Treading Dangerous Ground by Deirdre O’Dare

Treading Dangerous Ground by Deirdre O’Dare
www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/bio_ODare

This was my very first m/m romance and has been out quite awhle but it is still special to me and still sells. As I said it wanted to be written so badly that I picked up a pen and scribbled the first scene on a grocery llist pad on my breakfast table!And I have never written in longhand on a mss since I began to write seriously; always compose at the keyboard. There was a spin off from this, Fire on Ice that is stand alone but similar setting etc.

Blurb: Seasoned Unifleet officer Jayce Hightower takes care of his troops. That included supporting green soldier Balt Donovan through his first exposure to combat. What Jayce had not expected was that the striking young man would soon come to dominate his dreams, stirring unfamiliar and disturbing desires. When he learns Balt is similarly attracted to him, the situation starts to careen out of control putting both their careers in jeopardy. Jayce almost welcomes the hazardous assignment that sends him alone to a distant, dangerous world. But when his mission is betrayed, it is Balt who comes to his rescue. Will Jayce finally be able to accept the unconditional love that Balt offers him?

Excerpt: This is their first close encounter after the battlefield scene.

The sound died in his throat. Had his wishful hunger materialized the object of his desire? Could it really be Balt Donovan who stood there, armed with a hesitant smile? Balt wore the silver slashes of Captain JG now on the collar of his tunic. A new maturity strengthened his face. He had two campaign ribbons–Kalibassi and another that looked like Gomorrow. Jayce registered all those details in a shocked instant.
“Can I come in? When I heard you were here, I knew I had to come see you. I need to thank you for helping me through my first taste of combat. It was easier the next time, but you were right, I was still scared.”
Jayce could not speak. Instead he simply stepped back, leaving space for the other man to enter the room. Balt was no longer a green cadet, almost an apprentice soldier. He was an officer now, a man in every sense of the word, his beauty tempered with subtle traces of pain, regret and pride. He held out a hand. Jayce took it, letting the clasp bridge the space he could not span with words. A trickle of warmth slid along the inside of his arm and down his body.
“You’ve done well,” he croaked after a long moment. “I can see that by your new insignia, and something in your face as well.”
“You’re still a captain. I’m surprised. I’d have thought you’d be a major by now. Weren’t you on Hades II?”
“Promotions get slower the higher you go,” Jayce admitted. “It’s the new young troops that fall, leaving gaps in the ranks. Those that survive earn their chevrons, then maybe appointment to the officer corps. You should know that by now.”
Balt nodded. He looked around the stark room, as if taking in the minimal furniture and Spartan atmosphere. “I heard you’re shipping out soon, maybe tomorrow. That’s why I came today, to be sure I didn’t miss you. Most of the troops with orders are over at the club, drowning their worries in nightberry wine or some other booze. I looked, but didn’t see you there. When I asked, someone said you might be in your room.”
“I don’t drink,” Jayce said. “I don’t handle alcohol well. It usually disagrees with me to the point I get sick before I get a good buzz. I wasn’t in the mood to socialize anyway.”
Balt drew in a long breath. A fleeting concern danced through his eyes. “Would you rather I left?”
Yes. No. Oh hell! “No, you came to see me, so the least I can do is be polite, I guess. I was just surprised. I’d been thinking about you.”
A faint blush spread across Balt’s cheeks. “I think about you a lot. I guess you’ve become a kind of hero in my mind.”
“Don’t do that,” Jayce said harshly. “There’s nothing here to idolize, little to admire.”
“No!” A shadow of distress crossed Balt’s expressive face. “No, you’re a good man, a good officer. Brave, yet compassionate and caring. As I rise through the ranks, I hope I can be such a man.”
Jayce stepped back, sank onto the foot of the narrow bed. “Why are you here? Why did you really come to see me? I don’t need anyone’s hero worship. That’s stupid. You know better…or you should.”
Balt flashed a brief smile. Hesitancy colored his expression. “I–I’d like to think we could be friends,” he said. “At least friends…” He held both hands out to Jayce. “Please.”
As if pulled by a force beyond his resistance, Jayce stood again and moved closer, not stopping until he stood chest to chest with the younger man. Balt reached, wrapping both arms around him. Then Jayce found himself embracing Balt as well. They were of a height, which made it seem awkward. In spite of that, it felt very right.
He could feel the rhythm of Balt’s heartbeat, faster than he’d expect. He smelled the spicy scent of aftershave, an odor not sweet but tangy, like lemon mixed with cinnamon.
Then he found himself gazing into the younger man’s dark eyes, mere inches away from his own.
What he saw there both comforted and frightened him. His reflection was there, of course, but somehow altered by another’s perception. He also saw a longing much like his own, an urgent need that couldn’t be ignored or denied.
They both moved at the same instant, two heads angling smoothly into the kiss. It occurred as if carefully choreographed. No noses bumped, and there was no clumsy twisting or shifting to find the right connection. Something deep within each of them knew, responded as if programmed to do so.
Balt’s lips were firm and warm, softening slightly as Jayce’s met and meshed with them. Surprise, arousal and delight flashed through Jayce in an instant. This was not part of his dream. He’d dreamed of their naked bodies entangled, of clumsy hands fumbling with cocks and clutching hard cheeks, but not this. How could it feel so right, so utterly pleasing and yet so strange?
I never kissed another man before. The vague thought slipped through his awareness to fade away as they both opened their mouths in an urgency to draw more air into lungs suddenly depleted.
At that point, it seemed completely natural to taste the inside of Balt’s mouth, sliding his tongue along the even white teeth and into the hollows on either side, beneath the strong, high cheekbones. A faint hint of mouthwash and coffee lingered, but neither repelled Jayce. He suspected his mouth tasted dry and dusty, as if he’d been on the desert for a long time. But Balt didn’t seem to mind.
Finally they had to part, to step back from one another and breathe normally for a few moments. Jayce felt every bit as shocked as Balt looked, yet a kind of peace came over him as he gazed into the younger man’s face. He found he knew Balt with an intimacy he had shared with few in his thirty-five years of life. It was almost as if he’d located the missing part of his soul, the other half of his own identity. It was frightening, yet exhilarating.
He put his hands on Balt’s shoulders, wrapped his fingers around the hard curve of the younger man’s upper arms. The heat seeping through Balt’s uniform almost burned his palms, yet Jayce wanted to feel skin, bare flesh with a hint of bone beneath it.
“Can–would you mind taking your tunic off?” His voice sounded rusty, as if he hadn’t spoken in days.
Balt’s eyes widened for an instant before he nodded. “Okay. Sure.” He drew free of Jayce’s clasp, and took a step back, one hand working at the buttons. In a moment he shrugged out of the garment and placed it on the back of the straight chair.
Beneath the regulation night-blue tunic of the Marine arm of Uni-Fleet to which they were both assigned, he wore only a light, thin undershirt without sleeves. The fabric was soft and clinging, molding over the taut muscles of his chest and stomach. Below that, his growing erection pushed out the fly of his lighter blue uniform trousers.
Without looking, Jayce could feel his own cock, almost fully erect inside his thin PT shorts. Their bodies clearly knew no hesitation, no uncertainty at all. He couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. He was scared, more scared than he had ever been in the face of combat. Yet even that fear was arousing. His heart beat like a pow-wow drum, with a deep, hard rhythm. Blood pounded through his body, swelling his cock until it hurt, while making his skin feel tight and tender all over.
When they again moved into an embrace, Jayce let his hands roam over the other man’s body, learning its contours. Balt similarly explored him, finally slipping his hands beneath the T-shirt Jayce wore to stroke his chest and back.
“I’ve dreamed of this,” Balt confessed, his voice ragged. “I never forgot how it felt, when you held me that night on Kalibassi. I wanted to crawl into your skin with you, to become one entity.”
“I–that night stayed with me, too.” Jayce begrudged the confession, but he had to make it, had to be honest. In a few short minutes they had bypassed deception and dissembling. He could no more pretend to Balt than to himself, and he was far too honest and brutal to hide from the truth, no matter how unsettling it might be.
Among the Uni-Fleet troops, all relationships were frowned upon, especially those between senior and junior officers, or officers and enlisted. It made no difference what the sexes of the two people were. All the women had a birth control implant so there were no issues about pregnancy. Otherwise, there was no differentiation between the sexes. If an attachment came to the attention of higher echelons, they lost no time separating the pair and assigning them duty stations as far apart as the universe allowed.
Fraternization was simply not permitted. Casual sex tended to be ignored, but no real bonding was tolerated, no connection that might cause favoritism or distract any soldier from his or her duty. An officer was expected to have exactly equal concern for each of the troops he or she led, no favorites. The code was stern and unforgiving.
Jayce knew this, and he knew Balt did, too. Already Jayce sensed this was not going to be only a casual fling, a one-night stand. He’d been in much deeper than that since Kalibassi. They were treading dangerous ground from the very first moment.
The second knock on the door in less than thirty minutes interrupted them. They sprang apart, both breathing heavily. Balt grabbed for his tunic and shoved his arms through the sleeves, fighting the fabric as it tangled.
Jayce mumbled, “In a minute,” as if he were half-asleep. Silently, he gestured toward the closet-sized head, opening off the room.
Jayce waited until Balt entered and drew the accordion door shut behind him before he opened the door into the corridor.
A young trooper stood there, an apologetic expression on her face. Jayce recognized the assistant aide to the station commander, an admiral of the Uni-Fleet. “Captain Hightower?”