The Corrupt Comte (36 page)

About the Author

Edie Harris studied English and Creative Writing at the University of Iowa and Grinnell College. She fills her days with writing and editing publishing contract proposals, but her nights belong to the world of romance fiction. An avid reader/tweeter/blogger, Edie lives and works in Iowa City. Visit her website for backlist titles, contact information, and regular updates on upcoming projects—
www.edieharris.com
.

Look for these titles by Edie Harris

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Wild State

Wild Burn

Shoot first. Ask her name later.

Wild Burn

© 2013 Edie Harris

Wild State, Book 1

Infamy weighs heavy on Delaney Crawford’s broad shoulders, first as a supposed Confederate turncoat, then as a relentless hunter of Cheyenne dog soldiers. Summoned to the small mining community of Red Creek, the exhausted, embittered Del is doing what he does best—ridding the town of its savage scourge—when one of his bullets misses the mark.

Ex-nun Moira Tully has been working with John White Horse for months to integrate a band of peaceful Cheyenne with the local townsfolk. Now he’s hurt, and she’s been caught in the crossfire. There’s only one man to blame for her simmering anger and the inexplicable attraction that tilts her heart on its axis. Del.

When Del is forced to acknowledge the truth that the Cheyenne are no threat, his task just gets more complicated: fighting a wild attraction that catches flame at the most inconvenient times, and figuring out the treacherous motives behind his hiring.

But the most heart-wrenching challenge could be overcoming sordid pasts that won’t stay in the past—pasts that threaten to bury all hope of happily ever after.

Warning:
Features a trigger-happy Southern gentleman, an ex-nun gone rogue and consistently thwarted desires that frustrate them both.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Wild Burn:

The door opened slowly to reveal her, limned in the warm light of the hearth flickering behind her. Glorious dark red hair fell in thick, loose waves past her shoulders to stop at the top of her rib cage.

His fingers twitched. Just…
glorious
.

“Mr. Crawford.” Her gaze flicked over his features, summer-blue eyes wary. “What can I do for you?”

“Mornin’, Miss Tully.” He swallowed. He was a stupid man. He knew better than to be here, talking to a lady—a
schoolteacher
—when he was in Red Creek on business. If he needed a woman, he could go to the Ruby Saloon. Not the second cabin from the end, with its garden and its gray stone chimney, its tidy golden glow streaked through with the homey scents of biscuits and coffee. “Just stopped by to see how your ear is doing.”

Her brows lowered in a sharp frown. She was always frowning at him, it seemed. “It’s fine, thank you.”

“I see you’re not wearing a bandage.”

She shook her head as she pulled a black woolen shawl tighter around her shoulders. He could see where her bodice met the simple skirt of her brown calico dress. There were no telltale bumps of a boned corset beneath the light fabric, no sign of a metal-caged crinoline or bustle at her hips. She was achingly dressed—achingly in that he hurt with the desire to dance his hands over her body and learn every inch of her slim shape. The gown was so worn it would prove no greater barrier than a thin bedsheet, and he could fall to his knees before her and curve his fingers around those slender thighs, part them with his thumbs as he fisted her skirts and—

“Is that all?”

No, no, that
wasn’t
all. He wanted her to knock his hat off his head while he stayed on his knees, grip his hair in her long fingers and steer his hands, his mouth, from the back of one knee and up her inner thigh. It would be so soft.
She
would be so soft, that pale skin…and probably freckled too. Oh, Christ, he—

“Mr. Crawford?”

Hell. “Sorry, ma’am. Guess I’m still tired.”

He wondered if she believed his excuse when she tugged the shawl even closer across her chest. “I see. Are you…? How long will you be in Red Creek?”

It was difficult to shrug with inconvenient arousal tightening every muscle in his body. “As long as it takes.”

Her gaze changed, narrowed. “As long as it takes to kill the Cheyenne, you mean.”

“I’m not going to hurt the tribe across the hill, Miss Tully.”

“Not unless you think they’re dangerous. I know what you do now.”

“Oh?”

She nodded. “Mr. Vangaard runs the general store and collects the post. He has a nice stack of old newspapers in his back room filled with the accountings of your grand deeds. Saving the West one dead Indian at a time.” Sarcasm gave her words a cruel twist.

“That’s not all I do.” It absolutely was all he did, not that he wanted her to know.

“Mm.” She let her eyes settle briefly on the gun at his hip, and her lips compressed before she spoke again. “I suppose you’re going over there now.”

“I am.”

“The chief, Walking Bear, is John White Horse’s uncle. I’ve not yet met him, but, knowing Mr. White Horse, I can only assume he is as peaceful as his nephew.”

“I’m sure the problem doesn’t lie with Walking Bear’s tribe, Miss Tully. But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t investigate, at least once.”

She shifted her weight to lean against the doorframe. “Don’t hurt any more innocents, Mr. Crawford, or you’ll undo every good thing Mr. White Horse has accomplished in the past three months.”

It was much more difficult than it should’ve been to draw in air as she gave him a beseeching look. The softest expression she’d yet gifted him, it did funny things to his insides, and it drew him to her. He climbed the steps until he stood on the one just below her. “I won’t.”

“M-Mr. Crawford?” Her eyes grew bigger, rounder.

Slowly, so as not to startle her, he lifted a hand between them. “May I?”

She looked confused and slightly alarmed, but nodded anyway.

Her silky hair stroked sensuously over the backs of his knuckles as he slid his hand between the mass of it and her pale throat. Lifting, he pushed the cool strands back over her shoulder and let his thumb tug gently upward on the errant locks covering her ear. Her left ear.

Her left ear, which was pink and angry, but clean and showing no signs of infection. A small half-moon of flesh was definitely missing, right at the top of that delicately curled shell. “I won’t ever hurt an innocent again,” he promised quietly as he studied the wound. He wondered if it would’ve healed faster had the doctor attempted to stitch her up, but it was too late now, and she appeared to be taking hygienic care of the site. “I won’t, Miss Tully.”

He heard her suck in a deep breath. “Thank you.” She made no move to pull away from him.

He couldn’t help it. He let his fingers slide further into her loose hair to cup the back of her skull. His thumb stroked over the sensitive skin of her hairline, just above her ear, carefully avoiding the tender wound. Her body heat, her scent, twined around his senses until tension he didn’t know he carried left his shoulders and he could taste her, with the coffee and biscuits, on his tongue.

He wanted to
actually
taste her on his tongue, but now…now was not the time.

It wasn’t ever going to be the time.

But he was still held in the grip of that rose-and-mint fragrance, and it wouldn’t let him go. Not without telling her, “You smell good.”

“You smell…better than yesterday.” Her lips twitched as he drank in her pretty features. How long would it take him to count all the freckles on her face?

At least an entire, uninterrupted night. From dusk to dawn. And then maybe to dusk again.

She will do anything for him…except surrender.

Her Perfect Match

© 2013 Jess Michaels

Mistress Matchmaker, Book 3

Vivien Manning, the notorious Mistress Matchmaker, is tired. Tired of the parties, tired of the lovers, tired of being her. So she decides to leave London behind once and for all and start a whole new life.

But before she goes, she must tie up some loose ends, and makes a list that includes a man she’s never been fully able to let go—Benedict Greystone.

Benedict was broken when Vivien broke off their affair years ago. When she comes back into his life…and his bed…he isn't certain of anything except the power of their desire.

But as Vivien moves closer to disappearing forever, both of them begin to question if the past can be overcome and if love might be the one loose end that cannot be neatly tied up.

Warning: This book contains scenes of a powerful woman, unafraid of her sexuality, trying to find her way in the world. There is a brief scene of a threesome M/F/M and then one woman falling madly in love with one man. Proceed with caution, a fan and tissues.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Her Perfect Match:

Benedict saw Vivien coming across the room in his direction from the moment she turned ever so slightly. But that was nothing new. Whenever they were in the same space, he couldn’t help but be utterly aware of her and her every move. Her every breath. That was the curse of his feelings for her. They forced him to track her when he knew he should not.

His distraction must have been obvious, for the people he had been talking to a moment before moved off and left him alone as Vivien reached his side with a smile he knew too well. It was her false “mistress” expression meant to soothe and seduce. It wasn’t real.

“Benedict,” she said as she reached for his hands. She squeezed them briefly and then let them go, but the touch blasted him back in time to a night when they had lain out on the grass after making love, holding hands and staring up at the stars.

“Vivien,” he managed to croak out. “This is a lovely party you have thrown together for your friends.”

She tilted her head. “Yes. It isn’t my usual kind of event, but I’m happy to celebrate all four of them and their marriages.”

He swallowed back a biting word about her lack of desire for her own marriage and instead smiled. “Both the couples do look very happy.”

She shifted ever so slightly and then rushed into a new topic.

“How have you been? I have not seen you in…it must be a few months.”

Benedict pursed his lips. It had been four months, six days.

“Right after Christmas, I think it was,” he said. “I returned to London to take care of some business and saw you at the opera, wasn’t it?”

Her eyes widened when he could recount so many details, but he shook his head. If only she knew that he could recall even more. Like how her blonde hair had been styled in a different way that night. Like how she had smelled of lemons and rosewater. Like the exact cut and color of her blue gown.

He kept those details to himself. She had already rejected the idea that he would notice them. Rejected him. There was no changing that.

“I think you are correct,” she said. “How have you been since then?”

“Very well,” he replied, keeping up the same charade that she was. That they were acquaintances. “My family is well.”

“Good.” She remained smiling, but he could see the slight twitch in her cheek. Vivien had always known that his family did not approve of the relationship they’d shared.

Benedict clenched his hands at his sides. She had used that fact in her parting with him. Hidden behind their disapproval in a cowardly display when he knew there was more to her rejection of his heart. She had told him to move on with his life. And since that was what she wanted…

“I am being encouraged to marry,” he said, watching her carefully for her response. “And I believe it may well be time for me to make that commitment.”

She blinked. That was her only response. Just a flutter of her eyelids that betrayed she felt any deeper emotion about his announcement than she showed. It took her a moment to respond.

“I suppose it is time for you to pursue a new future.” She hesitated as if she was going to say more, but didn’t.

“Yes. A new future,” he repeated, but there was no pleasure in the words he spoke. They felt like sand on his tongue.

She tilted her head. “You do not wish for this?”

He bit back surprise that she would be so direct. “You know what I wish for.”

Now it was her turn to draw back. “Benedict—”

He waved his hand to silence her. “Please do not go through all your reasons for rejecting me. I have heard them all.”

She was silent for a moment, watching him with a hooded gaze he could not read. Then she moved closer. “Benedict, it is true I cannot accept any future you have offered me. We both know why.”

Except he didn’t, but he said nothing and she continued.

“But I would be lying if I told you that I didn’t still…think of you. Of us.”

He stared. Was this happening? Was she truly saying these things after three years of polite distance and pretending to be friends?