Holding Out For A Super Hero |

Hi! I have a special treat for you today! A wonderful guest author and friend, Heather Long, has a new superhero romance available September 17 from Carina Press. Because she’s my friend (lucky me!) I had the pleasure of reading this awesome story and I am so happy to share her and The Boomers with you today.

First off, let me say thank you to the fantastic ladies here at The Naked Hero. I couldn’t think of a better place to introduce you to the Boomers. The Boomers—Bio-Mechanical Recon Unit—are an elite team of five super powered men who are specially outfitted with biomechanical hardware (in this case a micro chip in the brain) and sent back to the 20th century to try and prevent a holocaust in their time. These were not the only volunteers, but these five were the only ones who survived the implantation and inoculation procedure they required for time travel.

The time jump would send them back to the 1960s and the inoculations would slow their aging process, allowing them to lie in wait for the threats that must be eliminated. Each man under took this journey for his own reasons; five strangers united by a cause became the Boomers.

Michael (AKA Hard Target–expert marksman and tracker)

Michael is an alpha male and the tacit leader of the unit of five. His military training and expertise makes him an excellent strategist. His skill with weapons allows him to provide his more physical teammates with long-distance tactical support. As a sniper, when it comes to assassination, Michael never assigns that task to anyone else. He’s a by the book man who wants to stop at all costs the world he knew from ever coming into existence…until he meets Rory Graystone.

Garrett (AKA Viper–poisons, toxins)

Born in a research facility, Garrett spent the formative years of his life inside a bubble, not allowed to touch anyone—least of all his mother, the woman who meant everything to him–because he can kill whatever he touches. He endured experiment after experiment and watched his mother do the same. On his eighteenth birthday, his mother attacked their jailers and earned an execution—freeing herself. Garrett planned to do the same, but Boomers Simon and Michael rescued him first. Garrett doesn’t like anyone and trusts only those men he was sent back in time with. He wants to prevent the future so no other children grow up as he did.

Simon (AKA Soothsayer–a high functioning telepath)

Unlike his allies, Simon did not grow up in a concentration camp or laboratory facility nor did he serve with the military. He can communicate across vast distances and control individuals one at a time. Little is known about his past, but he is a consummate diplomat and serves as the team’s resident sounding board. He tempers their abilities and keeps them in touch with who they were and their current mission. He chose this mission for reasons he did not share with his team.

Rex (AKA Watchman– a unique shapesifter)

Like Garrett, Rex grew up in a research facility but he refuses to discuss his internment there. Unlike all his other teammates, Rex left a wife and unborn child behind to take on the challenge of this mission. He wanted to create a better world for them—not realizing until after he took the leap in time that his actions may result in his child never being born. Rex can become inanimate objects.

Drake (AKA Tank–super strength and near invulnerability)
Discovered at a young age, Drake was forced to work with the Corporate Military Security forces or see his family executed. Using his family as leverage, Drake participated in the round up of multiple ‘heroes’ for experimentation, incarceration, or reprogramming. Little is known about his efforts during that time, but the guilt he carries for the lives lost weighs on him. When Simon approached him with a chance to undo the bleak present, he took the long trip to the past with the other Boomers.

Each of these men want to save the future. They’ve dedicated themselves to undoing the domino chain of events—but are tortured by the possibility that they may very well be creating the future they wish to prevent. Writing a series of superhero romances, I couldn’t ask for better leading men!

Learn more about the Boomers in Yesterday’s Heroes!

Aurora “Rory” Graystone

Codename: Halo

Abilities: superior reflexes, I.Q. and aptitude for calculating probabilities

Mission: find missing teammates

Rory knows she’s being watched, and she’s not about to let the hunter catch her in his trap. She’ll confront her stalker, a man she suspects is involved in the disappearances of other superheroes–if she can ignore the sensual heat that fills her every time he’s near…

Michael Hunter

Codename: Hard Target

Abilities: expert tracker and sniper

Mission: kill Rory Graystone

One of five desperate men sent back in time to save the future, Michael believes eliminating Rory is the key to his mission. But even as he takes aim, a split second of doubt causes him to miss his shot.

Drawn together by passion, and on a collision course with fate, can Rory and Michael work together to change the future? Or have they set in motion the horrific history the time-travelers are trying to prevent?

Excerpt:

He missed.

He never missed.

Michael stared at the sidewalk swarming with citizens and shopping debris. His bullet had hit one of the shopping bags, turning it into scraps of leather, metallic buckle bits and paper drifting in the air.

How the hell had he missed?

Michael allowed himself the twenty seconds it took him to collapse the rifle back into his bag to analyze. But it was twenty seconds too long.

Her slender, lithe body appeared over the roof’s edge and landed, one knee and one foot down for balance. Power coiled through her body’s compact musculature. Intelligence shimmered in her violet eyes. Danger sheathed her like a halo.

She was absolutely magnificent.

“Going somewhere?” Her voice undulated, low and husky, the sardonic notes pinging his nervous system as though they were played on a too-tightly-strung guitar.

“Unfortunately, no.” A flick of his wrist dropped the small-caliber weapon into his hand, but the woman rolled, twisting and turning through the air as she avoided his bullets.

Incomprehension tangled with irritation. He never missed.

Until today.

Twice in as many encounters.

“Tsk, tsk. Didn’t your mother teach you not to play with guns? If you’re going to shoot at something, hit it. Otherwise, what’s the point?” The come-hither voice was close and the liquid heat in her tone tormented his cock. He narrowly jerked his head back, avoiding her fist whiffing the air just millimeters from his nose. But he had no time to savor his victory as her arm completed the arc, punching down on the crook of his elbow.

Nerves screaming, he released the gun and jerked himself to the right to avoid the blow of her leg lashing out at his knee. He struck back, unsurprised that she avoided the strike. She used her forearm to send it wide and swiveled so that his own mass and velocity sent him flying over her shoulder.

An unexpected grin turned up the corners of his mouth. Despite her slighter frame and fragile appearance, the she-vixen offered him a challenge.

God she’s fast.

He slammed against the rooftop and rebounded to his feet, pivoting to face her. Gone was the sweet white t-shirt that hugged her breasts. In its place was an almost-white body suit that lingered like a lover on every curve. A rainbow swath of color wrapped around her right thigh, cut up across her hip and over her abdomen to blaze a trail of treasure to her left breast. The Kevlar-based polymer shimmered in the morning sun.

It was both practical and erotic.

Deep within his brain, the microchip he’d thought dead flared to life. Data scrolled across his internal eye, a mechanized voice reciting the information

Target acquired: Codename Halo.

Abilities: Superior reflexes, high I.Q. and an uncanny knack for discerning the possibilities

Suggested defense: Unknown

Suggested offense: Unknown

Computers were not meant to be sarcastic, but the advice carried the weight of dry humor that Michael associated with the programmer it imitated.

“Got a name big boy?” Her words were a provocative tease and his body tingled in response.

Her voice spawned a physiological side effect on his anatomy. It must have a correlation with her ability, but the chip remained silent on the matter. Her second attack came in a flurry of kicks and palm strikes.

Michael could take a man down with three moves or less. She was slender, slighter in build, and he should be able to snap her in two. Instead, he blocked, evaded and turned her blows until he was able to capture a wrist and spin her back against his chest, his arms coming down to cage her. She turned her palms down, her suggestive little ass rubbing his crotch as she tried to break the hold.

Using his size and associated muscle mass, he bent with her, his fists shackling her wrists, his knuckles brushing her firm breasts. She twisted her hips, going for the side spin. Michael moved with her, boxing her tighter to his body. The motion brought the rich, velvet of her hair to his nose. He drew in a lungful of her scent. The tart lemon was a top note, but beneath the citrus was a distinctively musky, feminine scent.

Blood surged into his cock and she stilled as his arousal pressed solidly against her backside. The teasing curve of her body was soft against his hardness, filling his mind with erotic images and the desire to determine just how the sexy little body suit came off.

Had any battle been more fun?

Or more exciting?

“Done?” He touched his lips to her ear, stealing the smallest taste of her flesh. Her tender skin tasted of schnapps and cool malt, both decadent and sweet.

“Nope.”

Heather Long lives in Texas with her family and their menagerie of animals. As a child, Heather skipped picture books and enjoyed the Harlequin romance novels by Penny Jordan and Nora Roberts that her grandmother read to her. Heather believes that laughter is as important to life as breathing and that the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus are very real. In the meanwhile, she is hard at work on her next novel.