Sep 21, 2014

Sunday Smooch: Anna Campbell's WHAT A DUKE DARES

Welcome to another LoveCats DownUnder Sunday Smooch!


Today we have a smooch from  Anna Campbell but first 


... the two winner of last week's Sunday Smooch Giveaway is Christina R!


Can you please contact Annie West on annie (at) annie-west  (dot) com to receive your book giveaway! 


And now for today's Sunday Smooch from WHAT A DUKE DARES


A reputation at risk!
What woman in her right mind would say no to marrying the dashing Duke of Sedgemoor? Miss Penelope Thorne, that's who. She's known Camden Rothermere since they were children - and she also knows she'd bring nothing but scandal to his name.

Cam can hardly believe Penelope turned down his proposal. But if she wants to run off to the Continent and set the rumor mill ablaze, he can't stop her. Then her brother's dying request sends him to bring home the one woman he thought he'd finally gotten over.

The only way they'll both get back to London without their reputations in tatters is to pretend they're married during the journey. That means kissing like they mean it and even sharing a bed - until it becomes hard to tell where the game ends and true desire begins...


Scene set-up

Camden Rothermere, Duke of Sedgemoor, is escorting his childhood friend Penelope Thorne back from Italy where she’s been stranded after the death of her aunt. Gossip about Pen’s wild behavior on the Continent has entertained London society for years. If they’re discovered travelling together, there will be a massive scandal and a shotgun wedding which both want to avoid: Cam because he plans a glittering society marriage with a woman of spotless reputation, and Pen because she’s always loved Cam, but long ago recognized that he’ll never love her back. The final leg of the journey takes place on Cam’s yacht The Windhover. The kiss occurs in Penelope’s cabin during a violent storm just off the English coast.

Smooch  -

As the ship plunged like a wild thing, Cam’s mouth ravaged hers. Astonishment held Pen captive as a fierce mixture of sensations struck her harder than the waves against the hull.

Since she was a girl, she’d imagined Cam’s kisses. The reality was earthier, more intimate, more passionate, more…exciting than anything she’d conjured in fantasy, no matter how lurid. His mouth was hot and commanding. His hands were ruthless and inescapable. The storm beat around her until she wasn’t sure whether the chaos was outside or within her.

Pen was no longer the nineteen-year-old innocent who had turned down his proposal. She knew how a man behaved toward a woman he respected. In Cam’s kisses, there was neither caution nor care.

Some distant corner of her mind urged her to protest. He treated her the way he’d treat a strumpet from the docks. But how could she demur when she basked in endless heat? All her life, she’d felt so cold, so cold.

His tongue plunged between her lips, demanding a response. Helpless to resist, bewildered and giddy with arousal, she gave it to him. Her senses flooded with his rich flavor, his salty scent of storm and ocean and clean male sweat.

She moaned and arched into his damp clothes, frantically seeking the searing heat beneath. She’d set him alight and the flames of his desire lashed her. The breath scraped from her throat and she closed her eyes, reveling in incandescent sensation. Never had she felt like this.

Still his mouth explored hers as if he claimed a private kingdom. She could hardly breathe, sinking into untamed delight. She clung to his shoulders as her knees threatened to collapse. He was shaking, too. If he wasn’t braced so firmly against the window frame, they’d tumble to the floor.

Still he wasn’t tender. She was past caring. She’d permit him anything, as long as he kept kissing her, touching her, panting his appreciation into her neck. She burned to touch him. Return this bliss. Conquer him in turn.

“Damn it, Pen,” he groaned into her bare shoulder and nipped her sharply.
Shock sizzled through her with the sting.  His savagery appalled her, scared her, but spiked her excitement to a level where she threatened to combust. She tugged at his shirt until her lips skimmed hard pectorals, kissed the mat of soft hair.

With a stagger, he swung her from the window. Away from the embrasure, the ship’s pitching was dizzying. Or perhaps Pen was dizzy with passion. Cam tumbled her toward the luxurious bed where she’d slept alone for two weeks, tormented to know he lay just across the corridor.

Breathless with excitement, she toppled back onto the mattress. Then she was doubly breathless when Cam flung himself on top of her. His weight was unfamiliar, thrilling. The boat’s tossing rolled them together so they wrestled like puppies. Inside her, a great emptiness yearned. She grabbed his shirt and ripped it off, desperate to feel his bare skin. She was as fierce as he was. Even now when it was clear that he was mad for her, she still feared that this glory might end before she’d drunk it to the dregs.





Question:

Pen has had a crush on Cam since she was a little girl (a crush that ripens into a really excruciating case of unrequited love as she grows up). Who, real or fictional, was your first crush?
 

Come back next Sunday, when the winner of today's giveaway will be announced and a smooch from Jaquie Underdown will be posted!


Smooch Graphic by WebWeaver

32 comments:

  1. I loved that scene in the story Anna this is such a great story I loved it from start to finish when I was young Davy Jones from the Monkees was my crush I had posters all over my walls scrapbooks filled with articles and pictures and I never missed an episode of The Monkees on TV LOL and I am sure I was no the only young girl with the same feelings :)

    Have Fun
    Helen

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    1. Helen, thank you so much for saying you loved Duke! I so hoped you would. Oh, DJ was really cute, wasn't he? Loved the songs and the madcap humour on that show. I had a think for Mickey. Not quite sure why!

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  2. I think my first tv crush was Michael J Fox when he was on Family Ties. I've had more crushes now that I'm older than I did when I was a teen LOL.

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    1. Gretchen, MJF was pretty cute, wasn't he? And I think he always comes across as a genuinely nice man which helps! I still get crushes - they're fun!

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  3. That's one hot scene, Anna. As for first crush, James R... at school, but like Helen, Davy Jones ranked right up there too.

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    1. Sue, I think a lot of women of a certain age had a thing for Davy Jones - I think it's something to do with the English accent! :-)

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  4. Ooh, Anna, what a gloriously steamy scene. :-) Nice!

    Ah, my unrequited crushes were Anthony H from school and George Michael from Wham. I loved them both with all of the hormones in my 16 yo body. What I didn't know then is that they'd have had a whole lot more in common with each other than they would've with me. But…oh, they were both just so lovely. ;-)

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    1. Thanks, Michelle! This was one of my fave scenes in the book - so much happening and not just between two pairs of lips! Ha ha, that's just lovely about your double crushes. I had a crush on Freddie Mercury when I was a young un - perhaps we had a bit in common too! Snerk!

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  5. Corker of a kiss, Anna. And a corker of a book too. I hope lots and lots of readers out there are picking it up!

    Hm, not sure who my first real crush was. I think I was a fickle child! I do recall one tall, blond boy from school who made my heart pitter pat but then I started reading romance novels and he didn't quite measure up!

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    1. Annie, thanks for saying you enjoyed the kiss and to you and all the Love Cats for hosting me today. Ooh, like the sound of the tall blond boy from school. I think my first crush was Thierry La Fronde from an obscure dubbed French TV show that was on the ABC back in the Dark Ages. He was a seriously handsome man! And a historical hero - it was set in the 100 Years War. There was clearly a lot of portent in that early crush!

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  6. Wow, Cam can distract me from a storm any day. In fact, it's supposed to rain tonight. I'm just sayin... ;)

    I had a crush on Freddy, who I met at church camp. I actually stayed in touch with him and the group from his church for many years afterwards as friends.

    Marcy Shuler

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    1. Marcy, Cam in the rain? Let it pour! :-) So glad you found my duke distracting. Pen sure does!

      I like that you stayed in touch with your first crush!

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  7. With the ship plunging like a wild thing, all I could think of was how seasick I would be. Good thing Pen doesn't seem to be afflicted.

    My first crush was a boy at school. I doubt he knew my name.

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    1. Mary, oh, no, I had a horrible picture of a first kiss when Pen's feeling like she wants to be sick - not a romantic image! I think that's true about a lot of first crushes - they're that impossibly distant object of admiration!

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  8. Anna, gorgeous Smooch from a fabulous story! I loved the dashing Duke and the intrepid Penelope!

    My first crush (that I can remember) was a boy at school when I was about 12 years old. I thought he was perfect. Alas he thought I was a nerd and a pest. (sigh)

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    1. Sharon, thanks so much for hosting me today. I love visiting the Love Cats! And so glad you loved Pen and Cam! Thank you.

      Laughed at your first crush story. Sigh! The path of true crush never does run smooth, does it?

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  9. Wow, Anna, what a hot smooch!

    Hmmm, my first crush was in grade one. My 'boyfriend' and I sat next to each other each lunch time and held hands. He broke my heart when he kissed another girl in grade 2!!

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    1. Hey, thanks, Jen! This smooch comes at the end of an awful lot of simmering tension between them. A peck on the cheek just wasn't going to cut the mustard! Oh, how sweet about you and your first love - until he turned into a cheating toad! :-)

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  10. I had a massive crush on Benny from ABBA when I was 10.

    hankts AT internode DOT on DOT net

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    1. Kaetrin, that's great! Did you want him to make you his Dancing Queen?

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  11. I don't think I've ever had one. I love my book BFs tho!

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    1. Linda, I've definitely had some crushes on my book boyfriends!

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  12. Hey Anna! Smokin' smooch!
    High school English teacher for me. Thirty years older than me, tall, thin, "interesting" face and happily married. But man - I was in love with every word that came out of his mouth :-)

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    1. Thanks, Amy! Glad you enjoyed it. Oh, how lovely about your high school English teacher. I think that's a great sort of crush!

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  13. I never put up posters, but I did buy magazines that had the current "it" guy on the cover. Of course who that was depended on the decade. :)

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    1. Kim, I had a pic of Freddie Mercury over my bed at boarding school. I still think he's a wonderful showman - even if my crush was never going to do me much good, LOL!

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  14. Oh, my gosh, Anna! That was a steamy scene! My first crush was Bobby in the 5th grade. We shared a desk when we switched classrooms & wrote notes back & forth on the desk, covering them with a pile of books on the corner!

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    1. Thanks, Sharlene! Things get a bit hot and heavy in that scene, don't they? I had fun writing it. I think your story about Bobby is really sweet!

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  15. Oh my!! Great scene, Anna! First crush? Probably one of the actors in the Outsiders, which came out when I was in junior high... ;) A very handsome bunch they were!

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    1. Thanks, Fedora! So glad you enjoyed it. Great choice of crush object!

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