Ryan woke to the familiar rumbling sounds of distant thunder. With a gasp, he snapped upright, heart pounding furiously in his chest, then let out a shaky breath when he remembered where he was. Right. I'm in Amy's apartment... on Earth. It's not the first week of Commander-Candidate field exercises. This place is safe.

A faint creaking sound, louder than the background patter of rain against glass, caught his attention. He paused, listening. A few seconds later, he heard it again, slightly closer this time.

What was that? he wondered, looking around in the darkness.

As his vision adjusted, a shape gradually resolved. Barely visible against the backdrop of the sky seen through the apartment windows, it was slowly creeping across the room towards him. As it drew nearer, it became apparent that it belonged to a woman. The gentle curve of waist and hips made that obvious, not to mention the little heart-shaped wedge of the city skyline visible through the gap between the intruder's thighs.

So, not an intruder, then.

Amy? Or Syd?

The shadow slid forward, accompanied by another faint creak from the floorboards.

He wondered if he should say something. Whoever it was, they were clearly making an effort to avoid waking him. Intrigued, he decided to wait and see how things played out. Turning carefully to avoid his bandaged side, he settled back against the cushions.

The figure took a step closer to him, hesitated, glanced around furtively, then took another.

A jagged fork of lightning tore through the sky, instantly casting everything into stark illumination. Thunder followed, a tremendous crash that made the windows rattle as the room was plunged back into darkness. Blinking away the swimming purple afterimages, Ryan recalled the fleeting vision of beauty that he'd just witnessed.

It was Syd, still dressed in the lacy black camisole that he'd seen her in earlier, but now without anything on beneath it. Laid over her bare skin, the sheer material had revealed more than it hid. The tips of her breasts stood out, pressed against the fabric, so clearly defined that he could see the outline of her piercings. Below that, her navel created a faint indentation, and when his gaze traveled even further down...

She'd taken the time to style her hair, returning the cascade of black-and-blue curls to its glossy former splendor, and even reapplied her makeup. Dark mascara framed her eyes, and her lips glistened metallic blue. Under the harsh lighting, her pale complexion looked even paler.

From across the room, their eyes had met. The sudden connection sent a jolt through him, and from the way she'd stiffened in surprise, it seemed that she felt something similar.

Ryan opened his mouth to speak, but she held a finger up to her lips with an urgent expression.

Uncertain exactly what the young woman was after, Ryan nodded. He had his suspicions, of course. Sneaking around this late at night, in an outfit like that, certainly suggested that she had an amorous objective in mind, but... really? Here? Now?

The lines of shadow playing across Syd's physique deepened as she slipped away from the window. Like a mysterious, gorgeous wraith, she stole across the room. In the space of a blink, her half-hidden form stood beside his makeshift bed.

"Syd, what do you – mmmph?"

A palm over his mouth silenced him. The other hand came up a second later, and she waggled a reproaching finger at him. Syd watched his face, amusement sparkling in her honey-brown eyes, and once he'd made it clear he wouldn't try to speak again, she released her hold on him.

Leaning forward, she placed her painted lips beside his ear.

"Shhh," she whispered. Her warm breath tickled the side of his neck, the sensation drawing an involuntary shiver out of him. "You remember how thin these walls are, right? We don't want to wake Amy up."

"Syd," he murmured, speaking to her as softly as he could, "what do you think you're doing?"

Still bent over him, she inched closer, allowing her silk garment to brush lightly against his bare chest. One of her arms slid up the sofa's armrest, bringing the pointed tips of her long, blue-enameled nails into his peripheral vision as she dragged them, cat-like, across the upholstery.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" she asked.

I should stop her, Ryan thought, before this goes any further. There's a reason every military in the world has rules about fraternization. If I don't hit the brakes right now, everything will get so much more complicated. And if Amy finds out...

Yet he couldn't bring himself to say the words.

Her lips were nearly touching his.

Outside, lightning flashed again, followed by another tremendous boom. The short-lived glare was reflected in her eyes, highlighting the burning desire they held. As she closed the remaining distance between them, her eyelids drifted shut, and her full lips parted expectantly.

They kissed.

Syd's technique was assertive, which came as no surprise to him. It felt like she was trying to swallow his face. Pushing her open mouth against his, she moaned. Her tongue probed clumsily, aggressively, playing across the inside of his lips and running along his teeth.

Gradually, he began to realize that she was... really bad at this.

That was a surprise. She'd acted so cocky...

Placing his hands on her shoulders, he gently pushed her away. A string of saliva hung shimmering, stretching between them, then finally came apart as they separated.

"What did you do that for?" she demanded, panting. "It was just getting good!"

"You can slow down a little," he told her, smiling to reduce the sting of the admonition. "Take a breath. It's not a race."

"Not a –" she sputtered, her volume rising dangerously. "Do you think this is my first time?"

"Should I?"

"Of course not! I'm in college! I've made out dozens of times before!"

He raised a politely-doubtful eyebrow.

"Well, um..." she floundered briefly under his skeptical gaze, her eyes darting around the room. "...shut up! I know what I'm doing!"

With a frustrated noise, she dropped to her knees, slipping out of his grasp.

"I'll show you," she said, her expression fiercely determined. Under her breath, probably not realizing she was still speaking aloud, she continued, "Fuck. How hard can it be, anyway?"

Without any of her previous playfulness, Syd slapped her palms down onto the blanket that half-covered him. Hands splayed, she grabbed it and yanked, pulling it away from him in a violent motion. Beneath the covers, he wasn't wearing anything other than a pair of pants. No shirt... and no underwear.

The tips of her fingers brushed, lightly, over the stiffening outline of his cock. He sucked in an involuntary breath.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Biting her bottom lip, she moved her hand back to his thigh.

"I'm... not very good at talking about stuff," Syd grumbled.

With her index finger, she was drawing lazy circles around his lap, spiraling in closer with each revolution, but never quite reaching his most sensitive areas. As she spoke, she kept her attention wholly focused on the task, head down, long hair falling over her face like a curtain.

"Amy tells me all the time that it's something I need to work on. She says that I should just tell people how I feel." The fingernail trailed lightly across his skin, leaving lines of pleasant, tingling fire in its wake. "That's pretty fucking rich coming from her, right?"

"It's okay, Syd. You don't have to –"

"Shit!" she swore, still refusing to look up. "Why am I so bad at this?" She exhaled heavily, the movement of her finger slowing to a halt. "Listen, Ryan, I like you. Okay?" Like a dam had been broken, the words came pouring out of her. "I like you a lot. You're funny. You're smart. You're brave. You're ridiculously good-looking – and yeah, it's shallow for me to care about stuff like that, but I'm trying to tell you how I feel. You've never asked me for anything. Ever since we met, you've treated me like a normal person. I don't think you even understand how big a deal that is to me."

"We've known each other for less than a day," he pointed out.

"So what?" she shot back. Her touch trailed up his hip, making a careful detour around the bandaged area on his side, then back down. "Ryan, I watched you damn near get yourself killed trying to protect me. Are you telling me there's more to you than that? Some dark, hidden side of you that I haven't seen?"

As she spoke, her fingers closed around the base of his cock, forcing him to bite back another gasp. How many years had it been since a woman touched him like this?

"You're not a bad boy, are you, Ryan?"

His long-suppressed libido roared to life, clamoring to be unleashed, and it was all he could do to hold himself still. Shakily, he reached across his body, clutching for her hand. Either he'd stop her, or…

"Syd... you're sure you want to do this?" he gritted out.

"Oh, I'm sure," she replied, finally raising her head to meet his gaze. "I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

Catching his wrist with her free hand, she pulled it in closer. The next thing he felt was her warm lips wrapping around his fingertips. Syd's tongue darted out, a momentary glimpse of pink, then retreated. Her upturned eyes looked unblinkingly into his as she guided his middle finger into her mouth.

Wet heat enveloped him. Something metallic, a small tongue stud that he hadn't seen, slid across his knuckle. The sight was almost unbearably erotic, and the sensations... Unable to help himself, he groaned. Ryan wasn't just throbbing anymore; he was harder than he could ever remember being.

"Mhmmm."

Syd let out a pleased-sounding purr as her other hand started to move, stroking the growing bulge in his pants with agonizing slowness. Her hips shifted, the motion seemingly unconscious, thighs rubbing against one another while she continued sucking.

Withdrawing slightly, she released his finger, allowing the glistening digit to trail limply down her chin and neck. Like the high-tide line on a beach, she'd left a blue ring of smeared lipstick behind to mark her progress.

"Oh," she said, a little shiver of delight rolling down her spine.

Her hand continued to glide up and down his shaft. In this, she proved to be just as skilled as she had been at kissing: not very. The pressure she applied was uneven, the movements uncertain, and the less said about her tempo, the better. Every so often, her fingers would become tangled in the loose fabric, or caught on his waistband.

And it didn't matter at all. Everything about her touch felt genuine. She was trying her best, and he could sense her desire for him. That was enough.

Losing patience with the teasing games, she pulled the front of his pants down, finally allowing his stiff member to spring free. Exposed to the air, it twitched at her impatiently. Her eyes widened as she took him in.

"It didn't look this big the last time I saw it..." she muttered to herself in an awed tone.

Syd leaned in for a closer inspection. Using two fingers, she tilted his shaft back and forth curiously, watching in fascination as it bobbed back to rigid attention each time she let go.

"If you play with it, that tends to happen," Ryan informed her, the wry statement ending in another sharp intake of breath as she took hold of him again and resumed stroking.

"Like this?"

His injury all but forgotten, he tried to sit upright, only to be met halfway by a small hand on his chest.

"Oh, no you don't." Syd mimicked Amy's prim tone as she pushed him back down until he was flat against the cushions. "You're a convalescent." Her smile took on a wicked edge. "You just lay there like a good boy and let Nurse Syd take care of you, okay?"

She bent forward, her curly hair brushing across his stomach and thighs, and pressed her lips against his straining tip. Despite the confident front she'd insisted on continuing to put up, the act was timid, almost demure, a soft kiss that straddled the line between sweet and obscene.

Then the young woman took a deep breath and, with the determined expression of a gladiator entering the arena, lunged forward.

No one could fault Syd for effort. If willpower alone could make it happen, that first attempt would have taken him all the way to the root. Sadly, there were other considerations of biology and physics at play, bringing her progress gagging to a halt far short of her goal.

It felt incredible nonetheless.

For Ryan, it had been a very long time.

His hips jolted involuntarily as she turned her head from side to side. The movements pushed his sensitive head up against the inside of her cheek, the roof of her mouth, the back of her throat. Her tongue stud dragged along the underside of his glans, making him shudder again.

Eyes watering, she forced herself down another half-inch, coughed, then fell back, releasing him with a wet pop.

"I said quit moving around!" Syd hissed at him, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. In an offended tone, she complained, "In hentai they always make it seem like this is so fucking easy to do..."

Ryan filed that interesting bit of information away for future consideration. A moment later, his thoughts went blank as she made another tenacious effort to swallow his length.

His balls clenched warningly.

It had been a very, very long time.

"Careful, Syd," he told her, "I'm getting close –"

"Mmm hmm," she replied, the indistinct words generating pleasant vibrations that traveled through his shaft and sent accompanying sparks running up his spine. "Hmmm."

Rather than slow down at his announcement, she'd started to move faster than before. The corners of her eyes crinkled in satisfaction as she watched his expression twist.

Syd's pace accelerated again. The beautiful young woman's breath puffed from her nose in short pants. Although she'd barely taken half his length, she was still trying her best to deep-throat him with commendable enthusiasm. Her curly hair flew as she bobbed back and forth, plastering itself to her damp cheeks. Using the back of his hand, Ryan gently brushed the loose locks away, tucking them behind her ear.

Saliva rolled down his cock, dripping off his sack onto the cushions. Bubbles of it collected at the corners of her mouth. The sounds of her stubborn, gagging moans grew dangerously loud, in competition with the raging storm.

"Shh," he cautioned, but Syd gave no sign that she'd heard.

With one hand, she was pumping his rod furiously, her spit-lubed hand sliding between his groin and her lips. The other had found its way down to the lacy hem of her chemise and was in frantic motion between her legs.

From the direction of Amy's room, he heard a faint click, so quiet that he felt tempted to say he'd imagined it. He shot an alarmed glance towards her bedroom door, confirming that it was still closed –

– then Syd swallowed, once, twice. The climax came suddenly, taking him by surprise as much as it took her. Like he'd been struck by one of the lightning bolts outside, his entire body went rigid. He gripped the back of her head, back arched, hips trembling. Her eyes widened as he shot rope after rope down her throat, but she made no move to pull away.

It had been a very, very, very long time.

When he was finally spent, she opened her mouth, letting his flagging member drop. With a wicked smile made even more erotic by her smeared lipstick and runny mascara, she stuck out her tongue, proving to him that she'd finished every last drop.

...hot damn, he thought.

Syd's smug expression faded as she looked down.

"Is it supposed to..." she began in a hoarse voice, then cleared her throat. "Is it supposed to be getting hard again already?"

"Only if it really likes you."

"Maybe we should wait until tomorrow," Syd said worriedly. "Your side..."

"Hey, don't worry about me. I feel fine."

Ryan started to push himself up from the couch. The burns on his waist, which he'd disregarded in all the excitement, suddenly flared back to life with a vengeance. Biting back a cry of pain, he swayed, and barely managed to avoid slumping to the floor by catching himself on the armrest with his good arm.

"Actually, I think you might be right, Nurse Syd," he panted, once he'd recovered enough to speak. "Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," Syd promised. "And the next day and the day after." She giggled playfully. "I'm not going anywhere."

Ryan turned his head to watch her shadowy outline slink away, a curious mix of joy and contentment surging in his chest.