I promised another excerpt, this time from Introductions, the final story in my Heartless Regency trilogy, Forgotten, and other Heartless tales. I’ve snipped a portion for your reading pleasure. Enjoy! ♥
Introductions:
A Heartless Conclusion
England 1824
“Lord and Lady Gabriel St. Clair!”
Michaella’s head whipped up at the majordomo’s stentorian announcement. “Gabe?” slipped from her lips just before those very lips were ruthlessly pressed against another pair of lips.
“My love,” Rhys mused between kisses to her neck and face, “calling out...another man’s name...whilst making love to...your husband...is very bad form.” He renewed his assault on her lips, giving her no opportunity to respond, if a coherent response was something she could even manage at the moment. His hands pulled her close, fingers splayed across her back. “Very...bad...form.”
Summoning an inhuman amount of control, Michaella pulled away, far enough to regard her husband’s smiling countenance. “Seducing one’s wife”—she placed a hand over his mouth as he leaned in to continue said seduction—“in an alcove...in the middle of the day...across from the drawing room...no less...is most improper.”
“Your speech would have been far more effective had you kissed me with each pause, my love,” Rhys mused, allowing her just a touch more distance, though he didn’t actually release her.
She smiled. “Perhaps, but how much of it would you have remembered after?”
He twined his fingers with hers, staring down at the linked appendages. “This is the first moment I’ve had alone with you in days.” He bestowed his most earnest expression on her, adding just a touch of pathetic entreaty.She scowled at his emotional appeal, or tried to. “Stealing into an alcove is your way to remedy that?” She wanted to ask him why he didn’t simply enter her bedchamber on any of the past few nights. She wanted to ask him why he chose to sleep in his own chamber, for that matter. But good breeding would not allow her to ask such an indelicate question.
Instead, she allowed him to seduce her in a most inappropriate place, where any one of their guests might happen upon them, causing quite the countryside scandal. And as she pondered the possible ramifications, his hand slid down her shoulder, passing ever so lightly over her breast and on down to curl around her corseted ribs. Her breath caught as she vividly remembered the feel of his hands on her skin instead of hampered by several layers of sensible silk and whalebone.
And no guests constantly underfoot.
“Darling, your every waking moment since we left London has been filled with planning and family and servants,” Rhys patiently explained, trailing kisses over her cheeks and neck. Michaella’s heart kicked up a beat, her fingers clenching in the rough cloth of Rhys’ jacket. “I saw a moment and took advantage.”
And what he meant by that was he saw her in the foyer, greeting a newly arrived guest, and spirited her into the curtained alcove. Concerned that something had gone horribly wrong with one of the male guests at this, her very first house party, she’d followed with nothing more than a truncated “Please excuse—” directed at the new arrivals.
She could barely contain her shock when, instead of speaking, her very proper and gentlemanly husband pulled her into his arms and kissed her like a starving man. Too shocked to protest and—admittedly—pleasantly surprised, he’d managed to distract her quite well for several minutes.
Until Huxley’s voice broke through the sensual haze, intoning a name she’d not heard in months, the name of a man she’d not seen in years. How was it possible that he chose to attend her house party?
If you missed last week’s excerpt of Forgotten, you can find it HERE. An excerpt from Loyalty can be found on my website HERE.
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♥Happy reading, writing, and blogging!!♥
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