Free Warrior in Her Bed by Cathleen Galitz Page B

of making love to him, her skin glowed. Her bright eyes glistened with vulnerability.
    Losing himself in those eyes, Johnny felt something hard inside him crack open. Like a baby bird poking though the shell that had protected it so very well against the outside world, it was a feeling that refused to be contained or repressed. Johnny wasn’t sure that he even wanted to so much as acknowledge the emotions that he had deliberately put aside such a long time ago, let alone resurrect them. The thought of opening himself to the possibility of actually caring for a woman beyond the bedroom was unnerving. Frightening. He thought he might just as well rip open old scars with a bowie knife to probe the wounds that time refused to heal as subject himself to such certain heartache again.
    All of a sudden he was transported across time and space. Back in uniform again, he saw himself as a green recruit separated by an ocean from the countryhe had pledged to protect. All that connected him to everything he held dear was a letter from home. He held it reverently in his hand before opening it. He was not been prepared for the words written by the fickle fiancée who had promised to marry him when his tour of duty was over. She had found someone else and hoped Johnny wouldn’t take it too personally. It was a scene immortalized on a film that periodically ran through Johnny’s mind whenever he needed a reminder to never again play the part of a fool.
    How hopelessly naive he had been, leaning up against the PX, holding his heart in his hands for everyone to see and reading the words forever carved upon it. Her letter began with two little infamous words:
    â€œDear John…”
    All these years later the memory was almost enough to send Johnny running from Annie’s cozy bedroom without so much as stopping to explain the vow he’d made to himself that day. A vow to never let himself become so emotionally susceptible to another woman for as long as he lived.
    All thoughts of retreat disappeared in an instant, when Annie startled him by taking charge of the situation. Playfully pushing him down on the bed, she proceeded to divest herself of her shirt. The moment she pulled that demure little T-shirt over her head and tossed it his direction, Johnny was her willing prisoner.
    Propping a lacy pillow sham behind his head, he settled in for the show of his life. Whoever would have guessed that behind the face of innocent, shy Polly-Annie beat the heart of Gypsy Rose Lee? Thatshe would actually strip for him came as more than a mild surprise. One that aroused and tested the limits of his endurance beyond anything the Special Services had ever required of him.
    Dropping a skinny bra strap down to her elbow, Annie flung a provocative moue over one shoulder. Had she not seen such pure male appreciation reflected upon Johnny’s angular features it was likely that she would have immediately dropped all pretense of being a sensuous vamp and crawled right back inside herself. Whatever it was about Johnny Lonebear that brought out the temptress in her was as intoxicating as fine wine. As compelling as an addict’s need for a fix.
    Annie felt heady with a sexual power that she hadn’t realized she possessed. A moment later her bra and jeans came off in an equally entertaining fashion. Before she quite knew what had happened, Annie was standing in the middle of her bedroom wearing nothing but a skimpy pair of panties.
    Fearlessly facing the sexiest man on earth.
    His candid admiration made Annie feel no less than a goddess. Removing her hands from where they covered her breasts, she peeled off the last of her underwear and sidled over to the edge of the bed. There she flipped back the comforter, abandoned her more daring alter ego and dived for cover.
    Rolling to her side, she turned to Johnny and breathlessly informed him between the safety of clean sheets, “It’s your turn now.”
    Worked into a quiet