Don't Tempt Me (Georgian 4)
“Bloody hell.” He tugged her closer, his hips grinding restlessly against the mass of her skirts, his cock hard and throbbing within the confines of his breeches. “You would drive a saint to sin.”
“There is a gazebo in the far corner . . .” she suggested, licking her kiss-swollen lips.
“I am attempting to court you properly, curse you.”
“Seems rather late, considering the fact that you have already been inside me.” She shivered against him. “Sometimes I feel you, pushing deep . . .”
Groaning, Simon kissed her again, grateful for her passion and the freedom with which she gave herself to him. Without shyness or reservation, trusting him implicitly, as she had from the very first.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked breathlessly.
“I want to give you time,” he said hoarsely, tucking a golden curl behind her ear. “I want you to be certain I am what you want.”
Lynette’s brows rose. “And if I find someone else? You would allow me to go?”
His hands tightened involuntarily into her tender flesh and he forced himself to release her. “No.”
Her slender arms wrapped around his waist, bridging the gap he had just created. “I thought not. So you torture us both for nothing.”
“I have nothing to offer you.”
“Give me your heart and your body, those are all I desire from you. The rest—home, family—we will create on our own. Saint-Martin has promised a substantial dowry.”
“I’ve no need of it,” Simon said, resuming their walk in an effort to expend the sexual tension she incited in him. “Eddington kept his word, oddly enough.”
“Lovely.” Her smile told him she was happy for him, but he knew she would have taken him anyway. “My mother and father intend to wed.”
Simon smiled, pleased. It was rare to see a couple so attuned to one another. “I wish them well.”
“It would be an excellent time for us to honeymoon in Ireland,” she murmured. “It would give them the opportunity to enjoy one another and celebrate their reunion without interference.”
“Lynette.” He laughed and picked her up, spinning her. “You will run roughshod over me for the rest of our days, I can see it already.”
Her hands settled on his shoulders and she pressed her lips to the tip of his nose. “Do you fault me for wishing to start those days—and nights—now? If you drag your feet any longer, I will think you are waiting for someone better to come along.”
“There is no one better.”
“Of course not.” Her fingers sifted through his hair, her blues eyes warm and appreciative. “Ask me,” she urged.
With a dramatic sigh, he set her down and dropped to one knee on the gravel path. “Lynette Rousseau, would you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”
Tears filled her eyes and her lips quivered. “Oh, Simon . . .”
He reached into his coat pocket and removed a ring box.
Her eyes widened. “You had that with you the whole time?”
Simon smiled.
“Ooh!” She stomped her foot, then turned on her heel and left him.
Laughing, he chased after her, unwilling ever to let her go.
You’ve got to try
THE BEAST IN HIM
by Shelly Laurenston,
out this month from Brava . . .
Jess gripped her forehead and spun around to stare at Smitty. “What kiss?”
He slowly got to those big wolf feet. “The kiss we almost had sixteen years ago.”
“Why would anything have to do with that kiss that never happened?”
Smitty gave her an indulgent smile. “Now, Jessie Ann, we both know how you felt about me.”
“How I—”
“And maybe you still feel that way so you’re afraid to get too close to me. To trust me. To—now, Jessie, let’s not start throwing things.”
Jess held an old 60-gig external hard drive in her hand that she’d grabbed from one of the shelves. The thing weighed a ton. It would cave his head in quite nicely.
“I’m just trying to find out the truth.”
“And you’re doing that how?” She didn’t want to talk about that night. The night he’d pushed her away. Always a late bloomer, sixteen-year-old Jess still hadn’t had her first kiss by then mostly because she’d wanted that kiss to come from Smitty. But he’d hurt her that night when he pushed her away. Not physically, of course, but emotionally her young, way-too-romantic heart had been crushed.
Even now, sixteen years later, she still didn’t want to have this discussion. She could already feel her cheeks heating from embarrassment, remembering how she wasn’t cute or hot enough to get a drunk boy to kiss her. What girl couldn’t manage something that simple from the weak? Apparently she couldn’t.
Already she could feel her embarrassment turning to anger. No, she didn’t want this discussion. She didn’t want to hop down memory lane with Bobby Ray Smith. Not now, not ever.
“You know, Jessie, I’m of the mind if we get that kiss out of the way, maybe you could focus on the bigger issues right in front of you.”
Huh. Look at that. Her leash just snapped.
Good thing he was fast because that heavy piece of metal came right for his head. Smitty stepped to one side and it went sailing by.
He stared at her. “Woman, have you lost your mind?”
“No, I think I’m getting it back.” Her hand reached out and she blindly grabbed some other hunk of metal. Computer equipment it looked like. “Yeah, I’m feeling better each second.” She pulled her arm back like a pro baseball player and Smitty took the three long steps over to her, grabbing hold of the thing in her hand and wrenching it away from her.
“Jessie Ann, calm down!”
“Go to hell,” she snarled as she reached for that damn shelf again. Everything on it was a potential missile to take out his head.
Slamming down the thing already in his hand, Smitty reached out and grabbed Jessie by the back of the neck. Without thought, only wolf instinct, he yanked her over to him, determined to get her under control. To get her to submit. That’s what Alpha Males did, and it didn’t even occur to him that Jessie wasn’t part of his pack. Hell, she was barely part of his life. Just a blip in his week, really.
But when her body slammed up against his, everything but the wolf in him was wiped clean. All that calm, cool, rational logic he’d spent years and years refining until he moved only as fast as he wanted or needed slipped away from him, leaving the raw, demanding animal behind.
Jessie stared up at him, her hands slapping against his chest, trying to push him off. Too late for that, and he could tell by the way her eyes widened and her breath left her body in one rush that she realized it too.
His grip tightened on her neck and he lifted until she stood on her toes.
“Smitty, wait—”
He didn’t. He cut off her next words by slamming his mouth down on hers, his tongue sliding into her already open mouth, and kissing her hard. He sensed her claws unleash, coming for his face or his chest, so he released her neck and grabbed her wrists, before turning them both and forcing Jessie up against the wall. Using his hold on her wrists, he pulled Jessie’s arms above her head and pinned them in place.
She struggled against him, her knee trying to move so she could take out his nuts. Again, the rational voice in his head that he always listened to told him to let her go. Told him a “nice Southern gentlemen” didn’t do this sort of thing to sweet, innocent, wild dogs.