Then Came Love - Patricia Pellicane

Could they survive the pain only those who love deeply can know? She hated him beyond measure. After a year of torturous separation her feelings had only grown in strength. When would he leave? She couldn’t allow him to know her most carefully guarded secret. She couldn’t allow him to ever know.

He was tired of waiting for her to come to her senses, to return to him, to realise she’d made a mistake. She was the love of his life, he was taking what she refused to give. Fight him or not, she was his and was always going to be only his.



EXCERPT

“How much are you paying him?”

She pulled back and narrowed her gaze. “What are you talking about?”

“Is he an escort?”

“Would it soothe your ego if he were?” She laughed, partly in shock at his accurate guess and partly to cover her sudden nervousness. “What’s the matter, Rick? Is he too handsome? You really are obnoxious, aren’t you? I’m not allowed to have an attractive boyfriend, but you can show off a harem of bimbos. Where do you get them? Sluts R Us? Don’t they have any with less than a double D cup?”

Rick grinned. “Is that what you think they are? Bimbos? I’ll have you know Tracey is a very nice girl.”

Jackie wiggled her brows in unhappy sarcasm. “I’ll bet.”

“You want to know how nice?”

“No, I don’t want to know how nice,” she repeated nastily. “I don’t want to talk about her or you for that matter.”

“How very Jackie of you.”

She pulled back just a bit and frowned. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means just as long as you get to say what you please, there’s never a need to hear another’s side of the argument, is there?”

“What other side?”

He glared down at her, his gaze narrowing in anger. “You know what other side.”

She stiffened. “If you insist on talking about this, I’m leaving you on the floor.”

“Fine, we won’t talk. We won’t do anything but dance.” Jackie easily read the anger in his dark gaze. She didn’t care. He could rage at her from now until forever and she still wouldn’t care.


She wanted to pull out of his embrace and run, but to do so would tell him this meant more to her than it should. There was no way she would show this liar the slightest bit of weakness. As far as she was concerned, he was a nonentity, and she felt nothing towards him.

“There’s no point in trying to be romantic. You said yourself this is only a dance.”

“I love the way you smell.”

“Do you? You mean I smell better than Monica? How has she been, by the way?”

Rick stiffened as the mention of the woman. “Damn, but you really are a bitch, aren’t you?”

She glanced up, her features hard with hate. “It’s ‘a fucking bitch’, if I remember correctly.”

“Fine,” he said, knowing she referred to their last argument, the hateful things that were said. The frustration he’d known the night she’d left him, the first night in an endless year of curses. He moved her deeper into the crowded dance floor. Bodies swayed smoothly around them, enclosing them in almost total darkness.

Her head pounded; a pulse throbbed in her throat as his mouth lowered to her cheek. She took a deep calming breath. Her lips tingled. She needed to feel his mouth on hers. She strove to keep her gasping breath as smooth and silent as possible. She felt like crying as she struggled to breathe, while he hadn’t done anything more than brush his lips against her skin in whispery soft promises of pleasure. His mouth lowered again. Now his lips grazed the edge of her mouth. She wanted to turn into the kiss. God, she wanted it more than she wanted to live, but she somehow managed to keep to her control.

“Have you fucked lately, Jackie?” he asked on a low, warm breath. “Has your man been taking care of you?”

“What do you care?”

His hand on her hip slipped down her leg, around the front of her, between their bodies, inside her thigh and up. Under her short skirt, in the near total blackness of the dance floor, his hand moved higher. She didn’t stop him. She didn’t even try. He needed to know nothing he did could make a difference. Higher. His fingers moved higher and higher again.

Under her skirt, inside the tiny wisp of panties she wore, her pussy felt heavy, aching and soaking wet. She trembled with the need she knew for his touch, she was hotter than she could ever remember. Every nerve ending screamed for more, straining towards the coming pleasure. Pleasure only he knew how to give. His hand was inches from her heat. Inches from touching her, inches from where she wanted most to be touched. She forced back the moan that threatened.

Bodies pressed close. No one could see them, and they saw no one as they watched only each other. Eyes glittered with raw emotion, hate, anger, betrayal but most of all lust, a desperate want, until finally his fingers reached under the leg of her panties.

He groaned and closed his eyes in pleasure at the warm creaminess he found, while her knees trembled almost buckling beneath her. She reached an arm around his neck, her cheek against his chest and held on. This was going to be wild. She knew it and hadn’t the power to stop it.

He held her tightly with one arm, while the other under her skirt explored the folds of her body and centred at last upon her clit. “I love it when you cream for me, Jackie.”

“It’s not for you. It’s you and a hundred others.”

She felt his body tense against hers as he asked, “Has there been a hundred, Jackie?”

She hissed a low sound that was almost lost in the music surrounding them, even as she glared her hatred. He had some nerve. How did he dare to question her after all the women he’d been with?

What he was doing meant nothing. They both knew it meant nothing. He had no right to question her. He was a man, and she’d been too long without. It was as simple as that.

She wouldn’t turn away. He couldn’t make her turn away. It had been a year since he’d touched her last. A year of loneliness and pain, but she wasn’t about to whimper, to cry, to beg this liar, this cheat for more. “I don’t know. I never counted.”

God, why couldn’t other men feel like this? Why couldn’t they touch her like this? Why didn’t they smell like this? How did he alone have the power? It had been a year, but had it been ten she knew not one could do the things this man could. Damn him, damn his lying, cheating soul to hell.

Again his mouth brushed against the edge of her lips. “Just a kiss, Jackie. No one will ever know.”

“You will.”

“What? What will I know? Will I know you want me if you kiss me? Is that it? Is that what you’re afraid I’ll find out?”

She didn’t respond.

“I already know it, Jackie. I know you want me.”

“It doesn’t mean anything.”

“I know.”

“It doesn’t. Wanting isn’t love so don’t get your balls in an uproar.”

Rick grinned. “If I promise not to get my balls in an uproar, will you kiss me?”

Erotic Rating Total-e-burning
Genre Contemporary/ Romance
Cover art by Natalie Winters
Book Length Short Story
ISBN# 978-0-85715-250-3


Patricia Pellicane
for romance that sizzles
www.patriciapellicane.com
Temptation
Total-e-bound 7/5/10
Heat Wave
Resplendence 7/14/10
Tell Me You Love Me (In Print)
Total-e-bound 6/14/10

Temptation - Patricia Pellicane

Welcome to Happily Ever After Contemporay Week!

We're starting the week off with Patricia Pellicane. She's going to tell us how she came to write contemporary romance and give us a behind the story look into her latest release, Temptation. Welcome, Patricia! We're to have you here.

***

Why do I write Contemporary Romances?

For years I wrote only historical romances for Pocket, Zebra and Avon books. I enjoyed doing them. Each story was special to me and I expected to stay in that one field forever.

One day my editor at Zebra told me the company was opening a new line called Lucky in Love. I was one of its launch authors and delighted but nervous to try my hand at something other than historicals. As it turned out, I enjoyed writing contemporary romances at least as much as an historical. Actually I think they were hotter because you didn’t have to follow an unspoken rule about getting the heroine into bed too fast. For instance, you couldn’t take a woman from an Elizabethan era and put her in bed with the hero within a chapter or so. It was unlikely that something like that might have happened in those days, at least not with a decent woman. So the sexual tension was always at its highest, but the actual sex was farther into the book.

My books are character driven. So whatever they do it has to ring true to the time period.

Contemporary pieces are much more modern when it comes to sex. It can be and sometimes is almost instant, most especially with erotica.

Now I mostly switch from one to the other. I think it keeps my writing fresher and my stories more interesting.



Where did I get the idea?

Most of the time the ideas for my books come to me while I’m doing something mindless, like doing the dishes and cleaning my kitchen. Not this time. “Temptation” a contemporary romance begins with a woman sun bathing topless. A construction crew owner comes across her, never realizing she’s topless until he’s standing at her side, because she was facing away from him.

Years ago I lived in Vegas. While there I sunbathed all the time. No one realized in those days the damage that could be done to a woman’s skin. At least I didn’t and if I was told I managed to ignore the warnings. A tan looked great. During the day while the kids were in school, I sun bathed topless.

We lived in a mobile home park before we got our house. My neighbor next door was a huge, quiet guy, who never spoke a word to me, never even said hello, until he came home early one day. Obviously he saw me, not all of me, because I was sitting with my back to his place, but apparently he got the idea. A half hour later, I had my top on again, and breathed a sigh of relief that I had because he was suddenly standing at my side talking to me as if we were long lost friends.

My days of sunbathing topless came to an immediate end that day and surprisingly enough so did any conversation with my next door neighbor. Although on occasion he did wave and call out “Hello”.

Here's an excerpt from Temptation:

“Jesus!”

Maggie frowned and blinked her confusion, as the low guttural groan dragged her from the edge of sleep. For just an instant, she thought she’d imagined the sound, but a turn of her head immediately proved the notion to be false. A man stood at her side. A strange man! Remembering her half-naked state, she gasped and lunged to her feet, putting the lounge chair between them. Her shirt, grabbed on the way up, was crushed in her hands and covered little more than her nipples as she pressed it tightly to her bare breasts.

The man grinned. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone move that fast before.”

Maggie frowned and shook aside a moment’s dizziness. “What are you, an Indian? How come I didn’t hear you?”

He laughed. “Actually, I am. Just a small part, I’m told. You want to know which part?” He shrugged when she did not respond to his teasing. “You know what they say, if you hear an Indian…”

Maggie glared her annoyance.

“And you didn’t hear me because I walked on the grass.”

“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” she asked tightly, knowing a slight sense of alarm at being caught sunbathing, alone, behind a deserted mansion. There wasn’t a soul around, should she find the need to cry out, and she didn’t expect anyone for hours.

“Name’s Jeremiah. Russo sent me over. My crew is starting here tomorrow.”

Feeling slightly more at ease at his explanation, she sighed a derisive, “Great, and you came a day early just to make sure you wouldn’t be late?”

Jerry grinned at her sarcasm. “I came to look the place over, to see what I’m going to need in the way of supplies.”

“Far be it for me to tell you how to do your job, but if you needed to look the place over, why were you standing here, looking me over instead?”

Even as she spoke, he continued looking her over with some obvious appreciation, from her black hair that curled past her shoulders to her plumped up breasts, to the bottom of her string bikini, to her long, tanned legs and finally, to her polished pink toenails. “I saw you when I came around the corner of the house. I didn’t know you were topless until I reached you, what with you facin’ the ocean and all. I wish I could say I’m sorry, but…”

“But you’re not,” she said finishing the sentence for him, her tone clearly unhappy. Her hair moved gently with the soft breeze coming off the water, just beyond a distant line of trees.

He couldn’t hold back a low, wicked chuckle. “I came around back ‘cause no one answered when I rang the bell. Thought the place was empty, maybe the back door was open.” He gave a slight shake of his head and bit his bottom lip just before saying, “Damn, but you’re somethin’.”

Maggie decided not to ask exactly what he meant by that statement. She watched him for a long moment and thought he maybe had five years on her. He was tall, but so was she, and she thought only four or five inches separated them in height. His body… She shook her head. She was better off not thinking about his body and immediately knew the folly of that notion. She might not want to think about it, but there was no denying the man was gorgeous. No other word fit so perfectly. He wore cut-off jeans that hugged his sex just a bit too tightly, the hems torn and straggled came to his knees. His clean T-shirt, was punctuated here and there with holes, the neck and sleeves torn away. He looked ragged, rugged and dishevelled.
Her mouth watered.

His dark hair was too long, his cheeks and jaw in need of a shave. God, even that appealed. She’d seen hundreds of men dressed the same but couldn’t remember one so startlingly handsome, with eyes so incredibly blue, with thick, brown calves and arms that bulged with sinew and muscle.

His gaze was filled with amusement. Laugh lines crinkled at the corners of his eyes as he watched her long, slow perusal. Her heart fluttered. Damn. This one was just too tempting, and she didn’t want to get involved. It had been a while since she’d broken off with her ex-boyfriend, Andy. Still, she thought she might never be ready for a man like this one.

“Turn around,” she said and waited for him to do as much.

He did, with some obvious reluctance, his gaze alive with humour. “You should know you don’t have to go to any trouble on my account. I’d be perfectly comfortable if you left the shirt off.”

“Right,” Maggie muttered. She turned as well and shoved her shirt over her head. Quickly, she pulled it into place and slipped her feet into her sandals.
* * * *

Maggie and Jeremiah finished looking over the third floor. At the moment, he stood just inside Maggie’s bedroom door and watched with a frown as she casually pulled cut-off jeans over her bikini bottoms, even as she continued their conversation.

“I like the feel of this place,” she said. “If possible, I’d like to keep as much as I can of the Victorian flavour. I don’t want new and modern except for the kitchen.” She was buttoning the jeans into place as she led him from the room. “I want claw-foot tubs in all the baths. Pedestal sinks and old fashioned mirrors. I’ll pick them out, but you get the idea?”

He nodded.

Moving along the wide hallway, she opened each door as she indicated her needs. “Each bedroom on the both floors will have its own bath. There should be enough room on the third floor for three suites, maybe two of them with sitting rooms. I have some rough drawings in my briefcase. This floor, the second, will have five bedrooms, all with sitting rooms. We’ll look my plans over together, and you can tell me if I’ve left anything out. You’ll need to check with the building department about fire escapes.

“Down here,” she continued as they descended the wide staircase, “there are a few rooms on the opposite side of the kitchen. I’ll need them modernised, new bath and,” she shrugged then waved her hand, “whatever it takes. I’m using one of them for my office right now, or I will be once a desk and a few office supplies get here. They’ll be the manager’s private quarters.”

“Have you a place of your own somewhere?”

Maggie offered a questioning glance. “In the city. I’m not there much. Why?”

Jerry shrugged. “Just wondering where you keep your things. Your bedroom,” he nodded towards the ceiling, indicating the large room she’d take for herself, “doesn’t hold much in the way of personal stuff.”

She frowned again. “What do you mean? What kind of personal stuff?”

“Books, CD’s, TV.” He shrugged. “I don’t know, just things.”

She nodded. “I don’t have much with me. I’ve books in my car, and I’ll buy whatever else I need as I go along.” She shook her head. “There’s no point in a TV until the cable is set up. By the time that’s done, I’ll be ready for my next project.”

She changed the subject as they entered the kitchen. “I’m going to need all new appliances in here. I’ve done commercial kitchens before so I know what’s needed. I’ll give you a copy of my list in a minute. The town’s inspectors will have the last say, but you should know the building codes.”

He nodded as he continued to mark a small pad with indecipherable scratching. “You aiming to run this place after it’s done?”

Maggie shook her head. “I don’t run B and Bs. I create them, put them in the hands of a management group and eventually sell.”

“And you’re living here in the meantime?”

Maggie shrugged. “It’s comfortable enough.”

“Sort a big and lonely though.”

“Not lonely. Quiet. I like quiet.”

He looked around the kitchen as they spoke. “You should do this room first. It will take the most work.”

She nodded her agreement and turned. “Most everything looks good in the dining room except the floor all the woodwork needs to be refinished. I’d like to keep as much of it as possible, but it needs to be stripped and repainted. Oh and I want French doors that will lead out to a huge patio and gardens beyond that.”

“Wait a minute,” he said as she moved to leave the room. “There’s a lot to do before we start on carpentry and refinishing woodwork. If I have more than two crews working at once, they just get in each other’s way.”

“How many men are in a crew?”

He shrugged. “Depends. I can get one on the roof and one to gut the kitchen, while the plumbers start on the bathrooms.” He checked his notes. “They’ll have to stop once the kitchen is ready for them.” Again, he looked at his notes. “And we’ll need to take some of the storage space for the third bath on the top floor.”

“Take what you need and close off the rest. Have one of the plumbers draw up the plans, and I’ll okay them.”

He nodded. “I’ll draw them up.” Again, he looked the room over. “All these cabinets have to go. Dry rot,” he said as he opened one of the bottom doors and watched a quarter of it crumble to dust in his hand. “I’ll order a dumpster.”
Maggie nodded. “One will be here tomorrow.”

“The stove, too,” he said with a frown. “It looks like it’s been here since the turn of the century. I wouldn’t try lighting it.” Then he added, without even a glance in her direction, “What are you doing for dinner?”

“What?” she asked with a frown, for his question in the midst of a conversation centred solely on construction and plumbing was totally out of place.

“You have to eat don’t you? And you can’t cook here. So…”

Maggie watched his grin and oddly enough felt a flutter in her chest. “Does that smile always work for you?”

His grin grew wider. “It should. My folks spent a fortune on an orthodontist.”

“I hope you thanked them.”

.



Patricia Pellicane
for romance that sizzles
http://www.patriciapellicane.com/
Temptation
Total-e-bound 7/5/10
Heat Wave
Resplendence 7/14/10
Tell Me You Love Me (In Print)
Total-e-bound 6/14/10