Free The Stealth Commandos Trilogy by Suzanne Forster

redoubling her efforts to do up the shirt’s buttons. Clearly it took considerable stamina to seduce an unwilling man, and she would have to get her strength up for the task. She certainly didn’t want to keep fainting every time he got near her. They wouldn’t get anything accomplished that way.
    Moments later Chase set two bowls of steaming food and a loaf of warm sourdough bread down on the red checkered oilcloth. When he saw she was awake, he said, “Come and get it,” pulled back a chair, and beckoned her.
    He’d put his own shirt back on, but he hadn’t bothered to button it up. The jeans riding low on his hips and dark hair curling down the nape of his neck made him look nonchalant and recklessly sexy. More like a gunslinger taking a break from the action than a mountain man who’d just cooked her dinner.
    She rose to her feet unsteadily and noted with some relief that the shirt she wore was long enough to be a short dress. The tails fell practically to her knees.
    “What’s this?” she said as she sat down across from him.
    “If you mean the food, it’s corned-beef hash. Sorry, I don’t do fancy.”
    “Looks like a feast to me,” Annie said.
    Those were her last words for some time. She ate voraciously, delaying each heaping spoonful only as long as it took to chew and swallow. When she was done, she glanced up, spoon still clenched firmly in hand, and saw that Chase hadn’t eaten a bite. He’d been watching her with rapt disbelief, apparently the entire time.
    She tipped her spoon toward his bowl. “Are you going to finish that?” It seemed a sin to waste good food, especially since the mound of steaming ambrosia in his bowl was sending up an irresistible aroma.
    He pushed the bowl over to her side of the table without a word. Annie could feel his eyes on her as she started in on his portion, and it occurred to her that the nuns would not have been pleased with her manners. At the very least she ought to have complimented Chase on his cooking skills or inquired on his lack of appetite. But she couldn’t spare the time from her food. It seemed as if some ravenous, foraging animal had taken over her will. She was absolutely drunk on the mouthwatering smells and tastes. Consummation was a wonderful thing, she thought, smiling at the awareness. She felt as if she could consume Chase’s corned-beef hash forever and never be full, never get enough to satisfy her hunger.
    “Exquisito,” she said, some moments later after she’d finished every morsel of the food and was polishing the inside of the bowl with a chunk of bread. “Really, it was exquisite. I’ve never had hash before. Is it a local delicacy?”
    Chase nodded, a wry smile surfacing. “Ranks right up there with prairie chips and Rocky Mountain oysters. Remind me to whip you up a batch of those sometime.”
    “Oysters? Here in the mountains?” Annie couldn’t restrain a skeptical headshake as she finished the last of the bread. “Wonders never cease,” she murmured.
    “No ... they never do.”
    Something in his voice made her glance up, and as she did, she caught the fleeting appreciation that moved through his expression. A lightness buoyed her heart as she registered his recent kindnesses—and wondered what they meant. It seemed too good to be true that he might have changed his mind and decided to help her prove her citizenship. She’d lived so many years in a country ripped apart by insurrection that deprivation and fear had become a way of life. She’d thought of herself as inured to the pain. And yet now, even anticipating that the nightmare might be over brought her a sense of relief so powerful, it felt almost joyous.
    “You get enough?” Chase asked, glancing at the empty bowls and bread crumbs, the only evidence that there’d been food on the table. “Looks like I should have thrown a side of beef on the stove.”
    “Oh, no.” Annie settled back in the chair and allowed herself a deeply contented sigh. “Don’t