Love’s Mask – Part 1

It was the 12th of June, 1942.

Linda Brennen would always remember the date because her life changed quite dramatically that day.

She was a quiet thirty-year-old woman with a job as a companion to a rich French lady who ostensibly supported the Vichy government.  As a result, she often had to interact with the local Nazi authorities and had become a familiar visitor to the SS headquarters.  Occasionally, she was a courier for the American Embassy in Paris.  Instead of her employer’s whim, a piece of information from another Embassy staff member brought her to the SS building today.

The staffer, who doubled as an agent, had told her about thirty Jews who would be publicly executed later that day.  Some were women.  The thought turned Linda sick.  At first, she had no idea what to do.  But she was a Christian, and she respected God’s command to bless Israel.

The memory of her father, Paul Brennen, filled her mind as she followed a slick, gray-uniformed soldier to Lt. Max Candler’s office.  Paul had devoted his life to helping persecuted Jews.  Singlehandedly, he had taken on soldiers who defaced Jewish businesses and assaulted Jewish people.  He wouldn’t stop—that is, until a Nazi bullet stopped him.  That was in 1936.  Six years later, his daughter had the same calling.

“Fraulein Brennen, Herr Oberleutnant!” the soldier announced.

Max Candler stood beside his desk, looking through papers.  Linda had spoken with him before and found him a fairly tolerable man for an SS lieutenant.  He was probably in his late thirties, six-foot-one with lightish hair streaked dark in places, the trim, brawny picture of Germanic masculinity.  His English was perfect, graced with his accent.  He took a second look at Linda and came forward.

“Come in, fraulein.  Will you sit down?” He motioned to a chair and waved the soldier out.

Linda’s heart was thudding.  Her mission was so bold she figured he would either laugh at her or arrest her.  But she had to try.

“Lieutenant, I have to make a request,” she began.

“If attractive women came more frequently with requests, I would not complain,” Lt. Candler said gallantly.  Linda noticed his eyes stray from her face to her legs.  She adjusted her black skirt to hide the shapely limps.

“You are an American,” he noted, folding his arms.

“Yes.”

“I recall the last time you came here on some errand.  But refresh my memory.  What are you doing in Paris?”

She hesitated.  “I’m a paid companion.”

His eyebrows arched.  “Oh? Such work is unlikely under the circumstances.  People of wealth have fled or else been removed.  What is your real work? Remember that I can have you checked.”

“I sometimes work for the American Embassy.”

“Then you are here on official business?”

“View it how you like, sir.  Those Jews that you’re going to execute today… Lieutenant, don’t do it.  Please let them go! It’s murder, and it’s wrong.  Give them safe passage to the British lines.”

The lieutenant’s eyebrows jumped again, then settled as he lit a cigarette and took a long inhale.  “You are asking me to release – and escort to safety – thirty Jews? Fraulein… Brennen, was it? You are extremely presumptuous,” he observed.  His green, partly-squinted eyes roved over her.

Linda swallowed.  “I don’t know what it’ll take, but I’ll do anything to get you to release them.”  She was an American woman, in France, during the Nazi occupation.  Yes, this was pretty daring.

“What is your interest in the Jews? Are you one of them?” Candler demanded.

“No,” she replied honestly, “but I have a respect for the Jewish people.  What you’re doing is evil.  This murder must stop.  How can you tear families apart and load them into trucks and trains and put them in prison just because they’re Jews? They’re human beings.”

Now Lt. Candler did laugh, turning to tap the ash from his cigarette.  “The philosophy of the matter is not something I wish to delve into at this time, fraulein.”

“Lieutenant, I’m not rich, but I’ve saved all my money since I first started working.  I’ll pay for those people’s freedom.”

“The SS does not free prisoners on the whim of a passerby, especially someone from an enemy nation,” Candler stated.  “As I said earlier, you are presumptuous.”

“What can the deaths of a handful of people mean to you?” Linda pleaded.  “Is it so important? And I said I would do anything.”

“Anything.”  Lt. Candler’s eyes again strayed over Linda’s tall, slender figure.  “For a rather attractive woman, that is a rash promise.”

A flush reddened her face, but she didn’t look away.

“Are you married, fraulein?” he inquired.

“No.”

He tilted his head curiously.  “Yet you are over twenty, I would say.”

“I’m thirty,” she stated.

Lt. Candler took another draw from the cigarette.  “I repeat that the SS rules with an iron fist, and the thirty Jews have broken the law by attempting to do business outside of their established ghetto.  Still…” the lieutenant paused, “if by giving up one thing I… we could gain something better, perhaps it could be arranged.”

Linda wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but the glint in his eyes made her feel like he was looking right through her clothes.  He came around to the front of the desk and leaned back against it, arms folded again and cigarette dangling in a devil-may-care fashion between his teeth.

“An officer gets very tired, very… lonely, in his hours spent away from home.  It is much worse in wartime,” he mused in a deliberate voice, holding her eyes and raising one eyebrow meaningfully.  “There is just a chance you have something that would persuade me to let your Jew friends go.”

“What?” Linda demanded.  “What are you talking about?”

“My dear fraulein… what is your first name?” he interrupted himself.

“Linda.”

“Then, Linda, surely you are not so naïve.  You are young but not that young.  I am talking about sex.”

A shot of rage boiled inside her.

“Reading expressions is a pastime of mine, and from yours, I detect shock.  Are yours the ears of a virgin, yet unused to life’s reality and men’s desires?” he asked.

She didn’t answer.

“There is no place for your view in this time of history, fraulein.  We are all dying every day and must grasp what relief—what… pleasure—we can while there is a chance.  And a man, particularly a soldier, needs that relief, that release.”

Though she felt her throat tauten with disgust, Linda kept her voice firm.  “Lt. Candler, I’m not sure what you’re suggesting.”

He neared her, pausing about three feet away.  “Then I will be clear: let me have you for one night to do with as I like, and the Jews will be released and turned over to the British.”

The calmness of his tone and the blatancy of his words shocked her so that she had no immediate answer.  She tried to read his face, hoping to find a joke hiding behind the strong, cool façade.  Her hands clenched at her sides, and her breath came fast and heavy.  The rise and fall of her high little breasts caught his eye.

“And I suppose you’ll kill me when you’re done with me, maybe torture me a bit first,” she said cuttingly.

“Is that what you think I would do?” he asked in what she saw as mock astonishment.

“It’s been known to happen at the hands of the SS,” she rejoined.

“Men of every nation have done it,” he sharply informed her, stabbing out his cigarette.  “The SS are not all vicious sadists as is rumored.”

Linda was still indignant and flustered.

“It would be fascinating to me to take a woman like you to bed,” the lieutenant said a little more softly.  “You are matured; you are all woman.  Not the nubile frauleins who think that sex is love and that their dreams will all come true while they are in my arms.  Well? It is your choice.”  Lt. Candler gripped his wrist behind his back and waited.

Linda’s mind raced.  Agreeing was out of the question.  Then she second-guessed that statement.  Did it really matter so much to keep her purity when human beings were at stake? A night of being used by a man would be horrible, but not as horrible as knowing she could have saved thirty lives had she not refused to briefly sacrifice herself.  Yet… oh, that was something else her father had taught her so earnestly and something she had gleaned from the Word of God.  Sex was pure, but only in marriage.  She hadn’t waited thirty years for nothing; it was important.

Then, another idea occurred to her.

She licked her lips and, for the briefest second, scanned him.  If it weren’t for that deadly uniform and all its implications, he would be handsome.  The big shoulders and broad chest allured her; well-built men always did that to her.  Why did he have to be a Nazi and an SS officer at that?

“I’ll make a bargain with you,” she began.

Lt. Candler snorted slightly.  “You are in no position to offer terms, but I will listen.”

Linda couldn’t believe what she was about to suggest.  Gazing openly if a bit nervously into his face, she said, “If you will free the thirty Jews and ensure that they’re sent to a safe zone, I’ll marry you.  Then, you can do what you want with me.”

The contorting of Lt. Candler’s eyebrows was almost comical, and he let his wrist go.  “Fraulein Brennen, are you proposing marriage to me?”

“You could call it that.”

He gazed at her, quite surprised.  From the changefulness of his brows and the focus of his eyes, she gathered that he was actually considering it, probably weighing the outcome.  The lust was obvious enough.  Whether or not his loyalty to the Fuhrer outweighed his lust, she had yet to find out.

“An intriguing idea,” he finally exhaled.

“You can annul it afterward,” Linda added in a chilly tone.  “I assume your Fuhrer wouldn’t appreciate one of his finest super-soldiers marrying a blood-sucking, Jew-loving capitalist.”

A peculiar look similar to the look he’d worn when he said the SS were not all sadists darkened his face, and for the third time, he said, “You, Linda Brennen, are too presumptuous.”

There was no going back now.  In several hours, the Jewish prisoners had been released and escorted to an area where they would be certain to encounter British troops.  Then the necessary papers were procured, and Lt. Candler sent for a priest.  First, though, a fellow officer asked to speak confidentially with him.

“Candler, you can’t do this.  Freeing political prisoners for personal gain is… well, it’s a serious violation.  If Himmler hears of this, you will be arrested, possibly taken to a camp.”

“Steady, Bartel.  I know what I am doing,” Candler answered smoothly.  “What are thirty Jews compared to the stores of information Linda Brennen can access as a staff member at the embassy?”

“Ah!”

“Now you understand.  It’s the perfect plot.  Marry a woman who can unlock every door and bring me every file, and we of the SS may have the glory of taking down the United States.”

The ceremony was short and spoken entirely in German.  Linda stood beside Lt. Candler, feeling so strange.  When she dared to glance at him, she found his eyes fixed on her.  Their gaze wasn’t leering. On the contrary, it was almost… gentle.  Thoughts wrestled with each other in her brain.  How could a monster be so gentlemanly? This was so wrong.  Only the certainty that thirty Jews were out of Nazi hands comforted her.  They’d probably never know about the deal that freed them.

Lt. Candler received a three-day leave in honor of his marriage.  He had an apartment in a pretty section of the city, and he drove Linda straight there.  By now, night had fallen, a wispy summer night that made war seem far off.  If not for the swastika flags draping numerous buildings and the military-like bearing of the man beside her, Linda would have almost felt like she was back home in California.  That seemed like another life.

She was surprised at the apartment.  It had three rooms—a bedroom with a bathroom, sitting room, and kitchen—and for all the world looked as homey as an American joint.  Candler set her bag, which she’d quickly packed at her employer’s home, in the bedroom.

“Why don’t you change into something more fitting for the wedding night?” he suggested, unbuttoning his coat.

She stood still.

“Come, Frau Candler, there is no need to be so… how do Americans say it? Uptight,” he scolded cheerfully.  “I will not bite you.”

“All right.”  Quietly, she picked up her bag and went to the bathroom, shutting herself in.  The fear was piling on her.  Everything seemed magnified.  The idea of the man in the other room coming close, touching her, kissing her… she couldn’t go further than that.

And yet… what was it that attracted her to him?  Yes.  She admitted it!  He attracted her.  Was it possible he was just a trifle more decent? Or at least would be with her? After all, it might just be for tonight.  He would realize what an error he’d made if his superiors didn’t realize it for him, and he’d chuck her faster than a startled kid flicks off a spider.

Skirt, blouse, high heels, stockings, slip, and undergarments were soon removed, revealing to the mirror a discreet feminine body.  Discreet in Linda’s mind because she was thirty, feminine because she had pert breasts and a flat belly and hips and legs that had turned plenty of men’s heads.  She took a long breath and let it out.  A sick feeling tied up her stomach.  Why must these gifts be given to Max Candler? All her dreams of a wonderful man, a solid guy who would love her madly, were thrown out.  This was her wedding night, and Max was her husband.

She drew on a long white negligee, simple but low-cut and fitted to her curves.  Lots of walking outside this summer had tanned her arms and neck, and she hoped her white torso didn’t look too silly.  Her silky brown hair would make up for that.  It curled dark and thick around her shoulders and a little way down her back.  With a prayer, she shut off the light and opened the door.

The first view she got was Max in his trousers and socks, shirtless.  He was pouring a drink from a little glass bottle, every movement bringing out a new delineation in his muscular arms.  Linda tried to push down the desire that smoldered up in her pelvic region.

Hearing the door open, he turned around. “Well, that is much better,” he said approvingly, taking her in with those keen green eyes.  He seemed unabashed at being half-undressed in her presence.  “Would you like a drink?”

“What is it?” she wanted to know.

“Champagne.”

She paused, then nodded.  “I’ll have a little.”

“Really? I didn’t think you were the type to drink,” he admitted in some surprise.

“I’m not, but feel like I might need it,” she observed coolly.

He chuckled, though it came out harsh.  “It will not take much to get a non-drinker drunk enough not to know what’s going on.”  He sounded hurt.

“I’m not coward enough to go that far,” she replied, her voice changing from cold to gravely honest.

He poured a glass and came over to hand it to her.  She took it and drank some, trying to focus on the golden-pink liquid but feeling his eyes wandering over her body.  Emotions from two opposite ends of the human spectrum boiled inside her.  She felt repulsed yet aroused.  She could see his strong bare chest and arms in her peripheral vision.

Hesitantly, she raised her eyes to meet his.  “Why did you agree to this?” she asked.

An overt glance of his eyes at her sensuous breasts made her redden since the answer seemed obvious.  But he replied calmly, “I explained that, in war, a man needs a woman more than anything.  He is lonely and tired and, in my case, far away from all he knows.”

“Didn’t any of your flower-faced frauleins satisfy you?” Linda couldn’t help inquiring acidly.

“That was duty,” he stated with a frown.  “An SS officer must sometimes do things he dislikes.  Tonight, it is different.  It will be good—for you and for me.”  His tone mellowed.

Linda could feel her heartbeat quicken.

Max took her glass and set it and his own on the cabinet, then very lightly placed his fingers on her shoulder, pushing her towards the bed.  “Lie down,” he commanded.

As if she had no willpower to fight him, she obeyed.

He bent over her, spreading her arms out and pinning her wrists to the bed.  His breath, a sweet, smoky fragrance, touched her lips.  “Are you a virgin, Linda?”

Her breasts rose and fell as she sought composure.  “Yes.”

“Which leads me to the question I’ve most wanted to ask: is that why you demanded marriage?”

“Yes.”

“So, you love your purity so much you proposed something that sensible women wouldn’t enter into without some experience beforehand.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” she said quietly.  “In fact, lieutenant –”

“My name is Max.”

There was a pause during which she felt her eyes slip down to his lips.  Angry with herself, she went on.  “Max.  I’ll be frank with you.  I suppose that as a wife, I should be.  I’m very close to hating you.”

“What is keeping you from it?” he asked, his voice growing lower, deeper, more husky.

“I’m a Christian.”

“‘Love your enemies’ and all that sort of thing?”

“Yes.”

“You still think I am an enemy.”

She swallowed.  “You hate everything I love.”

“You are presumptuous.”

“You keep saying that.”

“You’re a fool, too,” he declared.  “A fool because you presume to know more than you really do.”

Her forehead puckered.  “What does that mean?”

“Someday, Linda, you will think back to this night, to these moments with me, and realize that you were wrong,” he said grimly.  “You think you know me, but there is much to learn.”  He paused, hunger in his eyes.  “I suppose I must start teaching you.”  And he dropped his head and consumed her mouth with his.

A start, a weak attempt to push him away, and then Linda didn’t want to.  Without her consent, her hands wandered over Max’s nude back, and her lips accepted his.

The kiss blazed, devouring them both.  Linda thought she might faint.  She’d never been kissed anywhere but her cheek, and the wild searching of Max’s mouth over hers took her breath.  In the back of her mind, she noted he still held her down, though his fingers now interlaced with hers in a clasp very near tenderness.  His bare chest crushed her, hurting her delicate breasts, and his hips ground against hers.

When he abruptly pulled away, she gazed up at him, flustered and gasping.

“You are afraid,” he observed.

“Not of you,” was her reply, made in almost a whisper.

“Of sex?”

A swallow preceded her nod.

“Soon, you will cry out for me, and you won’t be afraid anymore,” he declared, the passion flaring in his tone.

Linda trembled.  The sexiness of the words aroused her.

He grasped her negligee at the shoulders and pulled it down roughly.  Linda felt her face flush as her breasts emerged like globes under his gaze.  Yet in his eyes shone a desire, a thirst, that Linda had never seen.  She wanted him to see more.  Presently, he did, tearing away the silky slip until she lay utterly naked.

A frenzy of longing for her body overcame him.  “You are all woman, Linda,” he said hoarsely.  Raising himself on his knees, he unbuckled and stripped off his belt, then pushed down his trousers and shorts.  Meaty, half-hard and growing in girth, his manhood drew Linda’s eyes.

Her heart rate sped up to a thick, panicking gallop as he opened her legs.  Was he really just going to take her? Common sense shouted for more time, for some foreplay, for a chance to bring her sexual side to the surface before the actual thing happened.  Yet his hands gripped her legs, and he positioned himself right up against her labia.  At the first brush of his shaft on that sensitive place, she quivered and grabbed the satin blanket.

That tremble of awakening boiled his blood, and he sank himself into her.

Linda let out a brief scream.

The pain was sharp, and when he drew back a bit, she strained to get a look and saw blood on his shaft.  She fell back, trying to get a breath, when he plunged it in again.

“Oh, it hurts! It hurts!” she gasped, face puckered.

“Don’t think of the pain,” he instructed, lowering his upper body onto hers so that his mouth was close by her ear.  “Think of how a man is filling you for the first time.”

“How can you… talk like… that…” she tried to rebuke him, but his words were a seduction in themselves.  Her brain raced down to her love-hole, strained and crammed with her husband’s lovemaking member.

“Now you are truly a woman,” he went on, his voice husky.  With smooth expertise, he lifted his flanks, almost withdrawing from her body before going back in with more force.  Fire smoldered in his eyes every time she shivered and cried out.  “Years are nothing.  True womanhood comes with this!” and he rammed himself into her with the last word.

“Max, Max! What’re you doing to me?” she whimpered, tears of pain forced from her eyes.

“I’m making love to you.  You need it,” he answered.

Just then, the deep inward sting settled as if her hitherto uninvaded vagina were stretching to fit him.  His thrusts were steady; he’d evidently had practice.  Linda hung on to him, her hands wrapped under his arms, fingers clenched in his shoulder blades.  Resting his head beside hers, Max now and then sought her lips, drawing long, succulent kisses from them.  His hands gripped her shoulders.  Man and woman were skin to skin, sweat moistening their bodies.

The minutes brought new sensations to Linda’s body.  As her heat increased, so did her wetness, making his penetration smoother and slicker.  At one point, Max paused to angle himself differently, and his shaft rubbed her G-spot when he pushed it into her again, making her inhale sharply.  Pleasure lit his eyes.

“You like what you feel?” he asked hoarsely.

She wasn’t sure she could speak, so she tried to nod.

“Say it to me, Linda.  Say you like what I am doing to you,” he whispered.

“I… I like it.”  Linda realized she meant it.  The burning of defloration was diminishing, and she felt full, sated with his body.  And every time he brushed against that sweet spot, it ripped the breath out of her with intense deliciousness.

Soon, she found out how to make the movements more rhythmic by helping him, meeting his hips with her own and squeezing those untried inner muscles.  When she did, Max felt it.  It was like a thick wet cushion compressing around his shaft.

“Good God… you learn quickly,” he grunted.  A tiny smile twitched his lips, and Linda caught it.  She almost smiled back.

They were clenched together.  Linda had unconsciously wrapped her legs around his buttocks as if to help her hang on to him.  Every time Max drove his cock into her, the satisfying slap of flesh on flesh resounded through the room.  His breath came hard and loud; his face was red.  Linda panted beneath him, moaning, crying, straining to take in the phantasmagoria of feelings.  It was a wild dash towards the goal of ecstasy.

“I want… I want you to… orgasm,” Max suddenly spoke.  “In honor… of your first time.”

“It… doesn’t… always happen… someone’s first time,” she returned, breathless.

“I will make it happen,” he growled.  He reverted to the position where he had stimulated her G-spot and also used his fingers to locate her clitoris.  In a few seconds, he was probing and rubbing, making her jump.

She tried to stop him, to throw his hand away, but her attempts were weak.  “I didn’t know… a man could… touch me like… like this!” she gasped.  “I didn’t know it could feel this way! It’s… so good… so awfully good!”

Max sped up, feeling the swollen folds of her labia throbbing.  “Come for me, Linda! Let it all out! I want to hear you scream in pleasure,” he pleaded.  He was so impassioned that he felt he might drill completely through her.

“I think something… something’s coming… it feels so strange…” she cried through clenched teeth, her head flinging side to side.  “Oh my… oh my… my word… oh, Max… Max! Max! You’re making me go over!”

“You glorious woman!” Max groaned, ramming violently and watching the muscles in her abdomen convulse.

“Dear God, I think I’ll faint!” Linda yelled.  Her pelvis shook, her buttocks rose off the bed, and her hands grasped the bedclothes with the power of steel.  The pressure in her loins was about to explode, and she didn’t know if it was normal.  She did know it felt overpoweringly grand.  One more fiery thrust from Max, and she felt wetness squirt from her love-hole.  A shriek erupted from her lips.

“Oh yes, yes, yes! Linda, you’ve soaked me!” Max croaked, and then he crested the wave too.  “I’m… wet with… your… juices… oh God… I feel it… my shaft is… drowning… it’s dripping down… my balls… I can’t… take anymore….” He trembled and toppled onto her, gasping, plunging his face between her breasts.

She held him.  His manhood pulsed inside her; she could sense it in a dreamy sort of way.  Still catching her own breath, she pushed back his damp hair.

Finally, when he had come down from the height, Max lifted his head to look into Linda’s eyes.  “Do you still almost hate me?” he whispered.

She swallowed, her eyes soft and quiet.  “No.  I could never be this close, this intimate with a man, and hate him.  But I can’t love you.  Not yet.”

Max touched her shoulder, then her cheek, with the back of his fingers.  It was gentle.  “When I can, I will tell you why I said you were too presumptuous.  Perhaps it will help you… to love me.”

“If I’m wrong about you, I want to know,” Linda declared.

“This is war, Linda.  People are forced to do things they hate, and the things they want to do, they cannot.  There are things I cannot tell you now.”  A shadow sobered his eyes.  “Believe me when I say that it is for your own good.  In the meantime, please, I ask you to be my wife.”

Linda scanned his face.  In the bronzed lines, she read honesty, and in those keen eyes shone a firm light that very clearly spoke of love.

“With God’s help, I’ll be your wife.”

His expression relaxed, and his fingers on her cheek fell to her neck, which he gently grasped so he could draw her head close to his.  Their lips met in a kiss of tenderness.

They slept on and off, Linda’s hand placed on Max’s chest, his arm cradling her head.   Sometimes they awoke to touch each other, and once, in the sleepy magic of deep night, Max put Linda’s hand on his limp cock and encouraged her to caress it.

When morning came, Linda found an empty place in the bed beside her.  She sat up, catching the sheet when she felt cool air on her naked breasts.

The bathroom door opened, and Max appeared.  His hair was damp.  Only a towel around his waist covered him, and Linda again felt enthrallment when her eyes roved over his hard chest and arms and hairy legs.

Seeing her awake, he came over.

“Guten morgen, Frau Candler,” he said with a very tiny smile, his eyes twinkling.

“Good morning, lieutenant,” she answered demurely.

“Is it strange finding yourself in the enemy’s bed?” he asked, lowering himself over her.

Still a bit muddled by the events of the previous day and night, Linda took a filling breath before she answered.  She did accept his embrace, though, and reclined back on her pillow as he pressed himself close to her.

“Perhaps he is not my enemy,” she finally replied, looking him deeply in the eye.

“He does not wish to be your enemy.”  Max’s tone was soft, and his gaze strayed over her rich tangled hair and bare shoulders.  He leaned in and kissed her lips.  “Now, I shall have breakfast sent up.  Then we may do whatever we please.  Shall we walk in the country? Or look at the sights of the city?”

Linda hesitated, feeling her cheeks heat up.  She couldn’t believe it, but she actually wanted to stay here.  Not just that; she wanted to stay in bed—with Max.

“Well… could we…”

He tilted his head.

“I mean, if you really want to take me around the city, I’ll go,” she hastened to add.

“To be frank, the city depresses me these days.  And look at the window: it has started to rain.  If you are not opposed… we could remain here today.”

A smile beautified Linda’s face.  “I’m not opposed at all.”

Now Max smiled, his face the more handsome for it.  “That is what I hoped for.”  Climbing back into bed next to her, the towel loosening and falling off him, he rolled her in his arms.  “Last night… I will always remember it,” he declared, kissing down her arm.

“This is the wildest thing that’s ever happened to me,” Linda admitted, “and I’m still not sure… how it will all turn out.  Max, there will be problems.  You know that.”

“Shh.  We will not speak of problems for these three days,” he softly commanded, touching a finger to her lips.  “I was crass and selfish yesterday, yet I vow to you, Linda, that it has nothing to do with cruelty.  I am not… some Nazis are decent men, and I am one of them.  It is as simple as this: I am a man who needs a woman, and you are the first woman who has truly attracted me.  When you speak, I know you are honest.  In these short hours that we have been man and wife, I have been assured that I may trust you.”

The words touched Linda; this powerful, handsome SS officer trusted her.  She took his lips again without hesitation, drawing his fresh, soap-scented body against her.

For three days, they kept close to Max’s apartment.  This honeymoon, brief as it would be, was the only respite they had from the war.  And every time they kissed or touched or made love, Max and Linda were more tightly tied together.  They didn’t talk about the war or the occupation or their opposing standpoints.  Instead, they spoke of their families and childhoods, their dreams, their hopes for after the war, and their interests.

But reality always comes back, and when Max had to return to his duties, Linda felt some of the uncertainty of her situation agitating her. Nevertheless, she was able to continue her job as companion, as Max wanted her to keep busy while he was away from her.  And she took over the role of wife beautifully, keeping the apartment neat and preparing meals.  Yet all the while, she worried.  What would Max’s fellow officers think of him marrying a woman from an enemy country? Would he get in trouble? Was she safe?

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8 replies
  1. SophTea says:

    Oh dearie, this one was a bit more intense in subject matter! But I am interested to see where you take this, and just from knowing how good of a writer you are from your previous stories I am sure the next part will be even better. God Bless, sending hugs and prayers ❣️

    • LovelyLonelyLady says:

      Yes, part 2 will be posted soon! I know it's a tricky topic (marriage between a Christian and a Nazi), but I am intrigued by situations that are unusual and conflicting. WWII was definitely a time of such situations. And I always wonder: what would I have done in such a situation? I hope everyone will enjoy part 2.

  2. carmelsk says:

    I rated this as a five. I’ll use an analogy to explain why. I like ice cream and there’s lots of it at MH. Once in a while the daily special is black cherry. I do not like black cherry, but it doesn’t mean I won’t come back. This daily special was chocolate, my favorite. Dark chocolate, with enough cream to help it go down. Premium, not off-brand.

    A good story written well.

    I can think of at least two women in Scripture who found themselves in very difficult circumstances and where sex played a role. Tamar, who was “used” before she received the justice due her, and Esther, whose beauty placed her in a circumstance not of her choosing.

  3. CrazyHappyLoved says:

    What an amazing story! I can hardly wait for the sequel! This has everything I need to get really enthralled: Believable characters, historic setting, Godly outlook, hot sex! The foreshadowing is at the perfect level; I suspect, but I want to keep reading to find out if I'm right. Girl, you can really write 'em!!

  4. LovingMan says:

    LovelyLonelyLady, another great WW II themed story. Like your other readers I am intrigued and anxious to see where this goes. I love your sexy historical romances!

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