Close Quarters

by Lucy Monroe

  Their bodies rocked together and she yanked at his shirt, desperately needing to touch bare skin. When her fingers pressed into rock-hard abs, he yanked his mouth from hers to suck in a deep breath and let out a dark curse in what she was pretty sure was Ukrainian. Though it wasn’t one she’d heard before from his siblings.

  Mewling like a needy cat, she chased his mouth, but had to settle for his neck, kissing and nuzzling him as she took in his scent on a primitive level she couldn’t begin to explain. Had her years in Africa brought her closer to the primal woman at her core? She’d never thought so, but what else could explain the way she responded to him on such an atavistic level?

  “Damn, this is going too fast.” The chagrin in his tone was tempered by an endearing confusion. Roman Chernichenko was not used to being out of control.

  She was glad she was not the only one reacting so strongly.

  “No.” She fiercely shook her head. “Not fast enough.”

  But he was pushing her away from him. “It’s too open here.”

  She looked around them. Typical of the savannah, there was nothing but long grass between them and the compound. In the slowly falling twilight, anyone with decent eyesight could be watching. This time of year, full dark came late, which was why she’d been leading him someplace they could be alone, away from interested eyes and ears. Living in the compound was like living in a small village and gossip was just as rife.

  She had no desire to be the subject of it.

  “You’re right.” She turned and started walking again. If she didn’t, she was going to throw herself back into his arms. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  They’d been walking about five minutes in what she hoped was mutual impatient-to-get-there silence, when he asked, “So, where are we going?”

  “My favorite thinking spot. It’s a good place for solitude, away from people anyway.” There was a stand of baobab trees about twenty minutes’ walk from the compound, their huge multilayered trunks creating the closest thing to real privacy she’d been able to find.

  “You aren’t alone right now,” he pointed out, as if she could miss his six feet, five inches of walking musclebound sex.

  “I don’t want to be.” What she wanted was to be alone with him.

  “I’m glad to hear that. If you did, it would put a serious cramp in my plans for the evening.” His deep voice was laced with sexy humor.

  She doubted he needed the affirmation, but she gave it to him anyway. “Mine too.” And how.

  When they reached the trees, she didn’t pretend a shyness she was not feeling. She quickly laid the blanket over a soft spot of ground where she’d taken a nap more than once. Dropping the condoms she’d gotten from the clinic on one corner, she turned to face Roman.

  His steel-gray gaze devoured her with tactile intensity. “I want you.”

  “Yes.”

  “You want me too.”

  She nodded, her throat suddenly too tight to speak.

  He shrugged out of his shoulder holster and carefully laid it near the small pile of condoms. He made no comment about the fact she’d grabbed more than one. So, she’d been thinking ambitiously. She didn’t think that with Roman Chernichenko she would be disappointed.

  She started to unbutton her top, but he shook his head. She gave him a questioning look.

  “I want to do it.”

  That sounded really, really good. She let her fingers fall away from the button.

  He smiled, his expression all too easy to read for once. For the next few hours, she was his.

  She’d show him it went both ways, but she wasn’t about to reject his desire to undress her. The very thought added to the moisture in her panties and that was a good thing as far as she was concerned.

  He peeled off his T-shirt and dropped it on the corner of the blanket opposite the condoms and his weapon. He un-buckled his utility belt and removed it, once again putting it in easy reach near his shoulder holster.

  He unbuttoned and unzipped his camo fatigues, but did not push them down his hips. “Come here.”

  “You’re going to leave your pants on?”

  “As isolated as this spot may feel, we are not in a secure location. I cannot undress completely in case I have to protect you.” He said it as if thinking of their safety first came naturally, which she was sure it did. The idea that he’d played out possible scenarios in his head and determined staying partially dressed was the best course of action was a little disconcerting though.

  They were so different, but that wasn’t even what had her most concerned right now.

  “But, how?” She couldn’t wrap her mind around the logistics. She hoped he had, because she was not giving in to her desire for a temporary connection for nothing more than mutual masturbation.

  He smiled, the expression so darn sensual, her knees about buckled. “Don’t worry, liúba, we’ll use those condoms, every last one of them, but I won’t be naked.”

  She’d heard Mat call Chantal that once. Tanya hadn’t asked what it meant; it had been obvious. It was some kind of Ukrainian endearment. It didn’t really matter if it was closer to sweetheart than honey. The point was, Roman had just used it on Tanya.

  And her stupid heart clutched at his doing so. She could not afford to forget this was just sex. Nothing lasting. He’d made sure she knew that, even if part of her wished it could be more.

  “What about me?” she asked to get her mind off that particular scary amusement park ride.

  “Oh, you’ll be nude, all right.” He was clearly deeply satisfied by that fact.

  She cocked her head, giving him a frown she wasn’t sure she really felt, but she felt like she had to give at least a token protest. “That’s not fair.”

  “I’ll change your mind.”

  “You’re arrogant,” she said, but she was smiling.

  “Nope.”

  “Let me guess, it’s not arrogance because your confidence is justified.” She waited for him to say something cocky like he’d never had any complaints, but he didn’t.

  He just smiled again. And darned if it didn’t work.

  She crossed the distance between them without feeling the ground beneath her feet or hearing her own footsteps. She felt as if she was in an altered state of reality and yet, she was wholly there. With him. But only him. Nothing else registered to her senses. Only his presence. The tall, muscular strength of him, the subtle masculine scent that was his alone, the dark predator that lay beneath his gorgeous masculinity.

  He removed her blouse first, his eyes dilating with lust at the sight of her simple cotton bra holding in curves that she’d never considered much to write home about. He traced the edges of the undergarment, raising gooseflesh wherever his fingertips went. “Sexy.”

  “Don’t make fun.”

  He cupped her chin and met her gaze, his oh-so-intense. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t need barely there lace to tantalize a man. Right now, I’m so turned on, I could pound nails with my dick at the thought of seeing your hard little nipples for the first time.”

  “How do you know they’re small?” she challenged, wondering if it made a difference to him. Though her breasts were not large, her nipples weren’t proportionate, the areolas the size of silver dollars. She’d always felt funny about that, like she was not as feminine as she could be. It had made her modest in the girls’ locker room at school.

  Quinton had never commented one way or another, but he hadn’t been all that interested in foreplay. Their life in the Peace Corps had not lent itself to lots of private free time together for prolonged lovemaking.

  “Are they?”

  “Take off my bra and find out.” After her years providing medical care to people of all shapes and sizes, she’d outgrown any serious self-consciousness she had about her anomaly.

  It seemed silly to worry about not looking like a center-fold model when she’d treated children born with defo
rmed limbs and adults left horrifically scarred by violence.

  A sexy laugh accompanied the flick of knowing fingers that unhooked her bra faster than she had ever done. Grasping her straps in each hand, he tugged, peeling the cotton away from her B-cups.

  His smile grew when he saw her already erect peaks. More like frozen raspberries than eraser nubs, they tightened almost painfully under his heated gaze. Would he touch them? Sometimes she did, when she was self-pleasuring in her bed at night. It always made her climax faster. But the other couple of men she’d tried to have relationships with hadn’t been any more interested in exploring her breasts than Quinton had.

  “Delicious.” Roman’s deep voice made the word sound dirty.

  Chills shivered through her and, despite her more mature view of her own body, she had to concentrate on keeping her arms at her sides and not hiding her breasts like a shy virgin.

  “I bet they’re sensitive too.” He didn’t wait to test his theory, immediately brushing his knuckles over the very tips.

  Moaning, she swayed forward. It was so different having someone else touching them, even that brief a caress.

  “Sukin sin,” he growled.

  Breathless from the touch, she forced out a whispered, “What?”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “Not a son.”

  “I know. Damn, don’t I know?” He sounded as affected as she felt.

  And she liked it. She wanted to affect him as deeply as he did her. She wanted to smile, but licked her suddenly dry lips instead.

  Without warning, he swept her up in his arms and carried her to the blanket. With an animalistic sound from deep in his throat, he laid her down on the side with the condoms and his weapons.

  “You are so damn sexy.” It sounded like more an accusation than a compliment as he leaned down to crash his lips to hers.

  The feel of his hard chest against her already sensitized nipples wrenched a cry from her that the kiss could not quite stifle. She grabbed his shoulders, rubbing herself back and forth, almost crying with delight at the sensation of his silky chest hair abrading her hard peaks. The abundant dark curls felt so good against her body.

  He slid his mouth from hers, brushing along her cheek and down her nape. “You’re something else.”

  “Something good?”

  “Something fantastic.”

  “I’m glad.” Her breath caught as his mouth did something incredible right where her neck and shoulder joined. Oh, man, that was going to leave a mark. And she didn’t mind. She might never admit it, but the idea added another layer to the out-of-control desire bombarding her every sense. “You are too,” she gasped. More than fantastic. “There are no words.”

  He tipped his head up and grinned at her, his expression not making any sense in her overheated brain. “Told you.”

  “What?”

  “You aren’t going to mind me keeping my fatigues and boots on.”

  Heck, he was so amazing, she didn’t think she’d notice if he painted his face black and put his gun back on, but she wasn’t about to admit that. “I’ve still got my pants on. We’ll see when I’m naked,” she taunted.

  “Oh, yes, we will, moyá prekrásnyy liúba.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He shook his head, looking like he’d rather not say.

  She just waited, not moving, now more interested than she thought possible in the translation.

  “‘My beautiful sweetheart,’” he gritted out finally. “Happy?” He said something else in Ukrainian, but she didn’t ask him what that meant. She had a feeling she did not want to know.

  She did smile, however, figuring it was safe because he was now focused on divesting her of her walking shoes and the rest of her clothes as efficiently as possible. The efficient movements, if not the sense of urgency, stalled once she was bared to his gaze. He rocked back on his heels and just looked. He didn’t say anything, but his heated gaze said enough to have her breath growing shallow and the moisture between her legs increasing.

  Finally, he reached out and ruffled the curls over her mound. “So pretty.”

  “Yes?” She’d read lots of women shaved or waxed nowadays. That wasn’t practical when water restrictions limited her showers to single-digit minutes in the morning.

  “Oh, yeah. Vrodlývyy,” he said in a guttural tone, deep with need. “That means ‘beautiful’ by the way, Miss Curiosity.”

  His obvious and declared admiration made it easy for her to acquiesce when he pushed her thighs apart to reveal her most private flesh to his gaze. She shivered when he cursed reverently.

  She would have said something, she wasn’t sure what, but all the air in her lungs deserted her. She didn’t know men could find that part of her body exciting to look at as well as touch.

  Only he touched too, gently rubbing her labia with his thumbs. “You’re nice and wet.”

  “You’re hard.” There was no missing the oversized beef-stick pushing against the front of his camos. “We’re even.”

  One finger slipped inside her, curving up and rubbing a rich bundle of nerve endings he seemed to find by divine instinct. “Are we?”

  She yelped and arched upward, hoping he took that as the encouragement it was and not a sign to stop. She hadn’t known that spot was there. Oh, she’d heard about the female G-spot, who hadn’t? She’d thought she didn’t have one though, but she’d been wrong. So gloriously wrong. He seemed just as adept at reading her reactions as he was at touching her body because he did it again. And again…and again. Afraid to lose the oh-so-perfect stimulation, she tried to hold her body still, even though her muscles wanted to jerk in response to the sharp pleasure.

  Warm wetness spread from his finger down his hand and he used it to lubricate her nether lips and the pleasure spot at the top. She sighed with luxurious delight, her body tipping toward the touch, no matter how much she tried not to move.

  “Like that?” he asked, no doubt in his voice about her answer.

  She garbled out something that should have been “yes,” but sounded more like a yowl as his thumb slid over her clitoris once again. She was more than a little glad they hadn’t tried to do this on the down-low in one of the medical exam rooms, or something. She’d never been a screamer, but she sensed that was about to change. She’d already made more noise than during any other sexual experience she’d had before.

  “I want to touch you,” she panted out between moans and other sounds she wasn’t sure how to translate.

  He pushed his pants down just far enough to free his massive erection. “Touch away.”

  She had to look first. She reached out without quite connecting. “It’s darker than the rest of you.” Quinton hadn’t been. “I didn’t know it could be.”

  He shrugged. “It’s the way I am made. You are darker there too, your intimate lips a pretty dark raspberry that matches your succulent nipples.”

  Heat filled her face. “Stop it.”

  “What? Telling you how beautiful you are?”

  “You’re…I…men don’t talk about that, do they?”

  “I don’t know what other men do.” And his tone said he didn’t care either.

  “It’s embarrassing.”

  “It’s hot.”

  “Yes,” she had to agree with a soft breath.

  “You said you wanted to touch?”

  She nodded, her heart hammering.

  “Then do it, sweetheart.”

  She nodded again, this time her hand reaching out, her fingertips just barely brushing him. The brief feel of the heated silk over steel drove her need higher and she wrapped her hand around his hard flesh. They both groaned. That was going to feel so good inside of her. He was big, but not so huge it was going to hurt. He was thick, but not too thick. Some latent feminine instinct told her that despite the fact she’d never been made love to by a man of his size, it was going to feel absolutely wonderful.

  Rubbing up and down in slow strokes, her fingers not quite meeting ar
ound the circumference of his hard sex, she reveled in the heat emanating from him. “Very nice.” Her voice came out low and harsh, as if she had a cold, but she was anything but ill right now.

  In fact, she’d never felt so vibrantly alive.

  He just made an inarticulate sound and threw his head back as she continued to caress him. His fingers were still busy between her legs. He’d slid a second one inside her as his thumb continued ministering to her clitoris, but the jerky circles he made with it gave testament to the effect her hand on his penis had on him.

  “Want to be in you,” he ground out, thrusting into her hand.

  She’d been ready since their first kiss. “So, do it.”

  “Yes.” He reached for the condom and donned it with practiced ease, despite the tension holding his body rigid. Then he got his forearms under each of her thighs, lifting up until her bottom rested above his knees as he knelt between her obscenely spread legs. She couldn’t keep her hold on his erection in this position and she had to let it slip from her hand.

  She didn’t have time to lament the loss as his blunt head pressed against her core. Showing no strain in his muscles, he pulled her body to meet his, sliding her farther up his thighs. It was not a position where she could move much, but she didn’t mind.

  Every centimeter he slid in deeper was an excruciating parade of pleasure along her senses. Pushing inexorably forward, he continued to pull her toward him until her bottom was flush with his body. She was filled with him, surrounded by him, and nothing else could exist for her at that moment. It felt almost spiritual.

  “Don’t move,” she pleaded. She needed to experience this moment fully, to wallow in a sense of connection unlike anything she had ever even dreamed of.

  “You’re tight,” he said with a grimace.

  “No.” She shook her head, looking for the necessary words. “It’s right.”

  His eyes closed for a long second and when they opened again, the heat in them would have burned her if she was not living, breathing flame already.

  Their gazes locked and he pulled back, leaving her feeling empty, the firestorm of need inside her demanding more, demanding him. She made a sound of protest, the insistence of her need lacing her voice and bringing a wince of near pain to her face.