Be Mine

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Be Mine Copyright  2012 by Cerise DeLand ISBN: 978-1-61333-197-2 Cover art by Fantasia Frog Designs All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher. Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC Look for us online at: www.decadentpublishing.com

Other Stories in the Valentino’s Delight Series Going Down by Brenna Zinn Loving Bliss by Regina Carlysle My Booty Call Valentine by Samantha Cayto Lust Becomes You by Desiree Holt Hard Lovin’ by Nicole Austin Lickity Split by Allie Standifer

Also by Cerise DeLand Santa Cutie

BE MINE The Edge

By

Cerise DeLand

~DEDICATION~

For my Valentine, my husband, the dearest man in all the world.

Be Mine

Cursing at the snowstorm that fouled up his plans for the day, Jason Sherwood flipped up his coat collar against the blinding flurries. He had planned this Valentine’s Day for more than eight months and not much was going right for him. He dodged skidding cars on M Street as he made his way to the small hotel where only this morning he had hoped he could surprise one special woman and charm her into drinks, dinner, his arms…and bed. Now? After her newest demands to his lawyer, Jason couldn’t care less if he never bought her out. That business angle had been a ploy, anyway, to get her within his reach. To gain hours with her. Time to talk. Set them both on a course to each other begun last year on Valentine’s Day. In a hotel bar, of all places. Without last names or extensive details about each other. But based on laughter and a magnetic simpatico that had blown his mind and had them hooking up in his suite upstairs. For hours. And now, here he was a year later, having searched for months for her, hoping to surprise her, delight her. Damn, Sherwood. Hoping to seduce her. Fuck her. Just like he had last Valentine’s Day. When she had melted at his slightest touch and given him the finest fuck of his life. A horn honked. Jason threw up a hand, sidestepped the cab careening toward him, and trudged across the street. A few more steps and he swung open the door to Valentino’s. He stomped his numb feet as he squeezed into his favorite wine shop and shivered in the warmth. That’s what walking in two feet of snow through a driving storm for twenty blocks can do for you. “Hey, there, Jace!” Valentino waved to him from behind his counter. “Come on over here, my man. I have your two bottles of chocolate wine. Put ’em aside for you after you called.” Removing his hat and brushing flakes from his hair, Jason made his way past milling customers to his friend and neighbor. “Thanks for this, Val. I was afraid you’d sell out with Valentine’s Day and all. I owe you one.” The dark Italian-American waved a hand. “It’s nothing. A blizzard out there. You walked from your office?”

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“I did. Couldn’t get a taxi. Couldn’t even do the Metro. The Station at Farragut North is so crowded, you can’t even get on the escalator to go down to the tracks. I couldn’t wait.” I was apeshit to get here before she bolted. “Negotiations didn’t go like you hoped, eh?” Val asked while he continued to put more than the wine into a big bag for Jason. “No. She’s a bear, so say my lawyers. She’s upped the ante. Now, in addition to a two hundred grand annuity, she wants a seat on my board. What are you adding to my order, pal?” “Things to soothe the savage beast. French honey. Raspberry confit. A baguette. A Genoese salami. Italian butter cookies.” “Good idea. I’m starving after that trek through the storm.” He dug in his trouser pocket for his wallet and felt the tiny Valentine candies he had brought for her. The little Italian man chuckled as he filled up the grocery bag. “How about a nice piece of gorgonzola, too?” “Sure, Val, stick it in there.” If she faints when she takes a look at me and realizes who I am, I’ll have something to offer her aside from pieces of my corporation. “You could not predict what she was really like.” Val leaned over to speak quietly to Jason across the cash register. Jason nodded, glad he had told Val only the vaguest details of how he had met a gorgeous woman who told him her name was Annette, one year ago today. How they had hit it off in the bar of The Drake Hotel in Chicago. How during two drinks, they had eaten some of those little Valentine candies with the phrases on top. Be Mine had fired the urge that put them up in Jason’s hotel room having the most risqué sex he’d ever enjoyed in his thirty-eight years. Then? She had tiptoed out sometime that night. Her parting gift? A scribbled note. I loved being yours. Ditto, baby. And if Jason had not spent thousands of dollars on a private detective trying to find her, he might have laughed when he finally did four months later. Quite by accident. In a quest to expand his own public relations corporation, he had sought out the one that had the lock on the only area of expertise his lacked. He snorted at the irony. “Annette” was a speech 2

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communicator. A trainer of politicians and corporate suits. And there on her website she smiled out at him, eyes of rarest jade, hair like exotic amber. Mara Annette Richardson, President and CEO of Richardson Communications. Experts in Speech and Media Training. Thirty-five years old, former press aide to an Illinois Congressman and to one mayor of the Windy City, now a leader in her industry. And the most expressive lover Jason had ever taken in his arms. A lover he had to find once more. Have, if he could. Keep, if his instinct served him well. I loved being yours. Right. Jason tipped his head toward Wisconsin Avenue. “Gotta run, Val. My lawyer couldn’t close the deal so I’ve got to do it before she heads for Dulles and her flight back to Chicago.” “Relax, Jace.” Val pointed toward the flat panel TV on the wall high above the dozen people trying to stock up for tonight’s February fourteenth festivities. “She’s not going anywhere. Just on the news. We’re in a white out. No planes. No trains. Good thing you live in the next block.” “Yeah.” Jason’s mind went into overdrive. Does Mara have a room for the night? She does with me. If she’ll stay…. You’re hopeless, Sherwood. He handed over his debit card. “Good to know. Thanks for the food.” “That’s cuz I know what you keep in your kitchen.” Val rolled his eyes. Jason gave him a wry grin. “Go home to your wife when you sell out, will you?” “Valentine’s Day? She’d have my scalp, if I didn’t!” *** “Send him up.” Mara thanked the front desk clerk who had called to tell her Mister Sherwood was on his way up to the conference room that Capitol Communications had rented for their negotiations. Sherwood. Mara had always thought it was a nice name. Soothing Mister Sherwood. Hope you come ready to give me what I want. I need out of this rat race. Now. She crossed her arms, strode to the window overlooking Wisconsin Avenue, 3

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and watched all the well-dressed Washingtonians struggle to move forward in the snowstorm. Mara smiled, a whiff of her past life moving through her like a ghost. She remembered what it was like to live here, work here. Mostly work and work and work here. God, these people, like so many other Americans, had no private lives, just the ever-present professional demands of today and tomorrow. She had lived like that here and in Chicago for nearly fourteen years since she graduated from George Washington University. Sure, she had prospered, falling into the rhythm of her own success and the glory of her own reputation. Built a dynamite business. A big bank account. And zero fun in her life. Except for one night last year. Valentine’s Day. At The Drake. In the bar. Upstairs in a suite. With a golden man whose easy charm had intrigued her too quickly and too well. A tall, handsome, engaging creature whose full name she did not ask or want. Not at the time. She ran her fingers over her hair. Her severe chignon was still in place. She yanked at the jacket of the stark navy suit, a power statement she was dying to discard. Burn. Once she sold her company, she would never wear another business suit for as long as she lived. Besides, who needs one to write? I’ll wear a bathrobe. Sit zazen each morning. Write my how-to guides. And in my copious free time, I’ll look for a six-foot, tanned Adonis with a quick wit and looks that would make Helen of Troy drool. A sharp knock at the door had her jumping. She glanced at her watch. Two o’clock. Time enough to listen, dicker, and still catch her plane. Mr. Capitol Communications better have a swell counter-offer or we’re both dead meat. She swung open the door. “Hello, Mister—” Her throat closed. Her heart pounded. Her nipples beaded reminiscent of the night when that savage, hungry mouth had shaped them and sucked them. Her pussy gushed at her memories of how this man had used those firm lips to lick her clit and fill her cunt. Then with a heart-pounding persistence, he had rammed her so good and hard, he’d graced her with the best screaming orgasms of her entire life. “Sherwood, Mara. Jason Sherwood,” said the unforgettable creature outside 4

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her door. His blue eyes wore an appealing, apologetic look. His mouth tried for a smile but couldn’t quite make it. He was nervous. He was apprehensive. He was so very damn good looking. And he was determined to come in. “May I?” He nodded toward the conference room. “I brought some things. Hungry? I am.” She stepped backward. A former press aide who ate journalists for breakfast and a media trainer who taught people how to tick off talking points like time bombs, she was for once in her lonely life utterly speechless. And the only thing she cared to do was look at him. Absorb him into her skin. Treasure him. His sea blue eyes. His sun-kissed hair. Wet from snow. His pink cheeks. Chapped from the icy wind. His comforting height. Five, maybe six inches taller than she. And stepping right up to her, drinking in her confusion and her delight at his sudden appearance, growing confident now. Grinning down at her. “Hi, baby,” he whispered, one big fist sinking into her chignon and destroying it. “I missed you something fierce. Let me kiss you. Now that I’ve found you, I’m not letting you go until we know so much about each other, you’ll either hate me or never leave me again.” He knew he was brash. But sweet Jesus, she melted against him just as she had that night a year ago in the room at The Drake. She was hot and supple, her fine amber hair streaming over his hand like a warm river, her breasts flush to his chest, and he ached for more of her. “Let me put this down,” he got out, his voice raw with all the pent up need, the worry, the longing all year long to have her once more. She looked enchanted, less stunned, but compliant as she watched him put his grocery bag on the table. Then her hands grabbed his lapels and pulled him against her. Good start, baby. His arms surrounded her, his mouth took hers and oh, Christ is she food for my soul. Her lips were the same satin that he’d kissed in his dreams. Her tongue, the same eager partner to his in a duel to seize more of the other. “Mara. Mara, honey.” He couldn’t stop saying her name as he claimed her with his lips on hers and his hands all over that toned body. “I’ve looked for you 5

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everywhere.” “Did you?” she asked in a tiny voice, her gaze sweeping his features, her fingers tracing his cheekbones, the outline of his mouth, his jaw. At once a wall clanged down between them—and she shook her head. Reality changed her features from ravenous lover to confused teenager. “You can’t tell me that you— You aren’t—” He lifted his hands in surrender. “Sweetheart, let me explain.” “No.” She took a step backward. “You? You are the President of Capitol Communications? No. No, no.” Jason knew if he rushed her, if he crowded her, she’d freak. He had no idea if she had a hard-assed-broad persona, but he was definitely not interested in bringing it out. He stood his ground. “My name is Jason Sherwood. I am the president and CEO of Capitol. I was a year ago. I am now. I have been looking for you ever since last Valentine’s Day at The Dr—” “Is that what you’re doing here?” “What?” “Using that night to blackmail me into giving you my company?” So much for not wanting to summon the bitchy female exec. He turned on his heel. Went for his bag and a bottle of the wine. Calmly putting them on the kitchen counter, he sensed her watching him. Like a trapped animal watched a hunter. Why was that? She was not his. Not by a long shot. Yet. “You aren’t going to answer me, are you?” she goaded him. Jason searched for a corkscrew and a cheese knife, a plate, napkins. “I never respond to anything ridiculous. And as a pro at debating, you know better than to ask such a question.” He stared at her. Still scared. Why? She frowned, rubbed her arms and watched him. Closely. “Last year at The Drake, I wished you had stayed until morning,” he told her as he poured two glasses of the chocolate red wine. “I had not been attracted to any woman like I was to you. Not ever. Here’s to you.” She locked her gaze on his, accepted the glass, and let him clink it in a toast. Still frightened? “I wanted you back. I wanted you for more than one night. More than a few—” 6

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“Fucks?” Feisty, now, eh? Okay. I get you, lady. You want me to buy your company and cover your embarrassment at what happened last year. “We did not fuck, Mara Richardson. We—" he took a long drink of his wine and felt warmth seep into his chilled bones “—made love. Deny it if you want to lie.” He watched her swallowing hard, her throat working against the temptation to refute him. But she only frowned into her glass. He walked around the conference room suite that his assistant had rented for the negotiations. Nice digs. A block from his townhouse. Chosen by him. Just in case he got lucky. Again. He wrestled back that wild hope and sat on the sofa. “I liked your looks in the bar. I liked your conversation. I thought myself damn fortunate that you agreed to come upstairs to my room.” She snorted, but held her stance. Wary, still. Why, honey? I won’t eat you up, not unless you ask me to. “I have not forgotten a second with of you in my bed.” She seemed to sway on her feet. But as her beautiful eyes fluttered, Jason would bet his last dollar remembrance of their night together swept over her. He smiled at her with compassion. “You came apart for me like every man dreams every woman should, but only one—the right one—ever does. You were real and vibrant. Alive with loving. And you trusted me to do whatever the hell I wanted to that sweet body of yours, and make you come ’til your teeth rattled.” “Don’t do this,” she pleaded with him, sounding heartsick. “I have to, baby. You see, I knew that night one true thing. No matter what you say now, how you fight it, you belong with me.” Be mine. “Ohhhhhh.” She uttered a cry of anguish and raced for the bedroom. To win a powerful woman, he’d have to be an incomparable man. He followed her. In the darkened room, he advanced on her slowly, carefully, solemnly. “Mara, baby, I don’t want to own you. I don’t want to intimidate you. Hell, honey. If you don’t want me to, I don’t even want to buy you out.” Back to the wall, she admired him with tears in her eyes. “You don’t?” He shook his head and removed her glass from her hand to place it on a 7

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bureau. “I want another chance at having you. I worked all year long to make this happen.” “I don’t understand.” From his pocket, he produced her note and she gave a little cry, part recognition, part joy. “I loved being yours, too. I hired a detective to find you. Only when my board of directors agreed with me that we needed to expand and find a company whose expertise was media training, did I find you. On the internet, no less. I wanted to come to you then, tell you, but I was afraid you’d run from me.” “Why would you think that?” she asked, enthralled by his dedication to finding her. Does he know what I went through last year? “I figured you had run from me for a reason bigger than modesty or embarrassment that you’d had a one-night stand with a stranger.” He was so right. “Passion like that is so hard to believe,” she rasped. He stroked her cheek, then lifted her jaw with a thumb. “I know.” “Things like that don’t happen to realists,” she told him as she let him brush his lips on hers and wrap her close. “I know.” “They’re fantasies.” Her arms closed around him. Her memories of making love with him came out to dance around her in a mist of desire. “They can’t last.” He pressed her so near to him that through the layers of clothing, she could feel the thump of his heart. Her own, too. “Mara, sweetheart. Don’t you owe it to yourself to learn if this fantasy can last?” The expression on his face undid her. He was a man, naked longing in his features, but a boy, urgent and pleading for a chance. She knew what he implied. What the next step was. What she must do. With shaking hands, she pushed his away. Then she worked at the button on his suit, his tie, his shirt, and put her lips to the base of his throat. He was solid, warm, and alive with the unspoken promise in his words. “I wanted you, too.” He caught his breath and just held her like he’d never let her go. “But I didn’t look for you until last May. I went to The Drake every night for 8

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more than a month. The bartender must have thought I was a hooker. I had no idea how to find you.” She brushed his suit coat to the carpet. She yanked at his shirt, undid his cufflinks, and spread the shirt wide to reveal the golden, corded chest she had cuddled up to this night last year. “How I missed you.” He sipped at her lips then, like a supplicant, like a lover who can never have enough. He worked at her buttons and hooks while she stepped out of her heels and hose, and when she was naked as the day she was born, he caught her up and walked with her to the king size bed. There, he laid her down, one knee between hers, both hands cupping hers, his eyes a bold caress. “I want to make up for all the nights this year I yearned for you.” “You always say such lovely things. That’s what made it so tough to believe you were real and that night had really happened.” He took her mouth with his own then, as if he had possessed her all his life, as if he had known her for ages, cared for her for eons. His kisses were carnal and reverent, mad and bad. She met him, breath for desire, enchantress to enchanter, heart to heart. “Christ, how I wanted you,” he gasped as he gathered her breasts in his two hands and bathed one nipple, then the other in his succulent claim. “I forced myself to remember how rosy these were. I would close my eyes and conjure how you squirm when I bite them.” He imitated his words and she responded just as he had declared she would. “I wanted to lick you until you writhed.” She made some wordless agreement. “And suck you until you beg me for more.” “Yes!” she gasped. “Your mouth on my pussy!” He chuckled and trailed kisses down her belly to her mound. “Open up for me, sweetheart. For a year, I have wanted to eat this pretty cunt again. Taste your sugar.” Instinctive modesty had her trying to close her thighs. “No going away from me. I want every bit of you. Your fine cream. Lots of it.” Then he gently pushed her thighs flush to the mattress. “I have never dined on such fresh, hot, wet, flowing pussy.” She groaned at his ardor and his expertise. Dug her fingers in the mattress. 9

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Bared her teeth as he licked her frilly folds, lapped her scorching labia, and finally, dear god, finally, plumped her up to suck on her swollen clit. “The finest fruit I’ve ever nibbled, baby.” She cursed like longshoreman. Grunting, he continued to eat her like the devil he was. “Want me?” He stopped to tease, breathless, his mouth glistening with her juices. “Yes, damn you.” She tilted her hips at him, offering her cunt to him. He massaged her mound with a big hand and winked. “What if I want to eat more?” “Later.” She grabbed for his belt. “I’ve been so empty. So lonely for you.” She knew she was pleading with him like a lovesick schoolgirl. “I never thought I could ever have you again. Some nights, I thought you were a phantom I had dreamed up.” His mellow gaze in hers, he produced a condom from his trouser pocket then worked at his belt and his pants. To help him, she brushed his trousers down his hips. His underwear, too. Then she cupped his long, meaty cock. “Oh, sweetie. I’m so grateful you aren’t a phantom.” Growling, he deftly rolled on the rubber then slipped inside her. Completely. The moment of union full and rich with a satisfaction Mara had not believed she could feel again in her lifetime. His shaft was everything every girl wanted and just as she remembered. Huge. Thick, scorching hot. She wanted to possess him, body and soul, and anything else he would care to give. “Mara,” he called to her as he began to move and the world flew away from her. “Mara, baby.” She sought his mouth then, a frantic urge to make this real to her mind, not just her pussy and every other cell in her oh-so-happy body. “How can you feel this good?” she whimpered, then kissed him once and again. “How can you?” She bucked, spread her legs wide, and wrapped them around his thighs. He grabbed her hips, moaned some dissatisfaction, then sat back, hauled her up his thighs, and rammed her good, high, and hard. She cried out as he rocketed 10

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her to a scorching climax that wrenched her inside and out. He came then, riveting into her, grunting his satisfaction in crude words that told her she was his. Always. Forever. No matter what the world threw at them. With his cock high up inside her still, she undulated beneath him to slip away. He caught her arm, his eyes fearful. “Not gonna let you go.” “I won’t leave,” she told him honestly, hoping her flight was canceled. “Besides, honey. You ordered a snowstorm. Where can I go, hmm?” “Home with me.” Avoiding the bigger issue of her staying with him, she sank her fingers in his thick blond hair and reveled in the feel of the heavy silk. “Where’s home?” “Around the corner.” She snuggled up to him and planted a kiss on his collarbone. “Convenient. Planned it this way, did you?” “Yeah. Bribed the weatherman, hoping you’d let me prove to you I’ve got more substance than that guy you met at The Drake.” “I liked that guy,” she whispered, rubbing her nose down the line of his. “I liked that woman. Let’s get her wet again, shall we?” As she chuckled, he pulled his cock out of her and rose to his feet. One hand to hers, he led her toward the bathroom. Disposing of the condom in the trash, he turned the spigots on in the shower. “This is not as big as mine, but it’ll do.” She thought the steamy water would be just what she needed to quell the madness of wanting him again. But climbing into the stall with him and letting him use his talented hands to soap her up did not contribute to any rational part of her. His fingers circled her nipples and then one slid along her belly, another down her back. They slipped into every fold and crevice of her pussy and fucked her cunt with an insistence that had her gasping. As one set of fingers toyed with her asshole, the other teased her swollen little clit. So before she knew it, she was clutching the wall while he sank to his knees and took her pussy with his talented mouth. “Never gonna get enough of you.” “I could go to heaven with your mouth on me, Jason.” She bit her lower lip, as he speared his tongue up inside her channel and thrust a finger in her ass. The two sensations sent her drifting to her knees. 11

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“You need heaven? I need you all mine,” he growled, his insane tone bawdy music to her ears. He pulled her from the shower, wrapped her in a big towel, and tugged her to the bedroom where he fished another condom from his trousers. When she began to lie down on the bed, he shook his head. “No. This time I want you in there.” He nodded toward the living room. “On the table.” Delirious with his sensuality, she discarded the towel and followed him into the next room. Sliding up on the table, she noticed it was blessedly the right height for him to sink his turgid cock way up inside her pussy. After he snapped the condom on, she put her hand out to stroke him. “I want my lips on you, too, sweetie. After this.” “Promise.” He pushed her backward, went to the counter, twisted open a jar, and stuck two fingers in. He was back in a moment, bending over her breasts. “Mine. This one.” He licked one of her nipples then painted it with the sticky raspberry jam. “And this one.” He circled the other areola with more gooey stuff. “This.” He sucked the jam off both grateful breasts, then drew a long red line down her tummy to the top of her slit. “All mine.” And then he fucked her. His eyes locked on hers, his hands bracketing her wrists, his corded thighs pumping as he impaled her, time and again, on his cock. He strained to ram her to the hilt. She wiggled down the table, smiling, laughing at his need and her own savage one. “Why’d you leave me?” he ground out. “What?” She tried to catch her breath. He was loving her so damn well, twisting up and thrilling her with every scintillating slide. “Why,” he asked with emphasis. “Did. You go?” And then he stopped. She cuffed him. Sobbed in need. “Fuck me.” “Tell me.” He bent and caught a nipple between his teeth and tugged. She arched, her hands grasping to pull him closer, deeper inside her. “I thought you might be a ricochet.” “A ricochet?” When confusion left him, he gave her one slow, deep, thrusting reward. “Why?” “I had just broken up with a man the day before.” Jason gave her another smooth caress of his smoldering shaft. “You loved 12

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him?” “Not like this,” she admitted. “Not like you.” That was a whisper. His face went lax with desire and compassion. “That was why you demanded no last names?” “It was.” He leaned over, cupped her nape, and kissed her madly. “And you left him because…?” “He had a temper. And he was a nasty drunk. And he didn’t want babies.” “I’m as mild mannered as Clark Kent.” “Oh, how wonderful,” she told him as he stroked her pussy with his wonderful cock. “And my limit is two scotches.” She chuckled as he did her body the marvelous service of a long, hot glide. “So I saw at The Drake.” “And someday soon I want babies.” And then he just held himself up high inside her. She stared at him. This moment, she knew, was the most telling one in what could happen beyond this room and this hour with him. “I’m tired of working. Twenty-eight hours a day, eight days a week. I want to quit. I want to write. Think I can. How to speak well, books for anyone. I wanted enough money from the sale of my company to Capitol Communications so I could do that.” His eyes got a dreamy look to them, like he was seeing the future. But she knew he was also admiring her. “And the seat on my board? What’s that for, baby?” “Just to keep my hand in. You know. For the book jackets.” He grinned then, a magnanimous gaze around the room and back to her eyes. “Sounds reasonable. It’s yours.” She wanted to kiss him, to seal the deal but there was more to learn before they could. “If you knew who I was when you began the negotiations, why didn’t you come to Chicago and find me? Was there another woman who—?” “No. Only you. I didn’t come because I knew there must be a good reason why someone as solid as you had demanded only given names, no last ones. Why you 13

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had left me? I figured whatever it was, you needed time to come to terms with it. Even if I showed up on your doorstep, you might not come to me. I hoped that you didn’t find anyone to love in the meantime. That this Valentine’s Day might be long enough. Soon enough.” Such sweetness and consideration touched her. “You are one fantastic man, Jason Sherwood.” He tipped his hips and worked her pussy into a ripe frenzy. Gripping her thighs, he pummeled her and she undulated rejoicing in this man who could care for her this much, this long, this deeply. Wild for him, proud of him, needy, she panted and flowed with him while he took her to a high, keening orgasm. Then he pulled her up against his warm strength. She draped over him, a ragdoll of delicious exhaustion, as he bundled her in an afghan and set her on the couch. He brought her, her glass of wine and a slice of baguette with the raspberry jam he had used to mark her body as his own. “Drink. Eat. You need your strength.” He wiggled his brows at her. She laughed gaily as he walked away. “Well, hey. I like company with my food, too, don’t you know! Where are you going?” He disappeared into the bedroom, then returned, one hand closed tightly over something. “I brought you a gift for Valentine’s Day.” Her mouth full of bread and jam, she grinned. “Oh, presents. I am mad for presents. What do you have?” He opened his palm. Inside lay a dozen or so of the little sugar hearts that schoolchildren in America enjoyed on February fourteenth. Each different colored heart had the same words printed on it. “Be Mine.” Her lower lip quivered. No man had ever touched her more. She didn’t know how he did it. He didn’t use a lot of words, only the ones that mattered. She shouldn’t analyze him, only enjoy him. Keep him, too. She put her glass down on the end table and rose up to kiss his handsome lips. The afghan fell away and she was naked against him, once more completely happy, as she had not ever been with any other. His arms came around her, just as they had on that first night a year ago. He was funny, dear, spontaneous, kind, and all hers. The finest words that sprang to mind were the same ones she had 14

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left him with. In her reverie, she had often wondered whether he truly understood how much he had meant to her. “I loved being yours.” He brushed her hair from her cheeks. “A year ago. Tonight. And what about tomorrow?” “No one else’s,” she whispered like a vow. He squeezed her tight like he would never let her go. “Ever.”

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~ABOUT THE AUTHOR~ What’s a gal to do if she lives now deep in the heart of Texas, travels often everywhere, and adores Paris, Florence, London, Tokyo and all points east and west? Ah. She becomes an author who can write about those romantic places. And if your sweet tooth craves spies, pirates, body guards and gutsy women of today and yesteryears of medieval and Regency England, then she is the author you crave for smoldering erotic encounters and delicious love affairs! Her name? Cerise DeLand. What’s more is that Cerise is the award-winning author of 18 print novels of mystery, mainstream and romance with St. Martin’s Press, Pocket Books and Kensington. Her books have been on every book club list you can name, including The Mystery Guild, Doubleday and Rhapsody. Busy lady. Happy writer.

You can visit Cerise at: www.cerisedeland.com

Loving Bliss by Regina Carlysle Even a rough, tough, badass former Marine knows that Valentine’s Day is the perfect time for a little seduction. So after a stop at Valentino’s Wine and Gourmet Food Shoppe and armed with a decadent bottle of chocolate wine, Noble Loving tracks down Bliss Harper, the star of his most wicked fantasies. His sexy business partner should be firmly off limits but he’s sick of playing by the rules. Time for some new ones. It’ll take a slow hand and some hot loving to convince the lady she belongs to him but this Marine is up for the challenge.

Going Down by Brenna Zinn What does one hunky Navy SEAL plus a blizzard equal on Valentine's Day for Michelle Bishop? One hot night in an elevator with nowhere to go and no electricity to get there. Add a holiday gift basket from Valentino's that's full of candles, body paint, and chocolate wine, and going down on an elevator becomes a Valentine experience she'll never forget.

Lickity Split by Allie Standifer Five years ago Juliet Morgan tossed away the only man she'd ever love and the only life she'd ever want to live. Honorably retired from the Air Force she hops the first plane in hoping there's something left to repair. Trent Joplin's never gotten over sexy Juliet, but it doesn't mean he's ready to open his heart to her again. Five years is a long time to for love to linger, but maybe it's all about scratching an itch. Juliet's ready and willing to do anything to win her way back in Trent's life. While Trent takes her body to new heights of passion, Juliet's determined to sneak her way back into his heart faster than you can say lickity split.

Hard Lovin’ by Nicole Austin After a grueling graveyard shift in the E.R. and tromping through snow, the only things on Olivia Daughtry’s mind are a nice warm fire, a glass of chocolate wine and some quality time with her vibrator. Being interrogated by a tenacious cop wasn’t anywhere on her list of things to do. There is too much at stake for Officer Hall to follow department policies or go easy on the sexy suspect. But nurse Daughtry is one tough cookie and the harder he pushes the hotter she gets. From handcuffs and an improvised gag to little blue candies, Hall will do whatever it takes to get the correct answer to his very important question.

My Booty Call Valentine by Samantha Cayto A snowy Valentine’s Day means pizza for one and another lonely night for the nowdivorced Aaron. Or so he thinks. Then a knock on his door introduces him to the decadent delights of choc-wine and sexy new Senate staffer, Susan. She’s offering him one night, but if he’s a very good boy, it might turn into more.

Lust Becomes You by Desiree Holt Kylie Monroe fell in love and in lust with Sam Cooper, reaching new highs of ecstasy as they explored the world of BDSM. She foresaw a rich life together filled with love and erotic sex. When Sam dumped her to pursue success in the legal field, telling her there was "always tomorrow," she never quite recovered from the hurt. Ten years later, Kylie's still gun-shy in the love department and frustrated in the sex department. Nobody could replace Sam. Then on a snowy Valentine's Day she has an unexpected opportunity to reconnect with him. But can Sam persuade her their love is real this time? Can he woo her back with the kind of sex she'd been missing?