Mackenzie’s Mission by Linda Howard (Mira, 1992)

Talk about the quintessential warrior. Joe “Breed” Mackenzie can control all things except his feelings for the heroine.And he’s confident that he’ll win her over. He may dominate her sexually–yes, he’s even a warrior in the bedroom– but he also manages to show a tenderness towards her, and his family.

THE LOOK: 6’3, black hair, blue eyes

“The t-shirt bared his powerful arms, darkly tanned by the desert sun. He had so many muscles, it was unnerving….He was powerful—the way a panther or a wolf is powerful—from a lifetime of work and using his body. The sun outlined his profile in gold, mercilessly revealing the bladelike bone structure, as clean and fierce as an ancient warrior’s face cast on a coin.”

STATS: Joe’s a fighter jet pilot and Colonel in U.S. Air Force, a half-breed Indian (one quarter Comanche, one quarter Kiowa and half white) and has a reputation for being so controlled and calm under pressure that he “bleeds ice water.” Yikes. Can anyone warm him up from the inside out?

Defining Characteristic/Flaw: Need to be in control

Most influenced by: Childhood loss of his mother when he was a baby, after which he was forced into foster care when his father was wrongly imprisoned.

LEADING LADY: Super smart Caroline Evans, a technician on the Night Wing project, a laser targeting weapons team, is inexperienced when it comes to men, and doesn’t want to be treated differently from the men on her team. Enter Joe Mackenzie. Joe sees her prickliness as a challenge, “more exciting than breaking Mach 3.”

Thoughts on: FIGHTING: “Whatever works. The idea is to win, and stay alive.” “[Street fighting] teaches you how to win any way you can, and to hell with fighting fair. It’s the only way you should ever go into a fight.”

Who can forget:

“She blurted out, ‘Aren’t you almost too big to get into a cockpit?’

He briefly took his eyes off the road to look at her, though the dark lenses kept her from reading his expression. She wished he would take them off. ‘It’s a tight fit,” he replied, his voice low and slow and growling, “But I always manage to squeeze in.’”

BOTTOM LINE:

Mackenzie is heart-racingly sexy and alpha, but his it’s his surprising honesty about his own past hardships that make him a hero to remember.

QUESTION OF THE DAY:

If you had to choose, would rather have a man who was confident at work, or confident in bed?