"What have you done to me?” she asked, still chewing.

He picked up his fork, speared a bite of ravioli, and popped it into his mouth, smiling all the while.

"Who are you?"

"You'll find out,” he said quietly, without doubt.

And she believed him. She understood what it meant to let someone in, to let someone care for her. It didn't make her weak or incompetent. It felt warm and fuzzy and deliciously satisfying.

Annabelle soaked up every ounce of sauce on her plate with not one, but three slices of bread. She ate like she'd been starved for years. In truth, she had been starving herself of all the creature comforts and companionship that made life worth living. No, she hadn't been living; she'd been existing. Getting by.

Tony was right. Getting by was not enough. Life was too short for that.

Tentatively, she reached across the table… and looked into his eyes, asking him now for what he had wanted to give her all along, hoping beyond hope the offer was still good. He looked at her hand, then at her, as if asking if she were really in. Then without a word, he met her hand squarely in the middle.

"Looks to me like you're angling for a second date,” he said.

"So, what if I am?"

He smiled, rubbing a thumb along the inside of her wrist. “In that case, we better end this one on a good note."

Tony pulled the pumpkin bread pudding from the refrigerator along with a plate of snowman cookies, placed the desserts on the table, and turned down the lights. He raised his wine glass in one hand and a cookie in the other.

"To your first Christmas in Kodiak,” he said.

Annabelle raised a cookie, touched it to his. “To our first Christmas.” Then she bit the whole head off at once and savored the first crunch, the soft middle, and finally, the very best part-the sweet, enduring aftertaste of no regrets.

Tara Nina is a Romance Novelist with a flair for the erotic paranormal, contemporary, and romantic suspense. She writes for The Wild Rose Press, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Highland Press Publishing, and DCL Publishing. When she's not at home, she enjoys meeting other authors and readers at her favorite conferences such as, the Romantic Times Booklover's Convention, RWA National, Comic Con, and the Ellora's Cave Romanticon.

For a sweet Military adventure, check out Highland Press for the “Operation: L.O.V.E. Special Operations Romance Anthology.” Her contribution of “Mission: Devil Dog” highlights the attributes of a hot Marine sniper who meets his equal in another Marine female sniper. Coming soon with Highland Press is “For Your Heart Only” an anthology to which she contributed “Mindwarp."

She is a Southerner living in the northern wilds of New Jersey complete with kids, pets, and a mountain man for a husband. Thanks to her family, friends, editors, and readers, her life is going forward in a more adventurous direction every day.

All I Want for Christmas Is a Marine is dedicated to every soldier separated from their families during the holidays. Most traditions bring families together during these festivities while the proud, dedicated American soldiers give freely of themselves without thought of harm even though they miss being with their loved ones. Thank you for all that you give to this country so we may be free.

Rain dripped in his eyes, but he never lost sight of the objective. In and out. That was the plan. Locate, identify, observe, and report, that's what Staff Sergeant Mitch Sinclair's squad of Force Recon Marines did best. Their assignment had been to uncover the truth of Kim Jong-il's health. Was he dead or gravely ill? Rumors contaminated the media. At 0800 hours, their mission changed from green ops-collect intelligence-to black ops-direct action. Separated from returning to their battalion by a sudden surge of North Korean militant action, they adapted to the situation.

Now, their job entailed extraction of the daughter of an American scientist from the North Koreans. With the way the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il hated Americans, Mitch found it ironic the dictator's youngest son, Kim Jong-un, ordered the capture of an American in order to help their cause. The attempt to kidnap David Summers, creator of the highly classified MD-3 missile navigation system, failed. So instead, they took Summers's daughter to use as leverage to gain the knowledge they desperately needed to back their nuclear claims. Intelligence out of Pyongyang helped thwart the scientist's capture, but it came too late to prevent Jong-un's backup plan. Take the only child of a widowed eccentric scientist and hold her hostage in exchange for missile guidance technology.

What the North Korean's didn't know… Allie Summers was the key to unlock that information. Due to her father's high level of intelligence, he lacked focus without her at his side. That little bit of information, Mitch hoped the enemy never discovered. If they did… he sighed heavily. He hated to think what they'd do to her to obtain the secrets they wanted. Torture was a way of life for these militant groups and the North Koreans held the charter on nasty techniques. This he'd learned from studying the Korean War and listening to stories from his uncles who'd been there. He never thought he'd be following in their footsteps in another disagreement with North Korea. This time the issue was nuclear.

Hopefully, he prayed, North Korea would back down from the pressure of strict sanctions from the UN. A smidgeon of doubt about Kim Jong-il's sanity and health clouded that hope. From everything Mitch read, this dictator lacked the foresight to understand the repercussions of using nuclear weapons. Everyone suffered from the fallout and not just the country fired upon.

Now, because of this lunatic, Mitch and his squad were in North Korea's mountainous terrain watching and waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Part of him hungered for the chance to take out a few of the enemy, but the good Recon Marine in him knew his job. Get in and out without being seen or firing a shot and save the hostage from harm. Forty-eight hours was a long time to be captive. If he could help it, tonight would be her last night as a victim.

A pair of dark brown eyes haunted him. The picture of Allie Summers seemed tattooed inside his head. Something about those big, brown eyes captured him the moment he studied her file. Mitch swiped the back of his hand across his eyes removing the excess water from the driving rain. Returning his gaze to the practically non-detectable camouflaged building in the distance, he waited and watched for the chance to complete this mission.

From a smattering of intercepted coded conversations, Mitch and his men gathered the fact a package was due for delivery. The low rumble of an engine cut through the steady pound of the rain. Mitch slid his night vision goggles in place and studied the unmarked panel van making its way along the narrow dirt road. When it came to a stop, six men exited the building and surrounded the van.

Bounced around in the back of a cold vehicle, Allie struggled with her bindings. Pain burned into her wrists and sizzled up her cramped arms. Both feet were numb and she ached to wiggle them, but she'd long since lost the ability to even move her toes. Wrapped in a dirty burlap sack, she couldn't see. Slivers of light snuck through the tiny weaves of the fabric informing her when day turned to night. From her calculations, she'd been in this bag for roughly forty-eight to fifty hours. With the ability to roll around, she assumed she was in the back of a van or cargo truck of some sort.