Authors: Anya Richards

Tags: #erotic romance, #[email protected], #dpgroup.org, #Historical, #Victorian

Bellissima (15 page)

He squeezed his eyes shut, but his thoughts continued to race, bombarding him from all sides.

“Damn,” he muttered, and then sank beneath the water entirely. Beneath the depths, there was no noise, nothing to see, and his brain began to quiet finally. Cut off from everything, even breath, he could almost pretend that his life above the surface didn’t exist.

Almost.

Unfortunately, his body required air to live and so he rose reluctantly. He wiped his face off and slicked his now-wet hair back with his good hand. He opened his eyes and froze.

There, standing on the edge of the steps that led down into the large, square pool where he reclined alone, was a woman. Not just any woman, but probably one of the most beautiful women he had ever had the pleasure to look upon in his thirty years.

She was intensely exotic, with a slightly olive-toned skin and thick, sleek black hair that was drawn back loosely, though strands of it continued to bounce around her oval face. Her dark brown eyes, which were currently focused intently on his face, sparkled in the lamplight and held on him with a confidence he normally didn’t see in women. Especially women wearing a white chemise that left no curve of her body to the imagination.

He licked his lips as a hot slicing shock of desire ricocheted through his body and settled in his loins. Beneath the water, he began to throb.

“This is a private room,” he managed to croak out.

Her eyebrows lifted and a slight smiled turned up her lips. “Oh, I certainly hope that is true, considering what I have planned.”

She took a step into the water and immediately that white chemise went sinfully sheer against her calves. Another step and her thighs were revealed as the water sloshed up and down against her movements.

He swallowed, his head spinning now, but not with its normally unpleasant thoughts. No, it spun with desire, confusion and a desperate need to have her come deeper into the water.

“Who are you?” he asked.

She smiled. “Violet Milford, my lord,” she said, and he almost expected her to put out a hand as if they were meeting under more normal circumstances.

He sucked in a breath, and her smile broadened.

“You know my name, do you?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yes. The courtesan.”

She hesitated on the third step of the pool and nodded. “And I know you, as well, Lord Windbury.”

Liam settled back, resting his good arm on the edge of the pool behind him as she continued into the water. Waves covered her body, but she was waist-deep now.

“Did my man arrange for your appearance?” he asked. Sometimes Mal did that, but never without Liam’s request as the impetus.

She shook her head. “That hulking beast outside? No, he has no idea I’m here.”

“Then I almost hate to ask this question, but how did you get past him?”

She smiled, and something in him shifted. When her full lips tilted upward, her already beautifully exotic face became even more intoxicating. He wanted to drag her against him and kiss her until she couldn’t form coherent words. It had been a very long time since he felt such strong, animal reactions. Sex had become a necessary bodily function, not a pleasure as of late.

“I brought along a distraction,” she replied, seemingly unaware of the place his wicked thoughts had taken him with just her smile. But then, her gaze dropped under the water swiftly.

He doubted she could see he was naked beneath, or hard and ready with just her unexpected appearance here, but given her vocation and knowing eyes, he would wager she had guessed both.

Perhaps she even counted on both.

“I am not looking to become someone’s protector,” he warned her, though he found himself offering a silent prayer that this fact wouldn’t scare her away.

She moved into the water, dropping under so that it soaked her shoulders before she stood up again and revealed her chemise, utterly sheer and plastered against full breasts. He couldn’t contain a grunt of ever-increasing need.

“I’m not seeking a protector, my lord,” she whispered as she reached him. She reached out and touched his face, the side without the scar, so he didn’t move away from her fingers. “I’m on holiday. I’m only looking to enjoy myself.”

She was so close, he could smell the light musk of some kind of perfume, and he lost all semblance of reason. He reached for her without thinking and dragged her hard against him. Her arms wound around his neck and she lifted her mouth just as he smashed his down.

The kiss was spectacular. Her lips, which looked so full, were exactly what he wanted. Soft and supple, they parted as his tongue demanded entry into her mouth. She denied him nothing, even as he fisted her wet chemise in his hand and dragged his nails against her back in the process. She merely arched against him, rotating her lips against him with suggestive and wanton response.

“Damn,” he muttered against her mouth as his blood began to boil with out of control desire.

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

Cincinnati OH 45249

Bellissima

ISBN: 978-1-61922-368-4

Edited by Linda Ingmanson

Cover by Kim Killion

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: September 2014

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