Sojourn with a Stranger Excerpt

Sojourn With A Stranger
K.Celeste Bryan
New Concepts Publishing

Setup:

Raine is summoned to Derek’s bedchamber to fulfill the first night of the contract she signed to bear his child. She can’t decide if she loves or hates the man.

Excerpt:

The temerity of her next action surprised her. She unbuttoned the front of her dress and allowed it to slip to the floor. She stepped out of it, and Derek rose, so assuredly, it gave her pause for a moment. He walked to the bed and pulled the bedcover back. Easing onto the mattress on his side, he rose up on one elbow, his intense blue eyes following her every move until she joined him.

Lying next to him, a gentle finger turned her face. “Last chance to tear up the contract,” he whispered. “Forget we agreed—”

His warm breath stirred the loose tendrils at her forehead. “I’ve never reneged on a promise in my life and I don’t intend to do so now.”

Derek lowered his head and claimed her lips. He smelled of sherry mingled with a faint, sweet aroma of tobacco. The kiss was sensual, arousing. His hand reached up to touch her face, the gesture so achingly tender, her resolve to hate him forever crumbled.

“I know this must be awkward for you,” he said capturing her eyes. “In light of how you feel about me.”

This wasn’t how she imagined it, and now that he’d kissed her, she wanted him to kiss her again. Strange sensations stirred in her body. She could only nod.

“So the sooner we get it over with, the better it will be for both.”

It must be the sherry, for all of a sudden she had the urge to laugh...at herself. She’d almost fallen for his false passion, his ability to turn her into a jellyfish with just one kiss. He’d no doubt done this countless times, taken a woman’s virtue without so much as a pinch of remorse. Well what did she expect, ardor, devotion, if not a smidgeon of affection? What a wooden spoon she was, and a soon-to-be charlatan to boot.

He must have taken her lack of a response as permission to proceed for his hand moved from her face to her neck before traveling slowly to cup her breast through the thin fabric of her undergarment. He untied the ribbons holding it together and eased it over her shoulders. The touch of his skin against her breasts shocked her. The books hadn’t prepared her for this. Panic rose. What else had the books failed to warn her about? She knew the mechanics of what was about to happen, but not once had the books warned her about the hot fire pedaling through her veins or the ache collecting in her belly and spreading out to every limb. Sensations she couldn’t seem to control. Nowhere had it been written that once he kissed her, touched her, she’d hunger for more, yearn for him to caress every inch of her skin, extinguish the licking flames coursing through her body.