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“Did you feel something just then?”
Kate asked in a hushed tone. “When I…When you…”
“When we kissed?” Darren finished for her.
“Yes.”
“I felt like this,” he said, pulling her to him. He put his hands on her shoulders and lowered his mouth to hers.
This time there was no accidental brushing of lips. He kissed her with everything he had, taking her mouth with gentle persuasion and making it his.
He kissed her until she swayed against him. She let her hands climb to his chest and link behind his back. Maybe they couldn’t indulge in anything too sexual in a public park, but foreplay could take all sorts of forms.
She reached for a grape and slipped it between his lips. “When we get home, you’ll get your real dessert.”
Dear Reader,
I don’t know about you, but I’m fascinated by those reality TV shows where people are in public dating contests to win the rich guy or gal. I always wonder about the men and women who are drawn to do that sort of thing. Naturally, as a writer, once you start wondering about people you begin to create characters who might find themselves in a certain situation. What if the “prize catch” was unwilling and had been manipulated into being a celebrity bachelor?
A theme that I explore a lot in my books is appearance versus reality. Most of us create images of ourselves that we project to the world. Sometimes these are very close to the “real” us and sometimes quite different. What if my celebrity bachelor ran away from his unwanted fame and chose a disguise that was a lot truer to who he really is? What if he ended up falling for a woman completely different to the woman he thought he wanted? And what if this one didn’t fall at his feet?
Darren and Kate were a lot of fun to write about. I hope you enjoy their story.
For info on my upcoming releases, contests and to join my e-mail fan group, come visit me at www.nancywarren.net.
Happy reading,
Nancy Warren
Underneath it All
Nancy Warren
MILLS & BOON
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This book is dedicated to Robin Taylor: a voracious reader, supportive fan, thoughtful reviewer and all-around nice person.
Thanks for everything, Robin.
Contents
1
DARREN KAISER was literally on top of the world. He was chatting to one of the hottest-looking women—and there was stiff competition—at a rooftop cocktail reception in Manhattan.
“I’ll call you,” Darren Kaiser’s new friend, Serena, said, her shoulder-length blond hair swinging against athletically sculpted shoulders perfectly displayed in a clingy black halter dress. She leaned forward to give Darren a kiss that promised a lot more than phone conversation.
“You do that,” he said, giving her a kiss back that let her know he could keep up his end of whatever she had in mind. From the rooftop deck, all of New York City was laid out in noisy, sparkling splendor, far beneath the well-heeled feet of upwardly mobile twenty-and thirty-somethings.
He nodded to a couple of acquaintances, then decided he’d stayed long enough. He pulled out his cell phone to call his car service for a pickup, then slowed to redrape a sexy young woman’s shawl over her shoulder from whence it had dropped. She rewarded him with a blindingly white smile and an air kiss.
Not being much of an air-kisser himself, he winked at her and kept going.
Darren Kaiser loved being a single man in Manhattan. There were so many beautiful, smart, sexy women. He was crazy about the new female power-babes who were totally up-front about what they wanted, when they wanted it and with whom.
Especially
