The Ranger and the Runaway Read online

  “Now I’m so glad to have you here,” Mrs. Brown said. “It’s late, but I made you some supper.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Brown,” Sandy said politely. “I’m not feeling very hungry.”

  “Nonsense, you must be starving. Now I’ve made bacon and hash-brown muffins, nothing too heavy. You’re skin and bone, girl. Come and eat.”

  Sandy relented, not having much in the way of choice. She sat in Mrs. Brown’s nice, warm kitchen, drank milk and ate bacon and hash-brown muffins, and found her mind wandering to the man who had saved her. Travis.

  They’d barely spoken for ten minutes, but something about him had stayed with her and wouldn’t let go. He’d said he was an army ranger, and he’d more than hinted that he was based somewhere in the area. There weren’t any bases near Lamford though, so maybe she’d misunderstood him, or maybe… maybe he was some kind of secret operative of some kind. The way he’d moved and how he’d disappeared in the crowd certainly fit with that.

  But where could he be stationed? Sandy wracked her brain all the way from the kitchen table to the bedroom where Mrs. Brown had festooned a bed with enough blankets, pillows, and comforters to last a lifetime.

  She climbed into the downy cocoon and closed her eyes. It had been a very long time since she had lain in anything as comfortable as that bed, but her mind was still churning the problem over, even as her eyes closed, weighted with sleep.

  At four a.m., Sandy sat bolt upright in bed. “The old base!”

  The old base in the woods had been decommissioned at the end of the war. It still had the barbed wire and the warning signs, but everybody knew it was disused. Maybe everyone was wrong.

  She threw off her covers, pulled her clothes on, and made for the window. Most girls wouldn’t have been that impulsive, but Sandy wasn’t most girls. She was the sort of girl who had lived on her own for months in the woods, the sort of girl who, once she wanted something, went after it. Ever since her parents had passed away, Sandy had known that the world wasn’t going to give her anything. She was going to have to look after herself and take what she wanted—and right now, she wanted Travis.

  Chapter Three

  Having done his good deed for the evening, Travis had returned to the base and taken the second watch, which started at three in the morning. After a couple of hours of keeping a close eye on the empty woods, he detected motion just beyond the outer perimeter. Figuring it was a deer, he checked with night vision goggles. It wasn’t a deer. It was a human, creeping through the undergrowth with furtive movements.

  Travis was about to radio in a perimeter breach when it occurred to him that the figure seemed somehow familiar. It was female, young, slim…

  “What the…?” Travis murmured the question under his breath as he circled around behind the young woman. She was so intent on her own subterfuge that she did not pay the slightest bit of attention to what was going on behind her. Travis was able to come within one pace of her before snatching her up and confirming his suspicions.

  He grabbed her off her feet, one arm around her waist, the other hand around her mouth so as to prevent the inevitable feminine squeal.

  “What the hell are you doing out here?” He growled the words into her ear, holding her squirming frame locked against his body. “You should be in the hospital.”

  “They let me out of the hospital,” she gasped, as if that was some explanation for her being in the middle of the woods in a restricted area that was protected by an electrified perimeter fence.

  “How did you get in here? How did you get past the fence?”

  “I went under it,” she admitted.

  He released her momentarily, turned her around, grabbed her by the shoulders, and bent down enough to look her dead in the eye. “Why?”

  “I… remembered about this base.”

  “So you came running out here in the middle of the night? Little girl, have you lost your mind? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  “No,” she said, eyes widening at his anger.

  “I could have shot you,” he growled, giving her a little shake. “Do you realize that?”

  “Well, that would have been a mistake.”

  He barely restrained himself from smacking her ass long enough to finish his questioning. “Why did you come out here, Sandy?”

  “I was looking for you.” She said it so innocently, with a little hopeful smile that made his heart damn near break. She was like a puppy that had followed him home and staying angry at her was damn near impossible.

  “Why were you looking for me, Sandy?”

  “Because, I uh, wanted to say thank you, and… maybe talk to you.”

  “So you thought you should come into the woods in the middle of the night and sneak up on a military base.”

  “Uh. Yeah?” She had the good grace to look a little ashamed.

  “You have to know that was a damn dangerous thing to do.”

  She pointed her toe and dug it into the leaf litter, squirming under his glare. “I guess. I just didn’t think about that.”

  Dammit. She was gorgeous, and there was a part of him that could easily have kissed her for being so damn sweet. But she was also young and somewhat lost in the world and Travis wasn’t the sort of man to take advantage of a girl in Sandy’s position. He hardened his heart and his expression and pointed back toward town.

  “Well, think about it next time. Go on, get out of here. Go home. If I see you out here again, I’m going to tan your hide.”

  She gave him a broken-hearted look. “But…”

  “No buts. Home. Now.”

  Sandy’s face dropped, and then a flash of anger appeared in her eyes. “You know what? Fuck you.”

  The swearing was bad enough. He’d obviously hurt her feelings by telling her to go away. What he didn’t expect, or even actually see coming in the dark, was the hard slap she delivered to his face. Her relatively small palm packed enough steam to catch him pretty hard, not hard enough to actually move his head any, but enough to make his cheek sting with her feminine fury.

  Travis stared at her for a second. She stared back, as if she were surprised at what she’d done as well. Then he made a grab for her, and she ran. For a second, he thought about letting her just go, but she wasn’t heading back the way she’d come and frankly he didn’t think he’d be doing her any favors letting her get away with hitting him.

  He gave chase, but discovered that catching her was harder than he’d thought it would be. She moved like a hind deer racing through the forest, dodging trees with incredible agility, leaving Travis in her wake.

  * * *

  Sandy ran faster than she’d run in a long time. The moment her palm connected with Travis’ face, she’d seen in his eyes that she’d made a huge mistake. A huge, stupid mistake, almost as big as having come out to see him in the first place. He didn’t even want to see her. Fuck. She’d been so damn stupid to think that a guy as hot as him would be interested in her, some street girl who he’d first mistaken for a prostitute.

  Fortunately she was more than accustomed to running through the woods, and she was lighter and more nimble than him. She deliberately led him up an incline, hoping his heavier frame would slow him down further as he tried to get his footing. Unfortunately for her, Travis was fit and he had longer legs than her. He came bounding up the hillock behind her as if the incline weren’t even there.

  She felt a swish of air as he grabbed for her, but she managed to duck out of the way just before his fingers closed on her arm. She made a quick left turn, scuttling down a leaf bank toward a babbling creek lit silver by the moon. It was just narrow enough to jump over, which she did, throwing herself to the other bank. Scrabbling on hands and knees, she started ascending the other side of the rise, but this side was steeper and rockier and much more difficult to get a grip on. It took pretty much all her strength to haul herself up the ten feet or so. By the time she got to the rise beyond it, she was damn near out of steam.

  Travis was
n’t even close to being tired. She heard his heavier footsteps behind her and tried gamely for another burst of speed, but it was too late. Travis’ huge hand came down, grabbed the back of her sweater. He swung her around as if she weighed no more than a kitten.

  “That was a mistake, little girl.”

  Panting with the exertion of her dash for freedom, Sandy aimed a kick at his shin, but it never connected. He was wise to her now and he wasn’t going to give her a chance to hit him again. He sat down on a nearby tree stump and hauled her over his hard thigh. Before she knew what was happening, he’d started spanking her hard and fast, his palm landing with great whacking swats that jolted her entire body.

  Sandy squealed and squirmed as hot pain blasted across her backside. Travis hit damn hard. He landed a dozen swats before even bothering to yank her pants down. His swats had hurt through denim; over the threadbare fabric of her cotton panties they were almost intolerable.

  She shrieked and lashed out with feet, hands, and teeth but none of it connected with him. Her bottom was blazing hot and she was sure it had to be swollen to twice its usual size.

  Somewhere in the spanking her panties disintegrated entirely, or maybe he’d just pulled them down. Either way they weren’t there anymore. Her bare butt was exposed to him and his damn hard palm, which was whacking her as tirelessly as if he were some kind of thrashing machine. Sandy had never experienced such a butt whipping in all her life.

  But the worst thing about it wasn’t that her rear hurt. It was that she was getting wet. She could feel the moisture welling inside her, her pussy lips spilling their secret slowly. How embarrassing! It was bad enough to be spanked by the man she’d come out to flirt with, even worse to find that she was getting wet as hell while he spanked her.

  Tears started to sting her eyes. She tried not to show how upset she was, or how much her ass was hurting. The very last thing she wanted to do was make even more of a fool of herself by crying, or worse still, coming.

  Just when she was sure her butt was going to burst into flames, he let her up. She popped up from his thighs, rubbing her butt furiously with both her hands.

  “What the hell, Travis!? There wasn’t any need for that. You…”

  “You came out all the way into the woods because you wanted something,” Travis interrupted her roughly. “Do you still want it?”

  There was something different about him. A different look in his eye. He wasn’t looking at her as if she were some annoying runaway anymore. He was looking at her with lustful eyes. She’d seen them on various men before—none as purely masculine as Travis.

  “I… uh… do… I… huh?” She stammered over her words, blushing bright red. Her embarrassment made her angry. How dare he tell her to go away, then chase her down, whip her butt and ask her if she wanted him? How dare he make her feel so small and so confused and so fucking horny… “Fuck off,” she spat, twisting her face up in an angry sneer.

  “I see you’ve learned precisely nothing from that little lesson,” Travis said, yanking her back over his knee. “Let’s see if you can find some manners.”

  “Travis! No!”

  It was too late. He was already spanking her again. This time though, his hand wasn’t landing on her bottom, but right over her wet pouting pussy. Sandy bucked against his thighs, her hips squirming desperately as he punished her on the most sensitive part of her body.

  Still he kept spanking her there between her legs, as if he had every right to be touching her there, as if the fact that he was swatting her pussy was of no consequence to him at all. She was turned on, but he was treating her as if her soft nether-lips were just another part of her body for him to spank.

  Squealing her objections, Sandy did her damnedest to escape Travis’ grasp. His fingers kept swatting her pussy lips over and over and she knew he had to notice how wet she was. Sandy tried her hardest to stop being so aroused. It shouldn’t have been difficult. She was clamped over his thighs, completely trapped as he punished her pussy.

  “Travis! Cut it out! That’s my… that’s my fucking…” She blushed even brighter as she realized she couldn’t quite bring herself to name what was happening. “You can’t spank me there!”

  “If you want to avoid having your little pussy spanked, you might want to try being polite,” Travis growled down at her. “Swearing at me is never, ever going to fly. You take a lot of silly risks, Sandy. You go out in the middle of the night in bad areas. You sneak into military bases to see men you barely know.”

  “One man!” Sandy threw back over her shoulder. “Just you! I wanted to see you. And now I know that was just as stupid as everything else. So let me go and you’ll never see me again. Hell, I’m sorry I thought I liked you.”

  He stood up abruptly, tipping her off his lap. Before she could run away, he pulled her half-naked body hard up against his and looked down at her with a searing gaze.

  “You thought you liked me?”

  “You saved me,” she snapped at him. “And you seemed nice, and I thought maybe you might like me, but obviously not.”

  Even as she spoke, she could feel his cloth-covered cock pressing against her naked lower belly. Her sore, swollen pussy leaked excitement as his free hand ran down her spine and cupped her hot, sore bottom.

  “I never said I didn’t like you,” he growled down at her.

  She stared up at him wordlessly, wanting more than she could possibly say. He lowered his head until his lips pressed against hers and then they were kissing passionately there in the woods, her half-naked body explored by his powerful hands as she pressed herself against his muscular frame and started working at his clothing. She freed his cock, wrapped her hand around it, and felt a thrill as he made a moan of pleasure into her mouth.

  Travis cupped her bottom in both hands, lifted her up, and pushed her back against the tree. Her sweater protected her from the rough bark as he spread her legs around his waist. She felt the head of his hard, hot cock pressing against her wet pussy lips and one gasping breath later he slid inside her, hard and rough, spreading her eager pussy in one long thrust.

  Sandy had experienced sex before. Fumbling, awkward sex with fumbling awkward boys. She’d never ever been fucked properly by someone who took total control. There was nothing awkward about Travis. His cock ravaged her pussy with sure, hard, long strokes and she welcomed each and every thrust.

  Her legs wrapped around his waist, clenching him against her as her greedy little cunt demanded everything he had and more. Her butt was still burning, but that only added to the heat. Travis thrust deep inside her and held himself there, grinding the hard ridge of his pubic bone against her clit.

  “Is this what you wanted?” He breathed the question in her ear, pinning her in place without moving.

  Sandy let out a little whimper and tried to slide herself along his cock, but he clamped his hands hard on her hips and locked her in place.

  “Answer me, Sandy,” he said, his brilliant eyes burning into hers. “Is this what you wanted when you came out here? To be stripped and fucked?”

  “No,” she gasped. “I was hoping you’d lecture me and chase me around the forest.”

  “Smart-ass,” he chuckled darkly, pulling all the way out of her captive pussy until the thick head of his cock was just barely keeping her lips spread open. He slid slowly back and forth, going no deeper than half an inch inside her in slow erotic torture. “Tell me, Sandy. Tell me what you wanted.”

  “I wanted… you,” Sandy gasped. He slid a little deeper.

  “What did you want from me, Sandy?”

  “I was curious…” she moaned as he slid in further still.

  “Curious,” he said, starting to fuck her again, long, sensual thrusts that made his cock press against the upper wall of her pussy, stimulating every part of her clenching cunt. “Look where curiosity got you, Sandy,” he said before pressing his mouth to her neck and kissing from her collarbone to her earlobe and back down her neck, leaving love bites in the wake
of his lips.

  She could feel her pussy quaking around his cock, so thick and hard inside her that she could barely take it all. He was pushing her to her limits, stripping her of every bit of modesty and decency, leaving her nothing more than a quivering vessel of need.

  Travis abandoned conversation then, preferring to plunder her pussy with rough but controlled strokes that drove all thought from her mind. She had never been so entirely consumed by or close to another person. He didn’t feel like a stranger. He felt like the man she had never known she was waiting for.

  She was going to come; she could feel it tingling from her fingers to her toes. Her clit was a hard nub of ecstasy; every time his body ground against hers she felt herself slide closer to the edge.

  “Come for me,” he ordered, sliding a hand into her hair and pulling her head back so he could lock eyes with her. “I want to feel that tight little cunt of yours come all over me.”

  Sandy couldn’t have defied orders if she’d tried. He jackhammered his hips against hers, demanding she reach climax, commanding it. And she came, screaming her orgasm to the night. Her knees were still weak when he slid out of her and let her take her feet. She ended up dropping to her knees, which was perfect for what he had in mind.

  She felt his hand in her hair, pulling her up to his waist before issuing another order.

  “Open your mouth.”

  He wanted to fuck her mouth, come down her throat. Sandy almost opened her mouth, but some rebellious spark made her refuse. She regretted that decision almost instantly. Travis was right on the verge of orgasm, and when she kept her lips closed, he pumped his cock through his fist once, twice, three times and came right on her face, thick streams of white ropey cum landing over the bridge of her nose and spattering over her lips and cheeks.

  “Travis!” Her lashes flew open as his cum soaked her face.