Military Heroes Bundle: A Soldier's Homecoming / A Soldier's Redemption / Danger in the Desert / Strangers When We Meet / Grayson's Surrender / Taking Cover. Merline Lovelace
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even that question began to slip away, replaced by deepening awareness of the body pressed against his. Sexual desire, long held at bay by the need for survival that could be lost in a moment’s inattention, began to pace within him like too-long-caged wolf.
Nor was it simply desire for any woman. No. He desired this woman and no other. Her warmth, her curves, awakened him. It would have been so easy just to give in and carry her to the floor, but conscience rose, reminding him of her vulnerability.
Just as he would have released her, she lifted her head and her lips found his. The brush of a butterfly wing, so light he barely felt it, but it sent an electric jolt to the farthest cells of his body.
He almost swore. Like Frankenstein’s monster, lightning was bringing him to life. She deserved so much better.
But the thought never fully formed, because she moved against him, just a little, a soft murmur escaping her as she sought deeper contact with his mouth.
He couldn’t resist. He needed this kiss more than he had needed anything in his life. He lowered his head, pressing his mouth to hers, gently at first, then more deeply, as she welcomed him.
His groin throbbed with forgotten longing as his body woke to new possibilities that seemed to offer salvation of some kind.
He ached deeply, needing...needing...
“Ethan...”
His name sounded like a prayer as she whispered it. Buried parts of his very being burst free of their bonds, reminding him that he was a living, breathing man like any other.
It would have been less painful to rip off his own skin, but he pulled away, conscience piercing him like a dagger.
She looked at him from sleepy, worried eyes. “Ethan?”
“I don’t want to hurt you, and I’m afraid I might. I can’t even trust myself, Connie. How can I ask anyone else to trust me?”
A wounded look pinched her eyes, and finally she nodded. “You’re right,” she said thickly. “I can’t trust myself, either. I’ve been avoiding men since Leo because I know I’m not a decent judge, and...” She turned and fled.
He listened to her feet pound as she ran upstairs to her bedroom, and he hated himself.
Not hurt her? He just had.
Although it was still early evening, Connie got ready for bed. She went through the motions automatically, trying to fight down feelings of hurt and despair that really had nothing to do with Ethan. All he had done was remind her of Leo. That wasn’t his fault.
In fact, she told herself as she brushed her teeth, he had been kind enough to protect her from herself.
So why did she feel so bad?
A quick shower washed off the day’s grit but not the day’s worries. Nothing could wash those away, and she seemed to nurture them sometimes. Oh, not her concern about Sophie. That was as real as a worry could be. But other stuff. Her past. Her constant tension, as if she feared being beaten again. As she knew only too well, not even packing a gun could protect her from that, not when she loved someone. Or thought she did.
Some old country song floated into her mind as she climbed into a cotton nightshirt. Something about it not really being love if it tore you apart.
Great line. But as someone who had been there, she knew the other side of that one. Leo had never loved her in the true sense of the word, but she had sure as hell loved him. At least until fear pushed out the love.
She flopped onto the bed and reached for the TV remote on her night table, then hunted for something that would occupy her mind enough to keep her from thinking. She’d been thinking for too many years as it was, but tonight she doubted she would be able to even manage to read a book. Everything about her felt scattered to the four winds.
No crime shows, too close to her job. No romances, too painful. Ghosts? Didn’t she already have enough of her own? Comedy didn’t seem very funny tonight. News? No, there might be something there to remind her of the very things she was trying to forget.
Finally she settled on a lightweight British police procedural. Amusing, devoid of ugliness, very different from the real thing.
She switched off the light and settled in, hoping the eccentric British characters would suffice to distract her.
Unfortunately, her body wasn’t quite ready to quiet down. She wondered if Leo had ever aroused her the way Ethan just had. If he ever had, she couldn’t remember now.
Somehow she doubted it. Something about Ethan was magical, tormented soul though he was. A pang seized her heart as she remembered what he’d shared with her. Awful. Absolutely awful. He needed a magic wand, but the universe didn’t hand those out to anyone.
Somehow you just had to keep muddling through, trying to mend yourself or put the bad stuff behind you. All a therapist could do, she had learned through experience, was give you the tools to do one or the other. Maybe that was the hardest thing of all: learning you had to be your own healer.
She rolled over on the bed, her body restless with hunger she couldn’t erase, hunger so strong it almost hurt. Her loins ached with it. Her breasts had become exquisitely sensitive to every movement of her nightgown across her nipples.
She didn’t want this. She had a child to think of, and her mother, in addition to herself, and the agenda didn’t include playing with fire.
But she burned anyway, television forgotten.
Could just one night be that dangerous? Why couldn’t she scratch the itch and move on? Other people did.
Why, she wondered almost angrily, couldn’t she enjoy the most basic human contact? Did she feel she had to punish herself for one major mistake? What made her so different from anyone else? Who said she could never trust herself again?
She did.
She had devised all the rules for her current life, maybe in reaction to her complete lack of control in her relationship with Leo. Maybe now she felt she had to control everything.
Talk about an impossibility! Apparently she couldn’t even protect her own daughter.
The phone beside her bed rang, and she reached for it, expecting to hear Sophie’s voice bubbling over with giggles about how much fun they were having.
Instead, she heard a chilling voice.
“She’s a beautiful child, Connie.”
Her veins turned to ice as she slammed the phone down on the cradle. No! No!
Then she screamed.
“Ethan!”
* * *
Ethan bounded up the stairs three at a time and burst into Connie’s room. In the flickering light from her television, she was pulling frantically at the phone cord, trying to yank it out of the wall.
“Connie?”
“It was him,” she sobbed. “It was him!”
“Who?”
“The man who wants Sophie. He said she’s a beautiful child. Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God...”
Ethan crossed the room and took her into his arms, at once confining her gently and supporting her. “Shh... Shh...”
“He called. Oh, God, he called! Sophie...” She began shoving against Ethan, trying to escape. “I have to call and see if she’s all right. Sophie... Oh, my God...”
“Shh,” he said more sharply. “I’m here, and I’ll help. Is the phone still plugged in?”
“I don’t know. Oh, God...”
He lifted the receiver