Dangerous Pleasures

BOOKS BY BERTRICE SMALL

T
HE
B
ORDER
C
HRONICLES

A Dangerous Love

The Border Lord’s Bride

T
HE
F
RIARSGATE
I
NHERITANCE

Rosamund

Until You

Philippa

The Last Heiress

C
ONTEMPORARY
E
ROTICA

Private Pleasures

Forbidden Pleasures

Sudden Pleasures

Dangerous Pleasures

T
HE
O’M
ALLEY
S
AGA

Skye O’Malley

All the Sweet Tomorrows

A Love for All Time

The Heart of Mine

Lost Love Found

Wild Jasmine

S
KYE’S
L
EGACY

Darling Jasmine

Bedazzled

Besieged

Intrigued

Just Beyond Tomorrow

Vixens

T
HE
W
ORLD OF
H
ETAR

Lara

A Distant Tomorrow

The Twilight Lord

The Sorceress of Belmair

M
ORE
B
Y
B
ERTRICE
S
MALL

The Kadin

Love Wild and Fair

Adora

Unconquered

Beloved

Enchantress Mine

Blaze Wyndham

The Spitfire

A Moment in Time

To Love Again

Love Remember Me

The Love Slave

Hellion

Betrayed

Deceived

The Innocent

A Memory of Love

The Duchess

D
ANGEROUS
P
LEASURES

New American Library
Published by New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published by New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Copyright © Bertrice Small, 2008
All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:
Small, Bertrice.
Dangerous pleasures / Bertrice Small.
p. cm.
ISBN: 1-4362-3392-5
1. Widows—Fiction. 2. Single mothers—Fiction. 3. Contests—Fiction. 4. Sexual fantasies—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3569.M28D365 2008
813'.54—dc22 2008001075

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

For all those women who seek to find themselves.
May your journeys prove less dangerous than Annie’s,
but just as pleasurable.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

D
ANGEROUS
P
LEASURES

P
ROLOGUE

A
lready the week sucked, and Monday had only begun. A call from her mother before nine a.m. didn’t bode well. Annie Miller knew better than to answer her phone when Phyllis’s number popped up on the caller ID. But her mother would keep calling until she had said whatever it was she had to say this morning. Just back from dropping her youngest at nursery school, Annie reluctantly picked up the handset. “Morning, Mom!” she said cheerfully, hoping to defuse the complaints that were sure to come.

“I just don’t know what I’m going to do about your father,” Phyllis’s disapproving voice said without further ado.

“What’s the matter? Is Dad all right?”

“He’s never home!” Phyllis replied.

“But, Mom,” Annie responded, “three months ago you were complaining that when he retired he’d be underfoot all the time, and you wouldn’t be able to get anything done. Why isn’t he home?”

“Golf!”
Phyllis sighed dramatically. “Golf! Golf! Golf! All day long. Every day. It’s all he does anymore. Plays golf. Comes home to eat dinner, watches television, and then goes to bed. It’s as if I’m not here at all. And he won’t even go to church on Sundays now because he has an early tee time!”

“Have you spoken to him?” Annie ventured.

“I’ve tried,” her mother answered. “He says it’s his retirement, and he gets to do what he wants to do. You have to speak to him, Anne Elizabeth. He listens to you.”

“What do you want me to say to him, Mom? He’s worked hard all his life, and it is his retirement. Besides, it’s probably just a phase. When he’s gotten it out of his system you two can do something nice together. Maybe plan and take a nice trip.”

Her mother sniffed derisively.

“Look, Mom, when the weather gets cold in a few months he won’t be able to play golf all day,” Annie reasoned.

“You always take
his
side!” Phyllis said angrily. “I’m going to call your sister! She’ll understand!” And the phone went dead.

Annie sighed. “Yeah, sure,” she muttered to herself as she put the handset back in its cradle. “Call the corporate lawyer for sympathy.” Annie picked up the full laundry basket from the kitchen counter, where she had left it earlier, and headed for the washer, where the first load was in a final spin cycle.

The phone rang again, and seeing that it was the high school, Annie wondered if she had forgotten a meeting today. “Hello?”