Heroes In Uniform (106 page)

“Not sure those ladies would be alive today if it weren’t for your Sophia,” Maksym whispered, tearing up. “I’m so deeply sorry for what I have done, and I intend to pay for it.”

Mark couldn’t find it in him to forgive the man, but he knew Maksym had protected her, and that deserved something.

“Thanks, man,” he said as he slapped Maksym’s arm. “Later?”

“Absolutely. She’s waiting for you. You deserve each other.”

Maksym abruptly retreated to his cabin and closed the door.

“Mark!” He heard Sophia’s voice over the buzzing at the end of the hall. She came running full tilt and slammed into him, wrapping her arms around him, hiking her legs up and around his waist. He held her while she sobbed in his arms.

“Baby, baby, it’s all good. We’re okay now, right?”

She was babbling things he couldn’t understand in Italian, rambling on and on, and he could hear several words he did understand, like amore several times, her little body shaking with every syllable, with every inhale and exhale. He tried to unpeel her arms to give her a proper kiss, but eventually gave up.

“Baby, I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here,” he said into the side of her face. “No one’s going anywhere without you, sweetheart. Trust me.”

“Oh God, I thought I’d lost you,” she said between sobs.

“It’s all good. Not to worry, baby. I’ve got you.” He let her decide when she’d had enough of squeezing the life out of him. It was almost hard to breathe she hung on so tight.

Finally, exhaustion began to kick in and he leaned her back against the wall, his muscles unable to hold her up any longer. She dropped her legs but kept her arms about his neck, tipped her tear-stained face back and searched his eyes.

God, she was beautiful. All the warmth of her dark hair and chocolate brown eyes soothed his soul. At last they kissed, but she burst into tears again as soon as their lips touched.

He put his palms under her chin and pressed his forehead to hers. “Sweetheart, we’re good. We’re all good, safe. But please, honey, I need a shower and a bed, in that order. And I want you naked and strong beside me for the next twenty-four hours. Can you do that, baby?”

She smiled up at him. “I knew that day would bring me to this. I knew it the first time you kissed me.”

“I did too.” He slid one hand under her ear, back into the hair at the nape of her neck and squeezed, pulling her face urgently to his. His tongue penetrated her deep as he drank in the sweaty scent of her worry, her love, and her desire for him. The taste of her mouth ignited his insides, his chest needing to feel her naked breasts against him, his thighs rubbing against hers as he nailed her to the wall with his package between them, at the full and ready, stuck in the on position. “I’d like you to talk some dirty Italian to me now. Can we do that, please?”

Her eyes danced as she threw her head back against the wall and laughed. He kissed her under her chin, under her ear, that little place she loved in the hollow he found there. He kissed over her cheek, pressing his lips to both her watering eyes, feeling her come alive sexually against him. Her little moan and inhale when he found her gaping mouth again.

“Marko, vamos a ser amantes para siempre. Quiero follarte cinco veces por la noche para el resto de mi vida,” she whispered.

Mark understood part of it. “Only cinco veces?” He smiled and she returned the smile. “If I learn too much Italian, we’ll have to find another language,” he whispered in return.

“Oh, but Italian is still the language of love, Marko. And I’ll never tire of speaking it to you, whispering it to you. There are many, many words you have not yet heard, mi amore.”

She unwrapped her arms from his neck and took his hand, leading him through the swell of well-wishers. Fredo and Mia were standing arms, around each other, as they spoke to the crowd. Mia was drying tears from her eyes and Fredo kissed the top of her head several times. Christy came out of Libby and Cooper’s room and gave Mark a big hug.

“Thank you, Mark. Thanks to you for keeping him safe.”

Mark shook his head. “I’ll tell you one thing, next time Kyle suggests we all go on vacation together, I’m staying home. His idea of fun, while awesome, is going to make me an old man.”

“That’s my Kyle,” she said in return. “Go. I’ll try to get everyone to give you some peace and quiet.

“Wasn’t looking for anything quiet,” he looked at Sophia who beamed up at him, “but I could sure use a shower.”

Inside their cabin he peeled her clothes off slowly, too slowly. His body was screaming at him, asking for the nourishment only her sex could give him. He kissed her belly button just before he slid her pants down to her ankles. Picking her up, he pressed her back onto the bed and removed her shoes and then slid her pants and panties off her dainty toes. Sophia had already removed her top and bra.

The wet suit was beginning to chafe and his cock was painfully demanding release from the form-fitting suit. He unzipped the front, peeling it off his arms and down over his hips as she lay back, her breasts covered with her arms folded across her chest, and watched him.

“Marko. Su hermoso cuerpo hace cosas hormigueo a la mía.”

“You too, baby,” he whispered back as he threw the wetsuit into the corner, shucked his briefs and dove onto the bed, covering her.

He wanted to take his time, but he knew he just wouldn’t be able to this time. His fingers found her wet channel, already ripe and ready for him.

“Maybe I should learn Hungarian or Russian or some other language, so you can learn what it feels like to guess what I’m saying to you,” he said to her ear. His fingers sifted through her hair as he pulled her to him. He nibbled over her lips, “but I understand this language best of all.”

The kiss went deep and urgent, both of them sucking, needing more and giving all they could. He wanted to kiss down her front and make her come in his mouth, but he just couldn’t wait that long. After a few long strokes with his forefinger to the tender, hot folds between her thighs, he smoothed his palm behind her butt cheek placing her knee over his shoulder and pressed his cock at her opening. She was vibrating, almost coming undone already, which was good, because he sure was. He wasn’t even sure he’d make it to deep inside her, but he did, and his urgent thrusts coated him in her juices. His arm moved underneath her, as he pulled her shoulder, moving her torso down against him, onto his shaft. His hips angled slightly as he slapped against the backs of her thighs.

Her breasts were bouncing as he rode her, his strokes moving faster and faster. He bent and sucked her nipples, one at a time. Her body rocked to his thrusting, as she rolled forward and onto her side and he fucked her at an angle, adjusting to take her deeper. The more he thrust, the harder her muscles squeezed him.

“Fly with me, Sophia. Make me fly, baby.”

“My Marko,” she said between sighs. He could tell she was losing herself, winding out of control. “I—”

He put his hand over her mouth. His seed began to spill as he held her, slipping one knee under her butt. He held her strong back as she arched toward the sea, her perfect breasts and the deep red nipples presenting themselves to the ceiling, and then to his hungry mouth. Her fingers got lost in the tangle of her long hair as he kissed her from nipple to under her breasts, in the folds there that smelled of her arousal, and then back up under her chin, her temple. His thumbs moved over her cheek, one grazing her lower lip before he claimed them again.

She gasped, beginning to undulate and squeeze him inside her, moving her body gently back and forth to his thrusts, and then slightly to the side, and then all of a sudden she was molten. She threw her head back as he lifted her other knee over his shoulder, and held himself impossibly deep as he lurched inside her hot, vibrating sex and filled her. Her moans he claimed with his lips. She bit the top of his shoulder as she held him, squeezed him against her breasts while he rooted up inside her.

In the soft unfolding of their bodies, as he kissed away the sweat and heaviness of her breathing, as he felt her muscles quiet, the peace was delicious. Her eyes were on fire, filled with tears.

He began to say the words he’d practiced, the two little words he’d practiced all the way back in the chopper, thought about while he was swimming to what he hoped was a chance at a new day, what he heard as he saw the fireball below him and knew they’d all be safe.

“Marry me, Sophia. Make me the happiest man alive.”

Her delicate fingers touched his cheek, tracing over his lower lip.

“Si, Marko. With my whole heart. I am already yours, completely.”

—The End—

About the Author

Sharon Hamilton

NYT and USA/Today and Amazon Top 100 Bestselling Author Sharon Hamilton’s SEAL Brotherhood series have earned her Amazon author rankings of #1 in Romantic Suspense, Military Romance and Contemporary Romance. Her characters follow a sometimes rocky road to redemption through passion and true love. Her Golden Vampires of Tuscany earned her a #1 Amazon author ranking in Gothic Romance.

A lifelong organic vegetable and flower gardener, Sharon and her husband live in the Wine Country of Northern California, where most of her stories take place.

Find Sharon Hamilton online:
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Additional Books by Sharon Hamilton

SEAL OF MY HEART

SEAL'S PROMISE

SEAL MY HOME

SINS OF THE FLESH

by Caridad Pineiro

Sins of the Flesh: Prologue

The day the music died, Caterina Shaw did as well.

Not physically, although she understood the death of her body was inevitable. She had come to terms with that reality some time ago. She had even managed to deal with the blindness caused by the tumor eating away her brain. But then the pain had become so great that it had silenced the music, stealing away the only thing that had made life worth the anguish.

"You understand this treatment is new and uncertain," Dr. Rudy Wells explained, his voice smooth and comforting. The touch of his hand, warm and reassuring, came against hers as it rested on her thigh.

"I understand," she said and faced the direction of that calming voice.

Another person abruptly chimed in, his tones as strident and grating as a badly played oboe. "We'll begin with laser surgery to remove the bulk of the tumor followed by two different courses of gene therapy."

Two
? she wondered and sensed Dr. Wells' hesitation as well from the tremble that skated across his fingers. He removed his hand from hers and said, "Dr. Edwards believes that we can not only shut down the tumor growing in your brain, but possibly regrow the portion of your optic nerve that the tumor damaged."

Caterina’s only wish when considering the experimental treatment had been to stop the pain so that she could play her cello once again. So that her last months would be filled with the vitality her music provided.

It was through her music that she lived.

That my mother had lived
, Caterina thought, recalling the passion she had felt as a small child when her mother had played the piano for her; the way her mother’s fingers had coaxed life from the keys much like she now did with a stroke of her bow and the deft touch of her fingers on the strings of her cello.

Or at least like she had up until the cancer had put an end to her music, bringing her life to a close. Except now she was being told something different.

Caterina had never thought about eliminating the tumor. Every prognosis so far had been that she was terminal. Now these new doctors were telling her that she might not only live, but that she might actually see again too. She didn’t dare believe that she would be able to get her old life back completely, as well as her sight but . . .

"You think I'll be able to recover? To see again?" Caterina asked, needing to be sure she had understood correctly.

"The risks are great, my dear," Dr. Wells urged gently.

"But you qualify for the human trials because of the advanced state of your illness, Ms. Shaw," Dr. Edwards added, annoyance at his partner evident in the staccato beats of his voice.

Her advanced state which could possibly bring death even with this treatment
, Caterina thought. Not that she feared death. What she did fear was letting the pain in her head rob her of the one thing she could not live without.

Her music.

She knew without hesitation that it was worth any risk to regain that part of her. To drive back the illness so she could play her cello once more and reanimate her heart for as long as she had left if the treatments couldn't stop the tumor.

"What do you need me to do?"

Sins of the Flesh: Chapter One

Six months later

Mick Carrera understood what kind of man he was.

Ruthless.

Determined.

Skilled in the art of killing.

People came to him when no one else could handle their problems because Mick either solved their problems or eliminated them – if Mick thought elimination was justified. Some scruples remained buried in his soul, a secret he closely guarded. In his line of work, having scruples equated to weakness.