Red Letter Nights
Steamy invites for romantic holiday nights…
‘Tis the season to be delightfully naughty. Oui? At least, that’s the plan according to the sexy singles living tantalizingly close in New Orleans’ ultra-chic town house complex Court du Chaud. Why not write the ultimate secret red-hot love note to kick off the holidays?
All it takes is quickly slipping a sexy red-letter invitation under the door and suddenly three bold women—driven Claire, caring Chloe and blossoming Josie—are sighing with pleasure…and it has nothing to do with Chloe’s scrumptious homemade beignets. But everything to do with three sexy men.
No strings. No questions. Who knew delivering a Secret Santa challenge would lead to a sizzling gift that keeps on giving…and giving?
Harlequin Blaze | ISBN 0373792174 | November 2005 | Buy It Here
READ AN EXCERPT
Jack sighed as a cool breeze blew over his heated skin as he sat and stared up at the moon. The café was dark and silent, yet cinnamon seemed to linger in the air. He’d had that dream again. He rubbed at his face to get rid of the images of all the bodies. His one and only failure. He’d tried to save them, all those souls on his conscience, their blood on his hands.
He shifted and rubbed the back of his neck, guilt, remorse, pain rising in him.
Chris had denied resigning from the NOPD because of the burn out, but Jack believed Chris hadn’t been able to take the pressure of being a cop. Jack refused to quit. He’d never quit anything in his life.
Sure he’d been required to see the shrink, but he’d mouthed all the right answers even as his gut twisted. The deaths would always weigh on his conscience. No amount of talking would change that.
His gaze shifted to Chloe’s balcony, to the plants there. He’d seen her watering them earlier, her soft hands touching the leaves as her mouth moved.
He found it so damned endearing that she talked to her plants. He wondered what she said.
He caught movement at the window, his sharp cop’s eyes missed very little. So, she couldn’t sleep either.
Had she tacked that envelope on his door? The scent was hers.
Hell, why didn’t he just say it. He wanted it to be her.
He wanted her.
It wasn’t smart. A woman like that would want more than he was willing to give. He instinctively knew it. But damn smart wasn’t playing into the equation right about now. Smart was about as far away as it could get.
He heard a door open and saw Chloe slip out of her townhouse. She glided over to him. He took a deep breath and leaned back against the bench back support.
“Hi. Couldn’t sleep?” she asked, her voice hushed.
She smiled at him and there wasn’t anything tentative about this woman and damned if he didn’t like that. She looked so fragile and delicate with her strawberry blonde hair trailing down the smooth column of her neck; tickling the hollow at the place he’d die to place his lips.
He clenched his hands and closed his eyes, sending the pain deep inside him and letting the charm flow.
“No. You?” Jack replied.
“No.”
“Worries?”
She nodded, her gaze going slowly over his face as if she could read him like an open book. He shifted, caught in that magical gaze, so warm, so welcoming. He wouldn’t be giving up his secrets that easily and never to this woman. His professional life in the NOPD was so removed from this courtyard with its old world charm and its pretty flower boxes. This is what he went to work every day to shield. She was what he risked his life to protect.
A twinge of guilt, a woman falling, her dark hair spilled over the pavement. The charming façade slipped. Her sharp gaze narrowed.
“Are you all right?”
He forced himself to relax and shrug as if it were easy. “Right as rain, cher.
“For a minute there, you looked. . .like you were in pain.”
“Must have been a trick of the moonlight.”
Somewhere near a woman’s voice, lovely in cadence and melody, began to sing.
“Who’s that?” He stood and looked around.
Chloe looked over toward the center of the court. “That’s Tally. She sings sometimes when she gets home from work. She’s a lounge singer for Fontaine’s.
“It’s beautiful, soothing.”
“Do you need to be soothed?”
He turned to look at her and she was standing so close he brushed against her arm.
“Mamère used to sing me to sleep after thunderstorms and a bad day.”
She didn’t move her arm or step away from him. “What kind of bad day?”
“Fightin mostly. I was trying to defend Christien for riling up someone else.”
“The makings of a cop even then.”
“How did you know I was a cop?”
“There are very few secrets here in Court du Chaud, Mr. Castille. For instance, I know that you got this tattoo in the military.”
The tip of her finger brushed the barbed wire tattoo and his groin filled, hot and heavy. It happened so fast he wasn’t prepared. He’d thought he was in control, that he could stay away from her. But urgency was sweeping in a tidal rush, hurting, hard and hammering his blood through him in a painful aching. He couldn’t stay away from Chloe Matthews.
He took her wrist and very slowly drew her hand towards his face. With a deliberate challenge in his eyes, he brought her palm to his mouth and kissed her soft flesh.
She gasped a quick intake of air, so soft in the suddenly hushed night. Tally sang on about fever and wanting. He pulled her closer to him. Taking her hand he placed it around his neck. Leaning down he picked up the other one and put that one around his neck.
Very slowly he began to sway.
“The tattoo was a rite of passage. All the guys in my platoon had one.”
She looked up at him and he sensed she wanted something from him, but he didn’t know what. It certainly felt like it was more than he could ever give.
He wasn’t a man to cut and run, but what he saw in Chloe’s soft, gentle eyes made him want to bolt. He was touched by violence almost everyday. It seemed wrong for him to this close to her. He was afraid some of it would rub off on her. But she felt so good in his arms he wanted more.
From the book: RED LETTER NIGHTS/Deliver Me
By: Karen Anders
Imprint and Series: Harlequin Blaze
Publication Date: 11/05
ISBN: 0373792174
Copyright ©: 2005
By Karen Alarie
® and * are trademarks of the publisher.
The edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S. A.
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