Cinderella Liberty

  CINDERELLA LIBERTY

  Cat Johnson

  Marine Gunnery Sergeant John "Crash" O'Malley has two goals for the immediate future. One, enjoy his liberty in New York City, and two, survive his deployment to Afghanistan. What he didn't plan on is Trish. A guy can't have a one-night stand with his best friend's sister and then abandon her at midnight when his liberty ends, but starting a new relationship days before shipping out would be crazy. Then again, Crash never did do things the easy way.

  What he doesn't realize is that his friend's displeasure over Crash breaking the "no sisters rule" is nothing compared to what the insurgents have in store for them in the Helmand Province. Now it's a matter of survival because Crash's new objective is to get home to Trish so he can make her his.

  EXCERPT

  Trish leaned toward Crash in the red vinyl booth and angled her mouth toward his ear. "They're getting drunk."

  "Yes, they are." Truth be told, so was Crash. Not exactly drunk, but definitely feeling the effects.

  He could get away with nursing one beer, but when the rounds of shots kept coming, it would have seemed suspicious if Crash had refused to partake while he kept pushing them on Zippy.

  Still, things were going just as planned. Having the shots before the food arrived only helped his case with Zippy and Dawn. The two were on the dance floor grinding against each other. Only a matter of time now. Crash glanced at his watch. Nearly nineteen-hundred hours.

  "What time is it?" Trish hadn't missed the move. They were both more than conscious of their limited time tonight.

  "Almost seven o'clock," Crash answered.

  "I don't like this Cinderella liberty." Her pout drew his gaze to her lips.

  "Me either."

  Trish let out a deep sigh. "Even if Dawn can keep Danny distracted so he doesn't want to leave early to go to that club you told me about, we should still leave no later than eleven-thirty to make sure you're not late. Just in case we hit traffic."

  "Yeah." He didn't want to talk about leaving. He also didn't want to be here in public where he couldn't touch her the way he wanted.

  Then again, the bar was dim, lit by a few hanging lamps and some neon signs. Crash moved his hand to her thigh, hidden by the table in front of them. A sly smile curved her lips as she rested her hand on his leg, then moved it farther up until just the tip of her finger brushed the crotch of his pants.

  His eyes widened before he forced his expression to be neutral. If she wanted to play, he could play. He bunched the fabric of her dress and inched it up. His fingertips brushed the warm skin on the inside of her thigh. She drew in a breath and let it out.

  In this very public place, while he kept his gaze trained on her brother on the dance floor, Crash pushed higher until he hit the lace of her underwear. She spread her legs just a bit wider and he started to sweat. Hard as a rock now, he was throbbing behind the fabric of his uniform pants while she ran her finger up and down the outline of his length.

  Damn, this was a turn on. He had a feeling it was only going to get hotter, because he had no plans of stopping. Crash slipped beneath the edge of her panties. She was hot and wet, and all for him. He slid between her lips. Her hand on him faltered before she resumed her slow, light stroke over the pants hiding his erection. He didn't treat her quite so gently. With the tip of one finger he zeroed in on her clit, flicking it fast and hard. She jumped beneath his touch but didn't close her legs or push him away.

  "How're ya doing?" He glanced her direction, before forcing himself to keep an eye on Zippy.

  "Fine." She swallowed hard enough for him to hear her throat working.

  "Good." Crash slid a finger inside her, and then a second. He stroked in and out until he heard her draw in a sharp breath. He went back to her clit, circling the tiny nub fast. It wasn't the ideal angle or position for this, but he managed it.

  One quick glance at Trish, biting her lower lip, told him it was working. He reversed direction, circling the other way, and felt her jump. She angled her hips, tipping them just a bit, and he heard the tiniest of moans escape her throat. He moved faster. Harder. She was going to come. Right here, right now. At least she would if he had anything to do with it. But good lord, it might just kill him if she did.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  FROM THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT CAT JOHNSON

  ALSO BY CATJOHNSON

  COPYRIGHT

  CHAPTER 1

  Camp Leatherneck/Bastion

  Helmand Province, Afghanistan

  August 2013

  The night sky lit with the glowing red trails of incoming fire. It was like the Fourth of July back home, but a hell of a lot less fun.

  Instead of being in a tank top and shorts, kicking back in a folding chair with a cold beer in his hand and seventeen more in the cooler, Crash was hunkered down behind a berm with the grit of Afghan dirt between his teeth.

  The noise of the incoming rockets was deafening. Meanwhile, as crazy as it seemed, his attention kept straying to how the rocks beneath him were jabbing into his legs through his uniform. That was when he wasn't occupied wondering if any deadly scorpions or black widow spiders were lurking nearby. God, how he hated anything with more than four legs.

  The butt of the M4 semi-automatic rifle pressed into Crash's shoulder as his jaw clenched with determination. He had no intention of dying today as Gunnery Sergeant John O'Malley. He was going to live long enough to be selected for Master Sergeant, and after that, Master Guns, and these bastard insurgents weren't going to be the ones to take that away from him.

  He'd survived a float to Iraq, plus two deployments to Djibouti and he hadn't seen any shit like this. Yeah, at Camp Lemonier there'd been a vehicle-born IED that luckily never made it to the front gate, but there were no frigging rockets.

  Crash was an aviation mechanic. He was an air-winger, not an infantryman. His MOS didn't normally put him in the line of direct—or hell, even indirect fire during ground combat like this. The closest thing he had come to being shot at was the twenty-eight days of Marine Combat Training at Camp Geiger when he'd first come in, and those shots were blanks.

  He'd be damned if he'd get killed during the drawdown, when the US was in the process of pulling out of this godforsaken country and turning the running of it over to the Afghan military.

  "What the fuck!" Zippy was next to him, lying facedown like Crash, manning his own weapon. "These bastards have some big frigging balls."

  Crash had to agree. To attack an installation this size took some major cajones.

  Camp Bastion was the main British military base in Afghanistan, as well as the air hub used by the US Marines. Adjacent was Camp Leatherneck, NATO's headquarters for the region. Between the two, there was a good amount of firepower stationed here.

  That didn't seem to matter to these crazy motherfuckers lobbing shit at them. No, it seemed as if their Southwest Asia enemy, Taliban-Charlie, was not going to make this deployment easy.

  "Command knew this was coming," Crash shouted over the noise.

  They had to have known. Too many orders had come down the pike recently, changes to procedure, all of which pointed to preparation for a suspected attack.

  At least this time the camp had been prepared. Unlike last September when a small group of Taliban dressed in stolen US uniforms waltzed right onto the base one night thanks to cutbacks in security and patrols. That mistake had cost the good guys a few refueling stations
, half a dozen hangers, eight Harriers and, far more devastating than the material losses, the lives of two US Marines.

  For once it seemed the military had learned from past mistakes. This time, personnel had been issued extra ammo and told to sleep with their weapons within reach. Extra foot patrols had been added, no one was allowed to travel to the other side of camp after dark, and they'd been told not to gather in large groups, which included eating in the chow hall.

  That last order had been the most inconvenient. Take-out food was fine at home when Crash could grab something to go from the window of a fast food joint and bring it back to the barracks. Here? Not so much. But for safety's sake, all the new orders were necessary. For once command had made a change for a good reason instead of their usual arbitrary, bullshit rules.

  Obviously, the big brass had taken whatever chatter they'd heard on the lines seriously. They'd been correct, right down to the timing of the attack—the end of Ramadan when the Muslim world celebrated the completion of a month of daytime fasting with a feast.

  Crash had searched online and read all about the religious observance that had provided them with a month of relative peace on base. But judging by this attack, the opposition had taken their Lailut ul-Qadr, Night of Power, to mean something totally different than their religion dictated. The enemy was marking this holy date with a show of strength against the coalition troops, and they'd done it with a bang—literally.

  Well, Crash had some power of his own. He gripped his weapon a little tighter. He was a damn good shot, but they'd been issued a limited number of rounds. Every shot had to count. And bullets wouldn't do much good against mortars or rockets anyway. The bad guys were flinging all sorts of shit at them over the chain link perimeter fence topped with razor wire.

  It didn't matter. If Crash went down, he'd go down fighting, but he wanted it to be with a clear conscious. There was something he needed to get off his chest.

  "Zip, I gotta tell you something."

  Over the sound of the incoming fire, Zippy must have heard the gravity in Crash's tone. "Jesus, Crash. We're not gonna die here today so keep your damn confessions for another time. All right?"

  "Just listen, please. I need this off my chest."

  Zippy let out a huge breath. "Okay, go ahead, but I'm just gonna mock you with whatever you tell me later when we're back home having beers."

  Crash sincerely doubted that. He launched into his confession anyway. "In May, while we were in New York, I slept with your sister."

  For the first time since they'd taken position, Zippy took his eyes off the perimeter. His gaze cut to Crash, just for a second, before it moved back to the fence. "We're both gonna survive this, so that afterward, I can kick your ass."

  From Zippy's mouth to God's ears…

  CHAPTER 2

  Marine Corps Air Station New River

  Jacksonville, North Carolina

  Three months earlier…

  "We're meeting the boat in Morehead City the day after tomorrow to head up to New York for a few days. Then we're taking the bird back to New River." Crash sat at his desk, office phone in hand for his weekly phone call to his mother.

  "I thought it was supposed to be called a ship, not a boat."

  Crash grinned. "Yeah, technically it is. Marines call it a boat just to tick off the Navy guys. They hate it." Just one of the many pleasures of being a Marine.

  His mother giggled and he smiled wider. It was good to hear her laugh. Since his father had died, he'd worried more about being apart from her than usual.

  The Marine Corps Air Station in North Carolina wasn't incredibly far from where his mom now lived in Florida, but too far to visit as often as she'd like him to. So for now, until he put in his twenty years and retired, a phone call and the few times a year he got to see her would have to do. Then again, if the promotions he expected came through in a timely fashion, he might just go to thirty years. Nothing was set in stone. Such was life in the military.

  "It sounds like a nice trip. New York should be fun. Take lots of pictures for me, but be careful, John. Promise me."

  "Yes, Mom." Crash smiled.

  His mother would have been equally excited and worried for his safety no matter where this trip took him. The war zone. Disneyland. Wouldn't matter to her. She'd be happy he was happy, and then she'd worry. That was what mothers did, he supposed.

  Crash, on the other hand, was genuinely excited. He'd never been to New York. This detachment would be a hell of a good time. The perfect pre-deployment trip for the whole squadron before they left for Camp Bastion.

  Afghanistan. Hell of a place to spend the next seven or so months…and he couldn't freakin' wait.

  He'd never been there either and he wanted that damn Afghanistan campaign medal before he retired. With the troop drawdown in that region and less and less units being deployed there, it had been iffy for a while if he'd get to go at all.

  But the orders came and he was going, though not until after this detachment to the Big Apple.

  "Gunnery Sergeant O'Malley—" A Marine who looked young enough to be fresh out of boot camp in spite of his stripes stopped dead in the open doorway when he saw that Crash was on the phone.

  He held up one finger to the kid who was making him feel every one of his thirty-something years just from his presence in the office. "I gotta go. I'll call you soon, okay?"

  "Okay, baby. Stay safe."

  "Yes, ma'am." He rolled his eyes at her never ending concern for him and replaced the receiver on the cradle of the desk phone. "Yes, Corporal. What can I do for you?"

  "Gunny Zipkin asked that you meet him at the Officers Club at sixteen-thirty."

  "Oh, did he? And why didn't he call me?"

  "His cell phone, uh, took a swim." The kid's lips twitched as he said it, as if he was trying to contain a smile.

  Crash ventured an educated guess at what had happened. "He drop it in the toilet again?"

  "That's correct, Gunnery Sergeant," the young Marine responded with a barely hidden grin.

  "Well, that explains that." With a snort of a laugh at Zippy's idiocy, Crash glanced at the time in the corner of his computer screen.

  Half an hour of his workday left to go. He'd planned to go back to his quarters, do laundry and pack for this det. Now it appeared as if he wouldn't be heading directly to the staff barracks after work today. "Did he happen to mention why he needs me to meet him at the O Club?"

  "He mentioned a tactical planning session."

  Crash hid a smile. "A'ight. Thank you."

  Dismissed, the Corporal left Crash to his thoughts. He knew very well what Zippy's tactical planning sessions entailed, especially when they were held at an establishment that served alcohol. Drinking. And while they did that, no doubt they'd be making a plan for more drinking in the near future. Most likely Zippy wanted to discuss logistics for their off-hours in New York.

  They'd man the rails as they pulled into port, and have a few official duties—VIP tours of the boat, some party with the big brass—but after that their time was their own. The first night they were free until zero-seven-hundred the next morning. Their last night there they only had until midnight before they'd have to be back on the boat. Good old Cinderella liberty. You would think that a grown man who was a careerist could be trusted on his own home turf to make it back aboard the boat prior to the commencement of any duties, not have a curfew at midnight like a teenager, but such was life in the Corps.

  That was fine. They could get into all sorts of mischief about town during that off time. As long as they were checked back in and on that boat by twenty-four hundred hours, it was all good. That kind of boat det he could handle.

  He wasn't even pissed they'd be in uniform the entire time, even while on liberty. Nothing worked as efficiently to attract the ladies. That had been proven time and time again in real world experience. There was good reason Marines called their uniforms Superman clothes, and it wasn't because it gave them the ability to fly. It did, howe
ver, often give them the ability to see beneath women's clothing.

  New York City. Women. Two nights of freedom. It sounded like a hell of a good time to him.

  Glancing at the time again, he realized he'd daydreamed away the end of his day. Good thing he'd gotten all his work done early so it didn't matter that he was goofing off now. Frontloading, getting the needed work done as fast as possible, was something he'd been taught during his first days in a squadron. It was the best way to enjoy more FOT—fuck off time.

  He stood and ran his hand over his closely cropped hair before planting his cover on his head. He'd have to get a haircut before they left for this det so he didn't start to look shaggy by the end of the trip. Weekly haircuts, no matter what. So it had been since he'd joined. So it would be until he retired.

  Maybe he'd grow his hair out after that. Probably wouldn't go with the mullet that had been so popular when he'd joined, but he'd keep it longer than it was now. It never got long enough nowadays to tell for sure, but he feared he had a whole lot less hair than he used to. Sad but true, but that's what the years will do to a man. He had nothing close to the amount he had when he'd first sat in that chair at Paris Island and the barber buzzed off what had been a nice thick head of dark blonde waves.

  The ladies who used to be jealous of Crash's hair in high school would no doubt hardly recognize him now. The hair may be questionable, but at least he still had the blue eyes the girls used to swoon over back in the day. Though there weren't a whole lot of swooning women lately, time couldn't take those from him.

  It was a short drive from his office at the squadron to the O Club, which was walking, and sometimes stumbling distance from his barracks. He could have walked if he'd wanted to, but it was hot as hell today. Why walk when he could drive in the air conditioning? Not too long from now he'd be sweltering in Afghanistan so he might as well take advantage of whatever moderate luxuries he had here on base, driving privileges included.