When Major Kelly Andres awakens to find Major Byron Grayson gone from the cave that has been their military base the last five months, she realizes he has disobeyed her orders. He's gone to activate the quantum disruptor that he hopes will draw enemy fire, enabling the Provisional Army to attack the enemy armada. It's a suicide mission. And Grayson knows it.

Kelly has no intention of letting Grayson die alone in the frozen wasteland that planet Onyx has become since the war began. She's determined to find him and bring him back to base, because when they die, she wants him in her bed.

Nothing warms the heart quite like a solid, masculine body, and for Major Kelly Andreas this may be her last chance to experience the man she loves.

WINTER IN PARADISE

“We’re not dying out here. You understand me?” Her eyes stung.

He pulled the hood up over her head. Her heart broke. Her nav no longer functioned. She scanned the sheet of white sky for the hint of sun that would point her south toward base. All she could do was pretend, for his sake.

She grasped his sleeve and pulled him. “This way.”

They rounded an ice-boulder that she told herself looked familiar, but—the cave opening yawned before them. Thank the elders! They stumbled across the invisible threshold and inside the cave. Snow flurried around the entrance and melted on contact with the cavern floor.

Kelly drew back her hood and whipped Grayson around. “We made it.”

Uncontrollable shivers wracked his body. She cursed. She had to get his body temperature up—fast.

“Come on.”

The howl of the wind grew fainter as she dragged him forward. The yellow illumination ahead grew until they turned the bend into the cavern. What had felt cool earlier now felt like sweltering heat compared to the ice cold they’d just battled. Kelly wanted to cry.

Exhaustion took over. The thick, fur coat felt like it was made of lead. Kelly brought Grayson to a halt. She shook off her mittens and turned off her enviro-suit. It dropped to the floor, leaving her naked under the furs. She yanked loose the bindings on his furs, turned off his enviro-suit, then spread the furs and slipped her hands around his naked waist. She pressed her warmth against him. Despite his icy skin, he felt as he always did: tall, lean…strong. He wrapped her in a bear hug. His muscled arms trembled around her like a tectonic plate about to crack.

“Grayson,” she murmured into his chest.

“Kelly.” His powerful body strained with effort.

Her pussy clenched, making her heart race, but she broke free and propelled him toward the bed. “Get in. Shields on,” she said to the comm-def center.

The light dimmed, then brightened. A ripple radiated out of the defense module like a heat wave passing through her and the rest of the cave, stopping, she knew, at the entrance. The distant sound of wind cut out as if a door had slammed shut. The shield produced a bubble of invisibility to all but the most powerful sensors. How long before the Kirsovals penetrated their shields and pinpointed their equipment’s signal? Minutes, an hour? She would take it as long as she was with this man.

Grayson had slipped under the bed’s thermal blankets. Kelly could almost see the glow of the covers work to raise his core temperature. She shrugged out of her furs and slipped in beside him, nestling skin-to-skin, breast-to-chest, and settled against the familiar hard lines of his chest.

His arms banded around her. “You shouldn’t have come.” He no longer shivered, but his flesh still felt like ice.

“What was I supposed to do? Leave you out there?”

“That’s exactly what you were supposed to do. You compromised the mission.”

She snuggled closer.

“You could have gone on,” he said, “had a life.”

The hard note in his voice comforted—and brought a lump to her throat. She would give a king’s ransom for even one more day with him trying to take charge.

She nuzzled the crook of his still-cool neck. “Life without you is no life.”

A far away explosion rattled the cave.

Her heart jumped. How close were the Kirsovals? Did only minutes remain? Panic rushed to the surface. Five months weren’t enough. She needed more time. Needed to tell him she loved him. She had purposely withheld the words, as if she had all the time in the world to show him how she felt. That fantasy had been the one thing that kept the panic at bay—until now.

Silent tears spilled down her cheeks.

“Kelly,” Grayson rasped.

His breath in her hair was still ragged. She shook her head in a stubborn attempt to pretend she wasn’t falling apart. Think of all the people who will live, she told herself. She forced a picture of her mother tending the tiny flower garden on the roof of her sky-rise. Her father, a simple phys-ed teacher, and the younger brother who had been forced to leave the academy two years too early to aid in the fight for their people’s preservation.

Grayson pressed a kiss into her hair. Kelly choked back a sob and through salty tears kissed his shoulder. He shuddered. She became aware of the lengthening of his cock. She pressed closer, breasts flat against his muscle.

“We disabled that one ship,” he said.

A strong explosion shook the cave. Two or three pebbles dropped to the floor and clattered. Their military had destroyed the ship that had nearly caught them in the crossfire. But it hadn’t been enough.

Kelly tilted her face upward and met his gaze. “Yes. We got them.”

Crystal blue eyes stared back. “I’m sorry.”

Her heart broke. She should have known he would read her mind. They had gotten the Kirsoval ship. But that wouldn’t save their lives.

Kelly slid a hand around his neck. “I’m not.”

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T. C. Archer is comprised of award winning authors Evan Trevane and Shawn M. Casey.