Honestly! You could…eHarlequin.com and Harrah’s in New Orleans is doing a great promotion that happens to be featuring the cover of several Blazes, including one written by me and Leslie Kelly, MORE BLAZING BEDTIME STORIES.

You can read more about the book here:

Browse this book

Add to your site

Buy this book

I gotta tell you, I’m loving this “look inside the book” feature at eHarlequin. When I want to buy a book, I like to sample it. In fact, since I buy almost all my books on my Kindle now, the way I remind myself to make the purchase is to send a sample to my Kindle. When I’m done reading one book, I browse through my samples and read a chapter (or two, depending on what is offered) and if I’m hooked, I order the book and it is delivered to my machine within seconds. It’s nifty! But even in a store, I read a lot before I buy.

I didn’t used to. I used to be much more of an impulse buyer when it came to books. The economy changed that, of course, but so did my purchase of the Kindle, which I bought in response to the hundreds of books I had around my house that I’d never read. I gave all the books away to readers on my group blog, Plotmonkeys, and I still give away books there every so often, particularly after conferences or judging a contest–anything that puts me in possession of a lot of paper books! And yet I still have bookshelves full of books!

If you click the widget above (which I took, with permission, from eHarlequin), you’ll get to read the first chapter of my upcoming Blaze, which is already starting to show up in stores and is shipping from eHarlequin and Amazon.com. But if you’d like a sneak peek a little further in…here it is!

Enjoy…and I hope it makes you want to buy the book!

The wine was making her woozy.

This was a surprisingly development, since in her world, wine was the drink of choice. Jugs of fermented grape juice flowed at every dinner, ball or party she’d ever attended and she’d never once felt like thin layers of skin were the only thing keeping her insides contained. The antsy feeling made it hard for her to stand beside Jack as they cleared off dishes and placed them in a remarkable invention called a dishwasher. Like a kitchen maid, but without the back talk.

“It’s late. Ready for bed?” Jack asked as he shut the door to the marvelous appliance.

She turned and leaned on her hands, which gripped the edge of the sink.

“Am I ever,” she replied, sounding breathless, which was appropriate, since her lungs suddenly weren’t working as effortlessly as usual.

“I guess that sounded like a come-on,” he commented, one eyebrow tilting upward.

He had gorgeous brown eyes. Dark and rich and expressive. She leaned forward, interested to see how his pupils reacted when she neared.

“Did it?” she asked.

The brown irises darkened to almost black. She might not be experienced with men on a personal level, but she was a quick study.

According to the plan dictated to her this morning before Harper left for her sleepover, Tatiana was supposed to spend the day buttering Jack up about Harper’s audition in New York—or at the very least, securing her position as a French tutor so she’d have more time to convince him that Harper possessed a rare talent that shouldn’t be locked away.

But once Tatiana had fully awakened, she’d decided on a different tack.

First, she’d given him space to prove she wouldn’t be a distraction to his comfortable, ordered life. She’d spent the entire day outdoors, exploring the landscape, napping in a hammock and trying not to replay the erotic, sensual dreams that had haunted her all night—the ones where Jack’s hands were pleasuring her body and not her own.

So far, her plan seemed to be working nicely. Since she’d re-entered the house, he’d given her his undivided attention. He’d wanted to know everything about her. She realized he was testing to see if she was worthy of contact with his sister, but she also hoped that some of his questions were personal.

“Do you often flirt with men you barely know?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I never do.”

His skepticism lifted the other eyebrow. “Never?”

“Never,” she replied, meeting his gaze straight on.

“So why now?”

She wasn’t certain he was aware of it, but he’d invaded her personal space deep enough for her to finally identify the mystery scent mingling with dizzying amber and heady musk.

“Do you paint?”

He retreated just as unconsciously as he’d advanced. She snagged him by his shirt, tugged him forward and buried her nose in the fabric.

“That’s definitely paint. Oils.” She peered upward, but did not release him. “You’re a man with secrets.”

“Everyone has secrets,” he whispered, his breath teasing the wisps of hair on her forehead.

“True, but I don’t think it’s any big secret that I’m attracted to you. And unless I’m reading the signs wrong,” she said, fully aware of how her belly brushed against his erection, “you want me, too.”

He wrapped his hands around hers and disengaged her fingers from his shirt. She had no idea she’d been holding him so tightly until she saw the wrinkled fabric.

“As I’ve told my sister many times, we can’t always get what we want.”

“Why not?”

“Because what we want may not be the best thing for us.”

“That’s a reasonable argument,” she said, recognizing that Jack St. Cloud was a man whose mind demanded just as much exercise as his body. “But what could be wrong about us?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but she held up her hand.

“Nothing beyond tonight,” she said. “I totally get you need to be a role model for your sister and that you have to look out for her best interests above all else, which is why I want to tutor her and help show you how bright and determined she is. But she’s not here now, Jack. It’s just you and me. I’ve never felt an attraction this powerful before.”

“You use that word a lot,” Jack said.

“What word?”

“Never,” he replied.

“Up until I showed up in your bayou, my life was pretty simple. Filled with absolutes.” She moved closer to him with each word, finally splaying her hands over his chest as if to smooth out the crinkles she’d put in his shirt, but in reality, to caress the rock hard muscles underneath. “For instance, I’ve never had a man excite me so much.

And with only one exception, I’ve usually gotten everything I want.”

“What’s the one exception?”

“Can’t say,” she replied, snaking her fingers up to his collar, then to his chin where she swiped her thumbs across his lips. His mouth was suddenly very moist and very appealing…not unlike a cake soaked in fine brandy.

Only she’d had enough alcohol tonight. She wanted only the intoxication that came from Jack. Just the thought of kissing him made her waver.

Luckily, he grabbed her by the elbows and held her steady.

“Why can’t you tell me?” he whispered, lowering his head one inch, then one more. “You’d never believe me,” she replied.

“You could convince me,” he murmured.

“I intend to—”

But her objective was cut off mid-sentence when his lips pressed so tentatively against hers, she wondered if the kiss was real or just a drink-induced dream. She forced her eyes open just as he spread his hands on her waist and tugged her closer. Suddenly, he wasn’t playing games. His tongue slipped into her mouth and did the most delicious things with hers that she couldn’t help moan in sheer appreciation.

His shoulders were broad and steady under her exploring fingers. His neck strained with what she imagined to be restraint, though his lips were giving no quarter. The swirl of his tongue, the nip of his teeth, the skillful way he turned his head so he could reach the most erogenous zones of her mouth caused her to nearly forget to breathe. When he pulled away, she stumbled a little.

“Wow,” she said.

A corner of his lips quirked upward. “Like that, huh?”

“Do you always ask questions where the answer is obvious?”

“I haven’t asked you enough questions,” he replied, the definitive sound of self-reproach in his tone.

She narrowed her eyes, grabbed his shirt again and lifted herself so they were as close to eye-to-eye as she could get with a man who was a good eight inches taller than she was. “I haven’t told you everything about myself yet, but I swear that there is nothing in my past, present or future that could hurt you or your sister. Can you say the same?”

“Definitely,” he replied.

“Then shut up and kiss me.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under Julie Leto. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.