Brenna stepped to the end of the runway, made her standard moves from one end to the other, turning to provide the crowd with the full view of Rachel’s designs. Then, before turning to step back the way she came, she stopped at the end of the runway and held up her sign.
It read “Rachel”.
The blood drained from her face as mortification coursed through her veins. Brenna returned the sign to her side, pivoted and strolled backstage.
An ache filled her gut. The loud disco music pounded in her ears. The flashing strobe lights pierced her eyes, bringing searing pain to her temples. She didn’t know what was going on, and as Delilah stepped onto the runway, Rachel’s sickness deepened.
Like Brenna, Delilah held a sign at her side, causing Rachel to rise from her chair. She had to find out what the hell they were doing.
Before she could lift from her seat, Darin’s hand came down over her shoulder. “Just relax,” he muttered in her ear.
She turned to see his bright smile. Was he in on this? And what was this?
She glanced back to Delilah as she repeated Brenna’s moves at the end of the runway. After she had modeled the red thong and matching bra, she paused and lifted her sign.
“I love you”, it said.
Rachel turned to Darin. “What’s going on?”
He shrugged. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
Panic ripping through her veins, she glanced around the crowd, watching the eyes move from her to the stage and back again. Expressions seemed to be a mix of confusion and amusement, but fortunately, no one appeared to be ready to make a scene—except for her.
Misty stepped up, carrying another sign. Misty wasn’t supposed to be the next model on stage. Billie was supposed to have come next. Again, Rachel was overcome with the need to rush backstage and find out what was going on, but at this point, she doubted her limp noodle legs would lift her from her seat.
An evil grin came over Misty’s face as she strolled to the end of the runway, struck her pose and lifted the third sign.
“Marry me.”
A wave of sighs erupted from the crowd as the words burned into Rachel’s cheeks. Her muddled mind tried to put the three signs together, but comprehension escaped her.
A marriage proposal?
From whom?
Heat torched her face as she watched Misty stroll away. She fixed her eyes on the back wall, hoping the next sign would dissolve her confusion and answer the question as to what was going on.
She clasped her hands to the armrests and held her breath, waiting for the next model to appear, but the form that emerged from behind the curtain drained the air from her lungs.
Travis.
He wore a tuxedo, and in his hand was a bouquet of perfect red roses. His gaze searched the crowd until it found hers. He held it, a little grin tugging at his mouth.
As he neared the end of the runway, she heard Darin whisper to her ear, “I think that’s your cue.” His hand patted her back, nudging her from her seat. “Don’t make the man wait.”
She rose on weakened legs, her hands shaking so furiously, she had to ball them into fists to keep from embarrassing herself in front of the crowd. She kept her eyes on Travis, his broad chest filling out the tuxedo better than any male model she’d seen, his eyes glimmering with affection and a tinge of satisfaction.
He stepped to the edge of the stage and took her hand. She didn’t want to get on stage. She wanted Travis to tell her what the hell he was doing, but when she tried to tug him in her direction, he tightened his grip and pulled her onto the platform.
The music stopped, the flashing multicolored lights died to a single golden spotlight on them both. Rachel’s cheeks burned with fire, her hands shook with nerves, and when Travis lowered to one knee, the tears she had suppressed for a week quickly came flooding to the surface.
“Forget what you heard,” he said roughly. “I’m in love with you, I want to marry you, and spend the rest of my life making you happy.”
A quick, wet cough escaped her throat and she covered her mouth with a trembling hand. Travis set the roses on the floor and reached in his pocket, pulling out a black velvet box.
As he lifted the lid, he added, “You don’t need to be saved, Rachel. But I do. Let’s build a new future together. What do you say? Will you marry me?”
Tears streaming down her cheeks, she sniffed and managed a nod. Travis slipped the ring on her finger, handed her the roses, and got to his feet.
He took her in his arms and pressed his lips to hers, bringing the cheering crowd to their feet. Then, before she could blink, he ushered her backstage. As they passed behind the curtain, they were encased in a crowd of models, with Suzanna taking center stage. Rachel wanted to give her a tongue-lashing, but her shaken nerves could only muster a smile.
“Apparently, I need to do everything for you.” Suzanna winked. “And to think, you almost let this one go.”
Rachel opened her mouth to answer, but Travis pulled her from the crowd and wrapped her in his arms. She buried her face in his tux, not even caring about the smudges of makeup she was leaving on his starched white shirt. He felt too good to let go.
“I love you, Rachel,” he said huskily, rubbing his thumb over the line of her jaw. “I wanted to come back and tell you that so many times.”
“I love you too,” she murmured, tightening her arms around his neck.
“I’ll go anywhere you want. We can move to New York,” he started, but Rachel cut him off.
“I don’t want to go to New York, unless you do. I just want to be with you, and no matter where that is, I’ll be happy.”
“Sorry to break this up.” Darin Mortensen’s voice broke over her shoulder. Rachel turned and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I just needed to tell you that I want a signed contract before you leave on your honeymoon.” He winked. “And I expect an invitation to the wedding.”
Travis extended a hand. “Thanks for your help.”
Darin laughed. “Are you kidding? My wife is such a romantic, this will be the talk of the country club for years. You’ve rendered me to hero status.”
As Darin walked away, Rachel cocked her head curiously. “And how do you happen to know one of the biggest buyers in the country?”
“I may be a detective, babe, but you keep forgetting I’m wealthy.” He grinned. “There are times when money comes in handy, remember?”
“I don’t care about your money, Travis.” She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips against his smooth cheek. “I only care about you.”
Still grinning, he lowered his head and kissed her. Then he pulled back, eyes twinkling. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” he grumbled. “After that production, I need a really stiff drink.”
With a little laugh, she kissed him once more, and then took his hand in hers. Oblivious to the crowd of models and well-wishers gathered backstage, they headed for the door. She didn’t know where they were going and she wasn’t sure she even cared. All that mattered was that Travis loved her, and that for the first time in her life, Rachel felt as though she had truly come home.
About the Author
A RITA-award-nominated author, Elle Kennedy grew up in the suburbs of Toronto, Ontario, and holds a B.A. in English from York University. From an early age, she knew she wanted to be a writer, and actively began pursuing that dream when she was a teenager. When she’s not writing, she’s reading. And when she’s not reading, she’s making music with her drummer boyfriend, oil painting, or indulging in her love for board games.
Elle loves to hear from her readers. Visit her website www.ellekennedy.com or send her a note at
[email protected].
Look for these titles by Elle Kennedy
Now Available:
Out of Uniform
Heat of the Moment
Heat of Passion
Heat of the Storm
Bad Moon Rising
Dance of Seduction
Midnight Encounters
Going for It
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Red Hot Summer
Hot Summer Nights
Coming Soon:
Heat It Up
Beauty vs. power—a dangerous game with the heart as the prize…
For His Eyes Only
© 2009 Avery Beck
Jacey Cass radiates confidence and sensuality just once a year, when she meets her rich and powerful lover for a night of anonymous sex. The rest of her calendar is filled with the daily struggle to survive. Her cashier job at Insomnia, Miami’s hottest lingerie shop, doesn’t go far toward college tuition, but she’s determined to rise above her mother’s freeloading legacy.
Alex Vaughn is one promotion away from realizing his life’s ambition. For years he’s been forced to stand by and watch his father systematically destroy the values that made Insomnia great. Now, with an expected vacancy in the summer catalog, he takes a chance. He’s never formally met the fascinating woman he takes to bed every year, but he knows a marketable body when he sees one. The last thing he expects is for her to turn the opportunity down flat.
Jacey won’t consider a handout—even from the man whose white-hot caress is the one bright spot of her life. Then a modeling competition’s prize money lures her from behind the register and into the blinding spotlight, unaware of what the cost could be to her heart…
Warning: This title follows a young woman’s journey from fear of intimacy to trust in love, with frequent, explicit descriptions of the sensual lessons learned on the way.
Enjoy the following excerpt for For His Eyes Only:
They waited for the elevator. She wrapped her arms around Alex’s neck and kissed him, a chaste kiss appropriate for the public eye should anyone catch them. But when she pulled back and stared at him, the way her eyes darkened spoke volumes about the unchaste activities she expected to take place once they made it to his room.
Thankfully, the elevator doors closed before anyone else joined them. She slipped her arms inside his jacket, and the heat of her touch penetrated his shirt fabric while he pressed her to the wall, thrust his tongue into her mouth and ground his hips against hers.
“Well,” she teased when he rested the solid crotch of his pants against her thigh. “I can tell you’re ready.”
He closed his eyes, his hunger for her made almost unbearable by the taste of sweet wine she left on his lips. “Oh, don’t worry. You’ll be ready too.”
He put his hand beneath her skirt and trailed his finger along the satin edge of a soaking wet g-string, smothering her approving moan with another kiss. The ache in his groin intensified.
“I think you’re right,” she gasped when he let her go.
The doors opened. They greeted an older couple waiting to take the elevator and managed to maintain their composure until the door to his room locked behind them.
Then he couldn’t take it anymore.
“I’ve got to have you,” he insisted, expressing the thought that had plagued him all evening. He stepped up behind her and kissed the back of her neck, then lowered the zipper of her dress, his mouth following each tooth as it opened.
By the time he reached the zipper’s end, he was kneeling on the floor with the skinny strap of those panties right in front of him, urging him to tear the thing off. But he had just one night a year with her, and he wouldn’t end it within the first three minutes.
The dress and the lingerie hit the floor before he had a chance to contemplate his next move. He looked up, managing to catch the mischievous grin on his lady’s face before she turned and strode across the room, the silken curves of her ass draped in nothing but moonlight.
He stood, his fingers clenched with the need to touch her. “Where are you going?”
“You’ll see.”
She opened the French doors that led to a private terrace and disappeared around the corner. “Care to join me?” her voice called through the darkness.
He nearly ran to the balcony, stopping just long enough to pull protection from his pocket and take off his suit. When he found her, she was shoulder-deep in the hot tub, curling her index finger at him.
“Hurry,” she whispered. He could see her squirming beneath the bubbly surface.
“You sure know how to make a man crazy.”
He sank into the warm water and pulled her against him, relishing the reunion of their naked bodies. The money and power that accompanied his position at Insomnia never left him without a date for long, but this woman was no ordinary piece of arm candy. She charged him like an electric current, and their annual rendezvous was just about the only time he felt like a flesh-and-blood man instead of a corporate puppet.
Without exception, when he took other women out, they immediately brought up his job. Each of them shared a mammoth interest in his money and his ability to discover the next pin-up girl.
But not this one. The woman in front of him was wet, naked, and beautiful—and completely uninterested in his paycheck. He didn’t think he’d find a more perfect woman if he could design one himself.
Her fingers entwined in his hair, tugging him from his thoughts. She kissed him with a desperation that seemed to match his and pushed him down until he sat on the tub’s ledge, the water swirling around his ribs. Then she straddled his lap.
“I need your touch.”
Her words energized him and brought his full attention back to the reason they were there. He dropped his hand under the bubbles, skimming her torso until he found the softness between her thighs and unraveled her desire.
“Here?”
“Alex…” She surged against his chest and her fingernails dug into his shoulder.
“That wasn’t a scream,” he objected.
“Not yet it wasn’t.”
He massaged her, increasing the pace of his stroke while she squirmed and begged and then came hard, bucking against him and crying out loud. Still trembling, she shifted in his lap, took his shaft in her hand and rubbed it against her flesh.
“Do it,” she urged.
Her pleas turned to moans when he complied, slipping inside her and reacquainting himself with her warmth, her kisses, her cries. When he was lost in the taste and scent and feel of her, once again sharing with her the deepest kind of intimacy, he realized there was one problem with his perfect woman.
He didn’t know her, not the way he should. At least she could list some of his basic information, like his position at the company and what his mother had been calling him since birth. He couldn’t do the same for her. He knew that if he leaned down and sucked on her nipple right now, she’d come again. And if he gently bit the tender spot on her neck, right behind her earlobe, she’d arch backward and push him further into her body.
It was incredible, but it wasn’t enough. Not when he held her so close that he couldn’t tell his breath from hers, and when he kept imagining waking up in his bed at home with her beside him.
He anchored one hand on her hip and brushed the other through her mass of platinum curls, the ends wet and clinging to her breasts. “Tell me your name.”
She blinked, uncertainty clouding her face. But he looked into her eyes and moved slowly within her, and she relaxed. “It’s Jacey.”
“That’s a lovely name.”
“Thank you. Alex.” She giggled, then gasped and held tightly to him as he began to thrust harder. Her hips matched his intense rhythm, and he broke into a sweat caused by more than the temperature of the water.
At last, he knew her name.
Rebuilding the fire—one kiss at a time.
All Lit Up
© 2010 Cathryn Fox
Pleasure Inn, Book 3
When interior designer Anna Deveau is hired to create a room made for romance at a Victorian inn, she is thrilled—and a little wistful. A fairy-tale ending will never be hers, but perhaps tapping into abandoned dreams will fan the flames for someone else.
Then she learns the only bricklayer available to build the room’s fireplace is Daniel Long. The sexy boy-next-door who filled her teen years with ang
st, broke her heart—and still colors her nights with red-hot fantasies.
Daniel never understood why Anna stopped talking to him a week before her sweet-sixteen party. Or why the wall between them remains a mile high. But now that he’s back in town, he intends to figure it out once and for all. Pushing the limits of her seductive design, he sets out to prove he didn’t burn her in the past.
Anna finds herself doing the one thing she swore she’d never do again: laying herself bare. Until the ghost of rumors past threatens to snuff out the fiery fantasy that, this time, Anna thought was real…
Warning: Years of sinful fantasies about the sexy boy-next-door lead to a night of wild indulgence. Be sure to keep a bevy of toys on hand when reading this tale, or better yet, get a boy-next-door of your own.
Enjoy the following excerpt for All Lit Up:
The wind picked up, and as she hugged herself to stave off a shiver, heavy footsteps heralded someone’s approach. She turned around and came face to face with Daniel. The second his body came into contact with hers and she caught a whiff of his warm, familiar scent, heat unfurled inside her, and she struggled to maintain a coherent thought.
“You cold?” He pulled her close and ran his hands up and down her arms, but the friction merely created heat in the needy spot between her legs.
“I’m okay.”
Daniel slipped off his jacket, draped it over her shoulders, and pulled her in tight. Feeling warm and wanting and in need of a distraction, she glanced at the towering maple tree. She momentarily wondered if his parents had redesigned his room after he’d left, or if they’d left it the way it was. Not that she knew how it was before his departure, since he’d never invited her in.
“Want to climb it?”
She chuckled as her body absorbed his warmth. “I don’t think so.”
He gave her a boyish wink. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”