THE LOVER EXCERPT...

 

Sex was an exciting game. A dangerous game.

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She played with the stem of her glass. “You have been with many women.”

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“Yes.

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First in France, then in England.

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“Have you brought each one of them to orgasm?”

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Echoes of passion long gone but never forgotten reverberated inside his head. Each woman made a particular sound when she reached her peak.

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“Every woman.” Michael curved his fingers around his glass, shaping it as he would a feminine breast. “Every time.”

 

Sparkling liquid sloshed onto her hand. A dark stain spread over the back of her pale gray silk glove.“I am a virgin.”

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She was a plain spinster, but surely there had been someone in her life—a childhood friend to experiment with, a boy who was more interested in exploring the mysteries of femininity than in courting the local beauty. A footman, a stable boy, someone.

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“Why?” he barked, Michael now, not Michel who had never slept alone.

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Why would any woman give her virginity to a man who looked like him?

 

Her head snapped back, the chimera of sexual tension broken. “I beg your pardon?”

 

He leaned toward her, eyes narrowed, face only inches away from the candle flame that could so easily burn out of control. “For ten thousand pounds, any bachelor in this tavern will marry you. The Speaker of the Commons sits three tables away. Baron Stinesburg sits directly behind you. Why are you doing this? With me, of all men?”

 

Candlelight flared. It reflected off of a slender nose, revealed the tightening of pale lips that were neither full nor thin. “Perhaps, Monsieur des Anges, I have seen too much death to be cheated by a few scars. Perhaps I wish to see angels.”