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