Her Soldier of Fortune — Belle Scarlett

Leia has no idea who ex-Marine Major Tate McIntyre is when he saves her life in a dark alley. Yet Tate's certain Leia is his to have, hold, and protect. He vows to keep her safe at any cost. His only price is her heart. Semper Fi!EXCERPTChapter OneYou're coming with me. No arguments, Leia. Now.Leia Lightoller tore her dazed gaze from the unconscious mugger sprawled at her feet in the dark alley to stare in shock at the muscular stranger with the low, gravel voice who towered over her.Her smelly, wiry attacker on the oily, wet asphalt emitted a low groan. Her eyes ran up and down his curled up form on the ground.Only seconds earlier, the fallen would-be thief had held a knife to her throat in the dim alley as he'd tried to snatch the purse off her shoulder. Such a little guy, really. He had seemed a lot bigger a few seconds ago. His blade at her neck had probably seemed to add a few inches to his stature, Leia acknowledged to herself vaguely.With a surreal sense of clinical detachment, Leia noted her rapid pulse, her shallow breaths, and the dizziness that soon followed. She sensibly told herself to stop that nonsense right now before she blacked out.Just a bit of shock. Must get a grip. Breathe, Leia, just breathe. Shake it off. You've seen worse.Immediately, she felt her blood pressure decrease as her stress abated. The dark spots before her eyes cleared. She was instantly thankful for her good training that made her body do what her brain told it to.Her tall rescuer, if that was what he was, grabbed her wrist and pulled her away from his fallen adversary now writhing in semi-conscious pain in the middle of a chilly puddle.Disliking being manhandled so soon after nearly having her throat slashed, Leia instinctively tried to wrest her hand back from his iron grip. She may as well have tried to pull King Arthur's Excalibur from the stone.Let me go!Quelling her resistance, her stranger hauled her close to his hard body. She felt every corded muscle and large sinew under his dark, open overcoat. There was an also an unexpected but undeniably substantial bulge at the crotch of his slacks.She inhaled sharply at their full-body, physical contact, and firmly told her knees to stop feeling like buckling all of the sudden. A flood of random thoughts hit her brain nearly at once.What the hell? Who is this guy? Damn. He smells good... This is ridiculous.His spicy, masculine scent mixed with winter rain assailed her senses and made her blood pump hard again but, oddly enough, not in panic this time. If anything, his personal scent stimulated yet reassured her excited senses, rather than alarmed them. His alluring essence was somehow familiar, but she couldn't understand why.She breathed in deeply again to calm her rioting pulse only to inhale her own body's sex pheromones, triggered by the sheer proximity of the man who held her in his grip, making her pulse pound a bit harder. At this close range, if her nose could detect her own arousal, so must his, she reasoned. She felt red heat invade her cheeks at the notion.A warm shiver skated up her spine when she felt her stranger-slash-hero's large hand wrap around her waist, spanning it easily with his long fingers.What was he doing? Sure, he had just saved her from a creep in a dark alley, but she wondered if she hadn't sprung headlong from the proverbial frying pan straight into the bonfire.