Mercy: Second Chance Military Romance (6 page)

“Hold on. Don’t you want to know what story I’m working on?”

“I can imagine. Something about the military being corrupt, or…”

“The smuggling,” she interrupted. “I know about it.”

I turned the vehicle off and looked over at her.

“Are you involved?” she asked.

“Is this off the record?”

“Sure.”

Can I trust her?

“You don’t want to be digging in this, okay? It goes high up the food chain. There’s billions of dollars at stake. Do you even understand what you’re digging around?”

“Billions of dollars? That’s a lot of drugs.”

“Don’t you get it?” I shook my head. “It’s not drugs. They’re smuggling rare earth minerals back to America and China. Both countries are making a bundle. Why do you think the Afghanistan war has dragged on so long. Do you see an army anywhere capable of defeating us if we put our mind to it?”

“There’s a lot of caves in the mountains,” she said.

“Fuck those caves. The only reason we’re still here is to protect the Chinese and American civilians who are pillaging the mountains like there’s no tomorrow.”

“You need to tell me more,” she said, her hungry eyes staring into mine.

“I said too much already.”

“Are you involved?”

I fired up the engine and put the Humvee in gear.

“Not anymore,” I said. “Not anymore.”

We rode back to the base in silence.

NINE

Mercy

When we arrived at FOB Rushmore, everything looked a bit different somehow. The knowledge of a huge conspiracy just out of my reach drove me crazy.

“You’re going to cut out the investigating, right?” he asked after parking.

“Yeah, yeah,” I lied. “Too dangerous for me.”

“Good. I’d hate to see someone like you get wrapped up in this. It’s been hell for me trying to get out.”

“Why is that?”

He grinned and pointed a finger at me.

“Ah, there you go again. Nice one. You almost got me.”

Out the window, Tony Roth rushed toward us.

“Fuck,” I said.

Tyler twisted around in his seat and opened the door.

“What’s up, Roth?” he asked.

“Captain wants to see her. Right away.”

“What about?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, climbing down from the massive vehicle.

When I walked around, I saw him staring at me.

“Be careful,” he said in a quiet voice.

“I’m always careful,” I said confidently as I walked past him.

Tony dashed back to the CO’s office building, reaching it before me. Tyler walked away to his CHU. I smiled at how familiar I’d become with the terminology in such a short time period.

Inside the long, metal building, my smile faded as soon as I saw Captain Jeffries behind his desk.

“What in the hell were you doing off base with Tyler?” he asked, skipping any form of greeting.

“Hello to you, too, Captain.”

I walked over and sat down in front of his desk.

“You better answer my question,” he said.

Our eyes met. I flipped through a few options in my mind.

“Me and Tyler have been getting along, and…”

“Don’t say anymore,” he interrupted, raising his hand into the air. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“It was my idea, not his.”

“I don’t care whose idea it was, Ms. Jones, he should know better than to go out in that area unaccompanied and with a civilian.”

“We were fine. I didn’t see anyone around for miles.”

“You didn’t see anyone?”

I shook my head and lied one more time.

“No.”

“Nothing out of the ordinary?”

I laughed nervously.

“Now you got me thinking I missed something. Do you want to tell me anything?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You’re leaving on the next chopper out of here.”

“I thought you had to wait because of the Taliban or something.”

“The situation in Afghanistan is still fluid, Ms. Jones. I want you to be packed and ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Do you understand?”

“I’m not done with my story!”

“That ain’t my problem,” he said, damn near smiling.

I stood, furious at him and the rest of the male dominated world. After leaving his office, I headed to my quarters to pack my belongings.

Should I go talk with Tyler? Or maybe Roger? Would one of them give me the information I needed before I got kicked off the base?

All I had brought with me was a week’s worth of clothes, my laptop, phone, and various cords and chargers for the electronic equipment.

It didn’t take long to get it all packed up. Would the CO really kick me off the base? Returning without a story would not go over well with the website that had hired me.

Fuck, fuck, fuck
. The thought repeated itself, bouncing off the imaginary walls of my mind. It got even worse as images of Tyler and Roger both popped up.

The two men were similar in some ways, both alpha males teetering on the edge of being an alpha hole or a straight up psycho. They had their differences too.

Tyler was definitely the smarter of the two. Beyond his semi-romantic picnic on top of a hill in the Afghanistan boonies, something about him made my soul smile.

On the other hand, Roger was down to earth and practical. He was dumb, but I’d never had good luck with smart men. Would the hulk of a man even want a woman like me?

What type of woman am I?
The question floated past my consciousness for inspection. I toyed with it, wondering if I would ever be able to answer it completely.

Both men attracted me in one way or another, but it didn’t matter if I liked either of them. I would be going away without a story and did not want to talk to either of them ever again.

I placed the blame for my failing to get the story at their feet. If they hadn’t been such assholes, I might have been able to dig around enough to come up with some sort of story to save my ass.

Did the criminal conspiracy really go all the way to the top? Was I sitting on another scandal like the Iran-Contra Affair? The thought excited me. People would finally see me as a real journalist.

I closed my eyes, pleasant thoughts floating through my mind as I drifted through the land between waking and dreams. As I approached sweet sleep, I heard a knock at the door.
Who could that be?

TEN

Mercy

Tyler stood in front of me with an expression I recognized.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, glancing around. “I’m supposed to be leaving soon.”

“It won’t be until the morning,” he said. “Can I come in?”

“Sure…”

I stepped back. He came inside, brushing against me.

Why does he have this power over me?
I asked myself as a tingle ran through my body.

“You’re all packed?” he asked, looking at the suitcases piled up near the door.

“Yep.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “You ready to talk more about the smuggling?”

“No,” he said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“Then why are you here?”

“Earlier,” he said.

I tilted my head to the side, trying to understand him.

“What do you mean?”

“This...”

He stepped forward and put his hands on my waist. At the same time, his head came toward mine, tilting slightly. I froze, closing my eyes, anticipating the moment our lips would touch.

When they did, I felt as if heaven had opened a local location deep within my body. Pleasure and joy danced into my mind, causing my heart to beat faster.
Is this happening?

I pulled back and said, “Pinch me.”

“Excuse me?”

“I need to know if I’m dreaming.”

He smiled then kissed me again, sliding his tongue into my mouth this time. I swirled mine against his, so wet and slippery, warm and wonderful.

As we kissed, his hands roamed over my body. When he squeezed a breast through my shirt, I moaned, wanting more, so much more.

“Do you have a condom?” I asked in between kisses.

“Yeah,” he grunted, lifting my shirt up.

I raised my hands into the air, allowing him to take it all the way off. Standing in front of him with bare breasts, I wondered if I was making a bad decision.

Hormones took over, and I didn’t care anymore. The only thing on my mind was getting him inside me. While I didn’t get my story in Afghanistan, at least I’d have something to remember.

He bent his head and licked one nipple before moving to the other. While he explored my naked flesh with his wet, pink tongue, I undid his pants, sliding them down enough to expose his cock.

And what a marvelous cock it was. I fondled it while we kissed, amazed at the size. He stepped back and lifted his shirt off, exposing his rock-hard chest and abs. I leaned forward and kissed his skin.

He took his pants off the rest of the way. I did the same with mine. We were soon standing in front of each other, naked. My eyes lowered, scanning his body, liking what I saw.

The momentary pause to get our clothes off ended as we resumed passionately kissing each other. I loved the way he made my whole body tingle when his tongue slid against mine.

Time slowed, became somehow irrelevant. All that existed in that moment was him and me, our bodies about to lock together in bliss. He moved forward as we kissed, pushing me toward the bed.

I sat down on the edge of the mattress, looking up at his face, enamored by those magical blue eyes. He grinned and got down on his knees in front of me. A moment later, he kissed my pussy.

As he went down on me, I closed my eyes and threw my head back, not believing how good it felt to have him kissing, licking, and sucking my sensitive flesh. He ran his fingers back and forth over my pussy.

Blood rushed between my legs as a familiar tingle spreading through my body. I hadn’t been with a man in so long. And he was so good at what he was doing. His hands ran over my smooth skin.

I forgot for a moment or two I was in Afghanistan that outside a war was going on.

“Do it,” I begged. “Fuck me hard.”

He looked up from between my legs, my juices all over his face. A moment later, he was on his feet in front of me, that huge dick swinging back and forth in front of him.

I watched, enthralled, as he wrapped a condom over it.

This is it. He’s going to fuck me.

The thought turned me on so much. I wasn’t sure if it was the fact we weren’t supposed to be doing what we were about to do or the fact I was in a strange country, but something was different.

None of the other men who fucked me compared to Tyler, and he hadn’t even pushed it in me yet. I expected great things – like a mind-blowing orgasm in Afghanistan.

He stepped forward and lifted my legs. Our eyes met as he rubbed the tip of his cock over my wet pussy lips before putting it in. I squinted my eyes and moaned.

The look of hunger in his eyes turned to surprise at the sound of an explosion outside.

“What the hell?” I asked.

He dropped my legs and spun around.

“Fuck.”

“Are we under attack?” I asked, standing up.

“I don’t know,” he said as he slipped his underwear on.

As we dressed, I heard a second explosion outside from the same direction.

“That sounds like it’s inside the camp,” he said. “Stay here.”

“Don’t worry about me,” I said, my heart racing and adrenaline pumping.

He flung the door open and bolted outside. I ran over and peeked outside. Flames rose into the air about five hundred feet away, near the wall surrounding the base.

I shut the door and locked it, wondering what the hell I should do. My suitcase and bag were sitting next to the door. Would I ever make it home back to New York?

The thought of not making it hit me hard as I took deep breaths, trying to calm myself. As a journalist, I wanted to find out what the hell had happened.

After opening the door, I stepped outside. No other explosions had occurred. Was it a car bomb? An RPG? Something else? I saw men running toward the blaze.

Before I decided to follow them, Tony Roth ran up.

“We need to go,” he said. “Are you packed?”

“Now? Seriously?”