Her fingers followed her eyes, stroking softly over my skin, and my eyes fluttered closed as she dropped a soft kiss onto the head of my dick.
She reached for a condom, tore the packet open and slowly rolled it down. I sat next to her on the bed and carefully pulled out the hairpins she’d used to pile her long hair onto her head. As each curl of hair fell down, I kissed it, tangling it around my fingers, then gently angling her head back so I could kiss the soft skin of her throat.
This wasn’t like me—or not like the guy I’d been for the last six years. While I wouldn’t say I was ‘wham bam, thank you, ma’am’, when I was on a mission, I liked to go in hard. But now … even though we’d been together for four days, each time felt like new, like I was new. It was fucking terrifying, but amazing, too.
My hands traveled slowly across her body, pausing to unhook her bra, sliding the straps over her shoulders, before leaning down to kiss her full tits, running my tongue around her nipples, teasing them into rigid points.
She stretched out on the bed, her hands above her head, and I raised myself up on my arms so I hovered over her, my dick begging to sink inside that hot, sweet pussy. I moved lower, running my tongue along the edge of her panties, rubbing my chin over her mound.
Then I pulled her panties down quickly and tossed them over my shoulder.
Her knees lifted, bracketing my hips, running her hands over my arms, tracing my tat with one finger.
My dog tags jingled against her chest, and Caro’s eyes locked on mine as I pushed inside her.
She groaned, lifting her hips so I could slide in even deeper.
I started to move, building up a rhythm, focusing on every emotion that passed across her expressive face. I leaned down to kiss her deeply and I felt her clench around me as I rolled my hips, a growl erupting from my throat. She moaned softly, and I felt her pussy shiver, the first warning flares of an orgasm about to hit.
I started to move faster, and when she dug her heels into my ass, the breath hissed out through my teeth. She whimpered, crying out and digging her nails into my shoulders, clamping her thighs around my waist. My spine flexed and I could feel the small electric shocks spark and race up from my balls to my dick. Then she screamed and her pussy contracted around me hard, forcing an intense orgasm that had me riding her wildly, until a hoarse sound left my throat and my body went rigid, briefly crushing her into the bed.
I tried to catch my breath as I rolled off of her and onto my back, resting one hand across her stomach, needing to keep that contact.
No words had been spoken; there was nothing that needed to be said.
For the rest of that night, we slept, woke briefly, made love and slept again, until dawn and first light turned the ocean from black to silver.
“I love you, Sebastian,” she said as the sun began to rise. “Thank you for giving yourself to me. Thank you for trusting me. Just promise me that you’ll come back safely. Promise me!”
I wanted to. I wanted to promise that everything would be fine, that it was just a walk in the park, but the works died in my throat. I couldn’t lie to her.
“I love you more than air, Caro. Always. Sempre. And I’ll do everything I can to come home to you. I promise you that.”
Sighing, she laid her head on my chest and we slept.
It was late when we woke for the last time, so I ordered an enormous brunch, the kind of pig-out that Caro loved but would never admit to wanting. We sat on the balcony in our bathrobes enjoying the food and the view, both of us ignoring the fact that we had less than 24 hours together before I shipped out.
I don’t know how good of a job we were doing, but we were both trying. We stared at the sea and I held her hand, kissing it softly.
She sighed and glanced at her wristwatch.
“As much as I hate to say it, tesoro, I think we should get going. We’ve got a hell of a long drive ahead of us, or rather you have, and you didn’t get much sleep last night.”
I smiled at the memory. “Yeah, but it was worth it. Anyway, don’t worry, Caro, we’re not taking the bike; we’re flying back from Naples. Our flight is at sixteen-hundred; we’ve got plenty of time.”
“Flying? But what about your bike?”
“Sold it, baby. I can’t take it with me, and they won’t send me back to Geneva after this tour.”
She looked surprised. “When did you organize all this?”
“When we were in Salerno; I didn’t think you’d mind.” I was puzzled by her sharp tone.
“I don’t,” she insisted. “It’s your bike, but I wish you’d told me—it would have been one less thing to worry about.”
Shit. Relationship—sharing—right. “Sorry, baby. I guess I’m just used to doing stuff on my own.”
She frowned and glanced away. “Yes. Me, too. I suppose we’ll just have to practice the whole sharing and communicating thing.” Then her eyes flicked to mine. “I’ll write to you every day, tesoro.”
“Really? That would be cool. I never get mail. Well, Shirley always sends me a birthday card, but that’s about it. Ches is shit at staying in touch. So am I.”
“Well, I will expect an effort from you, Sebastian. Will you be able to email me?”
I pulled a face. “Maybe, I’m not sure. For a few days, but then … I’ll be out of range. Caro, don’t worry if you don’t hear from me regularly.” I paused, watching her expression tighten. “The places they send me, I can be away from the main Base for days, sometimes weeks, in shithole villages, trying to persuade the locals to work with us. Nonmilitary comms is limited. Your letters will catch up with me eventually, but emails … probably not that often.”
“I understand,” she said, her voice calm, overlaying a strong current of emotion. “But in an emergency, what’s the procedure for contacting you?”
Giving her my CO’s number breached about fifty protocols, but if it would reassure her…
“I’ll give you a number you can call but only in a real, fucking emergency, Caro: I’m not supposed to give it out.”
“Okay,” she said softly, then paused. “If … if anything happens that I need to know about, how will anyone know to contact me?”
Shit, I hated talking about this.
“Same as you, Caro. We have to do a call-list—the Emergency Contact Form—who to notify. I’ve been wondering how, I mean, I can’t put you down as ‘Lee Venzi’ or even ‘Caro Venzi’ because they’ll recognize the name; they’ll start in asking questions, and you could be in deep shit.”
Not that it would bother me if people knew about us. Hell, I’d shout it from the fucking rooftops if she’d let me, but she wanted to keep our relationship on the down-low for her career’s sake. I was okay with that, but it sure made things less straightforward.
“What about Carolina Hunter?” she suggested, glancing across as she put the emergency number in her cell. “They’ll just assume I’m a cousin or something; in fact, why don’t you do that? Put me down as a relative.”
I really, really liked that idea.
“Yeah, that would work.” And the sooner she had that name, the better.
She took a shuddering breath and her eyes began to fill with tears. She swiped at them angrily. My girl hated showing weakness, if that’s what it was.
“Hey, baby, nothing’s going to happen to me: I can take care of myself. I’m more worried about you. Reporters get … hurt all the time.”
“I know, Sebastian,” she said harshly, “but I’ll be embedded with a Marine unit from Leatherneck; safest place to be.” Then she gave me a watery smile. “I heard US Marines are tough, and I know for a fact they’re hot. In fact the word ‘embedded’ has me thinking all sorts of interesting things.”
“You stay away from those bootnecks, Caro. They’re a bunch of horny bastards.”
“I’ve noticed! But really, don’t worry about that. I’ve learned to say ‘no’ in even more languages than you.”
We were both trying so hard not to give into the darkness that hovered around us. I took her hand, idly playing with her engagement ring.
“Well, at least they’ll know you’re taken when they see this.” She didn’t reply. “How long do you think you’ll be in Afghanistan?”