Tori’s MMA career was taking off, until she beat the wrong man. Her training partner, nursing a bruised ego, snapped—shattering her trust and confidence.

Three years later, Tori’s keeping her fists to herself as she struggles to put herself through college. But when a group of gangbangers hassle her at work, old habits kick in and her fists fly. Max Estrada, a frequent diner customer, steps in and gets them out of hot water, but Tori is still fired… days before tuition is due.

With no other option, she’s forced to take a desk job at her old pounding grounds, where her demons still haunt the cage and the temptation to go glove-to-glove with familiar pro-fighter, Max Estrada, is too much. The sexy Colombian draws her back into the world of MMA and revives her dreams of becoming a professional face-puncher—until Will, her old partner and current Middleweight Champion, struts back into the gym. The secret they share is an unexpected liability to his career, and he’s determined to keep her silent.

With her life on the ropes, Tori will have to face the past for a shot at winning back her future, or carry the weight of a loss even greater than before.

My hand trailed down his arm, and his pulse jumped under the warm skin on his wrist. His wrist slipped out from under my fingers, and his hand clamped around mine.

When had he moved closer? I looked up. His face was only inches away.

“And the scar on your eyebrow?” I asked. I reached up, and ran my fingertip over the jagged skin partially hidden in his eyebrow.

“A fight.”

“The one by your ear?” I touched that one, too. He leaned into my hand.

“A fight.” His voice grew quieter.

“The one on your chest?” Even though he had a shirt on, I knew he had a scar there. I pressed my hand against his chest. His heart rate sped up, and feeling it under my flat palm relaxed me.

“Trying to jump a fence when I was little.”

“Before your ninja skills?” I said.

“Before my ninja skills.”

His gaze felt heavy. I titled my head back, and our eyes locked. His pupils constricted; his chest raised quicker and quicker. My hand fisted his shirt. I wanted so badly to reach out and kiss him.

“And you? This one?” His hand brushed against my hair; his fingers trailed the scar at my temple.

My skin tingled under his touch, and warm arrows shot down my cheek, down my throat. When had it gotten so hot in here?

His question registered in my muddled brain. Between that and wanting to kiss him, I did the only thing I could think of. I threw a double jab, putting distance between us, followed by a cross with my fight hand.

He slipped the cross, and this time sent one of his own back. I slipped it, went in for a hook, but he moved. Still in close. As I grabbed his neck and yanked him forward, I sent out a right Thai knee, angling my hips open, landing my knee rib level. He grabbed my thigh, and wrapped his arm underneath it.

I tightened my arms, and prepared for punches or to be dropped to the mat. Instead, he yanked me forward, and my stomach, bare from where my tank top had rolled up, hit his. I dropped my arms, surprised. He stared at me; we were so close now. He no longer held my thigh. His arm wrapped around my back, his palm against the area above my butt, and I pressed my body tighter against him.

I felt the movement before he hooked his foot around my ankle and yanked. I was already off balance, but I didn’t even try to stay up. I fell, him on top of me, one arm around my back and the other hand cradling my head.

At first, the movement confused me. He knocked me down all the time and never seemed overly concerned about my head.

With my back on the mat, his fingers touched my hair and trailed down my cheek, my jaw, my neck. Hot skin pressed against my abs. Leather and sweat mixed with Max engulfed me.

With one hand resting on my neck, he kissed me.

L.G. Kelso writes speculative and contemporary novels. Having grown up watching Xena and Hercules with her grandmother, L.G. inherited her passion for the fantastical, mythological and paranormal. She writes fantasy genre mash-ups that have empowered heroines, complicated heroes, and, of course, magic. Her contemporary works are NA sports romance novels that focus on people in love with combat sports and sometimes each other. L.G. is involved in combat sports and she strives to bring an authentic view of the always breathtaking, often times crazy, and sometimes painful world of MMA into her novels. L.G writes in various categories, but her passion in New Adult, and has been long before New adult was acknowledged. This interest led her and a group of other New Adult fanatics to create NA Alley: Bridging the Gap between YA and Adult Fiction.

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Channel 20Something by Amy Patrick 

(20Something #1) 

Publication date: August 12th 2014 

Genres: Contemporary, New Adult, Romance

From award-winning author and two-time GOLDEN HEART® finalist Amy Patrick comes a New Adult contemporary series about twenty-somethings entering the world of TV broadcasting, where what happens behind the scenes is the real news.

22-year-old Heidi Haynes is almost one year into her “real life”. She has her first reporting job, her first apartment, and a comfortable relationship with her college sweetheart. But for some reason she’s not as eager to talk about walking down the aisle as he is.

Heidi secretly longs for big cities, big-market breaking news, and real independence from her way-too-close-by helicopter parents. Problem is, the last time she left the security of home for new places and new people, things didn’t go so well. Disastrously, in fact, and she came running back to a local college and a “safe” boyfriend.

Aric Serrano is definitely not safe.

He’s six-feet-four-inches of missing-Hemsworth-brother-hotness and plans to stay in small-market-Southern-Hell just long enough to grab a cup of coffee and put together a kick-ass “escape tape”. He’ll serve his one-year contract, then he’s taking off for a higher rung on the TV sports ladder—alone—the way he likes it. Then he meets his new co-anchor.

Heidi would be so much more comfortable if she could simply ignore Aric. He’s just her type—the type she’s so careful to avoid these days. But that becomes impossible when she’s forced to work closely with him on the weekend newscast. Now the attraction between them is growing even faster than the ratings, and what happens behind the scenes is the real news.

The baby reached out for the stick mic, grabbing a handful of the foam windscreen covering it. Her mom scolded her and tried to pry her tiny hand away. “No, no, Cassie.”

“It’s okay. She can’t hurt it,” Aric reassured. He cupped the baby’s downy head, his large hand covering the entire back of her skull. As he cooed in her face, the baby gazed at him as if he was all that existed in the world. “May I please have this back, Cassie? Can I? Are you going to let me have my microphone back?”

She released her grip and gave him a wide gummy grin dotted with two tiny front teeth.

“Oh, thank you.” Aric stroked her plump cheek.

Oh my God. I’m envious of a baby. I shook my head to clear it. I really needed to get a hold of myself. Especially now that I knew Aric was involved with someone long-distance and he believed I was in a committed relationship. I had to work on my just-friends attitude and banish the improper thoughts that insisted on popping up every few minutes when I was with him.

We finished the interview, Aric thanked the family, and then we talked to a few students on camera, getting some good usable sound bites and some that would never make air. One group of frat guys we met had clearly started the party early. They were loud and happy and flirted with me outrageously.

“You’re beautiful,” slurred a lanky guy with a mop of platinum hair and a maroon blazer. He looked like a freshman and teetered over me like a skinny tree that might go down with the next strong breeze.

“She is, isn’t she?” Aric said in a clipped, impatient way. “Okay guys, just a couple of questions—”

Another one of them, a stocky guy in a wrinkled button-down and crooked tie, ignored Aric completely and pushed things a step further. His whiskey-soaked breath surrounded me as he crowded my personal space. “You’re way cuter than you are on TV. They should make the news desk see-through. You have great legs.”

The guy lurched back from me as Aric stepped in and gave him the buddy-slap on the shoulder, employing more force than seemed necessary. “Okay, friend. Time to move along. This one’s spoken for.”

Aric’s voice sounded even deeper than usual. Though he’d obviously been referring to Hale, the protectiveness of his tone struck a shameful chord of pleasure in my midsection. I hadn’t actually been afraid—we were in a crowd of people in broad daylight—but there’s something almost magnetic about a guy whose instinct is to stand up for you.

In his state of drunken invincibility, the stocky kid bowed up, frowning in offense. Then he apparently realized how far up he had to crane his neck to see Aric’s intimidating expression. He shrank away and joined his friends stumbling into the stadium.
We picked up our gear and headed for the sidelines, flashing our media passes at the security guard on the way in.

“Thanks,” I said quietly.

Aric cut a glance in my direction and grinned. “Anytime. Reporter, photographer, bodyguard. Whatever you need.”

Amy is a two-time Golden Heart finalist (2013 and 2014) who writes Young Adult fiction as Amy DeLuca and New Adult romance as Amy Patrick.  She lives in Rhode Island with her husband and two sons and actually craves the heat and humidity of Mississippi, where she grew up. She’s been a professional singer and news anchor and currently narrates audio books as well as working as a station host for a Boston TV station.

Website / Twitter / Goodreads

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.

How can anyone resist temptation when it’s right next door?

Riley County North Carolina has a lot to offer: coastal views as far as

the eye can see, and men in uniform who are even more gorgeous. Home to the most notorious prison in the state, Alicia’s new hometown is crawling with men who carry their own handcuffs and know how to use them – like Officer Liam Alexander, her one and only neighbor. After catching him out of uniform, she can’t resist pausing to enjoy the show. When Liam’s Southern charm drives him across the property line, life gets hotter than the Carolina summer could possibly account for. Unfortunately, there’s a dark side to life in the coastal haven, even with an officer next door.

Coordinating special events at a historic – and supposedly haunted –

plantation is enough to have Alicia questioning her senses and her sanity, but the spirits of the past take a backseat to a pair of escaped convicts who blaze a trail of mayhem across Riley County. Not even the most intense chemistry can survive the perils that make a sunny seaside town a dangerous place to be after dark … can it?

CHAPTER 1

The rising sun burnt on the Carolina horizon like a jewel, causing the tidal mist to light up like it’d been set on fire. It was the most gorgeous thing Alicia had ever seen, besides her naked neighbor. The sight of him stripping down lit up the morning like nothing else could – not even the extra-bold, extra-large cup of coffee she clutched as she stared through her kitchen window.

Everything about him was extra-large, too. She, however, was anything but bold.
She’d die if he knew she’d been watching him like this for the past three weeks, ever since she’d moved in. Guilt surged through her system just like her daily caffeine infusion, but that didn’t keep her from enjoying the display, all that taut muscle and bare skin.

Not even close.

“Good Lord,” she sighed, to no one but herself. DC seemed faraway already; the big city had disappeared in her rearview mirror weeks ago to be replaced by real Southern heat and charm, two things her new neighbor radiated in spades.

Not that she’d spoken to him much yet.

There’d been the occasional hello when they glimpsed each other outside, usually coming to or from work. That was it, mostly because the sight of him in uniform had a way of leaving her tongue-tied, silenced by the guilty pleasure that struck her every time she looked in his direction. She couldn’t so much as glance at him without thinking about that uniform coming off in slow motion, revealing his perfect body.

Maybe it was his fault for not closing the bathroom blinds, the ones that hung over the window directly across from the shower.

Or maybe it was her fault for enjoying the striptease with her morning coffee day after day, saying nothing.

Either way, she wasn’t complaining. Close-cropped dark hair, sun-tanned skin stretched over a six foot frame of solid muscle and an ass that appeared to be sculpted from granite, not to mention the amazing view when his back wasn’t to her: the vision had been seared into her memory, and it stayed with her even after he slung a towel around his hips and strolled out of the bathroom, disappearing from her view.

That was her cue to gulp down the rest of her coffee and pull herself together before she rushed to the Wisteria Plantation House. She’d been hired there as the special events coordinator, had moved and reshaped her life around the new job, though as she drained her coffee mug, swallowing the bitter grit that swirled at the bottom of the cup, she was so dazzled by what she’d just seen that it was sure to be a challenge just to coordinate her hair and makeup for the day, let alone an outfit.

Despite the sexually-charged fog her neighbor had left her in, she managed to brush on some cosmetic staples, twist her chestnut hair into a simple chignon and shed her robe, pulling on khaki pants and a purple blouse. As she dressed, she pretended that the brush of her own fingertips against her skin didn’t inspire imaginings of what it’d be like to feel her neighbor’s hands on her body. Lastly, she slipped on sandals, a pair with modest kitten heels that’d allow her to navigate Wisteria’s grounds without breaking an ankle.

Or so she thought. When she finally walked out the door with her purse slung over her shoulder and a travel mug in one hand, she tripped over the threshold and was launched forward through the muggy Carolina air.

She windmilled, dropping her handbag but – miracle of miracles – managing to maintain her grip on her coffee.

The mug was a fancy one that remained sealed until one pressed a button, freeing the flow of liquid within. As she bent to pick up her purse and then straightened, quickly smoothing her clothing, she realized that the anti-spill mug was the best twenty dollars she’d ever spent.
Heat flooded her cheeks as she said a silent prayer of gratitude for spill-proof technology. Her neighbor was standing on the front porch of his bungalow-style house, a cute place painted a shade of moss-green that blended right into the wooded backdrop. Judging by the way he stared, frowning in her direction, he’d seen everything.

“Are you all right?” His voice echoed across the few yards between them, sounding with a depth that sent a frisson racing down her spine.

* * * * *

Ranae Rose is the best-selling author of more than twenty adult romances and counting. Originally from Maryland, she grew up the daughter of a US Marine and always wanted to be a writer. Today she lives on the US East Coast with her man in uniform, young children, German Shepherd dogs and overflowing bookshelves.