Into the Crossfire

by Lisa Marie Rice

  She looked up, once, then looked away. He was watching her, dark eyes fixed on her, unwavering in his attention. Most women wanted their dates to pay attention to them, but this was way beyond first-date vibes. He was a soldier, and he was fixed on her as if she were a mission.

  She’d never been in an enclosed space where the silence had weight and density. The silence felt like a living thing in the cabin, alive and sinuous, thick, snaking around them like an invisible fog.

  It robbed her of breath and, obviously, of all common sense because she found she wanted to jump Sam Reston’s bones. It was hard to think of a more un–Nicole-like thought, but there it was.

  He exerted a pull she’d never felt before, though it was true she’d never gone out with anyone like him before, either. Her dates up until now had been elegant metrosexuals. Certainly not big and tough like Sam, incapable of playing those sophisticated man-woman games she was so good at. Sam didn’t hide his desire in any way. He wasn’t playing in any way. It was as if his desire were a huge emery board, filing away a layer of her skin until she was rubbed raw.

  She chanced another glance up at him then away again, fast. He was still focused on her, jaw muscles jumping, eyes narrowed into slits.

  Her heart jumped and she had to remember to breathe.

  Nicole stared blindly at the door panel because if she looked at him again, she’d move toward him or reach out to touch him and he looked like he was barely controlling himself. She barely had herself under control. When the doors swooshed open, Sam put a hand to her back and her knees nearly buckled.

  A large well-lit expanse of highly-polished hardwood floor stretched out left to right. At each end of the corridor were huge plate-glass floor-to-ceiling windows filled with a crimson glow. One side of the building gave out over the ocean, the other side onto the bay.

  Sam took her elbow and moved them right, walking them down to the end of the corridor.

  Nicole’s heart was pounding. There wasn’t going to be an hour of sipping whiskey and listening to music while she leisurely decided whether she wanted to take the next step. Once inside his apartment, they were going straight to bed, she could feel it.

  Sex pulsed around him like an almost visible aura. As they walked, their eyes met at the same time, then Nicole’s gaze slid away. It was too intense. She was burning up.

  She could feel everything, every inch of her body. She was as aroused as she had ever been in her life, after one kiss, the only physical contact his big hand on her elbow.

  All she could hear were her own heels, clickety clacking over the hardwood floor, in time with her trip-hammering heart. Sam moved utterly silently, like a huge, dark wraith.

  They reached a door on the left-hand side, the side that looked out over the ocean.

  He swiped a card down a slot and put his hand on a panel by the side of the door. The panel flashed green and slid open to reveal a keypad. Sam punched in five numbers and with a soft whirring of precision machinery, the door slid into the wall.

  Straight ahead was a corridor of broad light-colored maple planks opening onto a large living area. The back wall was glass panels giving out onto a balcony, the sea darkly purple in the distance.

  Nicole stood on the threshold, suddenly unable to make a move. Sam stood beside her, waiting.

  She looked up at him, dismayed, unable to step forward, unable to go back. Her knees shook. She was suddenly seized with an attack of nerves. Everything about this felt new and scary.

  Somehow, he understood. He was so worked up he had an erection like a hammer in his pants, but he didn’t push her over the threshold or take her elbow and walk her through.

  He didn’t move.

  “Welcome.” The deep voice was soft as he gestured with his arm at the open doorway. He said nothing more, simply waited for her. The unspoken message was very clear. Stepping into his home had to be her choice.

  Trembling, feeling as if she were stepping through an invisible barrier into another life, Nicole entered.

  The house smelled good—of clean textiles and lemon polish and the sea breeze coming in from an open window, white cotton curtains billowing with the wind coming off the ocean.

  A hiss, a metallic whump behind her and the door was closed and locked.

  She was in.

  She was going to do this.

  Oh yes.

  The next second her back thumped against the door and Sam Reston’s entire weight was against her as he kissed her wildly. Not the fragile, tentative kiss in his car. Oh no, this was as if he were trying to inhale her, while punching his skin through hers. A deep kiss, wild, going on forever.

  Oh God, his taste! Like a fresh mountain stream pumped full of male hormones, calculated to drive any woman wild. His mouth ate at hers, coming at her from various angles, as if one weren’t enough. And it wasn’t.

  Her bag plopped to the floor, followed by her jacket.

  Nicole could now hold him to her heart’s content, though “holding” was a bland term for what she really wanted to do—crawl into his skin, feel every inch of that hard, delectable body, not with her fingertips but with her whole being. She twined her arms around his neck and arched her back. His chest muscles were so cut, she could feel them through his jacket, shirt, and her dress and bra, hard, ropy ridges of muscle, moving against her. Nicole astonished herself by rubbing against him, for the sheer pleasure of it, and because she was burning up and he seemed to be the only thing that could extinguish the fire.

  His penis was hot and hard and huge against her belly and she could feel the pulses running through it against her skin. She tightened her hips, rubbing herself against him, and heard him moan in her mouth. Sam crouched and lifted her with an arm across her bottom, aligning his penis with her mound. She ground against him and the answering pulse of his penis against her made every muscle in her body contract.

  Sam growled and leaned into her even more heavily, mouth grinding against hers, hips grinding against hers…

  It was unthinkable that there be anything separating them. It was as if they both came to that conclusion together, at the very same instant. She reached up, swept his jacket off those broad shoulders. Her shaking fingers tugged at his tie and before it floated to the ground, she was at his shirt buttons, freeing the round bits of plastic from the eyeholes, pulling the tails out from his pants. She couldn’t take off his shirt because his hands were on her bottom, holding her up, so the shirt fell off his shoulders just enough for her to feel the curly chest hairs and hard muscles of his chest against her. It was maddening that she still had the barriers of her dress and bra between them. She ached to feel him, hard to soft. Absorb some of that strength and heat through her skin.

  Sam’s callused hands ran up her thighs, bringing the skirt of her dress up, until he touched her panties. Her very expensive, mauve silk panties which she expected he’d let slither down her legs, like in some perfume ad, once he let her feet touch the floor again.

  What happened next happened so fast she couldn’t follow the movements. A ripping sound, a zipping sound, rough fingers opening her up and—oh my God!—he was in her, impossibly hard, impossibly hot, deeper than anyone had ever been before.

  They were both frozen, Sam embedded in her while she struggled to accommodate him. She wriggled a little and he surged inside her, so deep the sensitive tissues of her flesh could feel his wiry pubic hairs.

  She was filled with sensory input. His penis, buried inside her, his two hard hands holding her bottom, skirt now up to her waist, ruched over his arms, his hard broad chest pinning her against the wall…

  Thunk! Sam’s forehead hit the wall beside her.

  “Condom,” he groaned, panting like a maddened bull. A muscle twitched in his cheek. He groaned again and she felt his body stiffen, start to pull out.

  No!

  “Pill,” she gasped and his entire body jerked.

  “Oh man,” he breathed. “Bareback.” He pulled out slowly, went back in, an exploratory st
roke and groaned. “You feel like a glove.”

  “Mm.” Nicole hardly had the breath to respond. He was hot inside her, her entire lower body glowed with heat, but he wasn’t moving. She understood quite well what he was doing—giving her time to adjust to his size. No question, he had a champ of a member there, certainly the biggest she’d ever come across. But he needed to use it, the dummy, instead of simply waiting for her. What did he want? A sign? She’d give him a sign.

  Nicole turned her head slightly, nose against his cheek. He smelled so delicious. He’d clearly shaved but there was a slight bite of growing beard against her face as she rubbed her cheek against his. Tentatively, she licked him. She’d been wanting to do that all evening, just to see what he tasted like.

  Delicious.

  At the touch of her tongue, Sam jerked, but he still held himself quietly inside her, breathing heavily. She wriggled a little and he jumped inside her, there was no other word for it.

  She’d started taking the pill several months ago upon doctor’s orders, when stress had caused her to miss several periods. She’d never taken it while sexually active. This was the first time she felt a man’s penis inside her without a latex barrier and it was…wonderful. Intense, almost unbearably intimate.

  She opened her mouth and bit him, a sharp nip along his jaw, and it galvanized him.

  His big body jerked and he started pounding in her, hard deep strokes which were possible only because she was wet with excitement. The whole evening had been foreplay.

  His entire heavy weight was pressed against her, mouth on hers, hips jackhammering. Not the polite, regular strokes of a first-time lover, sounding out what the woman liked. No, these were out of control movements of a man using his entire strength and…she loved it. He must have felt that because, impossibly, he picked up the tempo, moving in and out of her so fast it was a miracle she didn’t go up in smoke from the friction.

  It was amazing, and a degree of excitement impossible to sustain. Inside a few minutes, Nicole froze, every muscle in lock-down, as she felt her orgasm approaching, like a thunderstorm on the horizon. She stopped breathing, eyes closed, totally concentrated on where he was pounding into her with hard, heavy strokes. One particularly deep thrust and…oh! Her entire body convulsed, vagina tightening around him, arms and legs clinging tightly, wanting to feel him as close as possible.

  Her breath came out in a low, ragged moan, stuttering in time to his sharp thrusts, faster now and harder, until he swelled inside her and exploded.

  Oh my God! She could feel the jets of semen splashing against her supersensitive walls, a hot, rhythmic wash inside her, unlike anything she’d ever felt before, so exciting it prolonged her orgasm. She tightened around him in an erotic rhythm that matched the pulses of his own orgasm, the feeling so intense she nearly blacked out.

  It had been like running a marathon. Nicole’s head batted back against the wall because she didn’t have the strength to keep it upright. Her arms dropped, unable to cling to those broad shoulders anymore. Her legs were still around his hips, but they were trembling.

  Her entire groin area was wet and the smell of sex rose, sharp and earthy, from where they were joined.

  “Oh,” she breathed, unable to form anything more coherent.

  “Yeah,” Sam grunted. “I know. Hold on tight, honey.”

  What…? Oh. Sam tightened his grip on her bottom, pulled them away from the wall and walked them through the house, still joined. He was still rock hard inside her, as if he hadn’t climaxed at all, rubbing against her incredibly sensitive tissues as he carried her.

  He was kissing her, carrying her as if she were weightless, straight into the bedroom. There was still a little light outside and she opened her eyes enough to get an impression of space and Spartan order, then he kissed her again and the outside world was gone.

  She had no idea how he did it, but when he eased her down on the bed, they were both naked. He was still inside her, and now he was on top with his full weight bearing down on her. It was so delicious, feeling his hard muscles against hers, chest hairs rubbing against her breasts. He opened strong, hairy thighs, opening her own legs much wider, and slid even more deeply inside her.

  He nuzzled her ear with his nose, dropped light kisses all over her face and neck. In between kisses he whispered to her.

  “That was too fast, I’m really sorry. I want you to know that I do have some moves in me, just not right now.”

  She barely heard him, concentrated on where they were touching, on where he filled her. But at the word moves, her vagina contracted around him. His penis lengthened inside her.

  “That’s one of them, right there,” she sighed.

  He laughed, a charming low male rumble. “Oh yeah.”

  He wasn’t moving, allowing her to come back a little to herself. She smoothed a hand over the ball of his shoulder. His skin was so hot and hard. Warm steel. She frowned as her fingers met thick, rough skin. A scar. A round scar.

  Her eyes fluttered open, only to see his an inch away. Deep, dark eyes, staring into hers. He wasn’t smiling anymore.

  “Is that what I think it is?” she whispered.

  He gave a short, brusque nod.

  “Are there any others?”

  “Low on my hip, missed vital organs by a hair. Right biceps, flesh wound, but it hurt like hell.”

  She touched each one as he mentioned them. The wound low down on his hip was big, ugly, with thick ridges of scar tissue. She frowned as he kissed her.

  “You had a really lousy surgeon.”

  He shook his head, nipped her jaw. “Field dressing. We were way out to hell and gone. Took me a week to get back to a hospital. Navy offered plastic surgery, but frankly, I never want to see another needle again in my life.”

  Nicole stroked his sides. He hadn’t led a charmed life, this man. He’d walked into danger, probably more times than he could ever tell her. A few inches to the left or right, and he’d have bled out. She’d never have met him, never have realized what her body was capable of feeling.

  Lifting her head a little, she kissed him, gently. As if he were still hurting from his wounds. Sam took control of the kiss immediately, mouth open over hers, tongue stroking hers in time with the strokes of his hips.

  He began moving heavily in her, faster and faster, and she curled her hands under his arms, holding on to his shoulders for dear life. Sam wrenched his mouth away from hers with a gasp and buried his face in her hair and she closed her eyes and arched her neck.

  He was right. They couldn’t kiss right now. It was too much.

  Sam lifted her knees, moving impossibly deeper, touching something…Nicole came with a wild cry, clenching tightly around him, shaking and shuddering, sweating, tears leaking out of her eyes, the climax so intense she lost herself for long moments, spinning way out in space, coming back to herself only when Sam grunted and started coming inside her, long, hot spurts of semen bathing her sheath.

  He was moving inside her with enormous ease now. She was incredibly wet, full of his juices and hers. Time stretched, became meaningless.

  He stilled finally while Nicole drifted lazily on waves of pleasure. She was incredibly sweaty, but it was more his sweat than hers. Their chests were stuck together, she discovered as she pushed at his shoulders. Her entire groin area was sopping wet, including her thighs. Her vagina was sore, super-sensitized. She could feel every inch of his penis, still hard inside her. Her muscles felt lax, unable to work.

  She felt…wonderful. She’d be floating if she didn’t have his enormous weight on top of her. She pushed at his shoulders again and with an aggrieved sigh, he lifted himself up on his forearms and smiled down at her.

  A tiny forelock of dark hair had fallen over his forehead and she reached up a hand to smooth it back.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked and she was about ready to answer, No, of course not, we just ate, when her stomach rumbled, loudly.

  “Apparently, I am.” This was amazing. They’
d had a full meal and yet, consulting her stomach, she realized she was famished.

  Sam dropped a kiss on her nose and pulled out of her. So slowly it was arousing. If that hadn’t done the trick, seeing him standing by the side of the bed naked would have been enough to turn her on.

  Though he was huge, he was lean with it, perfectly proportioned, graceful and strong. And—whew!—hung.

  For the first time, Nicole was able to appreciate his, um, attributes. Amazingly, after coming twice, he was still aroused. His penis, glistening with their juices, a dark suede color, with big veins running up it, nearly reached his navel.

  Sam reached down to encircle her ankle for a second. “I’ll bring you something out on the terrace. We’re going to need some fuel for round two.”

  Sam nearly laughed at her expression. She was ready to call it quits, but he wasn’t. Not even close. He was as revved as he’d ever been in his life.

  Man, just looking at her, there on his bed…like some seventeenth-century painting. Just the colors of her would be enough to wake a dead man. Midnight black hair; porcelain skin; red, red lips, slightly swollen from his kisses. Cherry red nipples, cloud of soft black hair between her thighs.

  She glistened, from her sweat and his. From his come, from her girl juices. She hadn’t moved an inch after he’d pulled out. She looked as if she were fucking some phantom lover—legs bent and apart, so wide open to him he could see the puffy, deep pink tissues of her cunt, arms still outstretched, eyes half closed as if still kissing him. He wanted to climb back onto her, slide right back into her. He wanted that so hard he clenched his fists.

  But she needed food. Sam was used to pushing himself, but she wouldn’t be.

  He watched her as her eyelids slowly lowered until there was only a sliver of that amazing blue, watched as her breathing slowed, watched as the wild heartbeat over her left breast beat less frantically.

  Shit, even looking at her was better than fucking anyone else.

  That was a scary thought. He left it behind and went to the kitchen to scrabble for food. He didn’t cook much but his housekeeper sometimes left him things and there was always fruit.