by Blue, Mel
Now, she wants to light a flame under their cold marriage, but they’re strangers and don’t know how to connect. A New Year’s weekend at The Beaudelaire is supposed to give them the tools to connect. When they arrive, they learn the tool they’ve been equipped with comes in form of Eve’s best friend and fellow doctor Remy Kelly. He knows Eve’s marriage is a sham, and is intent on claiming her for himself. But, when faced with Eve’s strapping new husband who comes onto Remy’s radar as exactly the kind of alpha male he likes, he has a battle of conscience. He wants to take Eve home, not Brent, but for some reason they seem like a package deal.
At the Beaudelaire anything goes, so instead of two people letting down their guards, three forge bonds. That’s all well and good for the weekend, but what will shake out of their tentative ménage à trois when it’s time to go home?
***
Wicked Surrender, Den of Sin
To indulge in your most wicked desires…
After kicking her cheating ex-boyfriend to the curb, Kris Delacourt became celibate. Her grudge against the opposite sex has rendered her love life non-existent. The one thing that hasn’t been reduced is her sexual appetite. Kris is tired of spending her nights playing with hard plastic and silicone. She wants a real man. Spending a night at the Den of Sin sounds like the kick start she desperately needs. She doesn’t expect to meet one of the World’s Most Eligible Bachelors there. This isn’t the first time she’s met Travis Brenden, but it seems he doesn’t even remember her.
…would you surrender control?
Travis Brenden is a man who treasures being in control and he relinquishes it for no one. An invite to an exclusive event leads him to cross paths with a woman who seduces him with one innocent glance and erupts a torrid desire deep inside him. He dubs her the Temptress. Within the Den of Sin, he can indulge without the high expectations that come with his social status. Yet, something about this temptress jogs his memory to no end and while he’s with her his control begins to slip.
***
Redeeming the Amazon
Most come to the Beaudelaire Hotel a select few times a year just to indulge in sexual fantasy, but the stakes are higher for Karen Freeman and Paul Beaudelaire. Karen is nine years post-op from a double mastectomy, and her vain ex-husband hadn’t agreed with her decision to remove her remaining good breast or to eschew reconstruction. In the end, that decision cost her. She lost her marriage, but she’s certain the move has prolonged her life.
Returning to a normal dating and sex life has been difficult. She hasn’t made love fully unclothed since the demise of her marriage, and her most significant relationship occurred right after her surgery. When she was still recuperating, she had an affair of the heart with a Marine amputee who’d also been her Ph.D. classmate.
Paul Beaudelaire once led a charmed life as a ladies’ man who had his pick of women in the upper echelons of New Orleans society. He’d been satisfied to continue in that vein, until a Marine recruiter wooed him from LSU with tales of valor, courage, and commitment. His career in the corps cut short by the loss of his left leg, Paul returned to New Orleans with the best prosthesis Johns Hopkins orthopedics experts could fit him with. However, he left his heart in Baltimore with a beautiful former model, whose crippled marriage was the only deterrent to his waning honor.
Will this fantasy weekend at his uncle Henri’s hotel give him a second chance with his contemporary Amazon, or will her fear of rejection be a barrier to their reconnection?
AN EXCERPT FROM FORBIDDEN RENDEZVOUS
***
Blurb
When the Beaudelaire Hotel turns into a Den of Sin for the New Year’s weekend, any and every fantasy can become a reality…
Seraphina Gibson orchestrates fantasies, but this year she’ll create one of her own. It’s against the rules for an employee to participate in the weekend-long sex-capade but she’s willing to risk it for Luke Moreland. The man’s a mystery, but in a sea of CEOs and Fortune 500 billionaires, he stands out. His past and connection to her boss is clouded in intrigue, but she knows what he wants, and she plans to star in one of his voyeuristic trysts.
Born with a silver spoon Luke Moreland is used to getting everything he desires. Being next in line of his family’s winery leaves him very little time to take advantage of his riches. For a weekend, out of every year, he gets to feel the thrill of the chase. Not even in his sexual fantasies does he like to lose control, but then Seraphina walks into his playroom. He doesn’t know the truth of her past, but he knows the risk she’s taken to be with him. That doesn’t matter. He’s going to spend the next two days with her in his bed and keep her secret.
When reality crashes into their fantasy, will they survive?
***
Luke kept his word by accepting the file after the late evening dinner, but put his hand on the door to stall her exit. He hadn’t given her much room. Still, she managed to turn around without touching him. The wine put a beautiful glow in her cheeks. He liked to believe it was his company that made her eyes sparkle. A bit darker than whiskey, her irises lit from within. When they first met, the hidden spark in her eyes is what drew him to her.
“Seraphina.”
“It’s Ms. Gibson but, yes, Mr. Moreland?”
He laughed at the cool tone. Not once had she stopped being Henri Beaudelaire’s personal assistant, professional to a fault, but during the dinner she’d shown warmth and humor while evading his probing questions.
“Call me Luke. I insist.”
She gripped the files to her chest. Not that he could see anything but a hint of her femininity. She wore pants suits and not even a button was left open to tease him with a view of her dark-olive skin. When alone, at the end of the day, would she take the pins out of her hair and free the ebony strands? It killed him to be this close to her and yet so far from touching, seeing the woman underneath the professionalism.
“Was there something you forgot to ask me during your interrogation?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She pursed her lips, but the corners of her mouth turned up. “I think Mr. Beaudelaire would like to know you hold his staff hostage.”
Henri would be displeased that he’d shamelessly flirted with any of his staff. Doing more than flirting? Now that would cause trouble their friendship didn’t need. They used to be close as brothers. It had taken the last four years to be more than casual associates.
With that in mind, he considered Seraphina and just how far he could take this. “Have dinner with me. One that isn’t a ruse for work.”
“No.”
He hadn’t expected her to say yes, yet, but the quick refusal without any trace of doubt in her tone confused the hell out of him. She’d enjoyed herself. He could pick up on the slightest discomfort or sign that someone really didn’t like him. He’d honed that skill in college when his world fell apart. He used the skill in all his business dealings.
Henri had his rules, but Luke had suspected Seraphina didn’t let anyone in. “Are you seeing someone?”
“No.”
“Shitty childhood?”
“No,” but she said it with a laugh. “Back up.”
He took two steps and crossed his arms. She had room to leave now, but she only pressed her shoulders against the oak door. Usually he let her be, but this year there was something different about her. He didn’t care what it was. He welcomed it.
“Then tell me why,” he said.
“You’re a customer. It’s against the rules.”
The answer sounded recited. “And if I wasn’t?”
Her smile faded. “No. I will never go to dinner with you.”
Without thought, he stole back the space he’d given her, and he took just a bit more. Her chin tilted up, and if he wasn’t aware of the line he was crossing Luke would have kissed her. Still, he brushed his fingers over her chin. Smooth. Warm. She shivered. Luke’s cock hardened at the subtle but telling reaction.
He wanted to watch her eyes glaze over
from pleasure. How did she touch herself? Rough or soft? How would her skin look flushed and slicked with sweat? He could almost hear her breathless moan.
“That’s too bad.” He meant the words. He’d forget about Joss in a heartbeat if he could spend the weekend with Seraphina. Slowly watching her unravel every bit of herself to him…he’d pay money to see that. His hand clenched into a fist.
He was letting his control slip. She hid her true self from him and that was as good as lying. She bit her lip. Still he wanted her. “Well, thank you for eating with me,” he said, capping any interest in his tone. “At least once.”
She nodded. “I’ll contact Joss and let her know where to go. I’m booking the room you always use. I just need to know if you prefer after lunch or closer to dinnertime.”
He put away the need and the yearning for her and took another step back. “Dinnertime should be fine. I’ve missed New Orleans and I want to check out the town first. There’s practically a bench in Jackson Square with my name on it.”
She started to open the door. “Anything else I can help you with, you don’t hesitate to call, Mr. Moreland.”
He chuckled, trying to release the wild need to push the door closed again and cross that damn line. “You can call me Luke.”
The smile whipped out and he held his breath. “I hope you enjoy your stay, Mr. Moreland. Until next year.”
It was one thing to be professional to a fault. Another to be smart enough to fuck with someone while doing it. He couldn’t let her off that easily. “You know what, the more I think about Joss, the more I’m uncertain if she’s the right one.” He talked over her gasp. “Leave the files and I’ll let you know what I decide tomorrow morning.”
“You know I can’t leave until you make a choice.”
He shrugged. “I’m sure Henri will understand.”
“I can’t leave.”
He paused for dramatic effect. “I don’t know. Maybe you should read her file to me.”
She shook her head. “Or call you by your first name?”
He sighed. “I’m feeling incredibly indecisive.”
“Lucifer,” she muttered so low he barely heard it.
But he had. “Didn’t catch that,” he managed to say without laughing.
Indecision played over her features until she straightened her shoulders. “I’ll read the file.” She smiled, and a mischievous glint filled her eyes. “Where do you want me to start?”
Taken off guard, he stammered. Her smile widened, because she’d called his bluff and he’d flustered. Him. He could back down, but the next time they did this she’d know just how far he’d go to get a rise out of her.
He couldn’t waver, otherwise their time together would lose the frisson it usually had. So, Luke cleared his throat and waved her back to the table. Who would have thought she’d rather continue to call him by his last name than to read something explicit out loud?
Heat flushed his face and he wanted to open the balcony doors again, but if she wouldn’t say his name, she sure as hell wouldn’t take his jacket. He’d noted her nipples pressed hard against her white shirt, but she hadn’t complained about the cold.
When she settled into the chair across from him, he took in the tremble in her fingers as she opened the folder. Fuck. He tended to be a jackass from time to time, but this might be too much.
“Seraphina, you don’t—”
“I’ll start with my hand.” She ran her fingertips over the papers. “I know there are toys I can choose from, but the most intimate way you can get to know me is with my hand. I love to feel the way my clit swells the more turned on I get.” She glared up at him. “Do you want me to stop?”
ABOUT MEL BLUE
Melissa Blue’s writing career started on a typewriter one month after her son was born. This would have been an idyllic situation for a writer if it had been 1985, not 2004. Eventually she upgraded to a computer. She’s still typing away on the same computer, making imaginary people fall in love.
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