Warrior Rising - By Pamela Palmer Page 0,55

him. That she was leaving him. Betraying his trust.

After a few moments, he rose and she sat up, brushing away the errant tears.

His hand tangled gently in her hair. "I was going to switch places with you. Let you lie on top." Her stomach growled and tenderness filled his eyes. "How about I feed you first?"

Her heart swelled and clutched, misery a living thing inside her. For the first time in her long, long life, she'd become one with another and now her heart broke at the prospect of leaving. In a strange way, she felt more alone than she ever had before. Because finally, she knew what true connection felt like.

More than anything, she wanted to stay here in his arms. But her wishes were of no account. Not when so many lives hung in the balance. And she and Harrison had never had a future. She'd always known that.

Findris awaited her call. The moment Harrison was fully asleep, she'd escape him, possibly never to return. Whatever relationship had begun to spring up between them would be shattered.

In destroying Harrison's trust, she would be destroying the finest thing she'd ever known. But the safety and survival of two worlds mattered more than the breaking of her heart.
Chapter 12
Harrison took Ilaria's hand and helped her to her feet, watching her rise before him like a marble goddess. She was glorious, her body slender yet ripe with curves, her skin alabaster perfection except for the places he'd marked her during their lovemaking - her breasts softly reddened from his mouth, her lips swollen from his kisses.

He'd known all the reasons he shouldn't have touched her - that she was Esri, other, that she'd soon be out of his life forever, that falling for this woman felt like a betrayal of his daughter and all she'd suffered at Esri hands - but in the end he couldn't fight the fact that he'd needed Ilaria...to kiss her, to touch her, to make love to her, and the experience had been a hundred times more exciting, a thousand times more profound than any lovemaking he'd experienced with anyone else.

Including his wife. Ex-wife, now.

Guilt kicked at him for that thought, a guilt that he'd never felt what he should have for Gwen. She'd ultimately realized it and refused to take what little he could give. He'd thought she was being unreasonable and asking too much of him, but he was beginning to understand just how little his mind and body had been engaged in their relationship, despite his commitment to his marriage.

Now, he'd found a woman who moved him, body and soul, and she could never be his. Life was a bitch.

He grabbed his shirt off the floor and held it up for Ilaria. "Would you like to wear this for now, and to sleep in, or do you want your dress?"

She hesitated, then gave him a small smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "I'll wear my dress. I'm used to sleeping in it."

He helped her into it, then led her to the dining table, where he'd ditched dinner in his haste to get her into his arms. Neither spoke, each reeling, he suspected, from the magnitude of what had passed between them. The aftershocks were still sending lightning arcing through his blood. The thought that, when this was over, once she'd sealed those gates, he'd never see her again, was almost enough to drive him to his knees.

He should be elated at the prospect that his life might actually get back to normal. That's all he'd wanted from the moment the Esri first found their way back into this world. Yet the thought of it brought no relief now, only the dull ache of loneliness. How barren his life had become, without him even realizing it. How much worse it would be without Ilaria.

"What do we need?" she asked over her shoulder. "Plates? Silverware?"

Harrison pulled in a deep, steadying breath and let it out slowly. "God only knows what we'll find. Charlie's kitchen is not what you'd call well-stocked." Until the Esri invasion, his brother had spent most of his time on the road, working one secret ops mission or another.

Harrison rifled through the mostly empty cupboards until he found a pair of chipped plates, a handful of silverware and a couple of paper towel squares that would have to serve as napkins. Setting them on the counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of the apartment, he pulled open the refrigerator.