This bundle of Scottish romances includes my novel Lord Grayson’s Bride.
She can’t allow his love for her to destroy him…
When Nicholas Spencer, Earl of Grayson, returns to claim the woman he loves, Lady Josephine Knightly isn’t willing to forgive him for abandoning her six years ago. But neither can she resist the man he’s become.
Two days after Josephine signs the marriage contract she discovers a nasty secret that will destroy her family. The only way to protect them””to protect the only man she’s ever loved””is to disappear…or die.
Nicholas won’t make the same mistake twice and let Josephine Knightly go. She loves him. He felt it in their one kiss before he left, and in the single kiss she allowed since his return. But she’s doing everything in her power to sabotage the marriage even before it’s begun. Nicholas doesn’t care. If Hell is where he must live to have her, then she must stand by his side in the fire.
For a long moment, they stood toe to toe, Josephine’s heart pounding wildly. Then Nick’s arm lashed around her and he yanked her to him. His mouth crashed down on hers. Her head whirled and she shoved at his chest, as much to stop him as to halt the torrent of emotion that rammed through her. But Nicholas remained as unmovable as a stone wall, her hands trapped between them, his chest rising and falling with each powerful thump of his heart. This was all wrong, wasn’t what she had planned, and would ruin her. Worse, would ruin him. But his mouth moved on hers, hungry, demanding, as was his way with everything. He would have what he wanted. And he wanted her. God help her, she was drawn to him like a moth to a flame.
He groaned, deep and ferocious, and her knees weakened.
“Jo,” he murmured against her lips.
She couldn’t stop herself from entwining her tongue with his. He sparred, then sucked her into his mouth. Her stomach did a flip. Her father would never allow Nicholas to cry off if she gave him her virginity. She had to stop this, stop him. His hand slid down her back and over the curve of her buttocks, and he undulated his arousal against her abdomen.
Her head spun. What was that spell he cast over her? Her defenses””her resolve””had gone weak to the core. His fingers tightened on her derrière and he thrust against her again. In the next moment, he was backing her up. Her legs bumped into the couch and he lowered her onto the cushion. His body came down on hers, his weight pressing her down, one heavy thigh between her legs. This wasn’t the young man’s rise to passion as it had been when she’s been seventeen, and was well beyond the heart-stopping kiss they’d shared on the balcony a month ago. This raw male need demanded what had long been denied. What belonged to him.
His tongue thrust unhurriedly into her mouth while he slid a hand over the curve of her breast. Josephine shivered, all too aware of the hard ridge of his erection against her mons. He slid his mouth along her jaw, then her neck, and still lower. His lips grazed the rise of one breast and she gripped his shoulders. He teased, gently nipping at the flesh. When he levered himself up onto an elbow and grasped the first hook on her corset, panic shot through her.
“Nick,” she cried. “We can’t.”
But he silenced her with a kiss, and in seconds had undone the hooks on her corset. Her breasts sprang free, taut against her chemise. He came down fully on top of her, and kissed her again, hard and without mercy.
Through the muddle in her brain, she became aware of his warm palm covering a breast. The thin fabric of her chemise offered little protection against the heat of his flesh. He grazed a thumb over her nipple and a delicious sensation connected directly with the juncture between her legs. His fingers, long, warm, and strong kneaded the flesh, and she couldn’t bear the sensation. He thrust his rod against her mons and she suddenly understood the true danger was in the demand he was creating inside her, in that secret place that she had for so many years dreamed he might one day touch.
He broke the kiss and before she realized his intent, he sucked a nipple into his mouth and drew on the pink bud through the fabric. Pleasure shuddered through her. This was nothing at all like what Lord Beaumond had done to her. He’d pulled down her bodice and stared at the rise of her breasts above the corset as he unfastened his trousers. It had begun just as she’d hoped, quick and without emotion. Another moment and he would have taken her maidenhead without ceremony””and without any of the pleasure that was bombarding her senses now.
Nicholas shifted, then grasped her thigh. Cool air wafted across her legs and she realized he was pulling up her petticoats and skirt. She started when his fingers grazed the inside of her thigh. He stroked higher. A shiver rippled through her. A finger slid between the slit of her drawers and rubbed her lightly. Josephine gasped. Nick released her breast and kissed her again, this time gently. She shoved her hands beneath his coat and around his back. Muscle rippled beneath her fingertips. He groaned and eased his shaft along her thigh while still stroking the place between her legs.
Jo writhed beneath him, half desperate to break free of the overwhelming sensations and needing release so badly it hurt. But he caged her with the weight of his body, rubbing her a little quicker while flicking his tongue against her mouth. His breath came in short pants and Josephine vaguely realized that desire was heating his blood. Panic rose to the top. This mustn’t happen. She couldn’t bear to hurt him this way.
She turned her head aside, breaking the kiss. “Nicholas we mustn’t.”
“You would have with Beaumond,” he said in a savage voice. “You can with me. Did he make you feel this way?”
To win a a copy of Highland Winds, tell me about a funny holiday memory.
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