Captured (11 page)

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Carnal Deceptions
:

The next morning, Tess woke to find herself tangled in her blankets. She’d been dreaming of satin and silk and erotic couplings. The explicit pictures that Miss Midwinter had shown her were branded on her brain. A woman bound with ropes, lifting her bottom in offering as she waited for the man to plunge into her. A woman servicing three men at once. Miss Midwinter had added her own narrative, describing the sexual acts depicted so graphically Tess had been forced to open the window to the chill morning air to cool her cheeks. All her lessons lacked were practice. Her dreams had revealed a deep hunger for

that real experience. Unfortunately, in every dream Lord Marcliffe was the man she explored with her mouth and hands and body. She’d slid satin over the smooth skin of his chest until it snagged on the rough scars of his shoulder. More shockingly, she’d followed the trail of the fabric with her open mouth, her tongue tracing every ridge.

Frustrated, she threw her bedclothes aside. She stepped naked out of bed and bathed herself at the washstand. After patting herself dry, she opened the wardrobe and peered into a dark and empty hole. Not even her chemise hung there. She searched the floor, shook out the bedclothes, got on her knees to peer under the bed and found nothing, not a stitch. Even the flannel gown she’d thrown off in the night was gone. She wrapped herself in a blanket. Opening the door a crack, she called for help. No one answered. Her pleas seemed to echo off the walls.

Tess stepped into the hallway and raced down the stairs. There was a queer emptiness to the house. She shivered as her bare feet touched the cold tile floor of the entrance hall. With the heavy blanket dragging behind her, she entered the dining room. No weak tea or burnt toast awaited her. She pushed open the kitchen door expecting to see Mrs. Smith’s smiling face, only to find another vacant room. Afraid now, she hurried up the stairs to Lady Stadwell’s bedchamber. The door was ajar. She found the wardrobe empty as well as the bureau drawers.

She’d been deserted. She could not go into the yard naked, but she was certain what she would find there. No gardeners, no grooms, and the stable cleared of all horses.

Without question, she knew exactly who had executed this plan, who'd evacuated the house right under her nose. Trembling with fury, she returned to her chamber. Why not take advantage and luxuriate in bed for once? First she fluffed the pillow but then decided to give it a good pounding, until feathers burst from its seams. She settled back on the now flattened pillow, but finding rest in her agitated state proved impossible. With a scream of vexation, she kicked the covers to the floor then with a muttered oath stooped to retrieve the blanket. She had yet to explore Mrs. Smith's room. Determined to thwart the fiendish earl, Tess lit a candle and ascended the servants' stairs. The flame fluttered eerily in the narrow hallway. Muttering a plea for fortune to turn in her favor, she entered

the low-ceilinged room. The doors on the small wardrobe were agape, and the barren interior that greeted her seemed a purposeful taunt. Not even a blasted apron remained.

Sparked by another idea, she raced downstairs to see if the mudroom that adjoined the kitchen held at least a rain cloak. The hooks were empty. The bastard had been ruthlessly thorough. If he wanted rid of her so badly, why hadn't he left her some clothing? Clearly, he wished to see her completely humiliated.

She stomped through the empty house. In the parlor, she clutched at the faded damask drapery thinking to yank the curtains from the wall, but the curtain rod was too heavy and well-seated. She would have to take scissors to the fabric. It was an inspiration with little chance of success. Her skills as a seamstress were negligible. Besides, it would take her forever to create a garment. She glanced out the window at the stables. Though the house was somewhat isolated, certain angles of the yard could be spied from the road, and Tess did not have the courage to go outside mantled only in a blanket. When night fell, she'd fetch the ladder from the barn. She would explore the attic for moth-eaten garments. Surely there had to be remnants of other generations stored. Unable to occupy her mind with reading or anything remotely productive, she curled up on the settee to wait for dusk.

The sky was just starting to gray, the gloomy veil of night dropping, when the front door slammed. Tess flew off the settee and raced into the entrance hall, her bare feet skidding on the slick marble, to find the devil himself, with the two huge mastiffs at his heels. He gave her a placid smile as he pulled off his leather gloves. What was he up to? She didn’t trust a hair on his black head.

“W-What is going on? Where is everyone?” she stammered, completely flustered by the idea of being alone with him.

“They left early, just before the sun. I had the cook accompany Lady Stadwell in the carriage so that people would think you’d left with her.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “Why would you do that?” Her voice rose to a hysterical pitch and he immediately pressed his fingers to his temples.

Though he appeared stone cold sober, he was suffering the aftereffects of a week of imbibing. His skin was paler than usual and in stark contrast to his black hair. “Because people talk. And since we are just beginning this venture, I felt there was no need to stir up rumors.”

Tess pulled the wool blanket tighter, scratching her bare skin. She had never felt so vulnerable. She blinked up in confusion at the most intimidating man she’d ever known. She was at his mercy. Lady Stadwell had abandoned her.

“Is there some reason—” With effort, she squelched the urge to rain curses down on him “—why I have nothing to wear?” Her voice vibrated with fury.

He shrugged. “The dressmaker will have some of your wardrobe completed by the week’s end. In the meantime, you won’t need any clothing.”

“I suppose I’m to lock myself in my room naked until she arrives?” “No, I expect you to stay in
my
room naked for the week.”

She couldn’t have understood him correctly. “Pardon?”

“If I’m to hire you for my aunt’s dubious scheme, I’d like to see just how capable you are.”

“Exactly what does that mean?”

“I intend to fuck you, Miss Calloway.”

Lord Marcliffe was studying her a little too carefully. She suspected he was expecting she’d lose her nerve. He casually combed back his windblown hair with his fingers. How on earth could someone be that handsome and that cruel? “I detest you!”

One woman, two men—the choice of a lifetime and the chance for a perfect future.

Perfecting Amanda

© 2007 Bonnie Dee

When Amanda McCormick heads west as to create a home of her own and begin a “perfect” marriage with a man she’s never met, gambler Spencer Teague intercepts her. Pretending to be her fiancé, he tricks her into surrendering her virginity.

Amanda hides the misguided affair and forges a relationship with her young husband, Travis. But her secret haunts her when she learns she’s pregnant. Meanwhile, Spencer is haunted by visions of a little girl who demands he find and help Amanda.

Their lives entwine as the three come together in an unexpected relationship that touches—and tortures—them all. Amanda questions whether perfection is attainable and if it’s possible to love two very different kinds of men.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Perfecting Amanda
:

Travis led her to the sofa and settled her there. He popped the cork on the champagne and poured two glasses then crossed to the windows and released one side of each drape to dim the room. The windows were open but let in little breeze, only dust. A ceiling fan turned slowly above them, but did little to cut the heat. “I’m sorry it’s so hot. It doesn’t make it very romantic.”

Amanda agreed. Perspiration beaded on her forehead, dampened her armpits and the length of her spine. She felt sweaty and not very beautiful with her hair straggling down from her coiffure.

Sitting down next to her on the sofa, he handed her a glass of champagne. He raised his glass and touched it to hers. “To our union.”

She sipped the ice-cold fizz much too fast. It tasted sweet yet dry and felt so cool going down her parched throat.

Travis set his glass aside, loosened his tie and removed his jacket and vest. He unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt.

She watched as if from a distance, feeling too disoriented to react. The only thought that formed in her mind was how handsome he looked in just his shirtsleeves. His shirt was so clean and white she wanted to reach out and touch it—touch the man beneath it and see what his hard muscles and warm body felt like. Her fingers ached to know, finally, what a man was really like.

Moving closer to her on the settee, Travis reached to cup her face in one hand and bent his head to kiss her lips.

She felt his warm breath on her mouth and then soft wetness. Her eyes drifted closed and her lips parted in a little gasp. It wasn’t as if she’d never been kissed before, she reminded herself. Doug McCray had graduated from holding her hand to kissing her before he left for college and she never saw him again. But this felt completely different. The pressure of Travis’s lips was more assertive and considerably less sloppy than Doug’s inexperienced kisses.

Travis stroked his thumb along the side of her jaw and moved his mouth against hers. The wet tip of his tongue brushed her lips.

Amanda started and her eyes flew open. But, as he caressed and kissed her, slowly, seductively, possessively, her eyes fell shut again. She relaxed and allowed the pressure of his mouth to increase and his tongue to slide as smoothly as the brush of fingertips over her closed lips.

When he pulled away, she leaned toward his absent mouth. Her eyes opened once more and met his.

They were hooded, dark with desire. “You’re so beautiful.”

She half-smiled, embarrassed and thrilled at the compliment. On occasion Doug had said she looked pretty, but no one had ever called her beautiful. It wasn’t a word she connected with her appearance, but Travis’s intense gaze told her he was speaking the truth as he saw it.

He sat back, took another sip of champagne and pushed a hand through his dark brown hair, lifting it from his forehead. “It’s unbearably hot in here.”

She drank from her glass, too, then set it down and fanned her face with her hand. “Yes. It really is.”

“Perhaps if…” He reached out and unbuttoned the neck of her blouse. She batted his hand away, abruptly alert and shocked. “Mr. Baxter!”

He bowed his head. “I’m sorry for taking such liberty, but you’d be so much cooler in just your chemise.” He nodded at the silver basin that had held the champagne bottle. “And we have all that ice. It would cool your body.”

Her hand went to the front of her blouse, poised over her heart. She stared at the ice then at his ice-blue eyes that made her hotter instead of cooling her. Her heart beat between her legs as well as in her chest, pounding fast and erratic. “I suppose we
are
to be wed tomorrow. Maybe it would be all right…just because of the heat.” She unbuttoned the top button of her high-necked blouse. Then the second…and the third, her fingers trembling and her flesh going simultaneously hot and cold as she exposed it.

She was frightened, yes, but she also incredibly excited in a way she’d never felt before in her life. Taking off her blouse in front of her fiancé was more thrilling than the time she’d ridden Cousin Dale’s bicycle down the big hill near their house and nearly crashed at the bottom. She felt anything might happen now as she careened out of control and she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do a thing to stop it.

Amanda’s gaze never left Travis’s face while his stayed riveted on her moving fingers and the increments of flesh revealed to him.

Blood rushed through her veins and roared in her ears. She couldn’t believe her audacity in disrobing for a stranger, prospective husband or not. And yet her hands kept moving until the entire row of buttons on the front of her blouse was unfastened. She grasped the open front of the blouse and the little lilac jacket and slid both down her shoulders and off her arms.

Travis gazed at the pale swell of cleavage rising above her corset then his eyes returned to her face. “It’s a wonder you don’t pass out wearing that thing. Turn around and I’ll loosen it for you so you can breathe. The idea of corsets is ludicrous, don’t you think?”

As if in a trance, she turned her back to him. In a moment she felt his hands working at the ribbons harnessing her into the corset. Her eyes closed and she breathed in, intimately aware of his proximity and the heat of his hands moving near her back. She

felt the ties loosen and her rib cage expanded as she drew a deeper breath. She caught a whiff of Travis’s cologne underlain with his own male scent. Another wave of arousal swept through her at the basic masculine odor that awakened the femininity in her.

His hands moved around her sides, removing the corset from her body. “There. That’s better. It’s much too hot a day for propriety.” Warm laughter percolated in his voice. His breath puffed against her bare shoulder as he spoke.

That was when she fully realized she was sitting in nothing but her thin chemise, her breasts unbound from the restraining corset. Her back was still to him. He hadn’t seen her yet and she felt both dread and excitement at the prospect of turning around. He would be able to see the shape of her breasts and even her nipples through the sheer fabric.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

It’s all about the story…

Action/Adventure Fantasy Historical

Horror Mainstream Mystery/Suspense Non-Fiction Paranormal

Red Hots! Romance Science Fiction Western Young Adult

www.samhainpublishing.com