by Laura Leone
And now he teased her in the dark, withholding what he had taught her to want. Trembling with the needs he had stirred in her, she pulled his hair and muttered, "I thought I told you not to stop."
"Oof!" He seized her tugging hand and brought it to his lips. "You're so impetuous."
"And you're very cruel," she complained.
"Am I?" he murmured silkily.
She felt his head move, and she quivered when he licked long and languidly, as if he had all the time in the world... As if the whole building didn't suddenly shudder when a bomb exploded.
"Pascal?" she said nervously, stiffening with a sharp flash of sensible fear. Maybe she should have listened to him when he tried to insist on going to the shelter.
His hands tightened on her thighs, and suddenly his mouth was hungry and insistent on her slick flesh, his tongue plunging and dancing in the secret crevices of her body.
"Oh! Ohhh... Yes."
She forgot her fear, as he intended. She forgot everything but him, them, this. She knew nothing in the world except his hands on her body and his mouth kissing and tasting her. His lips rubbed and his tongue stroked the gloriously sensitive place which welcomed him with ecstasy so intense it was almost painful. Her hands clutched desperately at the sheets as she pressed herself harder against his ravaging mouth. Pleasure thundered through her, hard and rough and without mercy. She sobbed as she welcomed it, welcomed him, welcomed the dark surrender of her body to flame and fire and fury.
She knew there were more explosions, but she didn't care. The bombs were closer than before, and it didn't matter now. He was kissing her mouth, and she tasted herself on his lips, on his greedy tongue. His back was smooth and warm beneath her stroking palms, sleek with flexing muscles and taut skin. She felt his hot shaft thrusting into her, thick and hard and insistent. She lifted her hips to meet it, ignoring the way the bed shook and the building shuddered. She'd rather die than not feel him deep inside her now, plunging so roughly she wasn't sure if it was the bombing which caused plaster dust to fall from the ceiling, or just the banging of the bed against the wall. She came again, groaning harshly with pleasure, and felt him resting tensely against her as she trembled and shivered in the aftermath.
"More?" he asked.
She felt him smiling against her cheek.
"Hmmm." She knew he knew the answer. "More."
"You're so demanding," he chided.
"Who made me that way?"
He kissed her. "I accept full responsibility."
They heard rumbling in the distance. She wasn't sure what it was, but it sounded ominous. Kate tensed again. "Um..."
She gasped and forgot what had frightened her as he moved hard within her, knowing just how to wind her even tighter before he let her soar again.
He ground his pelvis against hers in a quick, pulsing way that he knew made her crazy, and tonight he seemed intent on making her crazier than ever before. She heard herself begging him with wild desperation, and even she didn't know if she was pleading with him to have mercy and stop—or never to stop. She only knew that nothing mattered except him and what he was making her feel. She only knew she couldn't stand it if he stopped, and she couldn't stand it if he didn't stop. He kept at it with relentless insistence even as another bomb exploded so loudly that she was sure they'd die any moment. She was sure she'd die any moment, anyhow, if he kept riding her so fast and hard and mercilessly that she couldn't even breathe between the explosions of ecstasy which rocked her body.
She was sobbing and gasping for air when he finally paused for a moment, sagging against her as he tried to catch his own breath.
They heard planes overhead.
"Mon Dieu, this is crazy," he whispered.
"Yes," she agreed.
They kissed, panting into each other's mouths.
"I love you," he said, because she had once told him that she liked to hear it in English, too.
She smiled. Now she was awake and could reply, "I love you."
"I wish I could see you better." He touched her face. She couldn't see his eyes, but she imagined the tenderness that was in them now.
"I look debauched," she assured him.
He laughed softly. "Oh, good. I would hate to think all my efforts were wasted."
She could feel his chest heaving as his hot breath fanned her face. His penis pulsed impatiently inside her, his body straining against his will. Wanting to make him surrender, too, she contracted her most deeply hidden muscles.
He went rigid and sucked in air between his teeth. She did it again, loving the way he shuddered helplessly in her arms. Then he whispered, "That's it. I don't want to play anymore."
Kate laughed and slid her hands down to the smooth, ripe, muscular buttocks which had been the source of such lust and embarrassment to her. She tried to pull him even deeper inside her body, curling her pelvis towards him and massaging him with those silent contractions that made him so wonderfully humble and helpless with pleasure. He rose up on his arms, silent and intent, all finished—as he had said—with playing. The outline of his body was coal black against the faint light coming through the window. A flash of light, fire in the violent sky, illuminated him briefly, glinting blue-black on his damp skin and corded muscles as he arched his back. He found a long, smooth rhythm and mastered it, holding her captive to it, shackling her to the same pleasure that entrapped him. They surrendered together to the raw need, the shattering defeat, the fiery thrall, and clung to each other as they fell through the flames and crashed into the warm darkness of their contentment.
Kate listened to his harsh breath afterwards, losing herself in the sound. He tried to roll off of her, but she held him fast, reveling in the feel of his heart pounding against her chest.
It was only later, when their bodies were quiet and cool, that she realized the air raid was over. "When did it end?"
"I'm not sure." He snuggled against her backside. "I think it was around the time you were screaming in my left ear."
"I wasn't screaming."
"Very loudly," he assured her.
"Well." She considered this. "I suppose it's a good thing the neighbors were all in the air raid shelter."
"Every sane person in London but us was probably in a shelter," he replied. "I can't believe I let you make me do this."
"Hmmm. It was positively heartbreaking, the way you begged me to put on my clothes and stop touching you." She gasped when he pinched her, then swatted his hand away from her backside. She didn't protest, however, when he found another place on her body to let it rest.
He nuzzled her hair... then sniffed and asked, "What is that smell?"
She sighed. "That's probably the Scottish general I'm driving around."
"Since when?"
"Since last week."
"What is he doing in your hair?"
"He smokes very smelly cigars. All of the time."
"The English," he muttered.
"Scottish," she corrected.
She smiled when she felt him shrug in dismissal of everyone who wasn't French.
After a few minutes of contented silence, she finally asked, "Will you be in London long?"
"For a while," he promised and kissed her smelly hair.
"Oh." Now real contentment filled her. "I'm glad. I missed you so much. Just two weeks, but... It seems like longer when I can't even talk to you."
"I know. It's the same for me," he murmured. "And while I'm here..."
She heard the hesitation and wondered what it meant. "Yes?"
"I was thinking..."
"What?" she prodded.
He took a deep breath. "Marry me."
She sat bolt upright in the bed, startling them both. "What?"
He sat up more slowly. "You shouldn't be so surprised," he pointed out. "A man falls in love with you, spends every moment of his time with you when he's not on duty, risks being blown up by the Luftwaffe so he can make love to you... A lot of women would expect a proposal, don't you think?"
"I didn't expect—"
"I mean," he amended, "it's not so surprising." When she didn't answer, he prodded, "Is it?"
Her heart was pounding so hard it hurt. "I didn't think..."
"Didn't think what?" He waited. "Kate?"
She twisted her hands nervously. "Well, it's war time, and you're far from home, and..."
She wished she could see his face.
"And?"
Actually, considering his tone of voice now, she supposed she was glad she couldn't see his face, after all.
"And war changes things." When he didn't reply, she asked plaintively, "Doesn't it?"
"What things?"
"Um..."
"You won't love me when the war is over?" he asked quietly.
She swallowed. "I'll always love you." Her heart seemed to have stopped beating altogether, but it still hurt like hell. "Always."
There was a long silence before he said, "So you think I won't love you when the war is over?"
Her throat was so tight that she had to force out the words. "It's possible."
"No, it's not," he whispered.
His arms found her in the dark and he drew her into his embrace. Tender where he had been passionate before. Gentle where he had been demanding.
"Kate," he said, his voice quiet and sure, "I'm not some boy who knows nothing of himself or the world. I'm thirty, and I know myself well enough to know I'll never stop loving you, or love anyone else the way I love you."
She felt her breath catch as she pressed her face against his throat and hugged him tighter. She hadn't realized until now how much she had needed to hear him say that. "Nothing in your life has been normal since you came here—"
"Least of all you."
"And maybe when life is normal again — "
"Only with you," he said firmly. "Normal, not normal, it doesn't matter. My life is with you from now on." When she didn't reply, he added, "Unless you don't want—"
"I do," she assured him. How could she want anything else? "But when you can finally... return to France..."
"You thought I'd leave you?"
"Actually... I suppose I've just tried not to think about it at all. Never seeing you again."
"That will never happen."
"Unless..." She finally voiced her very worst fear. "There'll be a lot of Germans shooting at you when you return to France." The Nazis would never give up France without shedding rivers of blood.
"That's the part I try not to think about, either," he admitted. "The Germans have already shot me once, and that was once too often."
Without conscious volition, her hand drifted down to the fresh scar left by the bullet which hadn't succeeded in killing him before they'd ever met. She shuddered as she thought about him facing the Germans in battle, as De Gaulle eventually intended.
He covered her hand with his. "If I promise not to make you a widow, will you marry me?"
"It's a good promise," she admitted, hoping she could cling to it in the torment of her nightmares.
"So... is that a yes?" he prodded.
She touched his cheek in the dark, feeling joy well up inside her like a flood tide. "Yes."
He covered her hand with his and kissed her palm. "Soon," he insisted.
"As soon as we can arrange it," she agreed.
He was very still. After a moment, he said, "You can't see, so I'll just tell you. Right now, I'm the happiest you've ever seen me."
"So am I." She kissed him... and yawned in the middle of it.
"Am I boring you?" he asked dryly.
She snorted on rueful laughter. "I'm sorry. I just haven't been sleeping well. Especially not since you left London."
He hugged her. "Me, either. And," he added, "you've just worn me out with your demands. I'm exhausted."
She poked him—and yawned again.
He lay back slowly in the pillows, pulling her down with him. "Sleep now," he murmured. "The air raid is over. And I'm here."
She sighed, nestling her head into the curve of his shoulder, and agreed with bone-deep contentment, "You're here." And although she had known before that he loved her, tonight he had made her believe that he always would.
As ambulances wailed in the distance, coming to gather the wounded and the dead in the aftermath of the air raid, Kate sank into a deep, dreamless slumber with a soft smile on her lips.
The End
About This Book
We know, of course, that the D-Day invasion succeeded, the Allies fought their way across Europe, and the Third Reich surrendered about eleven months after Nights of Fire takes place.
But in June of 1944, no one knew how this would turn out. Operation Overlord was the biggest and most ambitious military plan in history, and the outcome was so uncertain that General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, wrote two official statements before the beach landings commenced: one to be issued if the invasion succeeded, the other to be issued if it failed.
The plans and preparations to invade Normandy comprised one of the most rigorously guarded secrets in military history. And it was quite a secret to keep, given that it involved two years of planning, enormous resources, and hundreds of thousands of men. That's where Operation Fortitude came into play. Perhaps the biggest bluff in military history, Fortitude was an extensive disinformation operation aimed at convincing the Germans that the cross-Channel invasion would occur at Calais. Right up until they invaded, the Allies weren't sure how effective Fortitude had been. (As it turned out, very effective.)
Meanwhile, unsually cold, wet weather also played hell with invasion plans. The 6th of June, 1944, a date carved into the memory of generations, became D-Day because inclement weather forced Eisenhower to postpone the invasion until then. Paul is troubled by the rain in Nights of Fire without knowing why, because everyone who knew when the massive invasion was supposed to take place was obsessed with the rotten weather in the early days of June 1944.
For a compelling and very readable account of the Battle of Normandy, from the initial planning stages through the end of that summer, I recommend Overlord by Max Hastings.
As for how I wound up writing Nights of Fire... Years ago, an editor I knew invited me to participate in a new publishing program that was seeking sensual romances and short stories that involved particular time periods or themes. I chose to set my tales in Europe during World War Two, since it's a period about which I've read a lot, and it's a time and place which certainly offers great potential for romantic conflict. So I wrote and delivered Nights of Fire, and then I wrote several short stories about the novel's protagonists. Then, still invested in the period, I wrote a short story about a different pair of lovers, too...
And then I found out the publishing program was closing down, and none of this material would be released. I was very disappointed; but this sort of incident isn't that unusual in publishing, and writers who want long careers learn fast to roll with the punches.
I eventually licensed e-rights for Nights of Fire to an e-publisher; but it was an erotica publisher, and this book just wasn't suited to their market. (It probably didn’t help, either, that they put a hideous cover on it.) The upshot was that, during the period that Nights of Fire was available on that publisher's website, the number of readers who found the book could have fit into my bathroom. Meanwhile, although I tried a few times, I never did find a publisher for the short stories, so they never got released.
Until now! New technology has made it possible for previously stranded books to find their audience these days. So I am delighted to make this novel and the related short stories available in this volume at long last!
—Laura Resnick
About the Author
Laura Resnick is the author of many books, short stories, articles, and columns. Her urban fantasy series from DAW Books features the supernatural misadventures of Esther Diamond, a struggling actress in New York. The series, which has received enthusiastic praise from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly, has been compared
by reviewers to Janet Evanovich's #1 NYT bestselling Stephanie Plum novels and Charlaine Harris' bestselling Sookie Stackhouse books. The Esther Diamond series includes Disappearing Nightly, Doppelgangster, Unsympathetic Magic, and the upcoming Vamparazzi.
The author's epic fantasy novels from Tor Books, include The White Dragon, which made the "Year's Best" lists of Publishers Weekly and Voya, and The Destroyer Goddess, which Publishers Weekly describes as "a marvel of storytelling."
Before she began writing fantasy, Resnick was the award-wining author of more than a dozen contemporary romance novels, which she wrote under the pseudonym Laura Leone. Her romance novel Fallen From Grace was a Rita Award finalist and has been listed by DearAuthor.com as one of the best 100 novels in the genre.
Laura currently writes an opinion column for Nink, the monthly journal of Novelists, Inc. Her book Rejection, Romance, and Royalties: The Wacky World of a Working Writer is a collection of her previous essays about the writing life and the publishing industry.
You can find her on the Web at: www.LauraResnick.com.
Other Books by Laura Resnick
*Free sample included in this e-book.
Romance Novels (written as Laura Leone)
*Fallen From Grace
*Fever Dreams
Esther Diamond Series
Disappearing Nightly
Doppelgangster
*Unsympathetic Magic
Vamparazzi
The Chronicles of Sirkara
*In Legend Born
The White Dragon
The Destroyer Goddess
Non-Fiction
A Blonde In Africa
*Rejection, Romance, and Royalties: The Wacky World of A Working Writer