The Writer and the Rake

by Shehanne Moore

  She’d cost him everything and nothing at all now he held her soft, warm body as close as this. What had he thought about her dropping from the skies? That night when he’d looked around and she’d gone, a black hole opened in his heart. The heart he’d only known she’d break.

  Now, she set her hand on his chest, he knew one thing. When he thought about the long hours without her and how the eight months had failed to drive her from his thoughts, he’d be making the mistake of his life to let her back in.

  “Brittany, I—”

  But, she was here wasn’t she, drenched in some exotic scent he’d never smelled before, more succulent than even he remembered with that strange trace of vulnerability, that he’d never seen in her eyes before either. How often had he searched them, searched her, for that? How often had he felt this woman completed him, regardless of the fact he didn’t want her to, how often had he gone down fighting? He just wasn’t used to being completed. He certainly wasn’t used to being completed by, what was it she’d said and Morte had told him she was, someone from his future?

  What did that mean? That in the future, people could come from other times? Hers must be awful to have produced someone like her. Still, he knew one other thing. He would sooner be with this woman this way, than without her. He bent his head. Nothing left to say really except the words that mattered most, the ones he’d never said to any woman in his life before. Had never thought to say. No woman had ever gotten beneath his skin as this one had.

  As always, the thrill of this woman being his ran through his blood. This bed of stars was the one he wanted to occupy with her. He traced his fingers over her face, then he wrapped his arms around her, leaned his chin on her shoulder. In for a penny, in for a pound. There was no going back if he said these words. Morte had told him that when he’d sailed into Killaine House to confront Mitchell about a month after she’d disappeared.

  “I love you, Brittany.”

  “You mean . . .”

  “And I’ll be with you whatever, whatever it takes. If that’s what you need to hear, I’ll say it. I should add—and you should know—I never say what I don’t mean. As for what we’re facing here, I don’t know any more than you do. I just know I’ll do my damndest to make this work every day, so you never go away again. You’ll never have to.”

  “I love you, Mitchell. I tried so hard not to, but I do. And I will love you till the days all turn to dust.”

  Also from Soul Mate Publishing and Shehanne Moore:

  THE VIKING AND THE COURTESAN

  In 898 AD she wasn’t just from another land.

  Wrecking a marriage is generally no problem for the divorce-obtaining Lady Malice Mallender. But she faces a dilemma when she’s asked to ruin her own. Just how businesslike should she remain when the marriage was never consummated and kissing her husband leads to Sin—a handsome Viking who wants her for a bed slave in name only?

  She came from another time.

  Viking raider Sin Gudrunsson wants one thing. To marry his childhood sweetheart. Only she’s left him before, so he needs to keep her on her toes, and a bed slave, in name only, seems just the thing. Until he meets Malice.

  One kiss is all it takes to flash between two times.

  But when one kiss is no longer enough, which will it be? Regency London? Or Viking Norway? Will Malice learn what governs the flashes? Can Sin?

  Where worlds collide, can love melt the iciest heart?

  Available on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/jxy9m4w