Under Her Uniform. Victoria Janssen
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she placed herself on the settee…but she was wearing a suit, as well. A man’s suit.
And…she didn’t want to be wearing a dress. The thought made her want to churn her legs against the layers of fabric to free them for easy movement. Perhaps later she would go back to the dress.
She tried to imagine small talk, but the thought of a sturdy brown pot of hot black tea, served with sugar and fresh milk, was almost more than she could bear without salivating. She hadn’t even got to the crisp, buttery biscuits encrusted with white sugar yet.
Perhaps they’d save the biscuits for after, once they’d worked up an appetite. She was stretched out on the sofa, her suit jacket slung over the back of a chair, her tie yanked askew, her collar popped open, Southey’s long body stretched out over hers, his wet mouth open over her throat while his hand yanked her shirttails loose from her trousers. She squirmed up against him, trying to open her legs more widely, to press her cunt against the hard cock that stretched his trouser leg, to rub hard and satisfy the deep ache consuming her from head to toes. Her fingers dug into the muscles of his back, skidded over the smooth wool of his jacket, dug in again when he said her name: “Isobel. Oh, Isobel.”
Ice ran down her back. She stopped short, smelling dirt and the faint whiff of decaying bodies from No Man’s Land out beyond the parapet.
No. Her name was Bob. That was enough. And when she was dressed as a man, that was her name. She needed to stick with it. Two men already knew her real name. It was too dangerous for any others to also know. This wasn’t going to be that kind of fantasy, not one that could get her into serious trouble.
She started walking again, and fell more easily back into her fantasy than she would have thought. Southey’s gorgeous fantasy suit would end up every which way on the rug; she would brush it for him after, and press it, making sure he hadn’t lost any buttons. For now, he’d be lying on the sofa, on his back, one leg braced on the floor, damp hair stuck to his forehead, his smooth chest rising and falling as he looked up at her. He was smiling, that grin he had that could charm even the dourest French housewife out of some cheese or flour sacks or an old shovel or whatever else it was they needed. It was the sort of smile that invited you to share the joke.
Even Hailey would smile back at him. She still wore a shirt, though with the collar removed: fine linen that flowed down over her unbound breasts and rucked up at her hips where she straddled him; in this dream the sofa was wider than she remembered it, and there was room for her knees to go either side of his slim hips. His cock pressed right there. She knew what it looked like, because at one time or another she’d seen most of the men under Meyer’s command in some degree of undress, whether with tunics and uniform shirts off for hard labor or bathing in a pond or picking lice from the seams of their clothes.
There were no lice in this drawing room, there was no cresol soap, there was no damned mud. In fact, he smelled of Pear’s Soap along with good clean male sweat and arousal.
She stumbled on a stray stone and quickly righted herself. She had another good ten minutes before she reached her first destination.
Southey’s hair was pale blond, but his eyebrows were just a bit darker, and he was clean shaven. His eyes were dark blue, like the blue paint on expensive china. A long, slender nose and clean-cut cheekbones and jaw would seem almost too fine to be real, except she’d seen him filthy and cursing with blood running down his face. She traced the curve of his eyebrow with her fingertip, then one of those high cheekbones and around to his ear. He smiled and reached for her, drawing her down to him and holding her close, her breasts pushing into his firm chest.
Her hips would be snug against him, too, if her legs were between his. If she could press right up against him, right into his cock, she’d hear his little mmm of a man well pleased and wanting more. She’d want to encourage more of those sounds, please him because she liked him so much and wanted him to be happy. And wanted him to want to please her.
She’d reach down and find his cock, let it nestle into her palm, calloused just enough to make him twitch and want more. She would tease underneath his foreskin with the tip of her thumb and squeeze, very gently, pulling only enough to make him push his hips forward, begging for a little more. Maybe then she’d wriggle down his body and nuzzle his balls, lick his hipbone and the crease of his leg, all the while tugging on his cock until his hand came down on the back of her head, begging her silently to take him in her mouth.
No, he wouldn’t do that. Not silently. That wasn’t like Southey. He’d grin and cajole and tell her what a lovely mouth she had and how he’d be so honored to have her suck him. He wouldn’t be lying, either. Hailey watched people very carefully, all the time. She was good at recognizing liars. Southey might be a flatterer, but she’d noticed, he never flattered with something that was truly untrue. He could always find something good about a person. Not many people could do that.
She’d take him in her mouth a half-inch at a time, stretching her mouth around him, using her tongue to taste every bit of him. She’d use her hand at his base, to hold him tight until he begged her to move, to suck, and then she’d take him so far down her throat that he’d groan and cry out. And she would have done it, her. She would have had him in her power, would have given him that ultimate pleasure.
She wanted him. All right, she really did. Not just for an imaginary tumble. The charming bastard. She didn’t know much about him, not really, even though in other ways, day-to-day ways, she knew everything. He was a good man to have on your side, and covering your back.
If only he could see her truly, as she was. If only.
No use regretting that. She’d made her choice. She couldn’t give it up now, not when she’d been in the army for so long, not when her mother and sister depended on her to keep them fed and housed and clothed.
She would make do. She didn’t have to like it. That was the way of the world. You did what you had to do, like it or not. Her dear old dad hadn’t done that; he’d run off and left them, a wife and a little girl and a babe in arms. Damned if she’d do the same. She’d see it through, lice and mud and all.
She found Mason halfway to her final destination, cursing over a jammed rifle; she sent him back up Sweet Sally’s Skirt. Once he’d hurried off, a round of shelling—probably testing out distances before the real bombardment that night—obliterated the sound of her boots. She ducked down, slung the rifle on her back, and clapped her hands over her ears for a few moments’ respite. When it let up, she gritted her teeth and continued on her way.
At last, she spotted Southey’s slender figure on a makeshift sandbag fire step. He fired repeatedly, trying to pretend he was more than one man—at twenty rounds a minute, he could make a good job of it, she knew.
She could barely hear the answering fire from their opposing trench, only see puffs of dust as the bullets thumped into the sandbagged parapet.
Dirt flooded into the trench, blocked her way. Flung to her knees, Hailey spit out grit, scrubbing at her eyes with her filthy sleeve. A single shell only this time; was the other side short of ammunition? Hoarding it because they already had the range? The shell had been some little distance away. The shooting had stopped. She sat up cautiously.
To her left, Southey hunched in the dirt. His helmet had been knocked askew; his features were filthy, and vulnerable from shock. “Bloody Christ on the bloody Roman cross, that was close.” One of the sandbags shifted abruptly; he lurched to one knee. He laughed, shakily. “Bob. A hand here.”
A weakened area of plank revetment creaked alarmingly. Hailey coughed, spat more mud, coughed again. This was very far from her fantasy of the two of them. She took off her service cap and banged it against her thigh, dislodging splinters that had just missed her face. “We’re to withdraw to Z3 before dark,” she croaked. She crawled over dirt and split sandbags to reach Southey.
He grinned shakily. “Z3’s finished?” Slowly, he unfolded from around his rifle, fumbling as he tried to strap it to his body. She watched his hands, long-fingered and slender beneath their coating of grime. Pretty hands, in a masculine way. She could see them trembling.
“It’s