Annabelle Green needs a husband-and quickly. To inherit the only home she's ever known, she must be married by her twenty-fifth birthday. But finding a suitor has been next to impossible after a reckless rogue named Quinton Carlisle seduced her into a scandalous midnight tryst. Her reputation in ruins, Belle now needs a rather large favor. And she knows just who to turn to . . .
Quinn can hardly believe that the shy bookish girl he teased as a child has grown into such a brazen beauty. The very idea of marrying Belle to right the wrongs of his past is downright shocking . . . and deliciously tempting. Too bad marriage, convenient or otherwise, is the last thing Quinn wants. He'll help Belle find a husband and be on his way. But if he can't control his attraction to the bride-to-be, this marriage could go up in flames-of wicked desire.
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Excerpt
“You look much
more like your father now,” she commented, nervously licking her suddenly dry
lips but only serving to draw his attention to her mouth. Which made her even
more nervous, so nervous that she couldn’t stop the trembling of her fingertips
as they wrapped into the skirt of her night rail. “But you’re still a
troublemaker.”
A faint smile
played at his mouth. “And you’re still a bluestocking,” he countered.
Unintentionally simmering a slow heat low in her belly, he reached up to tuck a
stray curl behind her ear. “Still retreating to the sanctuary of your library.”
“Because books
are usually more pleasant than most people,” she answered, swallowing hard when
he trailed his fingers down the side of her neck. She forced out, not at all as
firmly as she’d hoped beneath the soft touch of his fingers,
“And more
trustworthy.”
Ignoring that
jab, he slid his hand lower to let his fingers play at the edge of her shawl.
“Yet there are things that people can do that books can’t.” His fingers tugged
gently at the shawl and pulled it down her shoulder to reveal the scooped neck
of the nightdress beneath. His gaze flicked to the small patch of revealed skin
at the base of her throat, then back to her eyes. “All kinds of interesting
things.”
She should stop
him, swat his hand away, shove him back—but she couldn’t bring herself to do
it. Just as she couldn’t hold back the hot shiver that swept through her or the
gooseflesh that formed on her skin. His touch was proving to be as equally
intoxicating now as that night six years ago.
“Then I have no
interest in learning them,” she countered, although from the way her blood
hummed, her body was very interested.
Madness—that
after what he’d done to her, she could ever want to be in his arms again. Yet
she desired just that, although that could never happen. Kissing him once had
ruined her reputation. Kissing him again might destroy her entire future.
She thrust her
chin into the air. “I know of your reputation.”
“Thank you,” he
half purred.
His finger
hooked beneath the wide shoulder strap of her sleeveless nightgown and slid it
slowly down her arm. But this time, with a stretch of bare shoulder revealed to
his eyes, he didn’t bother feigning propriety by looking away and instead flamed
a prickling heat beneath her skin everywhere he gazed.
She pulled in a
deep breath to steady herself. Oh, why did she always go light-headed
when she was alone with him?
“That was not
meant as a compliment.”
“Wasn’t it?”
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
Anna Harrington fell in love with
historical romances--and all those dashing Regency heroes--while living in
London, where she studied literature and theatre. She loves to travel, fly
airplanes, and hike, and when she isn't busy writing her next novel, she loves
fussing over her roses in her garden.
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