Smitten by Books

It’s Excerpt Thursday, so it’s time to ‘Get Hooked’. Today, we have our own Lori Brighton with a sizzling hot passage from brand new release, WILD DESIRE. Let me know if you were hooked.

First He Drove Her Mad

In what feels like a moment, Beatrice Edmund goes from being a proper lady cooped up in a stuffy Scottish castle to traveling miles from anything she’s ever known, in the midst of the wildest adventure of her life. And at the center of that adventure is the most infuriating, puzzling scoundrel on earth. She cannot take her eyes off him.

Then He Drove Her Wild

Colin Fitch cannot deny he’s drawn to Beatrice–but lust is all he could possibly feel for the sharp-tongued minx. Still, if there’s a chance she can help him stop the madman he pursues, he must withstand her obvious disapproval. Yet withstanding the longing he feels for her is growing more troublesome by the second. . . And Colin has never been terribly good at staying out of trouble. . .

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~*~*~

WILD DESIRE by Lori Brighton
Available March 1, 2010 from Kensington Publishing

Did he really like her? Or was she just another woman to him? Did he remember the way he touched her? The way she moaned his name? Heat flushed her cheeks. Slowly, she glanced back, her chin to her shoulder as she peeked at him. His face was turned away from her. There, seated against the sandstone wall with his shirt hanging open, the man looked like a statue come to life.

As if pulled by some unknown force, Bea started forward on her hands and knees. Her gaze pinned to him, she suddenly felt like a hunter and he her prey. She had no idea what she planned to do when she reached his side. Shove him backward, press her mouth to his, tear off his clothes. How shocked he’d be. The thought almost made her giggle. Only a few feet from him, she paused in indecision.

“What do you want, Bea?” he asked, his gaze still focused on the far wall.

What did she want? You. You to touch me. To make me moan your name.

“How did you see me approach?” she asked, more to fill the silence than to satisfy any curiosity.

He turned his head, looking directly at her. “I could smell you.”

That gave her pause. She wasn’t quite sure if she should be embarrassed or not. “Do I smell that horrible?”

She thought the corner of his mouth lifted, but with the lack of light, she wasn’t quite sure. “No. Quite the opposite. Your scent is…refreshing, clean, unique. Sometimes I think I could pick up your scent from a million others.”

Her heart hammered in her chest, his words taunting her already flared desire. She crawled closer to him, her hands on the cool, stone floor. “Do you know what you smell like?”

He laughed, lowering his thick lashes as he looked at the ground. “I can imagine.”

She didn’t pause until her face was only a breath from his. “Sunlight. Warmth.”

His jaw clenched, his throat working as he swallowed. She didn’t wait for him to kiss her, but leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. Mad. She was completely and utterly mad. She didn’t know how she’d become so bold. Perhaps it was the statues. Perhaps the fact that she was experienced now. Or perhaps because she ached fiercely and knew only Colin could ease that pain.

Bea wrapped her arms around his neck as his fingers slid into her hair.

“Colin,” she whispered against his mouth. “How terribly I’ve wanted to kiss you.”

He growled low in his throat. They both came up on their knees, desperate to touch body to body. Colin tugged on her hair, tilting her head back. “Do you realize what words like that can do to a man?”

He pressed his lips to her neck. Shivers raced over her skin, heated tremors that shook in her core.

“Such words can drive a man insane, Bea.”

But she wanted him mad, mad with desire. Mad with wanting her.

Colin stood, lifting Bea with him. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he pressed her back against the cold sandstone. Trapped between the wall and the hard man holding her, a thrill coursed through her body. This is what she’d wanted, what she’d dreamt about.