Sunday Smooch - Wendy S. Marcus

Welcome to another LoveCats DownUnder Sunday Smooch!


Today we have a smooch from Once A Good Girl... by Wendy S. Marcus







Prim Victoria Forley’s perfect life changed forever the night she slept with Kyle Karlinsky, baddest boy in town. These days, single mum and uber-perfectionist nurse Victoria has goals that nothing – not even Kyle’s shocking reappearance! – can derail.

But behind Victoria’s oh-so-frosty exterior is a heat that only Kyle can unleash… maybe it’s the right time to be with the wrong guy after all?

[Setup: Head Nurse Victoria Forley has just overheard that the bad boy from her past, the father of her son who’d recently returned to town, got drunk last night and went home with the biggest tramp in the hospital.]

After hanging her coat on the hook behind her office door Victoria turned back to her desk to see Kyle, his hair more unruly than usual, his clothes rumpled and his eyes glassy.
“There’s something I need to -” he said, looking guilty.

“Shhh. Come here.” She motioned for him to move closer. “Bend down,” she whispered. He did. She moved her mouth close to his ear and yelled as loud as she could, “Rough night?”

“Jeeze.” He gripped his temples as if trying to contain the vibration of a gargantuan gong. “Sadist.”

“I’m working. Go away.” She tried to move past him to get to her desk.

He blocked her path. “I forgot how fast news travels here in Madrin Falls. Victoria, nothing happened.”

“That love bite on your neck tells a different story.” It shouldn’t matter, but it did. Hearing about Kyle and Leanne together was hard enough, but seeing evidence of their tryst made her want to strike out and hurt someone. And since Kyle just happened to be handy… “I don’t care what you do or who you do it with.”

“Based on how ornery you are this morning, one might think you care about what I do a little more than you let on.” He reached for her chin, tilted it up and looked directly into her eyes. “Nothing. Happened. When you’re ready to hear the details I’m happy to tell you everything. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“Except for Leanne’s brand. I may have some concealer in my purse.” She studied the offensive discolored blotch on the left side of Kyle’s neck, tilted her head, pursed her lips, and tapped her index finger on her cheek, pretending deep consideration. “On second thought, flaunt it. It marks you as an easy lay. Maybe you can parlay it into a few more drunken encounters with loose women.”

Kyle’s response wasn’t at all what she’d expected.

He smiled then laughed. “God I’ve missed you.” And he swooped down and kissed her.

Only their lips touched. His soft and supple, sensual as he pressed them to hers. Familiar. He didn’t demand, he offered, exerted the perfect amount of pressure to draw her in. Exquisite. Each one of her protective instincts failed, her thought processes taken over, transported back to innocent times, consumed by rapture. This is what she liked, the promise of more, not the actual more.

A voice sounded in the hallway. Victoria pulled away.

Kyle gawked at her, stunned. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. I didn’t expect…”

“Go,” Victoria said. Half in a daze, her lips numb, her heart pounding. How could she have let that happen, at work, in her office? Anyone could have walked in. Her face burned with embarrassment and anger. How dare he put his moves on her. And why, after everything she’d been through because of him, did she lack the willpower to resist his kiss?


Once A Good Girl is available now in stores and online the UK and Aus/NZ, and online in the U.S. For links to purchase online, visit Wendy's website here.

To win a signed copy of Once a Good Girl… answer one of these two questions.

1) Is there a bad boy from your past who you’d welcome the opportunity to kiss again? And I want names and details people!

2) Have you ever been the recipient of a heated kiss at work? How did you handle it? Please keep your answers PG rated! (Wendy says: But if you’d like to share the specifics in private, you can e-mail me at Wendy@WendySMarcus.com!)

Come back next Sunday for a smooch from Helen Lacey's Made for Marriage.

Sunday Smooch

Welcome to another LoveCats DownUnder Sunday Smooch!

Today we have a sweet doctor-and-nurse kiss from When One Night Isn't Enough by our guest, debut Medical Romance author Wendy S. Marcus, but first ...

the winner of last week's Sunday Smooch Giveaway is -- Virginia!


Congratulations, Virginia! Can you please contact Michelle at

michelle (at) michelle-douglas (dot) com

and she'll send you a signed copy of Christmas at Candlebark Farm.

And now for today's Sunday Smooch from When One Night Isn't Enough by Wendy S. Marcus ...

Confessions of an E.R. nurse…

Nurse Ali Forshay has swapped dating disasters for nights out with the girls. But after spending more time than is strictly necessary discussing the man she loves to hate—the notoriously delicious Dr. Jared Padget—Ali's horrifying realization is that she's one hundred percent crazy in lust with him! Her conclusion: spend a feverish night together. After all, it would just be a onetime thing and it would cure her obsession…wouldn't it? 

[Set up: Nurse Ali Forshay breaks out in a full-body flush of embarrassment when Dr. Jared Padget shows up at the hospital’s New Year’s Eve party. Five weeks earlier, a few hours before his departure from town, in an unfortunate drunken encounter, Ali had done things she’d rather not remember. But she’d put that night behind her and had no desire to re-visit it. Or him.
In her effort to escape his notice, she gets her dress caught on a filing cabinet and requires assistance from the very man she’d hoped to never see again. And when Jared takes his sweet time releasing her, then tries to shield her from view when they’re discovered alone in a dark office, Ali’s co-workers jump to their own conclusions about what the two of them were doing there. 
He’d planned to leave and never return to Madrin Falls. But for Jared, one night with Ali just wasn’t enough.]


Jared watched Ali try to hold the sides of her ruined dress together, while she glanced nervously at the door. The urge to help her, care for her and protect her surged within him.  

He shrugged out of his tux jacket and placed it on her shoulders. “Here. Wear this.”  

She looked up, her eyes so big and blue he wanted to dive in and swim around. “Thank you, Dr. P.” 

“Dr. P? After everything we’ve been through together you won’t call me by my name?” 

Her lips curved into a hint of a grin. “Nope.”

It amazed him how many people ‘just happened’ to be standing in the hallway leading from Mr. Crenshaw’s office back to the lobby. Men, some colleagues he recognized from the hospital, others Jared had never seen before, smiled and nodded in approval at what they thought he’d done. Some had the nerve to give him a thumbs-up. 

Allison walked with her head high, looking straight ahead as if no one else existed. To an observer it would have seemed like she was unaffected by the incident. Only he could feel the slight trembling in the ice-cold hand she had clamped around his upper arm with a grip he would have expected from a person twice her size.  

They were almost to the doors at the main entrance when the countdown began. Allison stopped short. “Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!” The crowd cheered in the distance. Paper horns sounded and noisemakers buzzed. The DJ played “Auld Lang Syne.” The two of them stood alone in the lobby, away from the celebration. Allison looked up at him; vulnerable, her spirit depleted. A tear trickled down her left cheek. He wiped it away with his thumb. 

“My new year is off to a terrible start,” she said sadly. 

 “That’s funny,” he replied, lifting her chin with his bent knuckle, lowering his lips to meet hers. “I was just thinking my new year is off to a great start.” 

 She tried to say something. He silenced her with a kiss.

Wendy S. Marcus’s debut Harlequin Medical Romance, When One Night Isn't Enough, is currently available in bookstores and online.

To be in the draw to win a signed copy, tell us about one of your special New Year’s Eve kisses. Where did it take place? And who was it with? Can’t think of one? Then describe a medical romance hero who you’d like to be kissed by on New Year’s Eve!

Currently Wendy is running a contest on her website -- www.wendysmarcus.com -- where you can win signed books and an amazon gift card. For details visit her website!

Come back next Sunday, when the winner of today's giveaway will be announced -- and a smooch from Stone-Cold Lover by Mel Teshco will be posted!