Private Research: An Erotic Novella (21 page)
Read Private Research: An Erotic Novella Online
Authors: Sabrina Darby
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.
By Ellie Macdonald
ASHES, ASHES, THEY ALL FALL DEAD
By Lena Diaz
By Ellie Macdonald
An Excerpt from
by Ellie Macdonald
Claire Bannister just wants to be a good teacher so that she and the other ladies of the Governess Club can make enough money to leave their jobs and start their own school in the country. But when the new sinfully handsome and utterly distracting tutor arrives, Claire finds herself caught up in a whirlwind romance that could change the course of her future.
W
hat would a “London gent” want with her, Claire wondered as she quickened her pace. The only man she knew in the capital was Mr. Baxter, her late father’s solicitor. Why would he come all the way here instead of corresponding through a letter as usual? Unless it was something more urgent than could be committed to paper. Perhaps it had something to do with Ridgestone—
At that thought, Claire lifted her skirts and raced to the parlor. Five years had passed since her father’s death, since she’d had to leave her childhood home, but she had not given up her goal to one day return to Ridgestone.
The formal gardens of Aldgate Hall vanished, replaced by the memory of her own garden; the terrace doors no longer opened to the ballroom, but to a small, intimate library; the bright corridor darkened to a comforting glow; Claire could even smell her old home as she rushed to the door of the housekeeper’s parlor. Pausing briefly to catch her breath and smooth her hair, she knocked and pushed the door open, head held high, barely able to contain her excitement.
Cup and saucer met with a loud rattle as a young man hurried to his feet. Mrs. Morrison’s disapproving frown could not stop several large drops of tea from contaminating her white linen, nor could Mr. Fosters’s harrumph. Claire’s heart sank as she took in the man’s youth, disheveled hair, and rumpled clothes; he was decidedly
not
Mr. Baxter. Perhaps a new associate? Her heart picked up slightly at that thought.
Claire dropped a shallow curtsey. “You wished to see me, Mrs. Morrison?”
The thin woman rose and drew in a breath that seemed to tighten her face even more with disapproval. She gestured to the stranger. “Yes. This is Mr. Jacob Knightly. Lord and Lady Aldgate have retained him as a tutor for the young masters.”
Claire blinked. “A tutor? I was not informed they were seeking—”
“It is not your place to be informed,” the butler, Mr. Fosters, cut in.
Claire immediately bowed her head and clasped her hands in front of her submissively. “My apologies. I overstepped.” Her eyes slid shut, and she took a deep breath to dispel the disappointment. Ridgestone faded into the back of her mind once more.
Mrs. Morrison continued with the introduction. “Mr. Knightly, this is Miss Bannister, the governess.”
Mr. Knightly bowed. “Miss Bannister, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Claire automatically curtseyed. “The feeling is mutual, sir.” As she straightened, she lifted her eyes to properly survey the new man. Likely not yet in his third decade, Mr. Knightly wore his brown hair long enough not to be following the current fashion. Scattered locks fell across his forehead, and the darkening of a beard softened an otherwise square-jawed face. He stood nearly a head taller than she did, and his loosely fitted jacket and modest cravat did nothing to conceal broad shoulders. Skimming her gaze down his body, she noticed a shirt starting to yellow with age and a plain brown waistcoat struggling to hide the fact that its owner was less than financially secure. Even his trousers were slightly too short, revealing too much of his worn leather boots. All in all, Mr. Jacob Knightly appeared to be the epitome of a young scholar reduced to becoming a tutor.
Except for his mouth. And his eyes. Not that Claire had much experience meeting with tutors, but even she could tell that the spectacles enhanced rather than detracted from the pale blueness of his eyes. The lenses seemed to emphasize their round shape, emphasize the appreciative gleam in them before Mr. Knightly had a chance to hide it. Even when he did, the corners of his full mouth remained turned up in a funny half-smile, all but oozing confidence and assurance—bordering on an arrogance one would not expect to find in a tutor.
Oh dear
.
An Excerpt from
by Lena Diaz
Special Agent Tessa James is obsessed with finding the killer whose signature singsong line—“Ashes, ashes, they all fall dead”—feels all too familiar. When sexy, brilliant consultant Matt Buchanan is paired with Tessa to solve the mystery, they discover, inexplicably, that the clues point to Tessa herself. If she can’t remember the forgotten years of her past, will she become the murderer’s next target?
S
he raised a shaking hand to her brow and tried to focus on what he’d told her. “You’ve found a pattern where he kills a victim in a particular place but mails the letter for a different victim while he’s there.”
“That’s what I’m telling you, yes. It’s early yet, and we have a lot more to research—and other victims to find—but this is one hell of a coincidence, and I’m not much of a believer in coincidences. I think we’re on to something.”
Tears started in Tessa’s eyes. She’d been convinced since last night that she’d most likely ruined her one chance to find the killer, and at the same time ruined her career. And suddenly everything had changed. In the span of a few minutes, Matt had given her back everything he’d taken from her when he’d destroyed the letter at the lab. Laughter bubbled up in her throat, and she knew she must be smiling like a fool, but she couldn’t help it.
“You did it, Matt.” Her voice came out as a choked whisper. She cleared her throat. “You did it. In little more than a day, you’ve done what we couldn’t do in months, years. You’ve found the thread to unravel the killer’s game. This is the breakthrough we’ve been looking for.”
She didn’t remember throwing herself at him, but suddenly she was in his arms, laughing and crying at the same time. She looped her arms around his neck and looked up into his wide-eyed gaze, then planted a kiss right on his lips.
She drew back and framed his face with her hands, giddy with happiness. “Thank you, Matt. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You’ve saved my career. And you’ve saved lives! Casey can’t deny this is a real case anymore. He’ll have to get involved, throw some resources at finding the killer. And we’ll stop this bastard before he hurts anyone else. How does that feel? How does it feel to know you just saved someone?”
His arms tightened around her waist, and he pulled her against his chest. “It feels pretty damn good,” he whispered. And then he kissed her.
Not the quick peck she’d just given him. A real kiss. A hot, wet, knock-every-rational- thought-out-of-her-mind kind of kiss. His mouth moved against hers in a sensual onslaught—nipping, tasting, teasing—before his tongue swept inside and consumed her with his heat.
Desire flooded through her, and she whimpered against him. She stroked his tongue with hers, and he groaned deep in his throat. He slid his hand down over the curve of her bottom and lifted her until she cradled his growing hardness against her belly. He held her so tightly she felt every beat of his heart against her breast. His breath was her breath, drawing her in, stoking the fire inside her into a growing inferno.
He gyrated his hips against hers in a sinful movement that spiked across her nerve endings, tightening her into an almost painful tangle of tension. Every movement of his hips, every slant of his lips, every thrust of his tongue stoked her higher and higher, coiling her nerves into one tight knot of desire, ready to explode.
Nothing had ever felt this good.
Nothing.
Ever.
The tiny voice inside her, the one she’d ruthlessly quashed as soon as his lips claimed hers, suddenly yelled a loud warning.
Stop this madness!
Her eyes flew open. This was
Matt
making her feel this way, on the brink of a climax when all he’d done was kiss her.
Matt.
Good grief, what was she thinking? He swiveled his hips again, and she nearly died of pleasure.
No, no!
This had to stop.
Convincing her traitorous body to respond to her mind’s commands was the hardest thing she’d ever tried to do, because every cell, every nerve ending wanted to stay exactly where she was: pressed up against Matt’s delicious, hard, warm body.
His twenty-four-year-old body to her thirty-year-old one.
This was insane, a recipe for disaster. She had to stop, now, before she pulled him down to the ground and demanded that he make love to her right this very minute.
She broke the kiss and shoved out of his arms.
An Excerpt from
by Ellie Macdonald
The Governess Club series continues with Miss Bonnie Hodges. She is desperately trying to hold it together. Tragedy has struck, and she is the sole person left to be strong for the two little boys in her care. When the new guardian, Sir Stephen Montgomery, arrives, she hopes that things will get better. She wasn’t expecting her new employer to be the most frustrating, overbearing, and . . . handsome man she’s ever seen.
W
hen he reached the water’s edge, Stephen stopped. Staring at the wreckage that used to be the wooden bridge, he was acutely aware that he was looking at the site of his friends’ death.
Images from the story Miss Hodges had told him flashed through his mind—the waving parents, the bridge shuddering before it collapsed, the falling planks and horses, the coach splintering, George’s neck snapping, and Roslyn—God, Roslyn lying in that mangled coach, her blood pouring out of her body. How had she survived long enough for anyone to come and see her still breathing?
Nausea roiled in his stomach, and bile forced its way up his throat. Heaving, Stephen bent over a nearby bush and lost the contents of his stomach. Minutes later, he crouched down at the river’s edge and splashed the cold water on his face.
From where he crouched, Stephen turned his gaze down the river, away from the ruined bridge. He could make out an area ideal for swimming: a small stretch of sandy bank surrounded by a few large, flat rocks. Indeed, an excellent place for a governess to take her charges for a cooling swim on a hot summer day.
Stephen straightened and made his way along the bank to the swimming area. A well-worn path weaved through the bush, connecting the small beach to the hill beyond and Darrowgate. The bridge was seventy meters upstream; not only would the governess and the boys have had a good view of the collapse, the blood from the incident would have flowed right by them.
No wonder they barely spoke.
Tearing his gaze from the bridge, he focused on the water, trying to imagine the trio enjoying their swim, with no inkling or threat of danger. The boys in the water, laughing and splashing each other, showing off their swimming skills to their laughing governess.
Stephen looked at the closest flat rock, the thought of the laughing governess in his mind. She had said she preferred dangling her feet instead of swimming.
His mind’s eye put Miss Hodges on the rock, much as she had been the previous night. The look on her face after seeing his own flour-covered face. Her smile had been so wide it had been difficult to see anything else about her. He knew her eyes and hair were certain colors, but he was damned if he could name them—the eyes were some light shade and the hair was brown, that he knew for certain.
And her laugh—it was the last thing he had expected from her. He was in a difficult situation—not quite master but regarded as such until Henry’s majority. For a servant, even a governess, to laugh as she had was entirely unpredictable.
He shouldn’t think too much about how that unexpected laughter had settled in his gut.
The image of Miss Hodges sitting on the rock rose again in his mind. The sun would have warmed the rock beneath her hands, and she would have looked down at the clear water. She would laugh at the boys’ antics, he had no doubt, perhaps even kick water in their direction if they ventured too close. Her stockings would be folded into her shoes to keep them from blowing away in the breeze.
Good Lord, he could almost see it. The stockings protected in the nearby shoes, her naked feet dangling in the water, her skirts raised to keep them from getting wet, exposing her trim ankles. The clear water would do nothing to hide either her feet or her ankles, and Stephen found himself staring unabashedly at something that wasn’t even there. He gazed at the empty water, imagining exactly what Miss Hodges’s ankles would look like. They would be slim, they would be bonny, they would—
Thankfully, a passing cart made enough noise to break him out of this ridiculously schoolboy moment. Inhaling deeply through his nose, Stephen left the swimming area and made his way back for a closer look at the ruins.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from
The Governess Club: Claire
copyright © 2013 by Heather Johnson.
Excerpt from
Ashes, Ashes, They All Fall Dead
copyright © 2013 by Lena Diaz.
Excerpt from
The Governess Club: Bonnie
copyright © 2013 by Heather Johnson.
PRIVATE RESEARCH
. Copyright © 2013 by Sabrina Darby. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition NOVEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780062304476
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062304841
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