Page 50 of Hot Soldier's Rescue

He’d go off into the jungle to play arms dealer, and she’d take the kids back to the real world and never see him again. The finality of it all struck her forcefully, and the loss was acutely painful. Except how could she lose what she’d never had?

And that brought her right back around to the core problem. Temptation. And its name was Drago Cantori.

“Kiss me, Elise. Let go just this once.” As astute as always, he’d unerringly picked up on the source of her hesitation, darn him.

“But the children—”

He cut her off. “—Are asleep in the other room and Grandma’s watching them.”

That hadn’t been where she was going. She’d meant to say her duty to them came first.

“They’re fine. Don’t be a coward and hide behind them.”

A coward? She bristled inside. She was a lot of things, but a coward wasn’t one of them. Except…maybe he was right. She’d spent so long seeking revenge for her parents’ deaths that she’d closed out just about every other emotion but burning need for justice. The revelation broke over her like a cold shower: it wasn’t the children or her nun disguise she’d been hiding behind. It was her parents and their tragic deaths. And she’d been hiding behind those for a very long time.

Five years she’d spent holding on to their murder. Five years living only for vengeance, seeking a way to make it right. Except there was no way to fix the fact that they were gone. Look at the damage her quest had done to Mia and Emanuel. How many more people was she going to hurt in her hopeless search for a way to make it better?

“Are you okay?” he asked, pulling back a little.

“Yes. No. Maybe.”

“A quintessentially female answer if I ever heard one.” He chuckled.

“It just dawned on me that I’m alive and my parents are dead, and all I can do is go on living. The one thing they’d never forgive me for would be stopping my life and dwelling forever on nothing but their murders.”

“Am I supposed to have the slightest idea what you’re talking about?”

She reached up to lay a hand on his cheek. “No. But thank you. I think I just figured out something important.”

“All that from a kiss? Wait till you see the epiphany you get from making love with me.”

She smiled, but maybe there was a kernel of truth in his words. Maybe she’d denied herself for too long. Shied away from truly living while she hid behind her grief and anger. And maybe that was why she threw her arms around his neck and, to his clear surprise, kissed him back.

This might be a guaranteed one-night stand, but that was a whole lot better than nothing at all. A sudden, driving need to connect to another human being, the tingle from head to foot with life, to feel something—anything—other than rage or guilt or grief overwhelmed her.

How did that saying go? Carpe diem? Seize the day. Truer words had never been spoken.

“Did you say something?” he muttered.

“I said carpe diem,” she admitted in chagrin.

“No Latin, please.” He chuckled. “You already caused me enough headaches when I thought I was in lust with a nun and going straight to hell for it.”

Laughter bubbled up in her chest. “You have no idea how mad I was at Father Ambrose after I met you for sticking me in these hideous clothes and putting a wimple on my head.”

“It really is an awful dress.” His fingers drifted to the row of buttons down the front and commenced wiggling them free.

“Gee, thanks.”

“Consider it a tribute to your beauty that I still thought you were hot in spite of it.”

“Yeah, let’s go with that.” She laughed as he pushed the fabric off her shoulder and commenced sampling the valley just above her collarbone. But then the heat of his mouth closed on her breast through the skimpy lace of her not-at-all-nunlike bra and no more speech was possible for her.

She gasped and arched into him, and he absorbed her weight against him. She wrapped her arms around his head, drawing him even closer to her, dropping kisses on top of his head until he tilted his head back and captured her mouth with his.

Desire zinged through her body and she reveled in the sensation. She was alive. Really, truly alive!

Her clothes fell away like magic beneath his nimble fingers, and before long she straddled his hips completely naked against his fully clothed form. The rasp of his shirt was delicious and his hands were like hot branding irons, marking every inch of her flesh his.

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