For once reality is sexier than fiction!
Author Stella Mills has writers’ block. Her swashbuckling debut romance was a mega-hit—and the world is crying out for a sequel. Problem is, her sexy-as-sin hero was based on childhood friend Rick Granville, whose dangerously delicious eyes have never sparkled at her that way!
So being forced to spend weeks on adventurer Rick’s luxury yacht could be just the thing to trigger her imagination—forget Johnny Depp…modern-day pirate Rick is pure physical perfection. Of course, spending night and day with the temptation that is Rick could be sailing too close to the wind—especially when her fictional fantasies start becoming red-hot reality!
“You can’t go a day without trying to hook up.”
“I think you’re exaggerating a little.”
Stella stopped pacing and glared at him. “In thirty-six hours, you have flirted with every woman who has crossed your path. And when we get on that boat tomorrow after about twelve hours you’re going to start in on me because you can’t help yourself,” she finished a little shrilly.
“You think I can’t go a few weeks without flirting with a woman?”
“I dare you. I dare you to go through this whole voyage without flirting with a single woman you meet along the way.”
Rick grinned, his gaze locking with hers. “And what do I get?” he asked, his voice low.
The timbre of his voice stroked along all her tired nerve endings as he stared at her with his Vasco eyes.
Stella swallowed. “Get?”
Rick held her gaze. “If I win? How about that kiss that we didn’t quite get round to?”
Stella blinked as the bad-boy looked back at her. It was a tantalizing offer. One she knew he didn’t expect her to take. But she’d never been one to back down from a dare, and frankly, the idea was as thrilling as it was illicit.
The Devil and the Deep
Amy Andrews
~ Temptation on her Doorstep ~
AMY ANDREWS has always loved writing, and still can’t quite believe that she gets to do it for a living. Creating wonderful heroines and gorgeous heroes and telling their stories is an amazing way to pass the day. Sometimes they don’t always act as she’d like them to—but then neither do her kids, so she’s kind of used to it. Amy lives in the very beautiful Samford Valley, with her husband and aforementioned children, along with six brown chooks and two black dogs.
She loves to hear from her readers. Drop her a line at www.amyandrews.com.au.
For Halle Anne Baxter.
Much loved.
Contents
PROLOGUE
Lady Mary Bingham had never seen such a fine specimen of manhood in all her twenty years as she held out her hand to her unlikely saviour so he could aid her aboard. Pirate or not, Vasco Ramirez’s potent masculinity tingled through every cell of her body. And even had it not, his piercing blue eyes, the exact colour of warm, tropical waters that fringed the reefs he was rumoured to know like the back of his hand, touched a place inside her that she’d never known existed.
A place she could never now deny.
She supposed, if she were given to swooning, this would be as good a time as any. But she wasn’t. In fact she’d always found the practice rather tiresome and refused to even allow her knees the slightest tremble. Women who had fits of the vapours and cried for their smelling salts every two seconds—like her aunt—were not the kind of women she admired.
Her breath hitched as sable lashes framing those incredible eyes swept downwards in a frank inspection of every inch of her body. When his gaze returned to her face she was left in no doubt that he’d liked what he’d seen. His thumb lightly stroked the skin of her forearm and she felt the caress deep inside that newly awakened place.
Looking at the bronzed angles of his exotic face, she knew she should be afraid for had she not just gone from the frying pan straight into the fire?
Yet strangely she wasn’t.
Not even when his gaze dropped to the pulse beating rapidly against the milky white skin of her neck. Or lower to where her breasts strained against the constrictive fabric of her bodice. His lazy inspection of the agitated rise of her bosom did not elicit fear even when what it did elicit was reason for fear itself.
Her uncle, the bishop, would have declared him an instrument of the devil. A man willing to lead unsuspecting ladies to the edge of sin but strangely she’d never felt so compelled to transgress. The thought was titillating and she sucked in a breath, annoyed that this buccaneer had caused such consternation after such short acquaintance.
After all, was not one pirate just like the next?
Mary looked down at the insolent drift of his thumb. ‘You will unhand me immediately,’ she intoned in a voice that brooked no argument.
Ramirez’s smile was nine parts charm one part insolence as he slowly—very slowly—ceased the involuntary caress.
‘As you wish,’ he murmured, bowing slightly over her hand, his fingers tracing down the delicate blue veins of her forearm, whispering over the fragile bones of her wrist and the flat
