It's a Wonderful Fireman: A Bachelor Firemen Novella (The Bachelor Firemen of San Gabriel) (19 page)

H
is eyes flashed, appearing darker in that moment, the blue as deep and stormy as the waters she had crossed to arrive in this country. “Who are you?”

“I’m a guest here.” She motioned in the direction of the house. “My name is V—”

“Are you indeed?” His expression altered then, sliding over her with something bordering belligerence. “No one mentioned that you were an American.”

Before she could process that statement—or why he should be told of anything—she felt a hot puff of breath on her neck.

The insolent man released a shout and lunged. Hard hands grabbed her shoulders. She resisted, struggling and twisting until they both lost their balance.

Then they were falling. She registered this with a sick sense of dread. He grunted, turning slightly so that he took the brunt of the fall. They landed with her body sprawled over his.

Her nose was practically buried in his chest.
A pleasant smelling chest
. She inhaled leather and horseflesh and the warm saltiness of male skin.

He released a small moan of pain. She lifted her face to observe his grimace and felt a stab of worry. Absolutely misplaced considering this situation was his fault, but there it was nonetheless. “Are you hurt?”

“Crippled. But alive.”

Scowling, she tried to clamber off him, but his hands shot up and seized her arms, holding fast.

“Unhand me! Serves you right if you are hurt. Why did you accost me?”

“Devil was about to take a chunk from that lovely neck of yours.”

Lovely?
He thinks she is lovely? Or rather her neck is lovely? This bold specimen of a man in front of her, who looks as though he has stepped from the pages of a Radcliffe novel, thinks that plain, in-between Violet is lovely.

She shook off the distracting thought. Virile stable hands like him did not look twice at females like her. No. Scholarly bookish types with kind eyes and soft smiles looked at her. Men such as Mr. Weston who saw beyond a woman’s face and other physical attributes.

“I am certain you overreacted.”

He snorted.

She arched, jerking away from him, but still he did not budge. His hands tightened around her. She glared down at him, feeling utterly discombobulated. There was so
much
of him—all hard male and it was pressed against her in a way that was entirely inappropriate and did strange, fluttery things to her stomach. “Are you planning to let me up any time soon?”

His gaze crawled over her face. “Perhaps I’ll stay like this forever. I rather like the feel of you on top of me.”

She gasped.

He grinned then and that smile stole her breath and made all her intimate parts heat and loosen to the consistency of pudding. His teeth were blinding white and straight set against features that were young and strong and much too handsome. And there were his eyes. So bright a blue their brilliance was no less powerful in the dimness of the stables.

Was this how girls lost their virtue? She’d heard the stories and always thought them weak and addle-headed creatures. How did a sensible female of good family cast aside all sense and thought to propriety?

His voice rumbled out from his chest, vibrating against her own body, shooting sensation along every nerve, driving home the realization that she wore nothing beyond her cloak and night rail. No corset. No chemise. Her breasts rose on a deep inhale. They felt tight and aching. Her skin felt like it was suddenly stretched too thin over her bones. “You are not precisely what I expected.”

His words sank in, penetrating through the fog swirling around her mind. Why would he expect anything from her? He did not know her.

His gaze traveled her face and she felt it like a touch—a caress. “I shall have to pay closer attention to my mother when she says she’s found someone for me to wed.”

Violet’s gaze shot up from the mesmerizing movement of his lips to his eyes. “Your
mother?
”

He nodded. “Indeed. Lady Merlton.”

“Are you . . .” she choked on halting words.
He couldn’t be
. “You’re the—”

“The Earl of Merlton,” he finished, that smile back again, wrapping around the words as though he was supremely amused. As though she were the butt of some grand jest. He was the Earl of Merlton, and she was the heiress brought here to tempt him.

A jest indeed. It was laughable. Especially considering the way he looked. Temptation incarnate. She was not the sort of female to tempt a man like him. At least not without a dowry, and that’s what her mother was relying upon.

“And you’re the heiress I’ve been avoiding,” he finished.

If the earth opened up to swallow her in that moment, she would have gladly surrendered to its depths.

An Excerpt from

An Under the Skin Novel

by Charlotte Stein

I believed I would never be able to trust any man again. I thought so with every fiber of my being—and then I met Noah Gideon Grant. Everyone says he’s dangerous. But the thing is . . . I think something happened to him too. I know the chemistry between us isn’t just in my head. I know he feels it, but he’s holding back. He’s made a labyrinth of himself. Now all I need to do is dare to find my way through.

An Avon Red Novel

H
e said no sexual contact, and a handshake apparently counts. I should respect that—I do respect that, I swear. I can respect it, no matter how much my heart sinks or my eyes sting at a rejection that isn’t a rejection at all.

I can do without. I’m sure I can do without, all the way up to the point where he says words that make my heart soar up, up toward the sun that shines right out of him.

“Kissing is perfectly okay with me,” he murmurs, and then, oh, God, then he takes my face in his two good hands, roughened by all the patient and careful fixing he does and so tender I could cry, and starts to lean down to me. Slowly at first, and in these hesitant bursts that nearly make my heart explode, before finally, Lord; finally, yes, finally.

He closes that gap between us.

His lips press to mine, so soft I can barely feel them. Yet somehow, I feel them everywhere. That closemouthed bit of pressure tingles outward from that one place, all the way down to the tips of my fingers and the ends of my toes. I think my hair stands on end, and when he pulls away it doesn’t go back down again.

No part of me will ever go back down again. I feel dazed in the aftermath, cast adrift on a sensation that shouldn’t have happened. For a long moment I can only stand there in stunned silence, sort of afraid to open my eyes in case the spell is broken.

But I needn’t have worried—he doesn’t break it. His expression is just like mine when I finally dare to look, full of shivering wonder at the idea that something so small could be so powerful. We barely touched and yet everything is suddenly different. My body is alight. I think his body is alight.

How else to explain the hand he suddenly pushes into my hair? Or the way he pulls me to him? He does it like someone lost at sea, finally seeing something he can grab on to. His hand nearly makes a fist in my insane curls, and when he kisses me this time there is absolutely nothing chaste about it. Nothing cautious.

His mouth slants over mine, hot and wet and so incredibly urgent. The pressure this time is almost bruising, and after a second I could swear I feel his tongue. Just a flicker of it, sliding over mine. Barely anything really, but enough to stun me with sensation. I thought my reaction in the movie theater was intense.

Apparently there’s another level altogether—one that makes me want to clutch at him. I need to clutch at him. My bones and muscles seem to have abandoned me, and if I don’t hold on to something I’m going to end up on the floor. Grabbing him is practically necessary, even though I have no idea where to grab.

He put his hand in my hair. Does that make it all right to put mine in his? I suspect not, but have no clue where that leaves me. Is an elbow any better? What about his upper arm? His upper arm is hardly suggestive at all, yet I can’t quite bring myself to do it. If I do he might break this kiss, and I’m just not ready for that.

I probably won’t be ready for that tomorrow. His stubble is burning me just a little and the excitement is making me so shaky I could pass for a cement mixer, but I still want it to carry on. Every new thing he does is just such a revelation—like when he turns a little and just sort of catches my lower lip between his, or caresses my jaw with the side of his thumb.

I didn’t think he had it in him.

It could be that he doesn’t. When he finally comes up for air he has to kind of rest his forehead against mine for a second. His breathing comes in erratic bursts, as though he just ran up a hill that isn’t really there. Those hands in my hair are trembling, unable to let go, and his first words to me blunder out in guttural rush.

“I wasn’t expecting that to be so intense,” he says, and I get it then. He didn’t mean for things to go that way. They just got out of control. All of that passion and urgency isn’t who he is, and now he wants to go back to being the real him. He even steps back, and straightens, and breathes long and slow until that man returns.

Now he is the person he wants to be: stoic and cool. Or at least, that’s what I think until he turns to leave. He tells me good-bye and I accept it; he touches my shoulder and I process this as all I might reasonably expect in the future. And then just as he’s almost gone I happen to glance down, and see something that suggests that the idea of a real him may not be so clear-cut:

The outline of his erection, hard and heavy against the material of his jeans.

An Excerpt from

A Christmas Novella

by Jennifer Ryan

(Previously appeared in the anthology
All I Want for Christmas Is a Cowboy
)

Before The Hunted Series, Caleb and Summer had a whirlwind romance not to be forgotten . . .

Caleb Bowden has a lot to thank his best friend, Jack, for—saving his life in Iraq and giving him a job helping to run his family’s ranch. Jack also introduced Caleb to the most incredible woman he’s ever met. Too bad he can’t ask her out. You do not date your best friend’s sister. Summer and Caleb share a closeness she’s never felt with anyone, but the stubborn man refuses to turn the flirtatious friendship into something meaningful. Frustrated and tired of merely wishing to be happy, Caleb tells Jack how he feels about Summer. With his friend’s help, he plans a surprise Christmas proposal she’ll never forget—because he can’t wait to make her his wife.

C
aleb opened his mouth to yell,
Where the hell do you think you’re going?

He snapped his jaw shut, thinking better of it. He couldn’t afford to let Jack see how much Summer meant to him. He’d thought he’d kept his need for her under wraps, but the too-observant woman had his number. Over the last few months, the easy friendship they’d shared from the moment he stepped foot on Stargazer Ranch turned into a fun flirtation he secretly wished could turn into something more. The week leading up to Thanksgiving brought that flirtation dangerously close to crossing the line when he walked through the barn door and didn’t see her coming out due to the changing light. They crashed into each other. Her sweetly soft body slammed full-length into his and everything in him went hot and hard. Their faces remained close when he grabbed her shoulders to steady her. For a moment, they stood plastered to each other, eyes locked. Her breath stopped along with his and he nearly kissed her strawberry-colored lips to see if she tasted as sweet as she smelled.

Instead of giving in to his baser need, he leashed the beast and gently set her away, walking away without even a single word. She’d called after him, but he never turned back.

Thanksgiving nearly undid him. She’d sat alone in the dining room and all he’d wanted to do was be with her. But how could he? You do not date your best friend’s sister. Worse, you do not have dangerous thoughts of sleeping with her, let alone dreaming of a life with a woman kinder than anyone he’d ever met. Just being around her made him feel lighter. She brightened the dark world he’d lived in for too long.

He needed to stay firmly planted on this side of the line. Adhere to the best-bro code. This thing went beyond friendship. Jack was his boss and had saved his life. He owed Jack more than he could ever repay.

“Can you believe her?” Jack pulled him out of his thoughts. He dragged his gaze from Summer’s retreating sweet backside.

“Who’s the guy?” He kept his tone casual.

Jack glared. “Ex-boyfriend from high school,” he said, irritated. “He’s home from grad school for the holiday.”

“Probably looking for a good time.”

Caleb tried not to smile when Jack growled, fisted his hands, and stepped off the curb, following after his sister. He’d counted on Jack’s protective streak to allow him to chase Summer himself. Caleb didn’t want anyone to hurt her. He sure as hell didn’t want her rekindling an old flame with some ex-lover.

He and Jack walked into the park square just as everyone counted down, three, two, one, and the multicolored lights blinked on, lighting the fourteen-foot tree in the center of the huge gazebo, and sparking the carolers to sing “O Christmas Tree.”

Tiny white lights circled up the posts and nearby trees, casting a glow over everything. The soft light made Summer’s golden hair shine. She smiled with her head tipped back, her bright blue eyes glowing as she stared at the tree.

His temper flared when the guy hooked his arm around her neck and pulled her close, nearly spilling his beer down the front of her. She laughed and playfully shoved him away. The guy smiled and put his hand to her back, guiding her toward everyone’s favorite bar. Several other people joined their small group.

Caleb tapped Jack’s shoulder and pointed to Summer’s back. Her long hair was bundled into a loose braid he wanted to unravel and then run his fingers through the silky strands.