Close Pursuit

Huh. Live and learn. “What about us?”

He shrugged. “We’re another matter. We’ll need water before long.”

“Any bright ideas about what to do next?” she asked.

“Go downhill for a while.”

She liked that idea a whole lot better than continuing to scale mountain peaks in the dark. With no climbing gear. And a baby stuffed down her coat.

Trying to stay oriented as to where they were, she pictured the map of this region they’d been showed in the D.U. offices. Another village lay at the head of this valley. Its name was something like Ghan or Ghun. She couldn’t remember exactly. No telling if it was another Karshani clan village or belonged to some other clan entirely. As likely as not, the neighbors hated each other’s guts.

This side of the mountain was more a slope than a cliff, mostly made treacherous by loose, rolling gravel. She made much of the descent sliding on her butt; before long, they stood at the bottom of a narrow valley in deep darkness.

Alex shocked her by brushing off the seat of her jeans and finishing off by giving her ass the briefest of squeezes. So brief she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it or not. But not so brief that her breathing didn’t accelerate sharply.

“Altitude getting to you?” he murmured.

Yeah, right. Altitude. “Gee, I don’t know,” she whispered back. “Maybe I should feel your butt and see if a sudden case of altitude sickness overcomes you.”

“I dare you.”

Oh, it was so on. She stepped right up behind him and slipped her hands down the waistband of his jeans. He lurched in shock as she slid her palms between his briefs and the denim and cupped strong, well-defined male cheeks that abruptly went rock hard.

“Not bad, Doctor. Not bad at all.”

He whipped around, effectively yanking her hands out of his pants, and stared down at her. Enveloped in darkness and lust that rolled off him like sin, it crossed her mind that, perchance, she was playing with fire by messing with this man.

“Think before you go there with me,” he rasped. “I’m not one of your milk-toast college boys.”

The warning in his voice was clear. Although what, exactly, he was warning her about, she wasn’t sure. That he wouldn’t stand for mind games from her? Or that his tastes were darker than the average college co-ed’s? Or maybe that getting involved with him would be an all-or-nothing proposition.

Was she prepared to go there with him? How far beyond her experience would he take her? Just how intense would sex with him be? Turned on and scared in equal measure, she let out a careful breath as he turned and stalked off into the night.

She’d wanted to be taken seriously. To be treated like an adult. For everyone to quit seeing a sweet, naive kid when they looked at her. But how much innocence was she willing to lose? If she didn’t miss her guess, being with Alex Peters could cost her damn near all of hers.

They’d been hiking for maybe an hour when the baby commenced crying and nothing she could do would quiet the poor little thing.

Alex muttered, “She’s hungry. Nursing after birth is an instinctive imperative. We probably won’t shut her up shy of feeding her something.”

“Any suggestions as to what to feed her?”

“Actually, yes.” He slid his pack off his shoulders and rummaged in it, emerging with an IV bag. He poked a pinhole in one corner of it while she opened her coat and maneuvered the infant close to the opening while keeping the baby mostly inside the garment’s warmth.

They tried unsuccessfully to squeeze some of the IV fluid into the child’s mouth, but the baby wouldn’t swallow it and only squalled louder.

“We’ve got to quiet her down,” Alex bit out. “Once the artillery fire stops, people for miles around will hear her screaming.”

“Any ideas?” Katie asked, frantically rocking the furious baby.

“She needs to suck to trigger her swallowing reflex.”

“I already tried getting her to suck my finger as a makeshift pacifier and she wouldn’t do it.”

“She needs to suckle. As in a female breast.” He threw her an expectant look.

Katie stared. “News flash, Doctor. My equipment is not currently in service for milk production.”

“She doesn’t need to get any milk. She just needs a breast to suck. Once she’s sucking strongly, then we can squirt some IV fluid into her mouth and she’ll swallow it.”

An embarrassed impulse to refuse speared through her gut at the same time intellectual certainty that she would do it rolled through her brain. She tried unsuccessfully to juggle the baby and her coat and her shirt, until Alex’s big, warm hands slipped inside her coat and took the baby. Awkwardly, she raised her shirt, baring her bra, which happened to be lacy and white and practically glowed in the dark.

“Not very practical lingerie for Zaghastan,” he murmured in amusement.

The bastard sounded like he was enjoying the view a little too much. She glanced up, irritated, and muttered, “I wasn’t expecting to show it to anyone while I was here.”

“So you wear sexy lingerie entirely to please yourself? That’s encouraging.”

“How so?” she blurted. She wished the words back as soon as they left her mouth.

“You struck me as too...virginal...for that naughty bra. I’m glad to see I underestimated you.”

Her gaze narrowed at the faint challenge simmering in his voice. She reached for the edge of her bra cup and slowly, deliberately, pulled it down. Alex’s gaze riveted on her flesh as the swell of her breast and its rosy nipple were revealed. His gaze flared like an arc welder, and her pulse spiked hard in response.

Without comment, he eased the infant to her breast. The baby was too mad or too inexperienced or both to know what to do, however.

“I apologize,” he muttered.

“For what?”

“For this.” He reached in front of the infant’s mouth with his fingers and pinched her nipple. Hard. She jumped and would have squawked were they not in the middle of a war zone. Involuntarily, her back arched into his hand, trying unsuccessfully to ease the sharp pressure.

“Oww,” she breathed.

He let go and made a small sound of satisfaction. “Better.”

She ventured a look down and realized her nipple now jutted out, swollen and full.

“Rub it on the baby’s face. Across her mouth,” he instructed.

She did so, stunned at how erotic it was to be doing this in front of him. Without warning, the baby latched on and gave a tug that shot sensations all the way to her groin. “Oh!” she gasped.

One corner of Alex’s mouth curved up knowingly. He reached between her breast and the baby with the IV bag and slipped the pinholed corner into the infant’s mouth. She felt the baby swallow against her flesh.

“It’s working,” she breathed. “Do it again.”

Working together, the two of them got a few ounces of IV fluid down the baby, who fell asleep quickly after that. Alex hooked his finger under the lace and lifted it into place, running the back of his knuckle lightly across her nipple in the process. Damned if it didn’t stand up proud and eager again, pushing impudently through the lace. And damned if he didn’t stare down at it, his eyes ablaze, until her breath came short and fast.

“Zip up,” he ordered sharply. “I don’t need either of you catching a chill.”