The long-awaited sequel to THE RAKE'S MISTRESS, featuring Daniel de Lancey!

Daniel De Lancey is a privateer - beyond the law and beyond love. He risks his life secretly in the service of his country but when he meets his childhood sweetheart again, he cannot risk his heart. Lucinda Melville bitterly regrets the youthful passion she shared with Daniel and has sworn never to fall into his arms again. But when she meets the dashing pirate again it seems that the love they shared has never died. Can the joy of Christmas bring Daniel and Lucinda together at last?

Excerpted from Christmas Wedding Belles: The Pirate's Kiss\A Smuggler's Tale\The Sailor's Bride (Harlequin Historical) by Margaret McPhee, Miranda Jarrett, Nicola Cornick. Copyright © 2007. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
"Last time we parted you kissed me goodbye," Daniel said.
There was a short, sharp silence.
"I remember," Lucinda said, adding crushingly: "It was not a very good kiss, was it?"
She remembered that it had been sweet, though, despite their lack of experience. And truth to tell, she had little more knowledge of kissing now than she had had then. She suspected that Daniel's experience with the opposite sex, in contrast to her own, had increased in leaps and bounds, a suspicion confirmed when he said:
"No doubt we could do better now."
Lucinda's stomach muscles clenched with a mixture of nervousness and longing. She tried hard to ignore it.
"No doubt we could," she said, "but such things were over between us a long time ago, Daniel."
"Then consider it no more than an expression of thanks."
"Most people," Lucinda said, "would make do with a handshake."
Daniel smiled. "But not me."
He drew her in to his body and the shadows merged and shifted as his arms closed about her. His lips were cold against hers. Lucinda had imagined that she would resist him but now she found that she did not want to do so. Their bodies fitted together as though they had never been apart, as though the intervening years had never existed.
Lucinda parted her lips instinctively and felt his tongue, warm and insistent, touch hers. She had wondered how he would taste and now she knew; he tasted of the sea and the air and something clean and masculine and deliciously sensual. She felt shocked and aroused, and shocked by her own arousal. It had been such a long time. She had thought that her wild, wanton side was gone forever. Sensible Lucinda, who advised debutantes against unruly passion, should not feel hot and dizzy and melting in a pirate's embrace.
She drew back a little on the thought and felt him smile against her mouth, a smile that turned her trembling insides to even greater disorder. She was afraid that her legs might give way if he let go of her now.
"Was that better than last time?" He whispered.
"I... It was..." She grasped for words, grasped for any kind of coherent thought.
"You do not sound very sure."
He sounded wickedly sure of himself. Before she could protest he had tangled a hand into her hair and tilted her face up so that his mouth could ravish hers with a thoroughness that left her dazed. She found that she was clutching his forearms, seeking stability in a world that spun like a top.
Have some sense. Push him away...
Instead, she drew him closer, sliding her hands over his shoulders, feeling the broadcloth of his coat rough against her cold fingers. His jaw grazed her cheek; that too was slightly rough with stubble and the way it scored her sensitive skin made her shudder with helpless desire.

• Romance > Authors, A-Z > J > Jarrett, Miranda
• Romance > Genres > Historical
• Romance > Series & Publishers > Harlequin American Romance
• Romance > Series & Publishers > Harlequin Historicals

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