Authors: Sophia Knightly
Michaela stared at Paolo’s sensual lips, perfectly sculpted and adept at eating anything. “I’m sure you did,” she said in a strangled voice as her defenses surrendered to the attraction sizzling between them.
Paolo’s eyes crinkled at the corners as his mouth eased into a deep-dimpled grin that could melt an iceberg. His hand curled around her nape and pulled her forward, settling her into his arms. A restless wantonness engulfed Michaela as hot desire coursed through her body. She peered at him from beneath the veil of lowered lashes, wondering if he could hear her heart slamming against her chest or feel the simmering heat trapped inside her. His knuckles grazed the side of her jaw as his dark eyes gazed at her mouth. She held her breath, waiting, aching for his kiss.
He cradled her face in his hands and held her still as his mouth covered hers, slowly and deliberately deepening the kiss, nibbling and suckling with a thoroughness that left her gasping. Her body inundated with voluptuous pleasure as Paolo’s tongue entered her mouth and she got her first delicious taste of him. Demanding, yet tender, he kissed her until she was breathless.
With a blissful sigh, she wrapped her arms around his neck and threw her head back as he kissed her cheeks and jawline and nibbled her earlobe. Her breath caught in her throat when his tongue lightly traced the outer shell of her ear, causing tiny pinpricks to tease her skin.
Paolo nuzzled the crook of her neck and whispered Spanish endearments in a rough-edged voice. Every fine hair on Michaela’s skin stood on end. Her body quivered, hot and jittery and hungry for more. He tasted and then gently nipped the side of her bare neck with his teeth. A shuddering moan escaped her lips. She wanted to scream,
yes, more—please!
Michaela’s back arched when he kissed her cleavage just above the neckline of her blouse. He cupped the soft underside of her breasts and lifted upward, plumping them before his mouth as he sampled their tender peaks. Paolo’s warm lips closed over the silky fabric and lightly tugged at one nipple and then the other. Her fingers tangled in his thick, satiny hair as she held his face close to her bosom.
She held her breath as Paolo’s hands slid under her blouse and up her bare back to unclasp her bra. She shivered when he freed her breasts and lifted her blouse. Laying his warm palms over her cool breasts, he savored their shape before his callused fingertips gently tweaked her nipples. Michaela bit down on her lower lip as Paolo’s tongue swirled over her nipples and suckled, drawing out a strangled moan from her parched throat.
“
Delicioso
.” His voice came out a throaty, ragged growl.
Michaela tried to think straight, but her self-control was slipping away. She couldn’t pull away, couldn’t bring herself to stop him. She melted against him. Paolo’s lovemaking was everything she had dreamed of and everything she had never felt with Jeff, the only other man she’d ever made love with. She put her hands on Paolo’s darkly aroused face and urged it upward to meet her kiss, to slow down his ardor, but his reaction was almost savage, crushing the last vestiges of her self-control.
Hot and insatiable, Paolo’s hands slid beneath her skirt and into her silk panties, cupping her bottom. His bold fingertips inched perilously close to the slippery, aching warmth between her thighs. Michaela’s body cried out for fulfillment, but when he shifted his position pulling her beneath him, his hard erection jutted against her, jolting her back to reality.
It was madness.
There would be no turning back.
She would surely regret it.
She was on fire and so was he.
She had to stop now!
Forcing herself back to reality, she cursed softly and reached back, dislodging his hold on her bottom.
“Please let me up,” she choked, pushing against his chest. The solid imprint of Paolo’s desire pressing against her pelvis made her feel guilty for stopping. Filled with regret and feeling unhinged, she took a deep breath and tried to calm her galloping heart. He pulled away with a groan as she struggled to sit up and adjust her clothing.
“I’m sorry, but I had to stop,” she rasped, her voice cracking from the effort of keeping her wits when all she wanted to do was sink back into his embrace and let him finish what he had started.
“Why stop?” Paolo exhaled a harsh, jagged, breath. His black eyes flashed with frustration. “I thought you liked it.”
“I did, I do…too much.” Michaela’s face flamed as she met his scorching gaze with a pathetic attempt at self-composure. If he only knew she was
this
close to succumbing to his lovemaking! “I mean…oh, God, I don’t want you to think I’m a tease…I just—”
“Why did you stop me?”
It takes a real man to wear a kilt. And a real woman to charm him out of it.
Love is a Battlefield
© 2012 Tamara Morgan
Games of Love, Book 1
It might be modern times, but Kate Simmons isn’t willing to live a life without at least the illusion of the perfect English romance. A proud member of the Jane Austen Regency Re-Enactment Society, Kate fulfills her passion for courtliness and high-waisted gowns in the company of a few women who share her love of all things heaving.
Then she encounters Julian Wallace, a professional Highland Games athlete who could have stepped right off the covers of her favorite novels. He’s everything brooding, masculine, and, well, heaving. The perfect example of a man who knows just how to wear his high sense of honor—and his kilt.
Confronted with a beautiful woman with a tongue as sharp as his
sgian dubh
, Julian and his band of merry men aren’t about to simply step aside and let Kate and her gaggle of tea-sippers use his land for their annual convention. Never mind that “his land” is a state park—Julian was here first, and he never backs down from a challenge.
Unless that challenge is a woman unafraid to fight for what she wants...and whose wants are suddenly the only thing he can think about.
Warning: The historical re-enactments in this story contain very little actual history. Battle chess and ninja stars may apply.
Enjoy the following excerpt for
Love is a Battlefield:
“You came!” Kate smiled up at him as they approached, and Julian had to remind himself to smile back. Flash teeth and relax. Laugh and flirt. The serious, competitive warrior he was on the field had a tendency to take over even when the situation didn’t call for it. And this situation, with a woman like that looking up at him with genuine pleasure in her hazel eyes, most definitely didn’t call for it. She was everything he didn’t know he found attractive in a woman, with a small and delicate build, a nose that turned up just a little at the tip and the kind of softness that normally put him on his guard. Cute but not obvious. Quiet but not shy. He wouldn’t have gone so far as to say she brought out his territorial instincts, but there was a definite urge to protect and serve.
So he smiled, pleased to find it didn’t feel quite as forced as he expected it to. “Sorry we’re late. Michael wanted to do his hair.”
Michael, whose longish, wavy hair almost always looked like it had been lifted straight off the pillow, grinned widely. “What can I say? I’m a vain man.”
The women scooted their chairs to make room for them. Julian sat next to Kate—so close he could smell her slightly floral perfume. She was still wearing the tiny slip of a dress from before, but she’d allowed her brownish-blonde hair to fall down in soft waves almost to the middle of her back and changed to a pair of gold sandals with bands going halfway up her calf, winding and hugging her flesh in ways that seemed almost indecent.
He had a hard time looking away. If it was possible to slap sex on a pair of legs, she’d done it.
“Do you guys want something to drink?” Kate asked, dangling one of those perfect legs close to his own without even seeming to realize what she was doing.
Her friend, Jada, on the other hand, leaned over the table, angling to give both him and Michael a clear view down the top of her bright red dress.
“I’m going to bet you two are Scotch men. Neat?”
He let Michael argue the finer points of ice in a drink with her. Jada was the type of woman Michael lived for—flashy, obvious. Julian had dated those types of women before, usually when he was on the job down in Arizona or on the road for the Games. For all their superficial trappings, women like that made great companions for the short term. But right now, a one-night stand was the last thing on his mind. His body was definitely warming for something a bit softer. A bit more real.
He turned to Kate. “I hope you weren’t waiting long.”
She shrugged, and the thin strap of her dress fell along the gentle curve of her shoulder. He watched it, mesmerized.
“A few minutes. It’s not a big deal. There was a blues singer on before the pianos started.”
“Oh, it’s too bad we missed it.”
Kate wrinkled her nose. “I’m sorry about this place. It’s probably not your thing, pianos, is it?”
Julian laughed. People always took one look at him and assumed the worst. “I’m a large man, Kate, but that doesn’t mean I’m a barbarian. A little jazz isn’t going to kill me.”
“You never know. Jada is her own force of nature, and I thought maybe you guys got caught up in it against your will. Lord knows she’s made me do one or two things I regretted later.”
Julian’s pulse picked up, and he leaned forward. That was a topic he could warm to. “’Like what?”
Kate shook her head firmly. “No way. I’m going to need a few more drinks before those secrets start spilling.”
“She’s being modest,” Jada interrupted, watching them both with a smile. “Kate here once drove an entire rugby team off the road. Their van tipped over into a ditch.”
“They deserved it!” Kate declared, her eyes dancing. “Don’t believe a word she says. They were trying to cut in line after the rest of us had been waiting for hours to get through a single lane of traffic. I just blocked them from doing it, and they drove themselves off the road. What’s the point of driving a nice big Cadillac if you can’t use it for good?”
“Did you stop to see if they were okay?” Julian asked, amused.
“They didn’t really tip over. It was more of a gentle lean. You should have heard all the cars in line, honking their approval. I felt like a superhero.”
“A vigilante in a Cadillac.” Julian laughed.
“Like the Green Hornet,” Kate agreed.
Julian settled back in his chair, taking in the scene with a deep breath. There was a gentle ferocity to Kate he hadn’t been expecting. He liked it. “So, you run cars off the road when you’re mad, you grew up in Seattle and you wear pretty shoes. What else should I know about you?”
She blushed and lifted one of her feet, examining the appendage as if seeing it for the first time. “You think my shoes are pretty?”
“Well, they’re not very functional, that’s for sure.” He fought the urge to rub his hand over her leg to double check how well that footwear was working out. “But nice. Definitely nice.”
She toyed with the stem of her glass, avoiding his eyes. “Thank you. But I’m not sure what else you want to know. Birthmarks? Employment history?”
“Good call, Kate,” Jada said from across the table. “Always start with birthmarks.”
“How about what it is you want Cornwall Park for?” Julian offered. He doubted he was going to get anything about birthmarks out of her.
Yet.
She blushed and played with the edges of her cocktail napkin. “It’s this group I’m part of. A historical preservation society—kind of like your Scottish Games, I guess? We do a big annual event, and we need a place to hold it.”
“Historical? Like what?”
“Umm…Regency. Jane Austen type stuff—the nineteenth century. We wear pretty elaborate gowns, and we do lectures.” Her leg tapped a nervous beat, inching closer to his own.
Julian nodded. An academic he was not, but he knew enough of history and women to know what she was talking about. Waist-cinching underthings. Thigh-high stockings held in place with ribbons and silk.
A group of women doing Regency playacting—he could get on top of that idea.
“That sounds interesting,” he managed to say without giving away the sudden loss of blood in his brain, which was coursing hot and thick toward his groin. “But isn’t that all indoor stuff?”
“Well, we hold balls and tea parties, and those are all inside.” She chose her words carefully and watched after each one for his reaction. “But I’m hoping to recreate this big, elaborate outdoor garden thing. And Cornwall Park is the perfect place for it.”
“You’re doing this all by yourself?”
“Sort of. It’s for the whole group, but I’m in charge of this particular event. It’s a long story, but I’m basically being punished for some…er…misbehavior on Jada’s part. I’m excited to do it, though. You probably think it’s silly, but—”
Her leg brushed against his. He reached over and rested a hand on her knee, stilling her nervous movements. “Don’t do that. It’s not silly at all. Recreating history and honoring the past is important.” He grinned down at her. “I should know. I do it in a skirt.”