Alexandra Ryans’s life has been anything but normal. Some might even call it a fairy tale. As the daughter of the former U.S. ambassador to England, she grew up within the palace walls, best friends with the three young princes. Adored by the press and the British people. What more could a girl want?
If only the press knew the real story behind her relationships with the Dudley boys. Then, they’d really sell some papers.
Oliver Dudley, youngest son and third in line for the throne, loves everything about his life. The fame. The parties. The women. The utter lack of expectations and responsibilities that come with being last in the line of succession. But while the world thinks he has everything he wants, there’s one thing he was never able to call his own—the beautiful and spunky American Aly Ryans. But how can he convince her when she hates everything about his life? And what is he willing to give up to get her?
“Do what?” I breathe, finding it hard to concentrate on anything but the way his fingers feel against my body.
“Talk down about yourself like you’re not the single most amazing girl in all the world,” he replies. He places a finger under my chin, so I am forced to look at him. I reach up to run my hand down my hair, but Ollie catches it. He brings my hand up and places it over his heart. “You don’t have to be nervous around me, Ryans. I’ll never do anything you don’t want me to do.”
I look at the way his hand covers mine, so gentle, yet so protective. How safe the sight of our hands together makes me feel. “I don’t know what I want,” I admit.
Ollie squeezes my hand before letting it go. He takes a step back. “That’s all right, too,” he replies, offering a small, pained smile.
“Ollie.”
“Good night, Ryans. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says before turning away.
“Ollie! Wait!” I call out. “I want you to kiss me. I don’t know why I want it, or what it means to want it. All I know is that’s what I want right now.”
Ollie doesn’t hesitate. In a matter of milliseconds, he’s back in front of me, hands on my face, pressing me back against my bedroom door. His lips inches from mine. And then he stops. He eyes search mine, and I think I’ll die from waiting. “Ollie,” I beg, my voice all throaty.
“I’ve thought about what it would be like to kiss you again for three years. Let me have a few seconds to enjoy it, Ryans,” he replies, roughly. Three years? Had Ollie been pining for me for three years? Me? He licks once at his lips, and I groan. The side of his mouth twitches, and I’m about two seconds from punching him right in the gut for making me beg for it.
Newly divorced Professor Evie Brown notices her student Cameron Slade and how attentive he seems, so totally unlike her ex-husband. Cameron is also delicious to look at, all taut body, broad shoulders, and hot eyes. He’s forbidden territory, but one late afternoon as she pleasures herself in an empty lecture hall, she looks up to find she’s not alone. He’s there…watching her.
And then there’s Sophie Walker. Ever since Evie met the sensual woman, she’s allowed her inhibitions to unreel, one by one. It’s Sophie who’s been sharing Evie’s erotic awakening, Sophie who she yearns for. Or is it?
cerpt:
I wipe clean the whiteboard, enjoying the push of the felt, swinging from side to side as I move, the squeaking sound it makes as it erases the past three hours’ worth of hard work. An image replays over and over—that unexpected reveal of Cameron’s torso—a handspan of bareness, the grooved shadow of muscle. It was a shock to the sterility of that lecture hall. My mouth waters. Bare, taut skin—that male skin, so much rougher, harsher than a woman’s.
Male.
I replace the lids on the markers and switch off the projector. Alone. Facing late afternoon emptiness.
If Cameron were to give me something I’d like... I’d like him, close to me, all sweet-sandy raw male youth, at my knees. Male.
I swallow back the desire that is starting to slither through me, stroking the space between my neck and collarbone. Cameron. I picture the way he ran his hands through his lightly gelled hair, the bulge in his arms as his hands extended behind his head. The soft curve of his lower lip. That vulnerable stretch of torso that was making my mouth salivate like a beast before its slaughter.
A PERFECT DISGUISE
As security chief of the supernaturals’ ruling council, Michaela Chui has seen more than her fair share of disaster. For centuries, she’s survived through caution and strategy. But when the only human councillor is viciously murdered, Michaela knows the coincidences that keep blocking her investigation are a sure sign of bad things to come. She needs answers fast. And her only ally is Cormac Redoak: wild, unpredictable, unreliable—and worse, distractingly attractive.
A HIDDEN TRUTH
An exile from the court of the Fairy Queen, Cormac has all the experience with careful strategy and veiled intentions he can stand. But he also has the fey talent for getting his way, and he’s sure his way lies with Michaela’s. No matter that she can change her lovely face at will; there’s a clarity to her being that he’d know anywhere. Working with her will be temptation and frustration bound together. Somehow, though, he must convince her to trust him—without revealing the secrets he dares never share . . .
Michaela locked the car door and was checking the handle when a soft, low growl came from behind her.
“Councilor. You’re here early.”
Not now. It was too early in the morning. She steeled herself to face Cormac Redoak, exiled fey, special ambassador to the Pharos Council, and world-class pain. “Ambassador,” she said briskly, heaving her bag over her shoulder.
“May I take that for you?” Even after centuries away from the fey homeland, he still had a bit of an accent, almost but not quite Irish.
“No.” She walked towards the door. Although they had known each other for decades, she’d had few conversations with him, and in fact tended to avoid him. Not because of the wild rumors that surrounded his exile from the fey court or because she’d been on the receiving end of more than one of his inquisitions when she’d objected to his schemes. He was too erratic for her. Wild. Unstable. Even his eyes refused to stay a single color. Right now they were a light jade but could easily change to gray or brown depending on his mood.
This criticism was grossly hypocritical coming from a masquerada and she knew it. Her eyes, like the rest of her, could be transformed in a breath to become part of any masque she chose. That was the point, though. While Cormac was at the mercy of his emotions, she needed to keep perfect control at all times. Failure—if her masque slipped and humans witnessed a shift—would result in a breach of the Law. Worse, she could lose her natural self in a sea of other personalities: the dreaded convergence. Cormac said what he wanted, did what he wanted, and damned the consequences. The ambassador was not a man who accepted limits to his desires and it made her wary.
“I want to speak about our discussion the other day,” he said. She didn’t bother to look at him. “By discussion you mean when you attempted, and failed, to humiliate me in front of half the Council?”
He made an airy details, details gesture. “I asked for a simple clarification.”
“About a subject you had no business with and at a meeting to which you were not invited.” She reached out to pull the door open but he moved in front of her with the fluid grace typical of the fey. For a moment she breathed in his unique pine scent—the one thing she enjoyed about him. Then she silently brushed by with a nod of thanks, mind already on the day’s agenda. She had about ten minutes before she was due to meet Madden, enough time for a few emails and to re-check her calendar.
“I assumed my invitation was lost. Luckily Hiro told me about it.”
She kept walking. “Which he also had no business doing. We have meeting procedures for a reason.”
“Procedures are for the masses.” He paused when they reached her office door. “Look, Michaela, my point remains valid.”
Michaela opened the door. “As I said before—” Her voice trailed off as she flicked on the light. “Good God.”
Cormac peered in, then tried to block the door. “You don’t want to see this.”
Did the man not remember she was the Pharos security chief? She shoved him aside. “That’s Hiro. In my office.”
Cormac stood beside her, his cool skin brushing her hand. “It was Hiro,” he corrected. “It’s not anymore.”
In ancient Greece, one of the twelve labours of Heracles was to bring back a golden apple from the Garden of Hesperides. To archaeologist Oriel Anderson, joining a team of Greek divers on the island of Helios seems like the golden apple of her dreams.
Yet the dream becomes a nightmare when she meets the devilish owner of the island, Damian Lekkas. In shocked recognition, she is flooded with the memory of a romantic night in a stranger’s arms, six summers ago. A very different man stands before her now, and Oriel senses that the sardonic Greek autocrat is hell-bent on playing a cat and mouse game with her.
Oriel had been sitting on the boulder for a long time, gazing distractedly towards the water, when she became vaguely aware of something moving in the shallows. The moon had by now disappeared behind a bank of cloud, extinguishing the glitter of the waves and the silvery patina on the rocks. The shift in darkness of the night sky made it difficult to see what had rippled the surface of the water. Frogmen night diving, she thought, or the slight undulation of the sea in the warm, salty breeze. She didn’t give it another thought, returning her attention to the winking lights of fishing boats on the horizon – and then, abruptly, he emerged …
It was a man, but not one wearing a wetsuit, fins or diving mask; this one was almost naked, his modesty barely protected by what could only be defined as an apology for a low-rise brief. He was no mere trick of the light. Sleek and glorious, he was suddenly hurtling out of the water, throwing spray off his body like Poseidon rising from the waves.
Oriel’s breath caught in her throat as she watched him, a small frown crinkling her brow. A curious sense of apprehension seeped into her veins. In the near-darkness he looked large, somewhat menacing and disturbingly masculine as he strode through the shallows. There was an air of unquestioned dominance about this man, an arrogant power that expressed itself in the controlled motion of his body as he sauntered on to the beach.
For that fateful minute, she was totally helpless, in the grip of emotions too basic to be controlled by rational thought. Instead of turning to leave quickly, she continued to stare at the stranger who had materialized like a Greek god wading from the depths of the sea. The moon slid into view again, throwing a wash of silver over long muscular legs and narrow hips, wide shoulders and a sculpted torso, all combined in a vibrantly athletic stance. As his approaching form became more discernible, each smooth, fluid curve of muscle, each long line of sinew and bone, and each angular feature glistened with a radiance that stabbed Oriel straight to the heart. Hair as dark as the devil’s soul was dripping wet across his forehead and he lifted his hand to slick it away from his face, the moonlight catching every droplet that glittered like tiny diamonds across his skin.
All at once, Oriel gathered her wits, conscious that she too was only lightly clad, just a muslin sarong covering her bikini. She remembered her mother’s warning that it wasn’t wise for a woman to venture out alone on a deserted beach, and she stood up to hurry back to her hotel, quickly tucking the letter and photograph into her sarong.
Too late! She had barely taken a step before she found herself confronted by the tall, dark figure. Well above the average height of other Greek men, he towered over her, a dark silhouette against the moonlit sky. His eyes gleamed like steel against his deeply tanned skin as his gaze wandered over her and then rested upon her hair, which cascaded heavily down her back, pale and shining as the moon on the water. He had a strong masculine face, rather insolent and somewhat primitive – so much so that despite the tinge of fear fluttering through her, Oriel couldn’t help but feel mesmerized by this Adonis.
‘What brings a beautiful girl to such a deserted place on this enchanting night?’ he asked in English. His obvious Greek accent gave a delightful, smoky edge to his deep voice and sent an involuntary warmth up her spine. Slicking back his wet dark hair once more, he studied her openly. ‘You look like the ocean nymph, Calypso, waiting for Odysseus on your island, ready to bewitch him with your mesmerizing voice.’
Oriel had been too startled, too alarmed, to reply at first. His comment was unexpected, and those glittering grey eyes seemed to hold her prisoner, flickering with amusement and something more intense. It was she who was bewitched.
‘I thought I was alone,’ she murmured, finally finding her voice.
His mouth quirked. ‘So did I.’ He nodded behind him. ‘I dropped anchor back there to come in for an evening swim. It’s been a hot day.’ His eyes returned to her, intent and appraising.
Oriel’s gaze flitted away and caught sight of a small boat, moored next to the rocks to her left. Partially obscured by the craggy ridge that shaped the deserted cove, only the top of the sail was visible, billowing gently in the balmy breeze. She’d been too preoccupied by her brooding thoughts to notice its arrival.
She felt an urge to push past this handsome stranger and run away to the safety of her hotel bedroom, but something about this man had held her there, transfixed. The intriguing power of his personality gripped her imagination. This stranger could have stepped straight out of Homer’s Odyssey.
A silky platinum lock slipped from the scarf Oriel had tied around her head in a band to keep her heavy, tumbling mane in place, and the breeze blew it across her face. He reached out a bronzed hand with tapering long fingers and lightly pushed the strand away, before caressing the length of her hair almost reverently. There was a sultry burn now in the gaze that wandered from her hair to her mouth and then settled on Oriel’s wild doe eyes, which stared back at him. Her stomach curled with instinctive heat.
She felt the impulse to escape, like a fawn fleeing into the brush. Instead, she stood there, pulse racing, her legs trembling as an unfamiliar and exquisite sensation flooded the lower part of her body. It was madness! Never before had this sense of danger – of seduction – hit her with such potency. Surely it was the island air that had gone to her head like an enchanted potion.
The dark waves murmured on the sand, their gently rolling edges lit a luminous blue under the moonlight. Everything was cloaked in unreality and it was as if the two of them were caught in a dream. Oriel sensed that the mysterious stranger before her was also aware of the extraordinary atmosphere that engulfed them.
His fingers were still touching her hair and she backed away. This man was so overwhelming, and she was disorientated. In a sudden, desperate panic, Oriel turned to run, hardly looking where she was going, her bare feet stumbling through the wet sand in the silver-washed half light. Before she had time to register it, her foot came into contact with something hard and she tripped and went sprawling forwards. In the same split second she was jerked sideways by a pair of muscular arms as the Greek god sprang forward and caught hold of her, their bodies colliding in mid-air.
Oriel gave a choked cry. The stranger fell with her, holding her, his body going into a complicated twist just before they hit the sand so that she landed on top of him, the fall softened for her by his body. She lay winded for an instant; then, before she was over the shock, he took her by the shoulders and gently slid her from him sideways. She found herself on her back, staring up at the milky moonlit sky. His bulk arched over her, blotting out the moon with the dark circle of his head, and she looked wildly up at him as the weight of his muscled body pressed down, splaying her against the sand.
‘Don’t!’ she cried out, struggling in his arms. His skin was hot and smooth, and she fought the impulse to relax and let herself melt into him.
The stranger’s eyes glittered and held hers beneath the perfect arc of black eyebrows. ‘You were headed for a nasty fall on that rock, you should look where you’re going.’ His was a face out of Greek tragedy itself. It was so close to hers that Oriel felt his warm breath on her cheek and her pulse quickened; with it came an acute awareness: the needs she had suppressed for years were suddenly rushing to the surface. An aching feeling was invading her lower limbs, a strange weakness. It was magnified a hundredfold when he leapt to his feet and a strong brown hand helped her up, his powerful frame looming over her. His silver eyes skimmed the taut curve of her breasts and she prayed her flimsy bikini top was displaying no signs of her arousal.
He didn’t let go of her hand as his eyes bored into hers. ‘You’re trembling, beautiful Calypso.’
Oriel blinked. He was terrifyingly attractive. She pulled her hand from his, now embarrassed at her clumsy attempt to flee. ‘It’s nothing. Thank you.’
His sensuous lips stretched into a slow smile, uncovering a row of pure white teeth. ‘You must have been here centuries ago, waiting for me on your island.’ Even his speech was theatrical. She found herself returning his smile and entered into the spirit.
‘And who were you?’ she breathed, the question almost catching in her throat; she already knew the answer.
‘Odysseus, of course. Remember? I was shipwrecked and washed up on the shore of this island. You fell in love with me and held me prisoner, but you weaved your magic spell over me with your beautiful long hair, spun from moonbeams, your mesmerizing voice and enticing body, and your manipulative ways.’
Oh, he was daring and arrogant – and irresistible, too. Despite herself, Oriel took up his allusion of the ancient Greek myth and ventured boldly down the same path, perilous though it was. ‘And even though I promised to make you immortal, you refused and wanted to return to Ithaca and your wife.’
Now it was the stranger’s turn to look surprised. He regarded her with amusement. ‘We made love and I was lost for seven years.’
‘But it was me who saved you and built the boat that eventually took you home.’
Finally he laughed, transforming the hardness of his features into an expression that was devastating, making Oriel’s heart leap. Even the sound of his laughter was huskily exotic. ‘Maybe you do not believe in the reincarnation of souls,’ he said.
‘I’ve never really thought about it.’
The images he evoked made Oriel long for him to take her in his arms, to be clasped by those strong hands that had stroked her hair with such gentleness … To lose herself beneath that powerful body again.
Surrounded by such beauty and serenaded by the sea, it was as though they were trapped in time. Maybe it was the lingering adrenaline of her anger at the contents of the letter and her heightened nervous system. Perhaps it was the nature of this deserted place that made everything seem like an alluring fantasy. Or maybe it was simply that this man was unlike any other Oriel had ever met. He was no Odysseus, she decided: that Greek hero had been a mere mortal. Indeed this man seemed the personification of Poseidon himself.
His eyes glinted darkly and pinned her with their glimmering steel, setting her nerves tingling. Had he read her thoughts? Was he aware of the emotions he had stirred up as he plucked at needs deep within her that no one had yet aroused? Oriel’s was dry, her lips parched, and she passed the tip of her tongue over them.
Oh Lord, there was no sense to this!
Shocked at her disturbing reaction, she stepped forward to move past him. ‘I’m sorry … I need to go,’ she murmured, but his fingers caught hold of her wrist. She felt the strength of them, before his thumb brushed sensually against her skin, caressing it, melting her very insides.
‘Don’t break the spell,’ he said faintly, his voice low and hoarse. Close to this man, every sensible instinct told Oriel that she had been right to make a run for it, but as the shifting moonlight caught and held in his irises, she stared into them, profoundly aware of his dark masculine beauty and power. Sometimes it took only a single glance to say everything and, in that moment, she felt her old beliefs crumble inexorably around her. She lowered her eyes and a frisson of emotion ran through her body.
