Bound By Lies: Marrying The Strict Colonel

The mahogany door to the suite swung open with a soft, weighted click.

Ethan Christensen stepped inside and immediately stilled. His jaw tightened, a muscle ticking along the sharp edge of his cheekbone. The air was wrong. It carried the thick, cloying scent of roses-expensive, deliberate, and utterly foreign to the sterile environment of a military officer's temporary quarters.

His right hand moved instinctively toward his hip, fingers searching for the familiar weight of his sidearm before he remembered. He wasn't in the field. He was in Washington, at a hotel that cost more per night than most of his men earned in a month, attending a series of Pentagon briefings that made him want to claw his own skin off.

Ethan exhaled slowly. He toed the door shut behind him, his polished boots making no sound on the plush wool carpet. The bathroom door stood ajar, a sliver of warm light cutting across the darkened living area. He moved toward it, every muscle in his six-foot-two frame coiled and ready, years of combat instinct overriding the civilized veneer of his dress uniform.

The sound of running water stopped.

Ethan paused three feet from the door. He could see steam curling out, could smell the shower gel-something French and feminine that made his stomach clench with unwelcome awareness. He reached for the door handle, intending to shove it wide and confront whatever security breach had occurred.

Then she stepped into view.

She was wrapped in nothing but a white hotel towel, her back to him, one arm lifted as she ran her fingers through damp, honey-blonde waves. Water droplets traced a path down the elegant line of her spine, disappearing beneath the towel's precarious fold. The light caught the curve of her shoulder, the delicate architecture of her ribs, the bare expanse of leg that seemed to go on forever.

Ethan's breath hitched. His hand froze on the doorframe.

She turned.

Her eyes found his immediately-wide, knowing, and devastatingly green. She didn't scream. She didn't reach for cover. She simply smiled, a slow, dangerous curve of red lips that had no business looking that perfect without a single smudge.

"You're late," she said. Her voice was smoke and velvet, pitched low enough to raise the hair on his arms.

Ethan's throat worked. He forced his gaze to the wall, to the abstract oil painting hanging there-swirls of blue and gray that suddenly seemed more interesting than anything he'd ever seen. "Who the hell are you?"

She laughed. The sound was light, delighted, and it scraped against his nerves like sandpaper. He heard the soft pad of bare feet on carpet, felt the displacement of air as she moved closer. His back found the wall beside the entryway, the cool plaster pressing against his shoulder blades through the heavy wool of his service coat.

"Don't you recognize me, Colonel?" She was close now. Close enough that he could feel the heat radiating from her shower-warmed skin. Close enough that the rose scent wasn't just in the air-it was her, invading his lungs with every breath he forced himself to take. "I'm hurt."

Ethan kept his eyes fixed on the painting. "Ms. Cantu." The name came out clipped, military-grade precision masking the raw confusion beneath. "What are you doing in my room?"

"Chasity," she corrected, and he felt the whisper of her breath against his jaw. "And I'm doing exactly what it looks like I'm doing."

His head snapped down before he could stop it. She was right there, her chin tilted up to meet his gaze, her pupils blown wide in the dim light. The towel had slipped another fraction of an inch, revealing the hollow of her throat, the shadow between her collarbones. Ethan felt his pulse hammering in his neck, in his temples, in places that had no business responding to a tactical threat.

"I don't know what game you're playing," he ground out. "But it ends now. Get dressed. Get out."

Her hand lifted. He watched it rise between them, mesmerized by the pale elegance of her fingers, the unpolished nails that somehow looked more erotic than any lacquered manicure. She didn't touch his face. She touched his chest, her fingertip tracing the gold braid of his rank insignia, the polished buttons of his coat, the rapid rise and fall of his sternum beneath.

"Your heart's racing," she observed. "Are you afraid of me, Colonel?"

Ethan grabbed her wrist. His fingers closed around delicate bones, his grip tight enough to bruise, tight enough to control. "I'm warning you."

"Warn me," she breathed. And then she moved.

She pressed forward, using the height difference between them to tuck her chin against his chest, to look up at him through lashes that cast shadows on her cheekbones. The towel gaped. Ethan felt the soft weight of her breast against his ribs, the bare skin of her hip brushing his thigh through the wool of his trousers. His vision swam.

"Chasity-"

"I saw you three weeks ago," she interrupted, her voice dropping to a whisper that vibrated against his sternum. "At the embassy gala. You were standing by the windows, looking like you'd rather be anywhere else. I couldn't stop watching you."

Ethan squeezed his eyes shut. He could feel the heat of her through his uniform, could smell the clean scent of her skin beneath the artificial roses. "This is insane. I'm-" He forced the words out, each one a battle. "I'm your ex-boyfriend's uncle. I'm twenty years older than you. I'm-"

"Forbidden?" She finished for him, and he felt her smile against his chest. "Delicious."

Her hand twisted in his grip. Not to pull away-to guide him. She pressed his palm flat against her back, against the bare, damp skin of her spine, and Ethan felt his control shredding like wet paper. His fingers spread of their own accord, spanning the width of her waist, feeling the subtle shift of muscle as she rose onto her toes.

"Tell me you don't want this," she whispered against his throat. Her lips brushed the shell of his ear, soft and devastating. "Tell me you haven't thought about it. About me."

Ethan's breath came in ragged bursts. He could feel the precise moment his resolve cracked-a physical sensation, like a fault line giving way beneath his feet. His eyes opened. He looked down at her, at the flush spreading across her cheeks, at the towel that had slipped to reveal the upper curve of her breast, at the predatory gleam in her eyes that should have sent him running and instead lit something dark and hungry in his gut.

"Goddamn you," he whispered.

His free hand shot up, fingers tangling in her wet hair, and he slammed her back against the wall beside the door. The painting rattled on its hook. She gasped-not in shock, but in triumph, her eyes widening with the thrill of his control finally shattering-and then his mouth was on hers, hard and punishing and desperate.

She tasted like mint and sin. Ethan felt her stiffen against him, felt her hands push at his shoulders, and something vicious and triumphant rose in his chest. He deepened the kiss, his tongue demanding entry, his body pinning hers to the wall with the full weight of his frustration and want. She made a sound-half protest, half surrender-and then her fingers were in his hair, pulling him closer, arching into him with a hunger that matched his own.

The towel fell.

Ethan felt it go, felt the sudden expanse of bare skin against his palms as his hands moved of their own accord, spanning her waist, her hips, the incredible softness of her thigh as he lifted her slightly to fit them together. She wrapped one leg around his hip, her heel digging into the back of his thigh, and Ethan groaned into her mouth, the sound lost in the wet heat of their collision.

His hand found her breast, thumb brushing across the peak, and she broke the kiss with a cry that went straight to his groin. Her head fell back against the wall, exposing the long line of her throat, and Ethan followed the invitation, his mouth tracing the pulse hammering beneath her jaw, the delicate hollow of her collarbone, the swell of her breast-

The elevator chimed.

The sound was distant, muffled by the heavy door, but it hit Ethan's consciousness like a rifle shot. He froze, his mouth hovering an inch from her skin, his hand still cupped around the weight of her breast. Reality crashed back in a sickening wave-the hotel, his rank, the twenty-year age gap, the fact that she was his nephew's ex-girlfriend for Christ's sake.

He stumbled backward, his shoulder hitting the opposite wall of the narrow entryway. His chest heaved. He stared at her-at the swollen lips, the dazed eyes, the naked body still pressed against the plaster where he'd had her-and felt something like self-loathing curdle in his stomach.

"Ethan-" she started, reaching for him.

He moved before she could touch him. His hands shook as he stripped off his service coat, the heavy wool dragging against his sensitized skin. He threw it at her, not caring where it landed, needing only to cover her, to erase the image of what he'd just done, what he'd almost done.

"Put this on," he rasped. His voice didn't sound like his own. "Cover yourself."

She caught the coat, clutching it to her chest. For the first time since he'd walked in, she looked uncertain-her eyes wide, her breath coming in shallow gasps that did nothing to help his self-control. "Ethan, wait-"

But he was already moving. He yanked the door open, the force of it sending a decorative vase rocking on its pedestal in the hallway. He didn't look back. He couldn't look back. He strode toward the elevator with the ground-eating pace of a man fleeing a battlefield, his boots loud against the marble floor, his heart hammering a rhythm of shame and want against his ribs.

The door slammed shut behind him.

Kiera stood frozen for three full seconds, the echo of the impact ringing in her ears. Slowly, she lowered herself to the floor, her back sliding down the wall until she sat on the thick carpet. Ethan's coat pooled around her, still warm from his body, smelling of wool and cedar and the faint, clean scent of his soap.

She lifted one corner to her face and inhaled.

Then she smiled.

It wasn't the practiced, seductive curve she'd worn for him. This was something colder, sharper, a blade drawn across velvet. She stood, wrapping the coat more securely around herself, and walked to the floor-to-ceiling mirror that dominated the suite's living area.

The woman who looked back at her was a mess-hair tangled, lips bruised, eyes too bright with an emotion that had nothing to do with desire. Kiera touched her reflection, her fingertips tracing the swollen curve of her mouth where his teeth had grazed.

"Perfect," she whispered.

She found her phone on the nightstand, right where she'd left it before her shower. Her thumb hovered over the screen for a moment, then pulled up a contact she hadn't messaged in weeks.

Kayden Mason.

Her finger moved. She didn't type words-didn't need to. She sent a single blank message, nothing but punctuation, a ghost of communication that said everything and nothing at all.

Let him wonder. Let him worry. Let him lie awake tonight wondering what she'd meant, what she knew, what she was planning.

The game had begun.