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Please be aware that this excerpt contains sensual content that is only suitable for adult readers who are comfortable with frank language and descriptions of erotic scenarios
Blurb
Pragmatism and passion. Diamonds and daring drawings. First desire rekindled… and out of control!
The Honorable Adela Ruffington has resigned herself to becoming an old maid, despite her sensual nature and a passionate sexual initiation at age eighteen, with her distant cousin, Wilson. What she perceives as imperfections in her appearance seem to be the reason for her lack of suitors, along with unfavorable financial prospects due to the eccentricity of her wealthy but misogynistic grandfather. But a lack of marriage proposals doesn't mean Adela denies her sexual urges, and she's arrived at daring but logical solution to satisfying her desires. Trading on her remarkable skills as an erotic artist and illustrator she swaps the fruits of her talent for the services of the "young men" at her friend Sofia Chamfleur's exotic pleasure house for women.
At a summer house party hosted by wealthy friends, eccentric polymath scientist and academic, Wilson Ruffington, catches his distant cousin Adela breaking into the room housing a famous private erotica collection, cleverly employing a couple of her hair pins to pick the lock. Intrigued by her clandestine behavior, he finds his long standing but dormant desire for Adela suddenly and powerfully rekindled, which is a shock to him since he's sworn off sex in the wake of a disastrous breakup from his mistress, a legendary beauty.
Embroiled in family complications involving inheritance, indiscretions, and some breathtaking heirloom diamonds, Wilson and Adela somehow find themselves joined in a marriage of convenience, a union fraught with dark secrets, confrontation, and a lot of conveniently fabulous sex.
But can their practical arrangement ever be more than just desire? Can these two stubborn, strong willed people stop butting heads long enough to admit they're still in love?
Diamonds in the Rough will be published in 2013 by Harlequin Spice
Excerpt - unedited draft
A country house party, 1891
The touch of Wilson's lips stilled Adela in her tracks, shocking her senses. Seven years ago he'd done this, and it was as if barely a second had passed since then. Just as before, her every perception was tuned to the highest pitch, all so intense that the result was almost painful.
The texture of his mouth was like warm velvet against hers, infinitely teasing and tantalizing. She could smell his shaving lotion and his soap, each one quite separately and distinctly. She caught the flavor of something sweet and spicy, plum cake perhaps, when he ran his tongue along the seam of her lips.
A dozen different impressions crowded into the space of a small, surprised fragment of a second, each one of them searing her body and her heart.
I should push him away. This is wrong and it will only lead to trouble. I can't seduce him just to please Mother, even if my body wants me to more than anything in the world.
So why in the name of all that was holy and rational was she winding her arms around her outrageous cousin instead of thrusting him from her with all her strength, which was not inconsiderable? Why was she parting her lips for him, instead of clamping them shut?
She'd yearned for Wilson once, yearned for him with all her young heart and soul, but until a moment or two ago, she'd believed that urge long discharged, done and dead. Now it seemed that her lust for him was as alive and rambunctious as ever. The taste of his mouth and tongue thrilled her as it had done all those years ago. Sliding her free hand beneath his dressing gown, she clasped his back, and pressed her body close to his.
Ah!
It seemed that she wasn't the only one whose past passion had reignited whether they wanted it to or not. Even so, the press of his member against the curve of her belly, just below the rigid edge of her corset, seemed to restore her errant wits to their rightful order.
"Wilson! For pity's sake, what are you doing? You can't just behave as if seven years haven't passed!"
Finally, she managed to push him away, the element of surprise working in her favor just as it'd worked for him, a scant moment ago.
"I might ask you the same thing, Della. All I required was a quick kiss. Just for old time's sake. You were the one who caught hold of me and manhandled me."
You are an insufferable beast.
"It was purely a moment of shock and surprise, cousin. I wasn't in my right mind." She darted back, still clutching her portfolio of sketches and intending to flee the private library. Yet somehow, taking in the sight of him, she couldn't leave.
Her cousin Wilson Ruffington had always been an eccentric cove, and even finding the love of his life apparently hadn't brought order to his habits. His sand-colored hair was even longer than ever, hanging thick and heavy to his shoulders, a little tousled but still gleaming with plentiful health.
She compressed her lips as she took in his appearance, suppressing a smile. Even though she was more than cross with him, he was still a sight to behold, so handsome in a rare and particular way. Like some mad Bohemian, he still affected his dressing gown during the day time, and beneath it he wore a breathtakingly absurd waistcoat and a shirt without a collar, open a little.
He was a ragamuffin, a figure from a comic opera or the music hall, and yet she was compelled to admit that his wayward style of dress suited him to a tee.
Beside him she felt as unappealing as a moth-eaten crow in her drab mourning, and his narrowed gray eyes told her he was monitoring her even as she assessed him. She narrowed her own eyes back at him. She would not let him make her cower and look away.
"I see you haven't improved your habits of dress yet, cousin." She raked her glance from his toes to his shaggy head, reluctantly liking what she saw even though she schooled her face to indicate otherwise.
"I dress for rationality and comfort, Della, and to please myself. You should leave off your corsets and try it. You'd feel much better."
Heaven alone knew, the idea appealed to her. She'd love to be rid of her corset right now. Loose day dresses and rational gowns were her preferred style whenever circumstances permitted, but Mama was a stickler for the proprieties. Even Adela agreed that it would be peculiar and not very well regarded to leave off her underpinnings at a social event. Most ordinary people she knew looked askance at dress reform.
"Women wear corsets, Wilson. It's simply what we do. They're an aid to good posture and an elegant form." Damn him, why did his eyes make her suddenly long to rip off the layers and layers of her clothing, to be free? "And pray tell me what's so rational about that waistcoat."
Wilson acknowledged the stab with a grin. "Ah, but I've seen you without your corsets, Della. And your conformation is perfect, as straight and as divine as a goddess's. You don't need artificial aid to be exquisite."
Oh why did he have to remind her of that? Precisely when she was trying so hard to suppress the memory herself? That single enchanted afternoon when she'd stripped to her shift and they'd bathed in the river, and one thing had led to another. Somehow, despite the fumbling of exploratory youth, their union had been beautiful and fulfilling. It still sang in her mind and in her flesh.
If only we'd remained so in harmony with each other. If we'd gone on, become engaged, and then married.
So many problems would have been resolved that way, life would have been so easy; but of course Wilson had been Wilson, and she'd been herself, and moments after uncoupling they'd been snapping at each other again like a pair of fractious terriers.
Diamonds in the Rough by Portia Da Costa
Harlequin Spice ® 2011
© 2011 Portia Da Costa
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher
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