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I’m blogging in two places today, but thought it might be a great time to start talking about my new book coming out April 28th, First Knight. FK was originally published as a short story in 2005, but I decided I really needed to get back inside it and tell the rest of the tale! So FK is now novella length and tons more satisfying with a very tasty ménage. I hope you’ll be looking for it because I’d like to know if you want more of these medieval tales of knights and their ladies with a little side of blood.

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While hiding her true identity, Maddie must seduce the mysterious Lord Garon to cement their marriage contract to ensure she won’t be returned into her lecherous stepfather’s care.

Fresh from Crusade in Palestine, Lord Garon has a secret he must hide, a hunger that must be fed, and a dark and uncertain future. Having shed himself of a fiancée he never met, he’s home to lick his wounds. The only thing he wants is a warm-blooded meal—but the new housekeeper is strangely insistent on giving him much more.

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“Do you undress to bathe all our guests?” he rumbled.

“I, um, didn’t want to get my clothing wet,” Maddie said, not answering his question because he was the first, and she didn’t want him knowing it. Feeling self-conscious beneath his stare, she wrapped her arms around her belly before she realized the movement pushed up her scant bosom. She quickly lowered her arms and bent to pick up the clothing she had tossed to the floor.

His indrawn breath halted her, pulling her gaze, although she’d been fighting herself not to stare at him. Short of turning her back fully, she couldn’t not look. He filled the room with his broad shoulders, deep chest, ridged belly and thighs that were roped with well-honed muscles. His powerful form was forever etched on her mind.

Never mind that hidden beneath the rim of the tub were his most disturbing attributes. Lord, the part that proclaimed him male was most impressive of all. Darker than his burnished skin, the long shaft shone like silky fabric with ridged blue veins mapping the surface. The rounded head, protruding from the cowl of his foreskin, was berry red.

That was the part he would insert into her woman’s furrow to till his crop of children—or so the cook had described the act. The woman had stumbled for a proper way to describe it, but Maddie had heard the coarse terms before. Swive. Fuck. Both made her cringe inside, so “tilling” it was.

Although how exactly he would till her field was never firmed in her mind. Every woman submitted to the tilling at one time or another. She’d survive. No matter that his “hoe” was quite large. Anne and Kate, the brazen hussies, had both seemed eager to fornicate with him.

Perhaps it diminished once it squeezed inside.

His lordship shifted in the large tub, causing the water to overspill the rim.

Maddie rushed forward to lay down linens on the floor.

“Never mind that,” he said, his voice purring again like a large cat. “Attend me.”

In her haste, she’d forgotten her state of undress. His gaze looked her up and down where she knelt beside the tub. I’m here to seduce him, not clean the floor.

Still, she was not quite ready to stand this close. “Would you like wine while I bathe you?” Something to occupy him so his piercing gaze wouldn’t linger so long over her meager curves. Maddie knew she couldn’t compare to the bounty the sisters offered.

“Only if you’ll join me.”

Drink with him? “I brought only one cup.”

“I’ll share.”

The low timbre of his voice lifted the fine hairs on the back of her neck. Every word felt charged with double meanings she was too addled to understand. Wine would likely soothe her ragged nerves. She approached the side table and poured a full glass of wine, promising herself to take small sips.

He sipped the wine, seeming to savor the flavor, but not significantly reducing the amount in the cup. He offered it back to her.

She tilted her head and pretended to take a long drink then handed back the cup quickly, hoping he wouldn’t notice she’d barely tasted it.

Relieved when he waived it away, she set the cup on the floor beside the tub and wondered why she hadn’t taken the full measure. The wine would loosen her fear and ease the pain of her first breaching, but something warned her to keep her wits about her this night.

Lord Garon’s dark, watchful gaze left her uneasy about his intentions and passions. She’d heard some men practiced sinful sexual arts, and he had lived for several years among heathen peoples. No telling what perversions he’d learned.

But a bath was just a bath. Perhaps he would enjoy easing aching muscles after his long journey. Perhaps lethargy would ensue, and the tilling would not be quite the vigorous exercise she feared. She picked up a square of linen and dipped it into the bath water, aware his gaze followed her every movement. Working a dollop of soap into the linen, she took her time working up scant suds with the scented soap while she built up the courage to touch him. She gasped when his hand curved around her wrist.

“I don’t want you to wash me.” His hand tightened and she dropped the cloth to the floor.

Her heart hammered in her chest. “No?” she asked, the word sounding thin to her own ears.

“No. I asked you to join me.”

“You meant in the tub? With you?” Her gaze widened on his wicked smile. “But there’s no room.”

“Climb onto me.” He tugged her gently, but she could feel the strength in his clasped fingers and knew he could force her if she refused.

Her hand trembled. “I’m to share your bath?”

“You’re repeating yourself.” His thumb rubbed the pulse throbbing in her wrist. “You’re to see to my comfort, yes?”

“Of course,” she said, breathless now. “Joining you will bring you comfort?” At his nod, panic rose. She’d hoped to acquaint herself with his body by bathing him, not sitting on him. “You have so many to see to your comfort,” she said, trying to draw out the moment long enough to calm her skittering nerves.

“You chased away the other comforts. I only have you at the moment.”

“Wouldn’t a wife provide better for your comfort?” Good Lord, why did I say that? The last thing she wanted was him thinking about a wife—

“I’ve nothing to offer a wife.” His jaw tightened, and his gaze hardened. “I’ll never take one.”

Caution flew with the heat of her anger. “But you were betrothed.”

“To a child, before my fortunes changed.” His gaze fell away and the muscles of his throat flexed. “The contract was broken,” he said, his voice losing its hard edge, leaving his words sounding hollow.

Maddie’s anger died at the regret she read in his stark expression.

Foolish man! Whatever horrors had visited Garon during his time in Palestine, she would find a way to help him through it. More convinced than ever of what she must do, she gripped both sides of the tub and climbed into the water.

Maddie carefully placed her feet on either side of his hips, as there was no other space to stand. Unfortunately, she was very aware that her legs gaped open and he could see everything.

Despite the momentary bleakness he’d revealed, Garon stared aplenty. His eyelids dipped, his nostrils flared, and he drew in a breath as though he was inhaling her scent.

Maddie’s legs trembled.

“Lower yourself,” he said quietly, tugging her down until her knees fit snugly on either side of his hips. “Now that’s better, isn’t it?”

Maddie swallowed, unable to speak. He’d centered the ridge of his sex along her furrow. Better was not the word she would have chosen. Disturbing. Alarming. Both terms were more apt.

He appeared to wait for an answer. His gaze rested on her face, which she knew blazed hotly.

She cleared her throat. “Yes. That’s much better.”

“Now that we’re comfortable, why don’t you tell me how you came to be in my keep?” He said this as he pushed back her hair, baring her breasts to his gaze. His hand drifted from her cheek and downward to her chest.

She hadn’t known she’d been dying for him to touch her intimately until the moment came. Her chest rose, her breast fitting into his palm as though crafted just for him. The calluses roughening his skin abraded the tips, and her flesh yearned for a deeper caress. “I’ll tell you later,” she said, not recognizing the breathy voice sliding from her throat.
His other hand rose and fondled her flesh, and Maddie lost the stiffness that held her back erect, leaning closer, sighing when he thumbed her nipples, swirling on the points until she was gasping.

Her hands landed on his shoulders and kneaded the hard muscles they found there, clasping him as hard as her knees clutched his hips below the water.

One of his rough hands smoothed around her back and brought her body closer, until his breath gusted on her open lips. “I would kiss you,” he whispered.

“Please,” she breathed the word and closed her eyes, reveling in the sensation of his cock resting hard and full against her sex, her breasts sliding against the whorls of black hair on his chest.

“I’ll frighten you.” His hands cupped her face now, his thumbs sweeping over her eyes, her cheeks, her lips.

Maddie shivered, keeping her eyes closed. “You already do. What does it matter?”

“I’m not ready to share all my secrets.”

“A kiss would be so revealing?”

He rubbed his lips against hers and then nuzzled her face, stopping with his mouth beside her ear. “Mine could kill you.”

Her woman’s core clenched deep inside her belly. He thought a kiss could kill? The poor, tormented man. “Oh. Then I’ll wait.” She opened her eyes, finding his gaze, sharp and predatory, staring back. However unaccustomed to sharing intimacies with a man, she recognized arousal. Her confidence in her appeal to this man rose. She licked her lips. “Is there something else you would have of me?”

His glance dropped to where their chests met. “Give me your breasts.”

Though untutored in lovemaking, she knew his meaning, and while she could have wept over losing the hard ridge pressed firmly against her sex below, she rose on her knees to deliver one breast to his waiting mouth.

His lips latched greedily on to her flesh and his arms swept around her back, pressing her so close she could hardly breathe. She forgot the need pulsing between her legs as his mouth sucked her nipple inside, his tongue swirling then fluttering on the tip.

Below, his cock nudged between her legs and the crown found her opening, pushing inside just enough for her to feel pressure, feeding a growing desire for him to fill her completely.

He released the breast and licked his way across her chest to the other, enclosing it with his lips and sucking so hard she felt the thrilling pull all the way to her womb.

Maddie writhed in his arms, cries breaking free. They sounded like someone else’s voice moaning and whimpering. Nonsense, she thought, I never whimper.

When his tongue clamped on her nipple and rubbed it against the top row of his front teeth, she wasn’t sure whether it was painful or pleasurable. But it was divine. Angels playing harps couldn’t match the Hallelujahs chorusing in her mind. Her whole body convulsed and she drove down, trying to take his cock deeper inside her, but his hands held her away from her goal.

“Please.” She clutched his head to her breast, kissed his hair and pulled it, urging him on.

He released her nipple, causing her to gasp with disappointment, but then he skimmed upward to her neck. Maddie held her breath, hoping for the kiss he’d seemed so reluctant to give.

“Forgive me,” he whispered at her ear. Then his mouth opened wide and his teeth sank into her throat at the same time as his hips stroked upward, driving his cock deep into her body.