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    Kiss of a Lifetime: a short-length sexy contemporary romance novella
    Kiss of a Lifetime: a short-length sexy contemporary romance novella
    Kiss of a Lifetime: a short-length sexy contemporary romance novella
    Ebook109 pages1 hour

    Kiss of a Lifetime: a short-length sexy contemporary romance novella

    By Nina Bruhns

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    About this ebook

    New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Nina Bruhns presents a short treat for your enjoyment!

    Caught in the throes of a violent Caribbean coup, an innocent coed is kept safe by a hard-bitten mercenary. Convinced they are about to die, Lacy Warrick gives herself to the handsome stranger...in unexpectedly emotional lovemaking. After they are forced to part at the consulate, a photo of their heart-wrenching kiss ends up on the cover of a national magazine.

    For nine years, Geoffrey Treynor gazes at the framed photo on his office wall and dreams of the amazing woman who has never left his jaded heart. But despite the huge changes he’s made to his life, he knows a man with his sordid past is not right for the classy uptown woman. Then, a chance meeting takes them both by surprise...and the bombs they each drop threaten to explode both their worlds. But that’s nothing compared to the fireworks that go off when they succumb for their pent-up feelings and kiss again...

    Can love born in bullets survive the truths of peacetime...and lead to the love of a lifetime?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCajun Hot Press
    Release dateMar 8, 2015
    ISBN9781507069141
    Kiss of a Lifetime: a short-length sexy contemporary romance novella
    Author

    Nina Bruhns

    The mother of five children, Kylie Brant claims she began writing to save her sanity. Plotting stories became her method of escape from the reality of constant ball games, chauffeuring kids, and refereeing minor disagreements between her perfect offspring. In 1992 she was elated to get a call from Silhouette offering to buy her second novel. Home with laryngitis at the time, she still managed to croak out agreement, and her career was born. A few months later she went on to sell Rancher s Choice, the first manuscript she'd written. Kylie is married to her high school sweetheart, and they make their home in Iowa. She insists that all her heroes are based on her husband of 23 years because he possesses that most heroic of all qualities - ironing skills. Those abilities come in handy, as she juggles a full time teaching job with writing and a family. Doing things the easy way has never held much appeal for this multi award-winning author. She graduated with high honours from the University of Northern Iowa. A graduation photo shows her in cap and gown holding her two sons, one aged 16 months and the other three weeks. She went on to obtain a teaching job working with learning-disabled children while completing her master's degree at night and during summers. There was a time in my life when I could imagine myself as a life-long student, she recalls. I actually toyed with the idea of pursuing a doctorate. But instead, my life took a spin and I ended up writing romances. I've never regretted it! Her family has since been completed by the birth of another son and a set of twins, a boy and a girl. Kylie's books are regularly featured on bestseller lists. With over a million copies of books in print, her novels have been distributed in 20 countries and released in seven languages. Family and friends are the main focus of Kylie's life. When she isn't writing or teaching, she enjoys reading and flower gardening. She loves traveling, preferring beach, ocean, and room service. Readers may write her at: P.O. Box 231, Charles City, IA 50616.

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      Book preview

      Kiss of a Lifetime - Nina Bruhns

      Table of Contents

      KISS OF A LIFETIME

      •• 1 ••

      •• 2 ••

      •• 3 ••

      •• 4 ••

      •• 5 ••

      •• 6 ••

      •• 7 ••

      •• 8 ••

      •• 9 ••

      •• 10 ••

      •• 11 ••

      •• 12 ••

      •• 13 ••

      •• 14 ••

      •• 15 ••

      •• 16 ••

      •• 17 ••

      •• 18 ••

      •• 19 ••

      •• 20 ••

      •• 21 ••

      •• 22 ••

      •• 23 ••

      THANK YOU!

      MORE EXCITING NOVELS

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      Copyright

      Sign up for Nina Bruhns's Mailing List

      KISS OF A LIFETIME 

      A SHORT-LENGTH SEXY CONTEMPORARY

      ROMANCE NOVELLA

      by

      NEW YORK TIMES & USA TODAY

      BEST SELLING AUTHOR

      NINA BRUHNS

      Author of more than 35 award-winning novels

      Over 2 Million copies sold worldwide

      •••

      Caught in the throes of a violent Caribbean coup, an innocent coed is kept safe by a hard-bitten mercenary. Convinced they are about to die, Lacy Warrick gives herself to the handsome stranger...in unexpectedly emotional lovemaking. After they are forced to part at the consulate, a photo of their heart-wrenching kiss ends up on the cover of a national magazine.

      For nine years, Geoffrey Treynor gazes at the framed photo on his office wall and dreams of the amazing woman who has never left his jaded heart. But despite the huge changes he’s made to his life, he knows a man with his sordid past is not right for the classy uptown woman. Then, a chance meeting takes them both by surprise...and the bombs they each drop threaten to explode both their worlds. But that’s nothing compared to the fireworks that go off when they succumb for their pent-up feelings and kiss again...

      Can love born in bullets survive the truths of peacetime...and lead to the love of a lifetime?

      •• 1 ••

      Venice Beach, California

      Would it be there?

      Geoffrey Treynor tore his gaze from the amazing view of the Pacific Ocean from the window behind his desk, swiveled his chair back around, and smoothed his hands over the latest issue of Mercenary Life magazine. For the past half hour he’d been gathering his courage to scan the classifieds for the ad he both dreaded and longed to see.

      Was it you in that closet on St. Grimaldi August 13th? Please contact. Reward, it would read. And then a box number.

      That was all it ever said. But there was no doubt it was meant for him.

      Please contact. So polite.

      For eight years, Trey had ignored her pleas. Now, in the ninth, he wondered if she was still trying to find him—Lacy Warrick, of the Atlanta Warricks.

      The woman in the closet.

      Had she finally given up on him?

      He ran an agitated hand through his hair. He would miss her if she stopped. More than he cared to admit. Hell, he already did miss her. There hadn't been many days during the past nine years he hadn't thought of Lacy Warrick.

      Tough to forget her with those two damned photos staring down from his office wall, sticking out like sore thumbs amongst the other awards and accolades. His old merc buddies had thought it a hoot to frame the two magazine covers and present them to him at a reunion party a few years after they were published, telling him to go the hell out and find the damn woman he'd been mooning over since that fateful day...

      Yeah, right. Like he was really looking for that kind of heartache.

      Rising from his desk, he poured himself a straight tequila from the bar and reluctantly went to stand in front of the framed photos. His and Lacy’s parting moments had made the covers of two very different magazines after they’d defied death together on St. Grimaldi.

      Her Protector was what the photographer had named the gritty photo that was on the cover of an obscure soldier of fortune magazine. It showed them just after he’d carried her through a gauntlet of machine gun-toting enemy soldiers, shielding her with his body. He looked fierce and rough, and she looked worshipful and adoring. He had to admit, that was the cover he preferred.

      Kiss of the Decade read the banner that slashed across the top of a glossy national entertainment magazine. This was the photo that had won awards right and left. It was gut-wrenchingly emotional. They photographer had caught their last kiss, at the very instant he and Lacy had both realized they would never see each other again. Trey tried to avoid looking at that one.

      Yeah, their parting moments had made quite a splash. Something about the image of lovers torn apart by war had captured the imagination of the whole country. Thank God no one had tipped the magazines to his name, so Trey had managed to stay anonymous through the entire publicity storm. That had been a blessing in more ways than one.

      Lacy hadn’t been so lucky.

      Silently, Trey toasted the pictures, tossed back his tequila, and walked over to his desk. The Mercenary Life classifieds gaped up at him, mocking the success he'd made of his life over the years since he'd quit the soldier of fortune trade. The friends and contacts he'd made during years he’d spent crawling around the jungles and deserts of the world had proven beneficial to all concerned. He'd built his import business from scratch, parlaying it in record time into one of the country’s most respected purveyors of licensed, certified, fair trade native arts and crafts.

      He was now rich, successful, and considered a prime catch for hostesses from Beverly Hills to Miami to New York City. He never had a problem getting a date in whatever city he found himself in. Women loved the idea of sleeping with a wild, untamed alpha male.

      Yeah, he'd kept up the rough-trade image. Big-time. The old rumors were great for business. The trouble only came after those same women—or, more often, their wealthy daddies—dug up his murky past. Suddenly, they’d find him vaguely distasteful and run like crazy for the nearest accountant, engineer, or other safe, sane man.

      Hell, they weren't the only ones who found his past distasteful. He'd done what he had to do to survive at the time, dragging himself out of a childhood from hell...by whatever means necessary. But that didn't make it any more palatable, even to himself.

      He could thank Lacy Warrick for that little gem of an insight. It wasn’t until he saw that first classified ad in Mercenary Life a year after they met, and he’d actually entertained fantasies of going to Atlanta to sweep her off her feet, that the cold, hard reality of what he did for a living actually dawned on him. Before that, he’d pretty much operated on auto-pilot, taking one difficult step at a time in his climb out of the morass of poverty and abuse.

      He’d only lasted another year in the trade after that unpleasant, self-analytical light bulb had gone off.

      But being a changed man didn’t change a man’s past.

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