Three Nights with a Scoundrel: A Novel (44 page)

Then … at last … he reached for
her
.

He touched one hand to her cheek and released a deep, full-body sigh. “Lily.”

A shiver swept her, all the way from the cool stream’s surface to her sun-warmed nape. She trembled. So absurd. He was her husband of more than eight years. Most days, she felt she knew him better than she knew herself.

Still, she trembled.

They smiled at one another as they slowly leaned forward, taking their time easing into the kiss. Because by now, they both knew better than to rush. It was drudgery, being apart for long weeks. But it was magic, reuniting after long weeks apart. A mere glance was exciting. The first brush of skin against skin was pure exhilaration. The first taste of each other was an exquisite blend of the familiar and the wild.

And wherever they were—be it London, or York, or the middle of a stream in Cambridgeshire—this first kiss meant they’d come home.

Three Nights with a Scoundrel
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A Ballantine Books Mass Market Original

Copyright © 2010 by Eve Ortega

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

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ALLANTINE
and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

eISBN: 978-0-345-51890-3

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