NO LONGER FORBIDDEN - mini excerpt

Reaching up, I slip my fingers around the back of his head again, relishing the soft silkiness of his dark curls. His hair is longer now, and I glory in that. It feels gorgeous to the touch as I draw his face to mine and start kissing his mouth, exploring it with little nibbles and darts of my tongue.

Mr. Laurence. Beautiful Mr. Laurence. My fantasy man. Here. Now. For real.

Even though I’ve taken the initiative, within a heartbeat he owns it again. His arms slide around me, hands roving, while his mouth matches mine in a contest of sexy little forays, flicks of the tongue, nips and probes. With his lips against my ear, I feel the heat of his breath on my neck, as he whispers, “You are everything I dreamed about, Annie. All these years… I thought I’d got over you, but I never did, you were still there, always at the back of my mind. Like a beautiful perfume caught in my brain, always reminding me of what I’d wanted but couldn’t have.”

I blink as we kiss. His thoughts are my thoughts. His feelings the same. For an instant, I ache for the wasted years, but then realize, maybe I wasn’t ready until now.

“But you can have me now. And I can have you,” I whisper boldly against his neck, opening my mouth on the words, tasting the clean, vaguely salt flavor of his skin.

“Hell yes,” he growls, his hand on my bottom, massaging, working my pelvis against his erection, “I’d do a ‘me Tarzan, you Jane’ and pick you up and carry you into the bedroom, but my leg is pretty much just screwed together in places and I don’t want to falter and drop you.”

“I’m happy to walk…” Pausing, I nip at his soft lower lip, then laugh, “In fact, I’ll run there, then strip off and wait for you, if you like?”

“Wicked girl,” he purrs, taking control of the kiss and pushing his tongue into my mouth, hot and wild and thrilling.

Available from eHarlequin, Fictionwise, Books on Board Sony Ebook Store and Amazon Kindle

No Longer Forbidden by Portia Da Costa
Harlequin Spice Briefs ® 2009 ISBN 9781426836367
© 2009 Portia Da Costa
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher

Another Chance - micro taster

ANOTHER CHANCE is linked to Chance of a Lifetime.

Archivist Maud Piper has already had one sexy voyeuristic encounter with estate steward William Graves... and now she want more, a lot more, of the big, beautiful, forbidding man...

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Still, my heart beats hard. And down below, the slow stir of desire rolls in my loins. From within the cottage, there’s a faint clanking sound, metal on metal. What the hell is he doing? The door is stout, and the walls look thick, so I don’t hear footsteps. But a moment later, the heavy iron handle turns and the door swings ajar.

William Graves stands in the opening, looking me over with silent watchfulness, apparently unsurprised.

Moments tick by and I open my mouth to speak, but he pre-empts me.

“Come in out of the cold… I’ve been expecting you.”

My pulse races and my desire twists hard. He knows! He knows what I want! And he’s ready…

I follow him into the softly lit room and discover what the clanking was. Furniture is pushed aside in the small room, and a collection of ponderous looking free weights are laid out on the carpet in front of the blazing open fire. Without speaking, William hauls them aside, one after the other. He’s naked to the waist, wearing only combat trousers and a pair of work boots, and his skin gleams like beaten bronze in the flickering light. Still without a word, he drags a couple of battered and hefty looking easy chairs closer to the hearth and indicates that I should sit down, first gesturing in his spare, economical way for me to hand over my hat and coat. He looms over me while I struggle with normally easy fastenings, his big delicious body pushing all my buttons.

William Graves is younger than me, possibly by a decade, but something in his dark, navy blue eyes is as old as eternity. What happened to him, I wonder as I shrug out of my coat and pass it across. It’s not only his solid arms and his deep chest that are hard. He has an intrinsic hardness, a granite of the spirit.

Without asking me what I want, he pours generous slugs of Glenmorangie into a couple of cheap glasses, and hands one over.

“So how can I help you?”

“About last night…”

The two phrases come out simultaneously, and it’s like an unseen bubble bursts. We both laugh and the tension is gone. The whisky tastes good when I finally take a sip.

He nods, giving me precedence.

“What happened last night… I just wanted to say that I liked it. I liked it very much. I was… um…” Despite my superficial confidence, I falter… “I was hoping we might, well, follow up on it. Do more…”

His brows shoot up, and his cool eyes brighten and warm. He takes a long pull at his drink, then rubs a big hand over his short, dark brown hair as if genuinely puzzled… and admiring.

“You’re very direct, aren’t you?” he says softly.