HOSTILE: A Military Romance Novel (Military Men Book 1) (4 page)

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Our mission had gone to hell in a handbasket. Not only had the Taliban wrecked our truck, but they had almost gotten the better of us too.

We could have died back there.

If it hadn’t been for Marshall’s quick thinking and getting that first shot off, we would have been worm bait on the ground, and our families would have received the call they always dreaded.

There were more of them out there now. They were always hiding. Around every corner, beyond every hill, hidden in every heartbeat. They waited, and they had the sole intention of killing every last one of us.

And they did it without remorse.

Or mercy.

If they got their hands on Ariana, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. It was the military that had brought her into this situation, and it was our responsibility to get her home alive. It was my duty to make sure that happened.

Just my duty, nothing more.

We walked, every fucking thing sounding like another member of the Taliban coming to get us. That fucker had come out of nowhere when we’d been driving. One minute we’d been fine and the next it was game over.

That was all it would take to end it all. I’d seen it too many times in my deployment. Too many times in this tour alone. I didn’t want to end up like all the others, and I certainly couldn’t stand by and let it happen to Ariana. She was a civilian; she wasn’t part of this war.

The whole time we moved I tried to think of a better plan. We needed transport, we needed shelter, and we needed to establish communication with base. All things that the truck would have provided if the fucker hadn’t blown out the engine and all the electronics. He knew what he was doing, knew exactly how the system worked. It was so much like an inside job it was almost too close to home.

It wouldn’t be long before the sun started to rise and then the heat would be overwhelming. The civilians wouldn’t be used to those conditions. They didn’t have the kind of training my troops did. They wouldn’t be able to withstand the conditions for too long.

A troop was only as strong and capable as its weakest member, and we were dealing with people that had no idea what they had just stepped into. This wasn’t going to end well for any of us until I came up with a plan.

I needed a fucking plan.

They were all relying on me, and I was at dire risk of letting them down. That wasn’t going to happen; I wasn’t going to let it. This was not going to be a monumental fuck-up to end all fuck-ups. I was not going to end up in the history books as the guy who let his troop and six civilians end up dead.

But first I needed a fucking plan.

With the first rays of sunlight making their appearance and showing the golden depths of the sand, the road underneath our feet was starting to change. It had turned from clay to brick. Just a subtle change at first, but it was growing more apparent the further we walked.

We were heading into a city. The road was getting better, which could be a good thing or a bad thing. If we had troops in the city, we could make contact and they could link up to our superiors. Then I could make a full report and wait for further instructions.

If we didn’t have a presence in the city, it could get ugly. The civilians would be fearful of us, and any members of the Taliban would instantly want to kill us. It wasn’t like we could blend into the crowd by any means. Our uniforms made us stand out a mile away, instantly identifying us as the enemy – or foreigners, at least.

Small houses started to come into view, and that’s when I decided we needed to stop. We huddled by the first brick fence we came across. “We’re going to have to split up and go in covertly,” I started. “We stay to the back alleys and try to determine if there are any troops. Either way, we’ll meet back here in two hours.”

“Got it, boss,” Marshall replied, echoed by the others.

We split off in pairs, each of us taking our civilian partners with us. I would have liked for them to stay together somewhere while we went on the recon mission, but it just wasn’t safe enough. It would have meant leaving them as sitting ducks, and I wasn’t prepared to do that. At least with us they had a chance of being defended.

Ariana never said a word of complaint the entire way, surprising me. I’d expected her to whine continually, but she never said a peep. Maybe I’d misjudged her, but more likely, she was just too scared to say anything.

Just like I’d said, we stuck to the back alleyways and kept out of sight. Ariana was dressed much more like a local than I was in my uniform and armor. On a few occasions she ducked ahead to peek around a corner and cleared it before I went ahead. Nobody looked twice at her while they would have stared at me.

She actually came in handy.

And she still hadn’t complained once.

We reached the center of the town, the market in full swing with people selling food and goods in open stalls. People bustled around while we watched from afar. There were no soldiers in Army fatigues, absolutely no US military presence anywhere.

This was not an Army-friendly town. Either we hadn’t yet reached it, or the Taliban still held to it tightly. Depending on which way they swayed, it could make the difference between getting killed and making it out safely. There was no telling if we’d be able to make it to the next town or how far away it was. We needed to make use of the facilities here to contact base, or we might not get another chance.

Sudden a commotion broke out across the market square, and everyone started running or yelling. I couldn’t see what the melee was, but I could guess.

My instincts were to get over there and help one of my buddies out before it escalated. Everything in me told me to hurry.

But before I could move, there was an explosion. A burst of orange, red, and yellow embers flew through the square like a huge fireworks display. Heat radiated out from the ball as hot as the sun, covering the place like an instant blanket.

Everyone screamed and crouched down, trying to avoid the licking of the flames. I pulled Ariana next to me, leaning over her and covering her body with mine to shield her from the impact. Hot embers from the explosion made little pinpricks in my uniform.

Her breath was on my neck as she gasped, fear making her lungs really try for every bit of air she sucked in. She hadn’t been in this kind of situation before; I had to keep remembering that. Her instincts were different from mine. She didn’t know to react like I did. I had to make sure to protect her.

“What—” she started to say. I silenced her, pressing a finger to my lips in a shushing motion. Her little pink mouth snapped shut again.

While people ran everywhere, I pressed Ariana to the wall and held her there. My body was acting as a buffer between her and the flames, making sure there was a barrier separating the two. I was biding my time, waiting to see if there would be follow-up action or only one explosion in the square today.

Once the initial screams died down, it started to grow quiet, with only the crackle of the fire and snapping of wooden structures succumbing to the flames infiltrating the air.

It was time to make a move. “Stay really close to me and follow all my orders,” I whispered in Ariana’s ear. For once I knew she would obey and not question everything I told her to do.

She nodded and I pushed away from her, my eyes scanning her body for any signs of injury. She was still sexy as all fuck but didn’t appear to be hurt in any way.

I started walking, sticking to the wall on the side of the alley and constantly scanning the area for dangers. Every one of the people I saw could have been a Taliban member, ready to slice my head off. Any of them could have been willing to alert others to my presence there.

I was also looking for my comrades. They were all in this tiny town somewhere, and I was certain they had to have heard the explosion too. It would have attracted them like moths to a flame, just like me now. I needed to know whether they were safe and what they had uncovered about the place.

Then I saw him.

The first member of the Taliban.

My gut instincts were in overdrive, he had to be a member. He was wearing a long tunic and staring straight at me. His eyes were as dark as black oil, openly glaring at me with the hatred of a hundred enemies.

I pushed Ariana into the nearest cross street. “Run!” I yelled at her, harsher than I intended.

Footsteps pounded on the dusty road behind me, not just one set but many. I missed the weight of my gun in my hands. If I’d had that, I wouldn’t need to be fleeing like a fucking sewer rat. I wasn’t a coward, I would have gladly stayed to fight the sons of bitches, but I couldn’t do that with Ariana by my side, her life at risk. They would have immediately attacked her before even trying for me.

The girl could run, probably did Pilates or some bullshit hipster exercising like that. Whatever it was, I was grateful for it in that moment. There was nothing I liked more about a girl than one that could keep up.

Except maybe big tits and a tight cunt.

And a mouth that sucked on more than just lollipops.

I tugged Ariana’s arm and pulled her around a corner at the last moment, trying to shake the motherfuckers behind us. This town obviously wasn’t a friendly one. We were the enemy here, and they would show us no mercy.

The town was a labyrinth of streets, all smelling like shit and as dusty as the middle of the desert. I had no idea where we were, but we kept going until we gained enough distance so we could hide.

Ariana collided with my chest as I held her against me in the tiny alcove between two buildings. Her brow was covered in sweat as she looked up at me. I tried to provide some kind of comfort in the small smile I offered her, but I didn’t succeed. It was difficult to think anything but the worst in the current situation.

But try telling my dick that. Even with the threat of being caught by the enemy and dying a violent death on the table, my cock was still starkly aware of the fact that a sexy woman had her body pressed up against mine. And when she shifted just slightly to the left, her hip grazed my dick just enough to make me want her to do it again.

And fucking again.

We stood pressed up against one another for longer than we probably needed to. Surprisingly, not because of the dick situation, but because I wanted to be certain the Taliban weren’t waiting around the corner to ambush us the moment we let our guards down.

I pressed my finger to my lip in the shushing signal again so Ariana would remain silent while I peeked around the corner. It appeared to be all clear. I risked a few steps, and it looked like we’d managed to lose them.

We needed to get back to the meeting point so we could get out of town. Now that the Taliban knew the US military were around, they would be out hunting us down. Distance was the only way to get out alive now.

Ariana and I crept around the streets, staying in the shadows and moving to the outskirts again. The whole mission into the town center seemed like a fool’s errand now, but at least I had gotten the answer I was searching for: nobody was going to help us.

We finally made it back to our rendezvous point and waited by the brick fence. There were no signs of the other men being back there at all.

We waited so long it started to get dark. Nobody came.

“I’m hungry,” Ariana said. It was the first thing she had muttered in hours. “Do you have any food?” She looked at me hopefully.

“No, I don’t. Sorry.”

“Do you think they’re coming back?”

Fuck the woman and all her questions. “They’re supposed to.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”