Captain O'Reilly's Woman - Ashes of Love 1 Read online

  “Why did you come to me?” he asked quietly. RI was a simple gig, really. Just go out and get yourself knocked up. The Army would grant you a leave of absence or modified duties, your choice. Or you could request a sample from an anonymous donor through a medical facility and knock yourself up with a turkey baster. David really hated the direction his thoughts had just taken. He quelled his growing excitement as he waited to find out just why she had come to him.

  Samantha smiled thinly and, for the first time, looked away. “Permission to pace the floor, sir,” she said but there was an unmistakable trace of humor in her voice. Not happy humor, but humor nonetheless.

  David nodded quietly. “Of course, Corporal. Under the circumstances, it’s the least you deserve.” He grinned when her smile widened and he let her take the conversation in the direction she chose. He watched her walk slowly past the front of his desk. Her arms folded beneath her full breasts. Her eyes on the floor in front of her.

  It was a long moment before she spoke. “They probably identified me as an RI candidate when I joined up. Blood tests and screening,” she added, perhaps more for her benefit than his. “I turned nineteen two weeks ago.”

  David nodded but didn’t open his mouth. He knew when her birthday was. He’d almost bought her a card but had forced himself to step away from the display rack and walk out of the canteen before he did.

  “The problem is, sir, that I don’t know...” Her voice dried up and his heart ached for her when she glanced up at him shyly before resuming her pacing. Then she stopped, squared her shoulders and turned toward him. “The problem is in two parts, sir,” she said evenly, rallying her focus with obvious effort. “One, I’ve never been with a man. Two, how do I choose who to father this child I’m supposed to conceive?”

  David blinked. Hard. It took him a moment to find his voice. “You received RI orders and you’re a virgin,” he stated quietly. He had to shift in his chair so his cock, which had suddenly sprung to attention, wouldn’t snap in half.

  “In a nutshell, yes,” Samantha said.

  Oh he really wished she hadn’t used the word nut. Now another part of him was aching. David forced himself to get a grip—on his thoughts and his inappropriate reaction to her.

  She sat down again and, with the tip of a single, slender finger, turned the slip of blue paper in a slow, hypnotic circle on the surface of his desk. “I need someone to talk this through with. I can’t ask my friends—they’re all too young. I can’t ask the other two women in my platoon. They’re both dykes and whenever the conversation turns to anything remotely related to sex, they offer to jump me. And I’m so not going there.”

  David tried to hide his grin and was only partially successful. When Samantha looked back up at him, she caught his look and the corner of her full, delectable mouth turned up. She shrugged lightly. “You were there for me, sir. My first months in the Corps. I’m not trying to brownnose but you’re the best teacher I ever had. And I need...advice. Someone with some life experience behind them to talk this through with. Maybe just to listen to me talk it through. I don’t know,” she added quietly and stopped playing with her orders. She sat back in his guest chair, visibly calming herself and crossing one lean thigh over the other.

  Despite her fatigues, she was still sexy as hell.

  He exhaled slowly...mostly to buy himself time to make sure his voice didn’t break when he spoke. As it was, it came out deeper than usual. “All right,” he agreed quietly. “Tomorrow afternoon? After you finish your rotation in the clinic in town.”

  Jeez would she notice how improbable it was that the squadron commander knew what a second-year Corporal’s work schedule was?

  “Take one of the medic Jeeps and we’ll meet at the deserted sheep farm just off Route Eighteen. I’m assuming here, Corporal, that you’d like to speak in private. Where you won’t have to keep one eye on the clock and the other on the door?”

  Samantha blushed and it was perhaps the loveliest thing he’d ever seen.

  “Yes,” she admitted readily, stood, picked up her orders and replaced them neatly inside her breast pocket. She saluted him, turned on her heel and left when he dismissed her.

  David watched her twitching ass as she walked away, completely unable to stop himself from looking. Not sure he even wanted to.

  * * *

  The next day, just after twelve fifteen, David looked up from the broken-down fence he was perched on. He turned his head toward the sound of gravel crunching beneath slow-moving rubber. The long brim of his standard-issue cap shaded his eyes from the sun and he recognized the unmistakable silhouette of a medic’s Hummer coming round the boarded-up farm house. It stopped beside his olive-drab Jeep. The door opened.

  He had to resist the urge to jump off the fence and take Samantha’s hand and help her down from the over-height vehicle. She didn’t need his help and might interpret it as him saying she wasn’t capable. That and the fact that once he had her hand in his, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep the other one off the rest of her.

  Summoning his discipline, he watched her walk toward him.

  “Nice spot,” she said with forced brightness. “Good choice.”

  He smiled down at her deliberately. “I’m glad you approve, Corporal.” He busted her chops mostly to make her blush and was glad he had. The tightness around her mouth eased instantly and she shook her head.

  They were standing in what had been the farm’s back courtyard—the broad laneway between house and barn. The former screened them and their vehicles from the road. The latter sheltered them from the wind that had started to pick up. He watched Samantha lift her beautiful face to the sun and smile. Then she looked back down and glanced at the box on the ground by his feet.

  “Lunch,” he said, answering her unspoken question. “Figured this conversation might go down a little easier with some of cook’s chow.” He leapt down off the fence. Letting gravity take his weight he landed lightly on his feet then picked up the box and the neatly folded blanket beside it and walked past the barn. Adjusting his pace to Samantha’s, she walked beside him without question.

  “Here good?” he asked a few minutes later. The ground had risen a bit, giving them a view of the deserted farm and fields. The forest was encroaching on what had once been tilled farmland. Now it was a jumble of native plants with a few residual stands of wheat.

  “Yes,” Samantha replied with a calmness that surprised her. She watched her CO spread out the blanket and kneel down on one side of it. The sure movements of his body revealed the heavy muscles in his thighs, the breadth of his shoulders. He opened the box and, as she knelt on the other side, watched him lift out cold roast chicken, a tub of green salad, a smaller tub of pickles. Some rolls, butter and mayo. A big wedge of cheese. A thermos and some packs of fruit juice. Plates and such and two slender bars of chocolate.

  She felt her shoulders go down and the corners of her mouth go up. “Guess it pays to be the CO,” she teased. Her smile widened when Captain O’Reilly tipped his head up to her and she caught a glimpse of his beautiful, laughing eyes.

  They both looked away at the same time. Samantha wondered what the hell she was thinking, acting so familiar around her squadron commander.

  David wondered what the hell he was doing, flirting with a woman under his command. Inviting her for a picnic lunch like they were on a date. But she’d asked for his help. David cleared his throat and turned back to her. “This doesn’t have to be awkward,” he said, keeping his voice as calm and reassuring as he could. “We’re just having lunch—just with a better view than the walls of the mess hall. You talk when you’re ready. I’ll listen. Deal?”

  She turned back to him and his breath caught. Her wide, cinnamon eyes shone with a trust and growing calmness that made him want to reach for her and hold her and whisper stupid things about making sure everything would be okay. He forced his expression to remain unchanged.

  “Deal,” she said quietly and accepted the plate he prepared
for her. She sat up straight, her legs tucked beneath her, and ate with a precision and grace that echoed everything else she did.

  David stretched his long legs out and lay on his side, propped up on one elbow, his plate on the blanket in front of him. They ate in silence, stealing glances at each other but mostly just looking around, enjoying the peace, the isolation, letting it calm and order their thoughts.

  When she was finished and refused the extra helping he offered, David packed up the lunch box, poured tea from the thermos into two cups and handed her one of the chocolate bars. He knew it was one of her favorite foods.

  He watched her roll the bar between her fingers then set it aside. She took a sip of the tea, then another, then slid her legs out from beneath her and stretched them out. Leaning back slightly, she braced her arms behind her and again lifted her face to the sun.

  David just watched her happily. Enjoyed the peaceful vibe that came off her, the quiet intimacy of the time they’d stolen together. But mostly enjoying—for the first time—the opportunity to simply look at her and not worry if anybody saw. If she saw.

  Since the Great War, so many things had changed, especially how men and women hooked up. Age didn’t matter anymore. In fact, it was very common for one partner to be older than the other, regardless of gender. Experience and youth had a way of getting together to sustain society. Wealth or social standing didn’t matter simply because they were things that, for the most part, no longer had any meaning. But the military still required order and discipline to function. Part of that and a part that David had always obeyed faithfully, was that there was no fraternization between ranks.

  “It’s so peaceful here,” she said quietly, finally breaking the comfortable silence between them. “I could almost forget I got that little blue letter.”

  David murmured in quiet agreement. He leaned back on his elbow, waiting for her to continue. Levering one knee up he leaned toward her, just a little.

  “How do I choose?” she asked quite suddenly, glanced down at her body then up at him.

  He held his tongue for a moment, waiting to see if the question was rhetorical. When she didn’t say anything else and kept looking at him, he knew she expected a response. “Choose whom?” he clarified. “The man to teach you about lovemaking or the one to father your child?”

  “Both.”

  “Won’t they be one in the same?”

  David watched her remarkable eyes widen just a little. “I...didn’t think about that. Maybe. I guess.” Sighing loudly, Samantha moved her arms and lay down on her back. She stretched out beside him. For the first time, she removed her khaki-tan cap and his breath caught at the sight of her lustrous hair.

  “No. Maybe they won’t be the same,” Samantha said suddenly and lay her forearm over her eyes.

  David didn’t even try to stop himself from looking at the full length of her body. From her dusty boots to the length of her legs, to the slight gap between the tops of her thighs that made his balls ache. The luxuriant flare of her hips and the sweetly sloping indent that was her abdomen. The solid rise of her ribs. Her breasts and his hand ached to reach for her. He held it firmly in front of himself and looked back up at her face.

  She moved her arm away from her eyes and again propped herself up on her elbows, looking at him intently. “I think I’d like to compartmentalize this. It doesn’t feel so overwhelming when I think of it as two, possibly doable tasks.”

  To give his aching hand something to do, he brushed an imaginary piece of dirt off the blanket then looked back at her. “Fair enough,” he replied non-committaly. David watched her pick up her cup and take a long, deliberate sip of her tea before setting it aside. “Who do you want to pick for the first task? Or more appropriately,” he added when her brow furrowed. “What kind of a man do you want to pick?”

  “Good question. Sir,” she exhaled audibly and lay back down. Her fingertips drew light circles on the surface of the blanket.

  Everything about her was so unconsciously sensual, so utterly female she took his breath away.

  “Somebody I could trust,” Samantha said thoughtfully then glanced over at him. “It’s a pretty, um, intimate experience. Right?”

  “Uh huh,” David nodded quietly, trying to suppress a wry smile and not being entirely successful.

  “Who wouldn’t hurt me. Maybe who knows what he’s doing. But he has to like me,” Samantha added adamantly. “He has to think I’m pretty and not just some easy score.”

  “What man wouldn’t?” David said recklessly.

  She looked up at him. Her eyes were wide and shone in the sunlight.

  “You’re beautiful and smart and everything any man worthy of the name could want.” With a low moan of regret, David flopped down onto his back beside her and drove the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Shit I am so busted for saying that to you.”

  “You...think I’m beautiful?”

  The sound of Samantha’s soft, vulnerable voice brought his head back up. She was on her side now. Leaning toward him. So close that he could smell her warmth. Soap. The sweet tea on her breath.

  He swallowed convulsively. “Double shit on a stick,” he murmured anxiously. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “Like...what?” she asked nervously. She blushed violently when Captain O’Reilly squirmed his massive body away from hers, putting some space between them. She blushed even brighter when she looked at the unmistakable outline of his erection beneath his fitted khakis.

  “It’s hard...” He gritted his teeth at the unintentional reference to his obvious arousal. “Triple shit on a...difficult enough to think about somebody...somebody who isn’t me having you.” David surged to his feet and stepped away from her, putting more space between them. It was out now and he didn’t care that he’d just destroyed his career. He sighed with painful resignation. “Without you looking at me like you want me.”

  Samantha’s small gasp turned him back to her. He wanted more than anything to take back what he’d just said—for her sake, not his. She looked so embarrassed. Vulnerable. Exposed in a way he’d never seen before. Wordlessly, he walked back to her and knelt beside her. “Why did you come to me?”

  She shook her head and started to move away. He stopped her with the firm pressure of his hand on her arm.

  “Why? Did you come to me?” he repeated pointedly. He used a voice disciplined by years of leading men, issuing orders, but also spoke with a tenderness that was as unfamiliar as it was genuine.

  He felt her tremble and couldn’t help stroking her lightly with his thumb.

  “Because I want it to be you.”

  Chapter Two

  A little over two weeks later, David was sitting behind the wheel of his personally owned vehicle. It was a Jeep he’d bought out of the motor pool and had refurbished and painted a bright blue. It had chrome everything, a whip antenna, tires that could climb Everest and custom leather upholstery. He glanced over at the small woman sitting beside him.

  Samantha was wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat and her long hair rustled in the wind blowing through the open cab. She had on pretty little yellow sundress that he couldn’t take his eyes off, with her bare, tanned knees peeking out beneath.

  He hadn’t hesitated a second before agreeing to become her lover, and he hadn’t touched her since that day at the deserted farm. He’d barely spoken to her. But the words they had exchanged set their plans. Drawing on his painful memories of junior-high health class, David had asked her when her next period was due. She’d blushed prettily but had answered him readily enough. They’d each schedule a three-week leave of absence after its expected end. She’d be fertile sometime during that window. If she didn’t conceive that month, they could try again later.

  David felt his chest swell. He was going to be a father.

  With disciplined pragmatism, he put that thought aside as premature and ran through their battle-plan instead. Samantha’s request for leave had been approved automatically, mostly becaus
e he approved it. Besides, she was now officially RI. Anything she wanted, she got, and military regulations no longer applied to her. If anybody noticed that her CO asked for leave at the exact same time, they hadn’t said anything. It would be stupid to. The Army wanted her pregnant and if she’d chosen her squadron commander to do the deed, they sure weren’t going to argue.

  He adjusted his grip on the wheel and shifted the Jeep up into fourth gear. The roads were good around here because the Army had reclaimed the area years ago. They were off the highway now and less than an hour away from his family’s old cottage. It sat on a pretty island, isolated and loved by generations of O’Reilly’s. Now, for the first time, David could hope there would be others after him to enjoy it as well.

  It was a perfect spot for a honeymoon and he realized that’s what he thought of this as. He wanted time with Samantha. Time to teach her everything he knew about loving. Time to brand himself so deep on her heart she’d stay with him for a lifetime. He was pretty sure he wanted to marry her as soon as they found out she was pregnant.

  Fraternization between Captain and Corporal was strictly forbidden but he’d made a discreet inquiry. RIs got what RIs wanted. So if she wanted him, she’d get him.

  He just had to make damn sure she did.

  “Thirsty?” he asked suddenly, pointing to a road-side stand.

  Samantha turned to him and nodded. Her smile lit up her face and he wondered how he’d managed to make it this long without her.

  Handling the big Jeep carefully, he pulled over and parked.

  “Good choice, Captain,” Samantha said happily then trembled when he lay his hand on her forearm. His thumb stroked her gently.

  “You should call me David.”

  Inside, they were greeted by a clerk who looked barely old enough to be out of school, and looked over the fresh produce and baked goods. They filled two sacks which David paid for before carrying them out to the Jeep. In this part of the country, as in some others, currency had replaced barter. This area was one of the first the Army had reclaimed. It had come far in the intervening years. Cold drinks in hand, they wandered over to a little mini-putt course off to one side of the stand.