Sunday Smooch with Clare Connelly

Welcome to another LoveCats DownUnder Sunday Smooch!


Today we have a smooch from Clare Connelly's The Season to Sin (yes! more festive reading, Lovecats, merry meow!). 


But first, the winner of last weeks smooch is mod2011. Mod, please contant Amy Andrews on amy (at) amyandrews (dot) com (dot) au to claim your prize!

Bad boys are her weakness... Is he too magnetic to resist?

Storming into psychologist Holly Scott-Leigh’s life, bad boy billionaire Noah Moore is so hot he leaves Holly breathless with just a glance. He’s her potential client and she’s never crossed that line before, but delicious Noah tempts her to sin. This festive season, from his hip London loft to a luxurious Paris hotel, Noah will show Holly how good it feels to be on the naughty list!

Hi Lovecats!

So I absolutely love this tortured romance. Noah and Holly are star-crossed from the start. The book begins with Noah, a self-made tech billionaire with a troubled past, unable to sleep after a sudden death has brought back traumas of his youth. His business partner and best friend (Gabe Arantini, from my Harlequin Presents BOUND BY THEIR CHRISTMAS BABY) insists he goes into therapy to sort his head out. The only problem is his therapist turns out to be Holly, and she gets under his skin like nothing else...

This scene takes place in her office, on their third appointment. Holly's already decided she definitely can't take Noah on as a patient - their chemistry is too insanely hot and she'd never cross that ethical boundary. But she's still captivated by him, and thinks she can help him. As a friend, or a lover, or something...

Language warning! This book is written for Harlequin/Mills & Boon's super sexy Dare line, and features some expletives. 

“Are you close to her?’

I shake my head. ‘It’s my turn, remember.’

A look of panic colours her spectacular eyes. She moves away to grab a glass of water from her desk. I follow her automatically and my eyes drop to the picture to the right of her. A little child, so exactly like Holly that it must surely be a relation, sits in a frame. ‘Who’s that?’

She looks at me and catches me looking at the frame. For a second I think she’s not going to answer, or that she might lie, but then she shrugs. ‘My daughter.’ Her hand lifts betrayingly to a necklace she wears. A locket?

‘Are you close to your mother?’

I was expecting this question. ‘No.’

‘You don’t like her?’

I move my body closer—she braces her hands on the desk and looks up at me, and the air cracks like a whip as tension tightens between us.

‘No.’ Her expression flickers as she analyses this. ‘Have you thought about me, other than professionally?’

Once more her eyes dart away from me. Such a giveaway gesture for a woman as smart as she is. I would have expected her to have a better poker face. ‘I...’ A very faint peach colour spreads over her cheeks.

‘It’s a yes or no question, Doc.’ I brace my hands on the outside of hers, bending my body forward so that I’ve effectively caged her on her desk. She closes her eyes and inhales deeply, drawing in a breath like she wants to draw me with it. When she speaks, it’s with a courage I admire. A strength and determination—a fearlessness.

‘Yes.’

I tighten all over and it takes every ounce of my willpower not to push her back on the desk and rip that leather skirt off, to make her mine.

‘You weren’t raised by your parents, were you?’

She’s still got her eyes closed, but the question is no less cutting or incisive for that.

If she were looking at me, she might have seen how off-kilter it momentarily knocks me. But I recover quickly. She has asked the right question but phrased it wrong. Who raised you? might have been better. That would have forced me to document the myriad foster homes I was passed through, or to explain that no one really took the time to raise me—that I was left to raise myself.

‘No.’ She looks at me now and, with her eyes fixed on mine, I move so close that my lips are almost brushing hers. ‘Do you want to fuck me?’

She gasps and, before she answers, I do it. I do what I’ve wanted to do since I first saw that perfect Cupid’s bow. I put my mouth to hers, lift my hand to the back of her head, wrap my fingers in her hair and invade her with my tongue. She makes a moaning noise and then she’s kissing me back, her tongue clashing with mine; one leg lifts and hooks around my waist, holding me locked to her, my cock pressed hard against her. She tilts her head back to give me all the access I want and I plunder her. I kiss her to punish her for making me talk about my Goddamned mother. I kiss her because I can’t not.

And she kisses me back.

But she hasn’t answered my question and I want her to. It’s not enough to feel her wants—I want her to own them. For her to confess them to me. I have seen her courage, her spirit—but still I want more. I want to hear her be brave for me.

So I pull away but, before she can pretend she wasn’t affected by what we shared, I thrust my cock against her, grinding my hips, and she moans, lifts her fingers to my chest and digs them in. She tilts her head back again.

Hell, if she hasn’t been screwed in five years, I could probably make her come right now. To test my theory, I push against her again and she says my name, low and soft, huskily, a beg, a plea.

‘Noah...’ Just a whisper, but so heavy with need and desire. ‘God, Noah...’

I laugh low in my throat and she looks at me with abject confusion, but then I drop my hand to her breast, finding her nipple and flicking it.

She shakes all over, her body trembling near mine. I can’t tell you how much I want to finish this. To make her beg for me right here, right now. She’s so close. I don’t think she knows what day of the week it is.

Yeah, I want to fuck her, but here would be too rushed. Such a waste of an opportunity to really make her ache for me...

‘Do.’ I pull her earlobe between my teeth and roll my tongue over it. She whimpers.

‘You.’ I scrunch her sweater in my fist and lift it out of her skirt, feeling its softness in my palm before running my hands over her naked side. She makes a guttural noise of pleasure.

‘Want.’ I push it higher still, until my fingertips touch the lace sides of her bra and then nudge beneath it so the ball of my thumb is on the underside of her sweet, rounded breast.

“Me.’ Her leg that’s wrapped around my waist jerks me closer, telling me not to keep her waiting. I laugh again, a sound of appreciation for a woman who knows what she wants.

‘To.’ I grip her ankle behind my back then run my hand along her calf. Holy shit, she feels so much better than I’d imagined. So soft and smooth and feminine. I pause in the hollow of her knee, watching her fevered face as her eyes darken and her cheeks glow. I run my fingers higher then, slowly, until I reach her inner thigh and she moans, once again digging her fingers into my shoulder and arching her back.

‘Fuck...’ I shove the elastic edge of her underpants aside and, with my eyes holding hers, mocking her for the fact she tried to pretend this wasn’t happening between us, I nudge a finger inside her warm, throbbing heart. She’s so goddamned wet I feel a drop of my own cum spill out, but I don’t stop. I push deeper inside her and she whimpers, her fingers now scratching into me.

‘You?’

She blinks, glaring at me for a second, and then she nods, just a simple tiny movement that is the confirmation I crave…

OKAY! So there's just a little more than two weeks until Christmas and I an nowhere near organised! I have so much Christmas shopping to do and Christmas baking to do... I feel like my lists are growing lists. How about you? Are you organised? Or are you as hectic as I am?

I'm giving away a paperback copy of this duet (two books), so leave a comment to go into the draw.

Clare Connelly writes romance that will set your soul on fire. She is the best-selling author of more than fifty indie romance novels and in August 2017 published her debut novel for Harlequin Presents, and also writes for Harlequin Dare. She reads and writes romance voraciously, and lives in a small bungalow by the sea with her lovely husband, two small children and a hard-working team of MacBooks.

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

Smooch Graphic by WebWeaver