Heroes Lost and Found

by Sheryl Nantus

  Teague pressed into her, the firm, muscular planes of his chest and abdomen contouring to her back like the delicious, masculine version of memory foam. “How about now? Feeling anything?”

  She gulped, not entirely certain he wasn’t referring to the thick bulge of his erection prodding the base of her spine. “Err…possibly.”

  “Good.” His hands coasted along her upper arms and over her shoulders. He continued following the slope of her neck, his fingers a maddening butterfly dance along her overheated skin. She shook as he traced the shell of her ears before combing his fingers through her hair, sifting the strands over her shoulders. His deep inhalation stirred the fine hairs at her temple, and she closed her eyes on a shaky breath.

  “Do you feel it, Ruby?” His hands retraced their path, this time moving beneath her arms. “Do you feel our energy weaving?”

  Oh my God. She did. Teague’s power was a sensual caress along her synapses. It licked at her own energy, engaging it in an erotic tango that felt…like sex. She bit her lip to stifle a moan. Teague’s bold hands roved inward, and her eyes snapped open as they closed over her breasts. A blast of energy showered from her, acting as a turbo boost to the discharged bolt. It slammed into the center tree across from them, sheering it in half.

  Unable to believe her own eyes, she released an excited whoop of joy. It took a moment to realize that Teague was no longer touching her. Disappointment smothered her brief happiness. Pivoting, she met his guarded expression. Painfully aware of the tight ache in her nipples, she hugged her torso. “You stopped.”

  “It was the end of our first lesson.”

  She frowned. “That was a lesson?”

  “Our energy often brings with it a sexual charge for us. Tap into that essence, and it can trigger a power surge similar to a climax.”

  Her cheeks heated. “I thought you were touching me because you wanted me.”

  A dark intensity entered Teague’s eyes. “I want to fuck you so badly, my balls are blue. But giving in to that urge would be stupid.”

  Heaviness sat like an elephant on her chest. “Why?”

  “We’re as different as two people can get, Ruby. You want to save the world, and I just want revenge and to save my own ass. You’re better off without me.”

  “Don’t I get a say in this decision?”

  “No. One of us has to keep some damn sense.” His jaw locked into a rigid line, Teague strode past her and headed to the copse of trees.

  She stared at his retreating back, the ache in her heart increasing with each step he took away from her. He should be the last person on Earth capable of tying her emotions into a tangle of messy knots. He was absolutely right about them being wrong for each other. The smartest thing she could do right now was walk away.

  Her legs wobbly, she started across the dusty plain, her unwavering sight set on Teague. She reached the ring of trees, and he turned to face her, his mouth a grim line. “Ruby—”

  Planting her palms squarely in the center of his broad chest, she shoved him against the trunk of the nearest oak. “You said what you had to say. Now it’s my turn.” Before he could interrupt or argue, she stood on tiptoe and caught his bottom lip between her teeth. A harsh breath rattled from his lungs, and she slid her hand behind his neck. The next second, the lush, wet heat of his tongue thrust inside her mouth as he grasped her ass and hauled her up against him. Locking one leg around his waist, she rubbed against his thickening erection and whimpered.

  Re-angling his mouth for a deeper, hungrier kiss, he swung her around until her back was the one pushed against the rough bark of the tree. Gripping her thigh higher, he ground his pelvis into hers. The friction tore a moan from her throat. Scraping his teeth along her jawbone, Teague slid a hot, open-mouthed kiss toward the sensitive crook of her neck.

  Her insides melting, she shivered. She wanted nothing more desperately than to feel the thick, hard length of his cock slide deep in her core, filling the emptiness and banishing her ever-present worries for a blissful moment. “Please, make love to me.”

  A tremor racked Teague’s body. She sensed the tension in him. The struggle for his control. She gyrated her hips, earning his rasping groan. “Damn it, Ruby. I’m not fucking you against this tree.”

  She pulled him in for another devouring kiss and gloried in the lusty moan that rumbled through his chest. His hand slipped between them and fumbled with her zipper. An instant later his palm was cupping her mound and two fingers were buried in her pussy. She gasped at the unexpected stretch. “That isn’t what I want.”

  Ignoring her, he pumped his fingers and ghosted his thumb over her clit. She sank her nails into his rock-hard biceps and fought for breath. “N-not this way.”

  He increased the pressure on her inner walls, hitting the sweet spot that brought stars dancing in her vision. She bowed her back, trying to stave off the approaching climax. His gaze hot with determination, Teague hooked his fingers, his aim precise and devastating.

  Their love rides on a spring and a prayer…

  Wild Cards and Iron Horses

  © 2010 Sheryl Nantus

  During the recent Civil War, a soldier risked his life to save Jonathan Handleston—and lost. With the help of an advanced metal brace on his crippled hand, Jon now travels from one poker tournament to the next, determined to earn enough money to repay the man’s debt.

  Prosperity Ridge is supposed to be the last stop on his quest, but his brace is broken and he needs an engineer to repair the delicate mechanisms. The only one available is Samantha Weatherly, a beautiful anomaly in a world ruled by men.

  Sam is no fool. Jon is no different from any other gambler—except for his amazing prosthetic. Despite a demanding project to win a critical contract to develop an iron horse, she succumbs to the lure of working on the delicate mechanisms. And working with the handsome Englishman.

  Like a spring being coiled, Samantha and Jon are inexorably drawn together. Sam begins to realize honor wears many faces, and she becomes the light at the end of Jon’s journey to redemption. The only monkey wrench is Victor, a rival gambler who will stop at nothing to make sure Jon misses the tournament. Even destroy Jon’s and Sam’s lives.

  Warning: Contains crazed card games, gears and springs galore and a wild ride that’ll have you panting at the end of the book.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Wild Cards and Iron Horses:

  Sam looked down at the brown paper parcel, shaking her head as if waking from a dream. “Oh, yes. Your brace is repaired.” She went to the half-wrapped bundle and began pulling the paper off. “I intended to come over to Mrs. McGuire’s and meet you there.” The words rushed out like an oil leak. “Of course, then we would have had to come back here and do the fitting. I don’t think Mrs. McGuire would let me go up to your room and allow us to complete our dealings there.” She felt the tingling down her spine, settling in her stomach with a butterfly’s flutter.

  Jon got up from the stool, now steady on his feet. Taking his jacket off, he draped it over the stool and began the now-familiar routine of disrobing in front of Samantha, who diverted her eyes, as was proper. A few minutes later, he walked over to the table. Jon leaned over it, his upper body totally bare.

  She pulled the last piece of parchment off the metal brace with fumbling fingers. “Do you need my help to adjust…?” The words trailed off as she studied his bare chest, the light furring of dark hair a stark contrast to his fair skin. The trail led down to his bellybutton then lower, dipping into the darkness below his belt buckle. “The brace is very comfortable,” Sam murmured.

  Jon leaned into the brace, flipping the clamps that attached it to his upper and lower arm muscles. The strap went across his chest, the well-worn leather pulled tight with the buckle pressing against the red indentation on his skin.

  She watched, fully transfixed as he slipped the belt tail through a holder, laying it flush with his chest. The leather edge flapped against his skin, eventually snuggling safe into place.
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br />   He turned to look at her, grinning. “‘Comfortable’? Did you try it on?”

  She let out a light hiccup, intently studying a knothole in the tabletop to avoid his gaze. “I felt it was important to see if the device worked as required, specifically the fingers. So I needed to wear it to be sure.” Sam looked up, just slightly, staring at his muscles twitching and shifting in the metal brace.

  “Ah.” Jon flexed his fingers, watching the little finger curl and uncurl on command. “As good as new.” He tilted his head to one side, still smiling. “How did you like wearing it?”

  “An amazing invention.” The words tumbled out, her internal voice shouting for her to calm down and stop babbling like a young girl on her first social outing. “I would have loved to have seen its construction. I would recommend, however, that you contact the manufacturer and ask if they could provide you with some emergency replacement pieces for the future. Improvisation can only go so far, and while I enjoyed working on you…on it and would do so again in a minute, I think…” She was breathless, her last words coming out in a whisper. Her eyes dropped down to study the knothole again. Surely she had made enough of a fool of herself that he would have nothing else to do with her now.

  Jon put his shirt on, shrugging the fabric over his broad shoulders and the brace. “An excellent repair job. And I’ll follow up on your recommendations. They’re preparing to make it available to more people.” He flinched, fumbling with a button. “A sad reality of armed conflicts is that innovation tends to follow in order to deal with the results of such.” Jon glanced over at her father and Gil, the two eagerly finishing off the last of the tarts. His voice dropped, almost to an intimate whisper. “Have you considered getting an artificial arm for your father?”

  Sam took a step back, folding her arms in front of her. This was an old argument with a new opponent. “Father’s too proud for that, at least right now. Besides, it would be too much money.” She shrugged, meeting his gaze head-on. There was no use in mincing her words. “As you may have noticed, out here things are much more expensive than they are on the coast. While we can produce our own food and items to a degree, we still need to import much more than we can make ourselves. Including such luxuries as artificial limbs and the means to fit and maintain them. And everyone wants to make a profit.”

  “I have noticed that.” Jon nodded. “I do think you should think about it. The science, the people I have seen in England, they would make his life much more comfortable.” He curled his fingers into a fist, the metal bands pulling the slender digits inward. “But I would understand if he chose not to, for his own reasons and not financial ones. I often wonder about my own decision.”

  “Well, I, for one, am glad you decided to keep your hand.” Sam took the crippled right hand and pressed it between her own two warm palms.

  Looking up, she saw a matching smile. The deep blue eyes locked with her own for what could have been a minute, an hour…

  “This pastry is delicious,” her father roared from the other table. “I’d forgotten how good. We need to order from them more often.”

  The shock startled Sam out of her reverie and she moved back a few inches, releasing Jon’s hand. He let out a low sigh at her withdrawal, sending her pulse racing.

  “Yes, the bill. The bill.” She went to the other desk and picked up a piece of paper. “We have an itemized bill here for you, Mr. Handleston.” Sam cleared her throat, making one last attempt to be as professional as possible. “I think you’ll find our rates are quite reasonable…” She paused, seeing his wide smile, the softness in his face bringing unbidden tears to her eyes.

  “What you’ve done for me is priceless, Miss Weatherly. And I thought I told you to call me ‘Jon’.” He took the page from her, scanning down the columns. “Everything seems reasonable, more than.” His good hand pushed into one of the waistcoat pockets. “Unfortunately, I don’t have enough on me at the present to pay.” Jon put up a hand. “But I do have an account at the bank, my dear lady. I don’t carry around large wads of cash, no matter my profession.”

  “Good idea.” Her father glanced over, a trace of raspberry jam on the edge of his mouth. “Why don’t you accompany him to the bank, my dear, and simply deposit it to our own account? That’ll save an extra trip for everyone.” He nodded to Jon. “I trust you to escort my daughter, sir. At least to the bank,” her father added with a hint of laughter in his eyes.

  “And I shall.” Jon bowed slightly, returning the wide smile with interest.

  Sam rolled her eyes. When it came to affairs of the heart, her father was about as subtle as a runaway steam engine. After walking into the back room, she emerged with a delicately made shawl, a cream-colored piece of whimsy that somehow fit with her work shirt and her dark blue jeans. The shocked looks when she re-emerged banished all doubt she had about buying the shawl only a few weeks earlier in an impulsive moment.

  “Shall I pick up something for later on?” She let out a laugh, seeing the mess the two men/boys had made on the worktable.

  One raspberry tart had been cleanly dissected, the fruit scooped out with fingers and spread across most of the daily newspaper, while the chocolate creampuffs had exploded over both faces.

  “Uh…maybe not for me.” Her father wiped the edge of his mouth with a finger and licked it clean. Gil let out a moan, clutching his stomach. “And I think Gil here needs a bit of a lay down.”

  Sam nodded. “There’s some baking soda in the cupboard if you need to mix something up.” Turning to Jon, she gestured towards the door. “The bank should be open for another hour or two, but we should hurry.”

  “Take your time coming home,” her father called after them. “Maybe stop for a cup of tea or something. No rush.”

  Sam scowled at him as she closed the door behind them. She was surprised Jon hadn’t already headed for the hills, with this sort of suggesting going on.

  Heroes Lost and Found

  Sheryl Nantus

  Some will rise, others will fall…

  Blaze of Glory, Book 3

  Jo Tanis is still recovering from her near-death experience in Las Vegas when she receives a mysterious postcard from Harris Limox, who claims to have a promising lead on the whereabouts of the Controller. Over her boyfriend/guardian Hunter’s objections, she sets off to a sleepy Oregon town to ferret out the truth.

  The Controller is more than just a disgruntled super. He’s a rogue Guardian who was presumed dead and is now armed with a slew of high-tech hardware that not only makes him physically superior to the supers—and therefore almost impossible to destroy—he’s got the ability to detonate the implants in the back of all supers’ necks.

  In Oregon, Jo meets a surviving Alpha super, Kit Masters, whose wild plan to capture the Controller could put an entire town of innocents at risk. But instead of successfully talking her former idol out of his disastrous bid to regain former glory, Jo finds herself betrayed and trapped in her worst nightmare.

  Fight her former teammates, or die.

  Warning: Super brawling, super loving and a super-hot ending!

  eBooks are not transferable.

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  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

  11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

  Cincinnati OH 45249

  Heroes Lost and Found

  Copyright © 2012 by Sheryl Nantus

  ISBN: 978-1-61921-099-8

  Edited by Sasha Knight

  Cover by Kanaxa

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodi
ed in critical articles and reviews.

  First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: October 2012

  www.samhainpublishing.com