I was going to shut up, wasn't I?

quote:

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Pearce grabbed his soil-worked hand and, without a word, led him to the enclosed gazebo. She pushed in him, knowing all too well that his very size prevented him from doing anything he didn't want to do.

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And, yeah. "Almost" was a poor choice of words. Heh.

Don't worry, kwsni. I'm with you on the 'sweet' and the 'bloody' ones, two.

I am sort of wondering if Slash knows he's been made a villian in a bloody romance.

Poor Dierdre and Michael, little do they realize that I am not that easy to kill. I show up again as the surprise ending to book two, and am finally killed at the end of book three, after having caused a lot more mischief.

I really dug the writing, but I don't think the story was very realistic. If I was going to chain up a women and force her to my will, I don't think it would be Katie (as much as I like her), and I also doubt that Mike could take me out like that in real life.

edit: See?

John looked deep into the night from his balcony. The shimmery stars seemed as a veil for the endless midnight blue of the sky. He swirled his wine in it's pewter goblet, allowing the aroma to reach his nose and play with his senses.

But it wasn't wine that intoxicated him tonight. It was the woman lying peacefully in his bed.

Isadora... Sweet, sweet Isadora. Tonight had been like the first time. How could such a woman make a man like him, known far and wide for his rakish exploits, to feel inexperienced and eager? It humbled him. It humbled him as nothing had before.

He turned back to look at his sweet Isadora through the gauzy canopy of his bed. Her breath caught a little as she slept, and her long frame shifted so that she lay on her side, facing him. He saw the eyelids flutter, the chest rise and fall ever so delicately and her lips curl into a smile. He hoped she dreamt of him.

He turned back to the night, knowing he had to make a decision. Knowing that his beautiful Isadora's family was but on the other side of the fief border, waiting for his attack. Building their defenses, awaiting their doom. No one had successfully defended against John's army. No one ever could...

But now he had to make heavy decisions. One that would affect his life with Isadora. He could not imagine his life without her. His men would never understand how their valiant, and often harsh lord, could have become bewitched by a mere woman. But how could he face another day without the sweet touch of her graceful hands upon his body? How could he live without the feel of her underneath him, aglow with anticipation.

His loins stirred with the mere thought.

John set down his goblet and untied his robe. It slid down the expanse of well-muscled manhood, and ended as a pool on the floor. His eyes became dark with the thought of having his sweet Isadora again. He slipped into the bed and turned her sleeping body toward him. She awoke with a kiss and instantly felt his longing, because she felt it, too.

Jeff had always had to hunt for his food. Having been raised by neither family nor fortune, he had used his senses and his instincts to become part of the forest. The trees were his ceiling, the ground his floor. The shrubbery partitioning the rooms of his castle. He was Lord here.

Having made his kill and dined on it, Jeff trailed his way to the pond at the edge of the forest for a bathe. It was a hot and sticky summer evening, and in this weather a swim was his greatest joy.

The pond was but one mile from where he generally lay his head, and he claimed it as his own. He knew this forest was not his property, but rather like he had a living relationship with it. It sheltered and fed him, and he kept it free of riff-raff. However, the pond he had always thought of as his own.

But as he turned the corner of the second oak tree, he discovered it was occupied already. Feeling a little invaded and not a little apprehensive at this turn of events, he silently circled the pool. Stealthily peaking through the low bushes he saw a small pink figure pop up from the water. As Jeff watched, the figure swam to the shallow end, surfaced and then walked out of the pond.

Jeff stared speechless. Water droplets ran down what was surely the most beautiful naked creature he had ever beheld. Masses of chestnut hair were piled up using only a few pins. Wet tendrils clung to the sides of her face and her graceful neck. She walked towards a napsack that was hanging on a low branch and removed a small, oval, beige substance. She went back to the pool and submerged the oval into the water which was brought back up foaming. Then she began to lather her body with it.

Jeff could not stop watching, paralyzed by the intoxicating sight. He unconsciously stepped forward and, as if it were somewhere else completely, heard the sound of a twig snap.

The girl looked up with frightened eyes and spotted Jeff standing there, looking at her aghast. With a small squeal, she gave one panicked glance around her and then finally dove straight into the water.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she said, as soon as the water hid her nakedness. "I didn't know anyone else came out here!"

Jeff simply looked at her in astonishment. Words were often difficult for him, as he had such little human contact, but he imagined even the most eloquent man would have trouble articulating in this circumstance.

"I was... I was just going to go for a swim," he said, lamely.

The girl looked at him with more than a little speculation in her eyes. "Would you mind throwing me that over there?" she asked, pointing at her chemise.

Jeff stared blankly for a moment and then did as she requested. He motioned throwing it at her in the water and she nodded. She put it on while still in the pool and then re-emerged. The chemise was nearly transparent soaking wet, but it offered at least the illusion of cover.

But it seemed to not matter in the girl's mind, now. She approached Jeff, her hair now falling down around her wet shoulders from the weight of the water. She cocked her head to one side and said, "I'm Ophelia. I'm a water nymph." Then she grinned as if it was a joke she had with herself. "I'm from the manor house. I've never seen you before."

Regaining his composure, Jeff nodded and said, "I don't see many people."

She seemed to understand. "What is your name?"

Jeff shrugged. "I think it's 'Jeff'."

Ophelia laughed. "You 'think'?"

He nodded. "I'm pretty certain."

Through an amused look, Ophelia asked, "Where do you live?"

Jeff responsed, "The forest is my home. I live here. You were in my pond." Then he blushed for the accusatory sound in his voice.

Ophelia grinned again. "Perhaps you could show me the rest of the forest," she said and then grabbed his hand.

In that moment a spark of electricity seemed to shoot through the bodies of both of them. They looked at each other in surprise, and then Ophelia's eyes darkened. She stood on the tips of her toes and kissed Jeff's eyes, one at time, ever-so-gently.

"I think you can show many things..."

Tonight I must rest, and regain my strength, as I have of late been ill.

Which Jeff am I being paired up with here?

I love yall! Could someone do me? please? *giggles*

Chenoa and Lander raced across the moor, but Marlon and his guards were on horseback, they were gaining, and fast. Chenoa’s dress was already ripped, she finally tore it in half to keep from tripping over the hem. She mourned the loss of such a beautiful garment, but she would mourn Lander more, if she lost him. Having grown up on the moor, Lander was sure footed, his feet stayed where he planted them. Chenoa was not so lucky. Her every step slipped in an unanticipated direction, making her lurch along behind him. She’d lost her slippers long ago, she ran barefoot.

Chenoa’s foot caught on a mound of turf, and she fell face down into the mud. Lander was three strides ahead of her before he noticed that her hand had slipped from his.

“Go!” She begged him. “He only wants me! Run, and you can get away.” Lander bounded back to her, his hands firm and gentle as he helped her from the bog.

“I’ll not leave you.” The horsemen had surrounded them as they spoke, and Marlon, on his jet black horse, forced his way through the circle of swords. Lander put himself between Chenoa and Marlon, she could feel the muscles in his back tense as he yelled to his brother.

“Go ahead, Marlon. Kill me and take her.” Chenoa clung to Lander’s back, if Marlon killed him, she wanted the chance to have him impale her, too. Life without Lander would be no life at all.

Marlon laughed that sinister laugh. “Oh, I don’t need to do that, brother.” He motioned to a guard, and Chenoa’s world went black.

***

Chenoa was woken from her stupor by a scream. She was somewhere dark. Dark and damp. It was Lander screaming. He hung half naked in chains from a wall in the tiny cell. Chenoa got up, her muddy dress clinging to her body. Marlon’s dark form moved between her and Lander, Chenoa couldn’t see what he did, but it elicited another scream from Lander. Marlon finished his torture, Chenoa watched the blood drip from the dagger in his hand. He turned to sneer at Chenoa.

“See? This is where love gets you. No where.” He buried the dagger in Lander’s muscular upper arm.

Chenoa faced Marlon defiantly. “You’ll never get away with this. My father—”

“Your father has already promised me your hand in marriage!” Marlon roared. “Do not presume to threaten me!” His hand flew, and impacted the side of Chenoa’s face. She stumbled back as Marlon left, locking the door behind him.

“Did he hurt you?” Lander groaned, from behind her.

“No, darling.” Chenoa turned to look at him. Blood was seeping down his arms from his wrists, which were chafed and raw from the shackles, and bubbling from the wound in his bicep. The side of his face was also slick with blood, Chenoa saw there were small cuts on his ear. “Oh, Lander…”

“Hush, love. I want you to accept him. I’m not worth it. He’ll torture you, too, until he gets what he wants. I couldn’t bear it if he hurt you. He’ll be good to you once I’m out of the way.” Lander’s dark eyes begged her to obey him. She couldn’t, though… to marry the man who would kill her true love? Chenoa would rather die first. She pressed herself against his bare chest.

“And I couldn’t bear to marry the man who killed you. Don’t speak so. We will find some way out.” Lander kissed the top of her head. Chenoa clung to him as he hung there, and let her tears wet his chest.

Yeah, bloody.

Edited cause Becky can't type.

Ni!

It didn't wake up any until I realized that the guys had to be brothers.

Definitely. Maybe Andrea's Mayday party.

(A contemporary one!)

Growing up poverty-stricken had given Eddie the determination to have all that he desired. At first that was expensive cars, fast women and all the pleasures that money can buy. But Eddie had tired of his fast-paced, millionare playboy lifestyle. He had quenched all of his physical thirsts, and then some. At one point he had thought about the things he was missing, like a family. Like love...

But turning his attention to love had been nothing but misery. Nothing but misery, until she walked into his life...

Women had thrown themselves at Eddie for as long as he had become successful. Oh, sure - he wasn't sore on the eyes. With his lean, 6'2" frame and the smoldering eyes of his Italian heritage, Eddie was in no way devoid of his own charms. But the supermodels and starlets he had dated seemed to be after only two things: prestige and money. Eddie had all but resigned himself to this, all but given up hope of a relationship built on less superficial foundations. Of a love with someone like...

...someone like Alexa. He had met her in the most inconspicuous of places, simply getting morning coffee at the nearest Cafe. She hadn't seen him pull up in his Viper, and he hadn't seen her run in to the cafe after hopping off the bus. He had given her first place in line, and she had thanked him so sincerely, looked so warm, that he had given her his number. It seemed a crazy thing to do, now. But she had called, and it had set everything in place...

Now, knowing he had to tell her who he was, what he represented, what he owned and what he was worth was too much. If she knew he was Big Money, would she still want him? Would she suddenly look like the other women he had dated, who just wanted to get their hooks into his well-muscled body? Or, worse yet, would she mask the fact that she already knew...

He walked back into her bedroom, where she was tucking the shirt that had gotten rumpled in their loving into her jeans. So fresh-faced, so potentially deadly.

"Alexa, I... I have something I need to say to you," he began.

Alexa looked up knowingly. Knowingly, because she knew what he was going to say. How could she let him know that she knew? How could she have let this charade go for so long?

"Yes?" she said, looking for a stall.

"I'm a wealthy man, Alexa. I own much of this town, and a good chunk of property downtown New York."

Alexa briefly considered playing along, briefly considered acting as if she didn't know. But she could not. She could not continue the charade.

"I... I know," she said, defeated.

Anger pierced through Eddie's body, and it shot straight out of his eyes. "You knew!?" he asked like a man gone mad. "So, this HAS all been about money!"

"No! NO!" Alexa cried out, anguish throbbing her fragile body. "No! It hasn't! I've loved you from the moment in the coffee shop, from the moment you gave me your number. I didn't know, I swear!" She ran at him and beat on his chest to beg for an embrace.

Eddie looked down at the woman he wanted to someday marry. He looked down at the face of innocence, of guilelessness... of deceit. He pushed Alexa aside and began to walk out the bedroom door.

"I thought I loved you, Alexa. But I'm glad I found out. I'm glad I found out what you were really after," Eddie finished, and slammed the front door on his way out of her house.

Alexa crumbled to the floor, tears streaming down her cherubic face. She would make it up to him, she would have him back. Otherwise, what good would life be without him...

And, yes CT. Taking care of people's medical problems and caring for the ill is but dung before writing hack romance excerpts.

I think I may have laughed to hard.

Very Exorcistish.

Ralphie, I do a very few things pretty well, and the rest of my life is, er, chaotic and stunted. You, on the other hand, do everything well that you turn your hand to, and you do it with such style.

Shannon pulled herself up onto an uneven rock ledge stood at her full five feet seven inches. She hooked her thumbs through the straps of her knapsack and surveyed her surroundings. Shaking her sandy blonde ponytail away from her damp neck, she breathed deeply of the fresh mountain air. The freedom she felt from being so far away from it all was in sharp contrast to the harshness of just a few days before.

She had come hiking to forget about him. She wiped her palms on the seat of her jeans and kicked a pebble off the ledge. It bounced down the mountain, hitting dry, cracked stone and finally coming to rest in a clump of grass. “Like that pebble,” she thought to herself, “he kicked me aside like I didn’t matter.” Her expression crumpled into a visage of utter sadness. A few slow tears mingled with the sweat of her face and stained the bosom of her thin cotton t-shirt. She pulled the hem up to wipe her face, exposing a smooth, tanned stomach and the pink lace of her bra.

“Will he always haunt me? Can I never be alone?” Shannon thought back to her days in the office this past year. He had come to visit so often, brought a treat or taken her to lunch, called without a reason. She relished the distraction from the never-ending mound of case files. During dull meetings she had held his face in her mind’s eye so many times, dreaming of his clean-cut features and trimmed, stylish appearance. She had imagined peeling his adorable wire-rimmed glasses away from the black pools of his eyes with one hand and pulling his body to hers with the other. Then he would reach around to caress her skin beneath her tailored silk blouse and plant smouldering kisses on her glossed lips as she in turn would embed her fingers in his smooth, jet black hair. She had felt naughty and excited at the thought and, smiling, drew arrows through hearts on her jotter. The feelings she had had then were utterly the same and completely the opposite of her present ones: that she would never have to be alone, that everywhere she turned he would be there, because his face was permanently fixed in her mind. “How can I ever escape?” she said aloud to the sky.

Turning on her heel, she reached for a hold on the roots clinging to the rock face above and to the side of her. Suddenly her feet began to slip on the pebble-strewn ledge and her heart raced as she felt the muscles of her arms jerk in immediate reaction, clinging tighter to the root system. Her feet scrambled for purchase and she gasped as suddenly the roots began to break free. Dirt and grass descended on her as she felt herself being swung further off the ledge. Shannon blinked with pain as specks of dust fell into her eyes, blurring her vision. Finally she found a shallow foothold with the toe of one boot. She reached up for a better grip and nearly screamed when something gripped her.

Shannon felt herself lifted by an unseen force quickly and steadily upward, as though she weighed no more than a dried leaf. She blinked and coughed as her writhing body dislodged more dirt and debris on its way up. She shielded her face with her free arm and desperately rubbed her eyelids with her sleeve, not noticing when she stopped moving upward and merely dangled by her wrist.

“Well, well, well. What have we here,” a deep voice murmured. Shannon blotted the last of the dirt from her eyes and stared into the face of the man who held her by the wrist. A quiet mass of curls framed a strong face with the shadow of a beard. Striking grey eyes danced with laughter, and Shannon could see a boyish dimple appear on his rugged cheek, though it was clear he was attempting to maintain a straight face. He swung her toward him and dropped her to her feet. When her boots finally found the ground, she was amazed to look up at his face and see only sky behind his head. He was huge! He had to be at least a foot taller than she, and with shoulders and arms to match his proportion. “Got in a little over your head, did you?” he queried with that hint of a smile. She stood breathless as she watched him lean to peer over the cliff he had just rescued her from. “You ought to know it’s dangerous using trails past your own ability.” His bicep stretched the sleeve of his black ribbed t-shirt as he reached up to rub the back of his neck.

Most throwaway romances are unreadable, granted, but I have a short list of awesome writers with plot twists, character development, and neat info like netsuke and the songs of Charles Aznavour (two things to which I was introduced by the inimitable Anne Weale, the only Harlequin author worth a dime).

When I was a young teen I spent a lot of time at my grandparents house (aka next door to Fael's). When I wasn't borrowing SF from Fael, the only thing my grandmother had to read was Harlequin romances. So, yeah - I've read a bunch, just not for a while.

I first read romance at a very very young age (actually, the local library called my mother because I was reading Guy de Maupassant in kindergarten -- it was a cute little pink book of short stories, and well ... but I think it was Henry Miller that finally pushed the librarian over the edge. *grin My mother of course said that her children could read any book in the library, and that was the first scandal. ) When I'd stay with aunts and uncles while my father was hospitalized and my mother working, there was little but Harlequin and Good Housekeeping magazines. And I'd read anything, even shampoo bottles in a pinch.

Getting older my tastes changed, and I never did appreciate stories where the people treated each other awfully and then "fell in love" (or, treated each other awfully because they were in love). But the subtle dance of glance and breath, attraction that grows over time and struggles to be restrained, wellll ...