Finding Miss McFarland (25 page)
Read Finding Miss McFarland Online
Authors: Vivienne Lorret
He was staring at her lips, his brow furrowed.
The fireflies vanished from his eyes as his dark pupils expanded. The fingers that were curled beneath her chin spread out and stole around to the base of her neck. He lowered his head again, but this time he did not simply brush his lips over hers. Instead, he tasted her, flicking his tongue over the same path hers had taken.
A small, foreign sound purred in her throat. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. Kissing Rathburn was wrong on so many levels. They weren’t truly engaged. In fact, they were acquaintances only through her brother. They could barely stand each other. The door to the study was closed—
highly improper
. Her parents or one of the servants could walk in any minute. She should be pushing him away, not encouraging him by parting her lips and allowing his tongue entrance. She should not curl her hands over his shoulders or discover that there was no padding in his coat. And she most definitely should not be on the verge of leaning into him—
There was a knock at the door. They split apart with a sudden jump, but the sound had come from the hall. Someone was at the front of the house.
She looked at Rathburn, watching the buttons of his waistcoat move up and down as he caught his breath. When he looked away from the door and back to her, she could see the dampness of their kiss on his lips.
Her kiss
.
He grinned and waggled his brows as if they were two criminals who’d made a lucky escape. “Not quite as buttoned up as I thought.” He licked his lips, ignoring her look of disapproval. “Mmm . . . jasmine tea. And sweet too. I would have thought you’d prefer a more sedate China black with lemon. Then again, I never would have thought such a proper miss would have such a lush, tempting mouth either.”
She pressed her lips together to blot away the remains of their kiss. “Have you no shame? It’s bad enough that it happened. Must you speak of it?”
He chuckled and stroked the pad of his thumb over his bottom lip as his gaze dipped, again, to her mouth. “You’re right, of course. This will have to be our secret. After all, what would happen if my grandmother discovered that beneath a façade of modesty and decorum lived a warm-blooded temptress with the taste of sweet jasmine on her lips?”
An Excerpt from
When her betrothed suddenly announces his plans to marry another, Merribeth Wakefield knows only a bold move will bring him back and restore her tattered reputation: She must take a lesson in seduction from a master of the art. But when the dark and brooding rake, Lord Knightswold, takes her under his wing, her education quickly goes from theory to hands-on knowledge, and her heart is given a crash course in true desire!
“N
ow, give back my handkerchief,” Lord Knightswold said, holding out his hand as he returned to her side. “You’re the sort to keep it as a memento. I cannot bear the thought of my handkerchief being worshipped by a forlorn
miss
by moonlight or tucked away with mawkish reverence beneath a pillow.”
The portrait he painted was so laughable that she smiled, heedless of exposing her flaw. “You flatter yourself. Here.” She dropped it into his hand as she swept past him, prepared to leave. “I have no desire to touch it a moment longer. I will leave you to your pretense of sociability.”
“’Tis no pretense. I have kept good company this evening.” Either the brandy had gone to her head, impairing her hearing, or he actually sounded sincere.
She paused and rested her hands on the carved rosewood filigree edging the top of the sofa. “Much to my own folly. I never should have listened to Lady Eve Sterling. It was her lark that sent me here.”
He feigned surprise. “Oh? How so?”
If it weren’t for the brandy, she would have left by now. Merribeth rarely had patience for such games, and she knew his question was part of a game he must have concocted with Eve. However, his company had turned out to be exactly the diversion she’d needed, and she was willing to linger. “She claimed to have forgotten her reticule and sent me here to fetch it—no doubt wanting me to find you.”
He looked at her as if confused.
“I’ve no mind to explain it to you. After all, you were abetting her plot, lying in wait, here on this very sofa.” She brushed her fingers over the smooth fabric, thinking of him lying there in the dark. “Not that I blame you. Lady Eve is difficult to say no to. However, I will conceal the truth from her, and we can carry on as if her plan had come to fruition. It would hardly have served its purpose anyway.”
He moved toward her, his broad shoulders outlined by the distant torch light filtering in through the window behind him. “Refresh my memory then. What was it I was supposed to do whilst in her employ?”
She blushed again. Was he going to make her say the words aloud? No gentleman would.
So, of course,
he
would. She decided to get it over with as quickly as possible. “She professed that a kiss from a rake could instill confidence and mend a broken heart.”
He stopped, impeded by the sofa between them. His brow lifted in curiosity. “Have you a broken heart in need of mending?”
The deep murmur of his voice, the heated intensity in his gaze, and quite possibly the brandy all worked against her better sense and sent those tingles dancing in a pagan circle again.
Oh, yes,
she thought as she looked up at him.
Yes, Lord Knightswold. Mend my broken heart
.
However, her mouth intervened. “I don’t believe so.” She gasped at the realization. “I should, you know. After five years, my heart should be in shreds. Shouldn’t it?”
He turned before she could read his expression and then sat down on the sofa, affording her a view of the top of his head. “I know nothing of broken hearts or their mending.”
“Pity,” she said, distracted by the dark silken locks that accidentally brushed her fingers. “Neither do I.”
However accidental the touch of his hair had been, now her fingers threaded through the fine strands with untamed curiosity and blatant disregard for propriety.
Lord Knightswold let his head fall back, permitting—perhaps even encouraging—her to continue. She did, without thought to right, wrong, who he was, or who she was supposed to be. Running both hands through his hair, massaging his scalp, she watched his eyes drift closed.
Then, Merribeth Wakefield did something she never intended to do.
She kissed a rake.
VIVIENNE LORRET
loves romance novels, her pink laptop, her husband, and her two teenage sons (not necessarily in that order . . . but there are days). Transforming copious amounts of tea into words, she is the author of “Tempting Mr. Weatherstone” in Avon Impulse’s Christmas anthology
Five Golden Rings
and the Wallflower Wedding Series. For more on her upcoming novels, visit her at www.vivlorret.net.
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“Tempting Mr. Weatherstone” in
Five Golden Rings: A Christmas Collection
Give in to your impulses . . .
Read on for a sneak peek at three brand-new
e-book original tales of romance from Avon Books.
Available now wherever e-books are sold.
B
OOK
O
NE
:
I
NDEPENDENCE
F
ALLS
By Sara Jane Stone
A
N
E
LITE
O
PS
N
OVEL
By Kay Thomas
A B
ILLIONAIRES
A
ND
B
IKERS
N
OVELLA
By Cynthia Sax
An Excerpt from
Book One: Independence Falls
by Sara Jane Stone
The first book in a hot new series from contemporary romance writer Sara Jane Stone. When Georgia begins work as a nanny for her brother’s best friend, she knows she can’t have him, but his pull is too strong, and she feels sparks igniting.
G
eorgia Trulane walked into the kitchen wearing a purple bikini, hoping and praying for a reaction from the man she’d known practically forever. Seated at the kitchen table, Eric Moore, her brother’s best friend, now her boss since she’d taken over the care of his adopted nephew until he found another live-in nanny, studied his laptop as if it held the keys to the world’s greatest mysteries. Unless the answers were listed between items b and c on a spreadsheet about Oregon timber harvesting, the screen was not of earth-shattering importance. It certainly did not merit his full attention when she was wearing an itsy-bitsy string bikini.
“Nate is asleep,” she said.
Look up. Please, look up.
Eric nodded, his gaze fixed to the screen. Why couldn’t he look at her with that unwavering intensity? He’d snuck glances. There had been moments when she’d turned from preparing his nephew’s lunch and caught him looking at her, really looking, as if he wanted to memorize the curve of her neck or the way her jeans fit. But he quickly turned away.
“Did you pick up everything he needs for his first day of school tomorrow? I don’t want to send him unprepared.”
His deep voice warmed her from the inside out. It was so familiar and welcoming, yet at the same time utterly sexy.
“I got all the items on the list,” she said. “He is packed and ready to go.”
“He needs another one of those stuffed frogs. He can’t go without his favorite stuffed animal.”
If she hadn’t been standing in his kitchen practically naked, waiting for him to notice her, she would have found his concern for the three-year-old’s first day of preschool sweet, maybe even heartwarming. But her body wasn’t looking for sentiments reminiscent of sunshine and puppies, or the whisper of sweet nothings against her skin. She craved physical contact—his hands on her, exploring, each touch making her feel more alive.
And damn it, he still hadn’t glanced up from his laptop.
“Nate will be home by nap time,” she said. “He’ll be there for only a few hours. You know that, right?”
“He’ll want to take his frog,” he said, his fingers moving across the keyboard. “He’ll probably lose it. And he sleeps with that thing every night. He needs that frog.”
She might be practically naked, but his emphasis on the word
need
thrust her headfirst into heartwarming territory. Eric worked day and night to provide Nate with the stability that had been missing from Eric’s childhood thanks to his divorced parents’ fickle dating habits. She admired his willingness to put a child who’d suffered a tragic loss first.
But tonight, for one night, she didn’t want to think about all of his honorable qualities. She wanted to see if maybe, just maybe those stolen glances when he thought she wasn’t looking meant that the man she’d laid awake thinking about while serving her country half a world away wanted her too.
“You’re now the proud owner of two stuffed frogs,” she said. “So if that’s everything for tonight, I’m going for a swim.”
Finally,
finally
, he looked up. She watched as his blue eyes widened and his jaw clenched. He was an imposing man, large and strong from years of climbing and felling trees. Not that he did the grunt work anymore. These days he wore tailored suits and spent more time in an office than with a chainsaw in hand. But even seated at his kitchen table poring over a computer, he looked like a wall of strong, solid muscle wound tight and ready for action. Having all of that energy focused on her? It sent a thrill down her body. Georgia clung to the feeling, savoring it.
An Excerpt from
An Elite Ops Novel
by Kay Thomas
One minute Jennifer Grayson is housesitting and the next she’s abducted to a foreign brothel. Jennifer is planning her escape when her first “customer” arrives. Nick, the man who broke her heart years ago, has come to her rescue. Now, as they race for their lives, passion for each other reignites and old secrets resurface. Can Nick keep the woman he loves safe against an enemy with a personal vendetta?
T
he woman at the vanity turned, and his breath caught in his throat. Nick had known it would be Jenny, and despite what he’d thought about downstairs when he’d seen her on the tablet screen, he hadn’t prepared himself for seeing her like this. Seated at the table with candles all around, she was wearing a sheer robe over a grey thong and a bustier kind of thing—or that’s what he thought the full-length bra was called.
He spotted the unicorn tat peeping out from the edge of whatever the lingerie piece was, and his brain quit processing details as all the blood in his head rushed south. He’d been primed to come in and tell Jenny exactly how they were getting out of the house and away from these people, and now . . . this. His mouth went dry at the sight of her. She looked like every fantasy he’d ever had about her rolled into one.
He continued to stare as recognition flared in her eyes.
“Oh my god,” she murmured. “It’s . . .”
She clapped her mouth closed, and her eyes widened. That struck him as odd. The relief on her face was obvious, but instead of looking at him, she took an audible breath and studied the walls of the room. When she finally did glance at him again, her eyes had changed.
“So you’re who they’ve sent me for my first time?” Her voice sounded bored, not the tone he remembered. “What do you want me to do?”