the innocent virginal type of girl. It didn’t matter that I was twenty-two years old with my cherry popped a few years ago.