Hero, Come Back (Cynster 9.50)

Until she was on fire, until she pressed him back, seized the material, and drew the chemise off over her head.

He immediately pulled her to him, immediately lowered his head and drank the gasp of delight that the first touch of body to body wrenched from her.

Her hands, her whole body seemed to have a mind of its own, clutching, caressing, wanting. When he parted her thighs and stroked between them she gasped, clung, her nails sinking into his upper arms as his fingers parted her and probed, then slid in.

After that, she was conscious of nothing but rising heat, and a welling, driving urgency. Her skin was hot, flushed, alive, her breathing tortured.

He was the same, the same desire lit his eyes, the same passion drove him.

Then they came together and she cried out, arching as their bodies fused, melded, as the sharp pain ebbed and was swamped in heightened delight, swept away on the steady, unrelenting tide of need, of a glorious and dizzying passion.

It held them both, swirled about them as they danced, as they found the rhythm came naturally, the pace, each touch, each lingering of lips, each gasp something both new and familiar, sensually startling, emotionally revealing, yet comfortable and assured.

With open and unwavering confidence, they clung and journeyed on, senses awhirl, bodies attuned, until they reached the pinnacle where desire and physical sensation ended.

In ecstasy.

Gasping for breath, Reggie held himself over her and drank in the sight of her face, the blissful joy that suffused her expression, the delight that curved her lips.

Then her lashes fluttered, lifted; she looked up and met his eyes.

A long moment passed, the reality of what governed them, what had brought them here, to this, hung, as ephemeral as a shimmering veil, as real as a rock, between them, then he bent his head as she lifted her lips.

Love found and shared; that was, indeed, all that mattered.

The Matchmaker’s Bargain

A Novella

Elizabeth Boyle

To Lydia,

for sitting at my feet for so many years and happily snoring while I tapped away.

You were the best cat a writer could ever wish for.

Prologue

England

1818

Leaning across the table, Esme Maguire squinted at her guest. Her eyesight wasn’t what it used to be, but her instincts were rarely wrong. And right now they were telling her that the gel who’d stumbled up to her cottage during this wretched storm wasn’t being entirely truthful.

“L

ost, you say?” Esme mused. “And here we thought…well, never mind that. It’s not like Nelson to be wrong, but still I’m glad you ended up on my doorstep, for it isn’t a fit night to be out.” From the lady’s side, an indignant yowl rose, and she scratched the cat with an indulgent caress.

Yes, Nelson, you have the right of it, Esme thought.

The drenched young lady on the other side of the table stared down at the cup of tea in her hands. “Yes, after the mail coach became mired in the mud, the driver assured me there was an inn not far up the road, but I fear I wandered down the wrong lane. Thank you so much for taking me in.” She shivered and took another sip of her tea.

Over near the fireplace hung her steaming gown—an expensively wrought piece of blue silk, and of far better quality than any of Esme’s usual clients wore.

So, the old lady reasoned, she was no milkmaid or country girl, but most likely a lady. And from the state of her perfect hands, white and uncallused, one who had never toiled.

The mystery of her guest tugged at Esme’s innate curiosity. “Lucky you are to have found your way here, Miss—”