“Fuck, Caro!”
But then she strolled back into the bedroom, pulling her hair into a ponytail. “Couldn’t see what I was doing,” she explained, her impassive face hiding a grin.
“There’s going to be payback for this, Venzi,” I warned her.
“Bring it on, Marine.”
She knelt back on the bed and ran her hands over my chest and stomach, then took my dog tags in her mouth and sucked hard.
Damn, she looked sexy doing that. I closed my eyes, breathing in deeply.
My whole body was on fire as she kissed, nipped, bit, licked and sucked her way downwards. When she found a sensitive spot, I couldn’t help bucking my hips, cursing wildly, losing my final shred of control.
“Sebastian, your language!” she teased.
When she ran her tongue down my dick and held my precious man-jewels in her teeth, I stopped breathing altogether. If she didn’t stop soon, this was going to get very ugly.
I may have sent up a prayer of thanks when she released me without injury or maiming, but I wouldn’t say I relaxed because she kissed the tip of my dick and then took the whole all of me in her mouth. It was the mother, father and holy spirit of all blow jobs, and I think she took me from heaven to hell and back again.
She started increasing the speed at the same time she increased the pressure, and I knew I was close. I tried to warn her, but it was too late. I thought I was going to pass out as I shot my wad into her mouth and she swallowed around me. I saw stars, galaxies, whole fucking universes as my heart pounded hard enough to break through my chest.
When I felt strong enough to push against the ton weights that were resting on my eyelids, she was snuggled up on the bed next to me. I swallowed several times before I could speak.
“Jeez, Caro! That was … that was … wow!” I tried to pull her into my arms but realized I was still tied to the headboard. “Are you going to untie me now?”
She shook her head sleepily. “Don’t think so. I like having you as my beck-and-call boy.”
I laughed quietly, then rattled the headboard again. “Seriously, I want to hold you.”
Grumbling to herself, she untied my wrists. I flexed my hands as the blood began to flow again, a tingling sensation shooting up each arm.
“Where did you teach yourself to do that?” I asked teasingly, as she settled back onto my chest.
“Night school,” she said with a yawn.
I laughed and kissed her shoulder. “Is it my turn now?”
“I thought you wanted to take me on a road trip,” she said sleepily
“Yeah, but I could be quick…”
She was definitely considering it and my dick twitched back into life. Bastard never knew when he was beaten.
“I’ll take a rain check,” she said at last.
Wrong answer.
“Okay. In that case, I guess we should get going.”
I started stroking her ass with one hand, and teasing her nipple with the other.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her eyes still closed.
“Nothing,” I whispered, as my hands drifted down and I slipped a finger inside her.
She gasped and her eyes flew open.
“Sebastian!”
My name came out in a long moan.
“Shh, baby,” I said, reaching for another condom.
She wouldn’t let me shower with her afterward, on the grounds that we wanted to leave the hotel before nightfall. She was packing up her suitcase when I finished my shower, although that didn’t stop her checking me out, and yeah, I may have posed for her, enjoying the feel of her eyes on my body again after all these years.
I dressed quickly and watched as she pushed her camera into her bag. That and the laptop she used looked expensive. I guess they were the tools of her trade, but it also showed that she was a serious and successful journalist. I was proud of her for achieving her goals, but it made me wonder what she was doing with me. God, I hoped this wasn’t just a pity fuck.
“Do you want to get breakfast here?” I asked, going for a casual tone. “You didn’t eat anything after lunch yesterday.”
She shook her head.
“No, it’ll take too long. You must know some little café we could stop at? Maybe on the lake?”
“Yeah, okay. But I need to swing by my place first and pick up a few things.”
We headed down to the lobby, and while she went to settle her bill, I collected my bike from the hotel’s underground garage.
Then I drove to the front entrance and lifted the visor as I reached for her suitcase.
“Where are you going to put it?” she asked, her voice bemused.
It was a good thing she traveled light, because I was going to have wedge the suitcase between me and the handlebars. I nodded at her to get on behind me.
It wasn’t exactly legal to travel like that, but we weren’t going far.
When I cut the engine outside my apartment, Caro pulled off her helmet and almost fell sideways off of the bike. I couldn’t help smiling at the chagrined look on her face.
“Nothing to laugh at, Hunter. Just because you’re about a foot taller than me,” she huffed.
“Shrimp,” I said, then had to dodge out of the way as she tried to swat my backside.
“You’re feisty this morning,” I grinned at her. “I think I like it.”
She muttered something I couldn’t hear—probably just as well.
I grabbed her suitcase and opened the door into the hallway.
“Sorry,” I told her, “no lights.”
My apartment was at the top of three flights and I’d chosen it for the view. I didn’t need much, but it occurred to me that it might look a bit bare to her.
“This is it.”
She stepped into the room and gazed around, an oddly blank look on her face. I frowned, trying to see the place through her eyes. The walls were painted white, and my single bed was covered with a USMC-issue blanket and pushed against one wall. Some old paperbacks were resting on the bookshelf and my dress uniform was hanging from a hook on the wall, still inside a drycleaner’s bag.
I had a wooden chair by the window and a chest of drawers next to the door with my iPod and laptop.
I pointed toward the window.
“It’s got a great view.”
Caro walked over to stare out across the tiled rooftops toward the lake.
“Yes,” she agreed softly, “very pretty.”
I shrugged. “It’s all I need.”
She turned away, taking a moment to flick through my books.
I resisted shoving my hands into my pockets. Shit like that got drilled out of you in the Marines, but I felt exposed having her here in my room.
“Still the Conrad fan,” she said, her voice sounding tight, like she was in the grip of some strong emotion.
Because I read Conrad? I know ‘Heart of Darkness’ isn’t exactly a chuckle a page, but it’s a classic, right?
“You should get yourself an e-reader,” she said, trying to find a normal tone of voice. “The whole of Conrad’s oeuvre for two bucks.”
I was reaching under the bed for my overnight bag, so my voice came out muffled.
“Yeah, I guess I should—if I knew there’d always be somewhere to charge it up when I’m in some shithole Stone Age village.”
I was being polite, but an e-reader would have been fucking useless for me when I was in Iraq or Afghanistan. With the kind of jobs I was given, I didn’t get to go back to the main camp at night; I’d be in some godforsaken village, eating air-dried goat, and trying to persuade some village elders to work with us. I could be gone for weeks at a time. And even some of the guys who got stationed in the ass-end of nowhere like Helmand Province where I was going next, they could be there for months. No laptops or skype chats, just 20 minutes of sat-phone home a week, if you were lucky. Not that I’d ever had anyone to call. Most of the time I gave up my minutes to one of the married guys. It was hard enough to keep a relationship going when you were overseas.
I tossed my bag on the bed, then pulled a bunch of my t-shirts out of the drawers, along with skivvies and a couple of pairs of socks.
“What happened to all the colors?” Caro blurted out suddenly.