Sunday Smooch - Annie West's 'Her Forgotten Lover's Heir'

Welcome to another LoveCats DownUnder Sunday Smooch!


Today we have a smooch from Annie West but first 


... the winner of last week's Sunday Smooch Giveaway is MARY PRESTON


Can you please contact Amy Andrews at amy@amyandrews.com.au
 to receive your copy of 'Tempted by Mr Off Limits'.


And now for today's Sunday Smooch from HER FORGOTTEN LOVER'S HEIR.

She’s carrying the billionaire’s child…

But he seems like a stranger!

Brooding Pietro Agosti was stunned when his sizzling fling with vibrant teacher Molly Armstrong resulted in her pregnancy. Finally, the merciless Italian would be able to continue his legacy—but then an accident left Molly with no memory of him! Pietro must help Molly remember the fierce attraction that drove them together, and the fact that the baby she’s carrying is the Agosti heir…

Scene set-up

Molly wakes in a Roman hospital and remembers nothing, not her name or how she came to be in Rome. She doesn't even speak the language! Then doctors break the news that she's pregnant... When a sexy stranger, Pietro Acardi, says he's Molly's husband, she's released into his care. Yet even after several days sharing his apartment and she still has no concrete memories of them together, despite her increasing awareness of him. The way he keeps his distance, never even touching her, is disturbing, especially when she longs for some hint, some memory of a connection between them.

Smooch  -

She drew a fortifying breath and linked her hands before her. ‘I can’t shake the feeling there’s something wrong between us.’

Did he stiffen?

‘You don’t open up about what’s on your mind. And you don’t—’

‘Don’t what?’ His brow furrowed.

‘You don’t touch me.’ She didn’t mean for it to emerge like a challenge.

His eyes rounded in genuine shock. ‘That bothers you? I thought, since you didn’t remember me…’ He lifted his shoulders in an expressive shrug.

Pietro was right. Logic said she wouldn’t welcome the touch of a man she barely knew. Except she did know him. Something within her yearned for him. Whenever he smiled at her she lit up inside.

Molly refused to feel embarrassed about being attracted to her own husband. He should be pleased she wanted him.

‘It would be nice if you didn’t treat me like a house guest.’ She sucked in a lungful of air. ‘For instance, I’d like you to kiss me.’

For a second he was utterly still, as if she’d shocked him. Then gold flared in his hooded eyes.

‘That’s what’s bothering you? That I haven’t kissed you?’

Molly’s chin rose and her hands slid to her hips. Pietro didn’t smile but she just knew he was laughing inside. She’d never been more certain of anything.

‘I don’t see the humour.’ This wasn’t funny! She was tempted to turn away and leave him to his amusement. Except she’d be back exactly where she was before.

‘It’s not just about kisses. It’s about the state of our relationship. Are you holding something back from me? There’s something not quite right. You…’

Her words ended as Pietro’s big hands wrapped round her elbows and pulled her against him. Her breath expelled in a tiny puff of air. Not from the physical force of the action, but from raw shock.

Molly had told herself she was prepared. Didn’t she crave intimacy with him? Yet the sensation of Pietro against her, of that wall of hot muscle making every nerve receptor in her body twang into overdrive, was so much more than she’d imagined.

Stunned, she looked at that firm mouth just inches away. It was intriguingly sculpted, strong yet sensual, and it curled up in a delicious invitation that made every atom of her needy body sit up and beg.

Molly swallowed hard, all her bravado swamped by the certainty that, as far as kisses went, Pietro was a consummate expert and she…

Thought atrophied as his head lowered and his mouth opened over hers. Electricity jolted through her. That was the only way she could explain the sizzle that drew her skin tight and puckered her nipples against her bra.

Pietro’s lips were softer than she expected, gentle, moving with aching slowness over hers as if taking time to relearn what must surely be familiar territory. Familiar to him. To her this caress felt shockingly new and unfamiliar. His mouth moved again, his tongue licking the seam of her lips and something drove hard and fast down through her belly straight to that achingly hollow place between her legs.

Molly trembled and grabbed Pietro’s arms. She felt the power of them, taut with restraint. He held himself utterly still but for the tantalising slide of lips and tongue.

Another caress, this time more insistent, and something inside her gave way, yielded yet at the same time blossomed into life.

Molly’s lips opened and Pietro’s tongue swept deep.

Her knees caved so abruptly it was only his hold that stopped her crashing to the floor. The effect of that deep, searching kiss was instant and overwhelming. Her blood fizzed as every neuron in her brain ignited.

This was what she wanted. What she knew and craved.

Her hands slid high, over hard shoulders and a strong neck, fingers threading through Pietro’s thick hair to clamp his skull and hold him to her.

She’d wanted memory and now she had it. Not a recollection as such but a sense memory. Her body sparked with excitement and recognition at the taste of him, the heady power of his possession, the familiarity of his hard body pressed against hers.

A sob of relief and arousal rose at the back of her throat as she pushed closer.

That’s when the kiss changed, from slow and searching, as if Pietro believed he needed to entice her into a response, to something more potent and urgent.

One large hand anchored on her buttock, drawing her up to his groin. The other cupped her waist, the splay of his fingers hot as a brand through the thin fabric of her dress. It made her wonder how his touch would feel on bare skin.

The notion notched her need higher. Molly opened her mouth wider, stroking his tongue with hers, inviting him to devour her. 

Pietro’s hand slid up from her waist, his long fingers slipping over first one rib then another till his thumb brushed the underside of her breast and she sucked in a raw gasp.

That felt so good. On tiptoe now, she tried to merge her body with his, desperate to meld with him.

When his hand closed fully over her breast a jolt of energy zapped from her nipple to her toes, setting off explosions along the way.

Molly held on tight as Pietro and her own needy body led her into a sensual world of give and take, of building ecstasy.

A tiny part of her brain screamed that she needed to be careful, to think before she gave herself so unstintingly. But she couldn’t stop or pull back. She didn’t want to. This was a rainbow of colour after a world of grey, delicious food after nothing but ashes in her mouth. It was life and sex and love after fear and pain and loneliness.

Forgetting things can be a real problem, even without amnesia! I'm more likely to forget things when I'm stressed and trying to keep on top of too many things. How about you? Do you have a habit of forgetting important things, or remembering them just in the nick of time? How do you jog your memory?

I'll giveaway a signed copy of HER FORGOTTEN LOVER'S HEIR to someone who leaves a comment to this post here or on the LoveCats FaceBook page. Come back next Sunday to find out who the winner is! Oh, and it doesn't matter where you live, the giveaway is international.

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

UK cover

Smooch Graphic by WebWeaver

SUNDAY SMOOCH: The Secret Son's Homecoming by Helen Lacey

Welcome to another LoveCats DownUnder Sunday Smooch!

Today we have a smooch from Helen Lacey's July release from Harlequin Special Edition, The Secret Son's Homecoming.  

But first the winner of last week's Sunday Smooch Giveaway is Ginette Kinellar.

Please contact Annie West by emailing annie AT annie-west.com to receive your copy of Inherited for the Royal Bed.

And now for today's smooch.

To learn to love…he will have to let go


The illegitimate son of the wealthiest man in Cedar River, Jonah Rickard spent his life avoiding his father. Forced back home for a wedding, he's brought face–to–face with the only woman to ever threaten his hardened heart.

Connie Bedford knows what it is to be haunted by the past, betrayed by trust…scared by desire. Years ago, Jonah's father saved her. Now only Connie and her love can save Jonah – and, maybe, his family…

Scene set-up:

Connie and Jonah have been out on their first ‘real’ date and they are now back at her home. 

The Smooch:   

“Jonah reached out to grasp her chin, gently tilting her face upward. “Did someone break your heart once, Connie?”

“My heart,” she whispered, as though the memory hurt her down to her very core. “My spirit.”

Jonah’s insides crunched. “I understand caution when it comes to getting close to people,” he said, rubbing his thumb across her cheek. “Sometimes I think I invented it. But I’m not out to hurt you or make empty promises. I just want—”

“Sex?” she said, cutting him off.

Heat smacked his cheeks, but he wasn’t about to lie to her. “I’m a guy,” he said and shrugged. “We’re kind of programmed that way.”

She laughed humorlessly. “At least you’re honest about it.”

“I don’t lie, Connie,” he said, more seriously. “I will always tell you the truth about my motives. It’s obvious that I’m attracted to you and I think that’s mutual...right?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“So, we’ll just see where it goes.”

“To bed, you mean?”

He shrugged again. “If that’s what you want.”

“And it’s completely my decision?”

“Of course,” he replied. “Always.”

She took a moment to respond, and then nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

She nodded again. “Maybe we will end up in bed. We’ll just have to see.”

He smiled. “Is everything usually so cut-and-dried with you?”

“Usually,” she replied. “We doormats are generally the boring, black-or-white type.”

“I thought you’d forgiven me for that remark.”

“I have,” she said softly and moved closer. “I’m making fun of you.” She looked up at him, meeting his gaze, her mouth slightly parted, her eyes wide. “You can kiss me now...I mean, if you still want to.”

Jonah’s entire body tensed. He wanted to. Very much. She was close, and when her breasts touched his chest it almost sent his libido into overdrive. Jonah took a breath, grasped her chin and hovered his mouth over hers. They’d kissed before, but somehow, being so close, hearing her breathe, inhaling the scent that was uniquely hers, Jonah experienced an acute sense of being in the moment, of feeling and sensing nothing else other than everything that was Connie. It should have set off alarm bells in his head. But instead, he felt the rightness of it through to his blood and then felt it seep deep into his bones. He was hooked. Totally at the mercy of his desire for her. With no foreseeable way out other than to make a run for it.

Which was out of the question.

* * *

Connie slipped her arms around his shoulders, feeling the muscles bunch beneath her fingers, feeling every part of him in a way that was impossibly intimate and breathtakingly scary. His eyes glittered brilliantly, meeting hers without blinking, holding her gaze with such burning intensity she could barely draw breath. They were breast to chest, thigh to thigh, and she waited for the usual panic to rise, for her old fears to make a comeback, for the memories to resurface and warn her off. But oddly, they didn’t. Because she wasn’t afraid of Jonah. She desired him. She liked him. She trusted him. And trust had always been in short supply in her life.

Strange, some faraway voice whispered to her, that she trusted Jonah without really knowing him very well. For Connie, trust was earned, and garnered by time and integrity and actions. She trusted Liam and J.D. because they had witnessed her at her most vulnerable and saved her from the worst moment in her life. She trusted her friends Annie and Nicola because they had never had a morbid curiosity about her past like some others had shown over the years. And that, she realized, was it.

Four people. A small circle of trust in any language.

And now, inexplicably, there was Jonah.

Crazy. Senseless. Potentially foolish, because he had so much emotional baggage that it was certainly going to end in disaster...or at the very least, her broken heart.

But when his mouth touched hers, she was gone. He softly coaxed her lips apart, gently anchoring her head with a steady palm at her nape. There was nothing rushed, nothing overpowering, nothing other than a gentle coax and a request for permission. She gave it instinctively, and when his tongue touched hers, Connie experienced a deep surge of desire spark through her veins. His kiss was something she would never get enough of. And there was no threat, no demand. He was asking for her to kiss him back, seeking her agreement to ensure that they were heading to the same place, a place that had always terrified her, because it meant absolute surrender.

And surrender meant vulnerability...something she’d vowed never to allow again.

Connie moaned, hearing the sound echo low in her chest, feeling the vibration through her blood and across every nerve ending. It’s just a kiss. But it was more. That’s what struck her the most. She’d been kissed before. She’d put herself out there and gone on several first dates...but never had a man’s kiss affected her on a such a deep, sensory level. The fact that it was Jonah who wreaked such havoc with her senses...Jonah, who was in constant conflict with everyone she cared about the most, was confusing and contradictory to everything she thought she believed in.

            But when his mouth touched hers again, when he deepened the kiss and his tongue danced with hers, she was utterly and categorically undone. She pressed closer, feeling him aroused against her, but she sensed no threat and no need to run. That’s what shook her...that he wasn’t a threat. That he would never be a threat. That she’d found a man who made her feel safe.

And she wanted him.

She wanted him in ways she’d never wanted anyone before.

Reader question from Helen:

Do you like the bad boy? The guy who’s judged as being bad news but really has a heart of gold? Or do you prefer the straight up, Mr.  Nice Guy? 

Leave a comment to go into the draw to win a signed copy of The Secret Son’s Homecoming.

And don't forget to come back next Sunday when the winner of today's giveaway will be announced and a new smooch will be posted!

Smooch Graphic by WebWeaver

Sunday Smooch - Contracted for the Petrakis Heir, Annie West

Welcome to another LoveCats DownUnder Sunday Smooch!


Today we have a smooch from Annie West but first 


... the winner of last week's Sunday Smooch Giveaway is Deanna.


Can you please contact Amy Andrews at   amy(at)amyandrews.com.au to receive your copy of Playing House.


And now for today's Sunday Smooch from Annie West. Leave a comment on this post to go in the draw to win a signed copy.

‘I’m pregnant.’

But this baby bombshell is nothing compared to Adoni’s scandalous solution…!

A positive pregnancy test isn’t the only reminder Alice has of her one scorching night with Adoni Petrakis. As she defiantly tells him the news, memories of his skilled touch overwhelm her! The contract he draws up—to claim her and his child—is utterly shocking. As is her realisation that she’s still powerfully and inescapably in thrall to this vengeful Greek!

Scene set-up

Alice, woozy after her first ever champagne, inadvertantly gatecrashes Adoni's private owner's suite in the hotel where she's been bridesmaid at a wedding. Adoni, fascinated and amused by the delightful stranger and her unguarded comments, doesn't immediately kick her out. But the joke is on him when she abruptly falls asleep on his sofa. Knowing there's no-one looking out for her or to see her safely home, he lets her rest for an hour while he works. But when she wakes, she discovers she's revealed things to this stranger she hadn't intended, including how much she';s attracted to him.

Smooch  -

‘You weren’t so hesitant earlier.’ His smile was slow and intense and it superheated her blood.

‘I wasn’t?’

He frowned. ‘You don’t remember?’

‘I…’ She frowned as snippets of conversation came back to her in vivid clarity. ‘I asked if you were a good kisser.’ Part of her shrank at the memory of such champagne-induced frankness, but now she was here, toe to toe with this fascinating man, excitement overrode bashfulness.

‘Would you still like to find out?’ His voice dropped to a low note that wound its way through her belly and down to her knees, making them wobble.

Impossible that he should affect her so intensely, this man whose name she couldn’t even recall. Adoni something. She knew so little about him.

Sensible Alice Trehearn, the one who’d spent years being dependable, devoted and reliable, knew this was her cue to leave. Yet another Alice Trehearn, the one who secretly yearned for life, and who’d only surfaced previously in her hell-for-leather gallops across the moor, shivered in excitement.

‘Yes.’ The word was out before she thought about it. Because if she thought about it she’d never say it.

‘Good,’ he murmured. ‘Your mouth has been driving me crazy.’

Her mouth? Alice lifted a hand to her lips but instead met his chin as his head lowered. He stopped a breath away. She felt his exhalation on her lips, scented with coffee and brandy and something indefinable. The pads of her fingers trembled against the solid plane of his jaw, then spread, testing warm skin with a hint of stubble that grazed her flesh as she settled her whole palm across his chin.

She’d shaved both her father and later her godfather, David, when each grew too ill to do it themselves. Neither had been like this. Adoni radiated heat and vigour and a sensuality she felt right down to the marrow in her bones. He was strong, his flesh taut and so vitally alive.

Alice drew a shuddering breath filled with the alien, delicious scent of man in his prime. She stared up into eyes as bright as she imagined the Aegean Sea to be. She read a question there. He was giving her time to change her mind.

In answer, Alice slid her hand around into his thick, short dark hair, surprised at its softness. She rose on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his.

For a moment he didn’t move and she cringed inside. This was a mistake. Hadn’t she known he couldn’t really be interested?

Then his mouth moved on hers, gently persuading her lips apart. His warm tongue slicked her lips then delved within and everything inside her melted and swayed at the eroticism of that sweet invasion. Her belly liquefied, her knees loosened and it was only the firm loop of his arm around her waist that kept her high against him.

His other hand eased the hair back from her face in a gesture so tender her heart rolled over.

Alice slipped her other hand up over his chest. The feel of hard, lean muscle sent a sizzle of excitement through her. She leaned closer, a willing pupil as he delved deeper, drawing out the kiss into something that sent shivery hot darts of flame through her blood.

She didn’t know which was better, the way Adoni kissed, making her feel treasured, or the feel of their bodies locked tight. The arm at her waist slid lower, drawing her hips against him.

Her breath stilled as she came in contact with a hard length against her belly.

Instantly he lifted his mouth and Alice almost wailed with disappointment at her loss, her face instantly tilting higher as if to tempt him back. Instead he pressed his lips to her forehead.

A shudder racked his tall frame and it hit her that she wasn’t the only one swept away in the moment. Surprise and satisfaction filled her. Even if this had started as a one-sided favour it had become something else.

‘Adoni?’ Her voice was husky and uneven.

He drew back just far enough to meet her eyes. What did he see? She felt flushed and wanton, not like herself.

‘This is your chance to change your mind.’ Gone was the slightly teasing gleam she’d seen in his face when he’d talked of kissing her. Now he looked solemn to the point of grimness.

‘About kissing you?’

‘And the rest of what you wanted.’

The rest? Her brow furrowed as she tried to recall their earlier conversation but her foggy memory couldn’t compete with the heady sensations bombarding her. That delicious spicy scent of his skin, the rich flavour of him still on her tongue. The heat of his large body surrounding her and that strange mix of vulnerability and power she felt at the differences in their closely aligned bodies.

‘You wanted an orgasm.’

New look Australian cover

Have you ever done anything really impulsive? Did you regret it or did that quick impulse lead to something good?

Leave a comment here and go in the draw to win a signed copy of CONTRACTED FOR THE PETRAKIS HEIR. 

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

Smooch Graphic by WebWeaver

Sunday Smooch with Kandy Shepherd

Welcome to our first LoveCats DownUnder Sunday Smooch for 2018!


Today we have a smooch from Kandy Shepherd 








And now for today's Sunday Smooch from STRANDED WITH HER GREEK TYCOON


Blurb: One night to win back his wife! Can Hayley resist Cristos’s seductive charms?

After the demise of her marriage, Hayley fled to nurse her broken heart. Now she’s back to ask her husband, Cristos Theofanis, for a divorce—but he has other ideas! When a storm hits and they’re stranded together, Cristos has one night to prove himself. Can Hayley resist the temptation of Cristos’s kiss or will she find herself back in his arms?

Scene set-up: Hayley hasn't seen her husband Cristos for more than two years when she travels to his family’s private Greek island to deliver divorce papers. She finds herself in the middle of a family celebration and Christos asks her to keep quiet about the divorce so as not to cast a shadow over the festivities. His large family are in a fervour of speculation about the unexpected return of Cristos’s estranged wife. His grandmother, who had always been hostile to Hayley, confronts Hayley about her intentions. Hayley doesn't want to make a scene—it's bad enough that she's having to fight the flood of feeling that has enveloped her on seeing Cristos again and the rush of attraction that has never gone away. 

Smooch: She looked up to him in mute appeal. In response, Cristos looked deep into her eyes and smoothed the flyaway hair from her forehead with gentle fingers. Her breath caught at his touch, so familiar and yet so startlingly new, and she could not break her gaze from the deep green of his.

 ‘I am so happy to have my wife back with me,’ he murmured in that deep, rich, lightly accented voice that had always thrilled her.

Hayley knew he didn’t mean that. It was a message for his grandmother—a subtle way of defusing the situation. But it felt anything but subtle to her as shivers of awareness rippled through her. Her body had not forgotten the pleasure his touch could bring.

It had been so long.

She lifted her face and closed her eyes to better savour the sensation as he made the act of smoothing her hair into a caress. She was so lost in the feeling she was totally unprepared when he kissed her.

Oh!

His mouth firm and warm on hers, the roughness of his chin, his scent, spicy and male. Her own lips soft and yielding under his. His hands sliding around her waist, pulling her closer. This felt so good. Too good. Her eyes flew open.

She didn’t want this. Not this languorous warmth overtaking her. Not this feeling of being lost in his possession. Not this surge of awakening when she’d worked so hard to suppress her

longing for him. She didn’t want him. The marriage had been all on his terms—and in loving him so desperately she had lost herself.

She tried to pull away. ‘We have to make this look believable,’ he murmured against her mouth.

Why? She had agreed to play along with the charade of reconciliation so as not to disrupt his cousin’s festivities. Not to kiss Cristos. She did not welcome the whoosh of long-banked-down embers igniting into flames. Because of a kiss. A simple—you could almost call it chaste—kiss.

‘Don’t kiss me again,’ she murmured back against his mouth.

Question: Cristos and Hayley are stranded together on a snow covered Greek island. If you were to be stranded for the night with the man (or woman!) of your dreams, where would you like it to be? 

Your comment will go into the draw for a free copy of STRANDED WITH HER GREEK TYCOON. 

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

Smooch Graphic by WebWeaver