By popular request, here’s a bit from Rocky Mountain Ride, due out sometime…soon. Book 7 in the series, stars a hot blooded Spanish woman and a British lord, both drawn into dangerous events in the San Louis Valley, Colorado. In this excerpt, Sebastian and Francesca dance around their desires…

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When she studiously ignored him, he caught her arm and swung her to the side, back to the wall.

“Señora De La Vega. I am speaking to you.”

“Let me go,” she hissed, but not loud enough for anyone in the hacienda to hear. 

“I told you before, I will not tolerate disrespect. I have offered you nothing but my help—”

“Ha!” she spat.

“—but continue in this vein and your bottom will pay the price.”

She jerked at her arm, but he held it fast. “And just what do you mean by that?”

“What I mean is,” he stepped closer, “you are angling for another whipping.”  Close enough to feel her breath on his face, he got another shock when he saw heat leap into her eyes. Her eyes burned brighter, and his mouth almost dropped open.

“You want it,” he said hoarsely. “You want another…”

For a second, her lips parted, and her eyes half-lidded with desire. Then she wrenched her arm away.

“You sound like Bishop Bernardo. He once offered to whip me at all the stations of the cross, as penance for my sins.  Under the pretext of saving my mortal soul.”

Sebastian’s felt a surge of anger that the priest would suggest such a thing. If anyone was going to mark her skin, he wanted it to be him. He pretended to consider it. “A good whipping can send you straight to heaven through hell. And you need one, badly.”

“Do I, my lord?” she asked in a throaty whisper. Wanton seductress. She knew exactly what she was doing.

“You are playing with fire.”

She licked her cherry red lips and he could take no more.

“Perhaps Bishop Bernardo is right. You do need to be punished. And I’m just the one to do it.”

Triumph surged in her face.

“You,” she sneered and stepped back. “You are just a boy, Chivington. Spoiled and bored, playing at farming before he runs off to spend his father’s money. I need a man.”

“You will treat me with respect or I will teach it to you.” Stop, Sebastian, he scolded himself. This was ridiculous. He had to leave before he made a mistake, even if the little temptress begged for it.

For a second he indulged, stepping close enough to smell her sweet scent. In addition to the rose water in her hair, she had rubbed something on her skin and he breathed deep of the intoxicating aroma before deliberately stepping back and starting to walk away.

“You are afraid,” Francesca spat.

That was it.

He whirled and backed her against the wall. Birds chirped in the trees above them, but the peaceful bliss of the orchard didn’t penetrate the heated space between them. Sebastian’s anger pulsed along with his passion. Did Francesca live every moment with that hunger? It was all he could do to keep from throwing her to her hands and knees on the forest floor, pushing up her skirts and taking her from behind, slapping her ass and tugging her hair the whole time.

“I’m man enough to defend your honor. One of us is acting like a responsible adult, and it isn’t you. And you know what naughty little girls get?” He leaned closer. “Punished.”

Her pupils widened, eyes filling with darkness.

He stepped back, willing himself to get control. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t discipline her out here. “Go inside. Tell Ana I am taking a walk. Meet me in the apothecary. Understand?”

“Yes,” she said in a breathy voice. She started to go and he pulled her back roughly.

“Make me wait too long and I will double the strokes.”

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Things are heating up in San Luis Valley!