Free High Octane Heroes by Delilah Devlin (ed)

cheekbone to her ear. “No more fear. You’ll stay. I’ll take care of it.”
    The most mulish part of her protested. She didn’t need his help, didn’t want his protection. Pushing against his chest, she leaned back, and studied those azure eyes. On their glimmering surface, she saw what he really offered—affection, friendship, the possibility of something more.
    With impressive patience, he waited, his erection pulsing inside her.
    And suddenly it was true. She was no longer afraid. “Yes.”
    “Thank god,” he rasped, then lunged into her with a frenzied rhythm born of too much restraint.

    The sheer force of him inside her promised everything she needed. She lay back onto the platform, dug her heels into the windowsill and lifted her hips to receive him. With their gazes locked and their bodies moving in time, the neighborhood swirled around her and La Virgen looked down in approval.
    When he came with a shout, Rosalia laughed—weightless and free.

BESIEGED
    Elle James
     
     
     
     
     
    M axwell O’Brien pushed through the secret panel hidden in the closet of his bedroom in the embassy apartment he’d been assigned. Still wearing his dress mess from the dinner party he’d left moments before, he was careful not to brush against the dusty walls of the passage or the cobwebs dangling from the ceilings and corners of the doorways.
    His heart raced as if he’d run through the streets of Kabul. Only he wasn’t afraid of being shot at so much as being shot down by the ultimate disappointment.
    Tonight he planned to ask Kate Seward, daughter of the U.S. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the small nation of Trejikistan, to marry him and follow him to his next duty station in Italy.
    He’d discovered the passageway during his initial week exploring the embassy quarters located in an older, historic district of the capital of Trejikistan. A breakaway country from the Soviet Union, Trejikistan had seen a few years of peace,
interspersed with the occasional secular strife and violence. At some time in the past, a former ambassador had been foresighted enough to design and construct several hidden passages known only to the ambassador and his most trusted staff members for use when a silent retreat was called for.
    One such passage just happened to be located behind the ambassador’s wing of apartments, including the one assigned to him. Max had been given a suite designated for family of the ambassador. Since Ambassador Seward’s wife was deceased and he had only one child, he’d offered the suite to Max upon his arrival, claiming he wanted his bodyguard close by to protect his daughter.
    Had Max known that Seward’s daughter was a grown woman and one of the kindest, most caring and beautiful Max had ever known, he might have asked to be placed farther away to keep his distance physically as well as mentally.
    From the first day, Kate Seward had been a force Max had to reckon with. Their mutual attraction had launched a game of cat and mouse Max ultimately lost when he realized he’d fallen in love with the confounded woman.
    Now, he slipped through the passage connecting his room to hers, like he had on numerous occasions, praying the reflection of love in her eyes wasn’t just a dream. She’d asked him to stop by and check the security of her room after the dinner party.
    It was code for a lot more than checking security.
    As he neared the panel that would open into her huge walk-in closet, his groin tightened, and he imaged Kate in that simple black dress she’d worn for the dinner party, her long dark hair pulled up in a sexy twist, wearing the pendant he’d given her for her birthday.
    Max had sat near the end of the table, resisting the urge to tug at the tight collar of his dress mess uniform. If not for
Kate, he’d have begged to redeploy to the strife-ridden country of Chad—more comfortable in ACUs and face camo, training Chadian soldiers on antiterrorism techniques, than sitting