MASQUERADE is scheduled for release on April 6th. I'm posting a blurb about the book, as well as the prologue and a snippet from chapter one. It's not an explicit excerpt, but remember this is an erotic romance and the book itself is quite steamy!
The Blurb:
Bombshell heiress Amber Pontiero is looking for fun—and she’s going to find it in Luke and Jay, two of her former lovers now eager to complete the perfect threesome. There are no rules—only soul-stirring pleasure. But things change when Luke starts looking into Amber’s family tree, specifically her great-great grandfather Curtis. The gunsmith was once at the center of an infamous love triangle of his own—one that ended in Curtis’s murder and a royal scandal for Lady Ellen and the Duke of Auburn.
The past reveals something else: the forbidden course that Curtis and Lady Ellen followed, driven by irresistible passion. It’s a path of consuming desire now repeating itself a century later, leaving Amber to realize that when it comes to love there is a point of no return—no matter what the risk.
The Excerpt:
PROLOGUE
A small seaside country
Early twentieth century
I knew better than to make eye contact with the stranger who’d caught my attention from across the ballroom. So I stood off to the side in my luxurious gown, stealing lash-lowered glances and praying that no one would notice. I was, after all, betrothed to the duke who owned this grand estate, and the curious stranger was my fiancé’s guest.
Surely he was American. He was far too rugged to hail from Glenmoor or anywhere in Western Europe for that matter. Even attired in formalwear, he had an untamed quality. He stood tall and powerfully built, yet he seemed wiry, too, a sure-footed man who could move swiftly, who wasn’t labored by his stature. His longish hair, dark brown in color, had been combed straight back, but a portion of it rebelled, falling across his forehead. I assumed the sun had bronzed his skin. But it was possible that he’d been born with a swarthy complexion, roughly enhanced by the elements. Tiny lines crinkled around deeply set eyes, and when he laughed at something another guest said, he tossed back his head in a strong, confident manner. I imagined him as the hero of a Beadle’s Dime Novel, much like the wildly compelling stories I’d read about Jesse James.
America fascinated me so.
By now, a small grouping of men had gathered around the stranger. He was infectious, and not just to me. I wanted to join them, but it wouldn’t be decorous for me to do so. Sometimes I detested being female. And a titled one, no less.
Lady Ellen Fairmont. Yes, that was me. At twenty-two, I was fair and blonde and gently curved—the socially refined, properly reared daughter of a womanizing earl who’d gambled away the family fortune. To cover his debts, Papa had arranged a marriage for me. Mama agreed that it was for the best. But why wouldn’t she? Papa had lost our home in a card game. Currently, we all lived here, with my parents acting as my chaperones. After the wedding, they would be awarded a small estate of their own.
My betrothed was a good man. None came finer. Stuart Harris, Duke of Auburn, possessed a heart as vast as his pocketbook.
Then why was I stealing glances at the stranger?
Shame coiled low in my belly. Truly, I should turn away and not look at him. But he was like a lighthouse beacon drawing me across an ocean mist. He made me feel warm and dreamy. Carnal, I thought, my shame deepening.
“Oh, my,” said a woman, standing nearby.
I snapped to attention and shifted in the direction of her voice. Had she noticed me admiring the stranger?
Luckily, she hadn’t. It was Lady Milford, a stunning brunette in her middle thirties, and she was too busy gauging him for herself. But she had the right, I suppose. She was widowed. Lord Milford had died a few years back, and it was rumored that she fancied free-spirited lovers to keep the boredom at bay.
“Who is that man?” she asked me.
“What man?” I responded, feigning innocence.
“The tall, dark one.” She tapped a gauntlet-gloved hand to her chin. “He looks wild, doesn’t he? Like an outlaw.”
My favorite dime store novels came to mind. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“So, you don’t know who he is?”
“No, I’m sorry. I don’t.”
Just then, my fiancé approached. He was as tall as the stranger, but that was where the similarity ceased. The duke’s gray-threaded hair was impeccably styled, as was everything about him. He’d been born and bred for the life he led. At fifty-four, he was accustomed to wealth and privilege, to behaving in a manner that complemented his title.
If he had a sense of adventure, I’d yet to see it.
I would be his second wife. His first, a woman he’d dearly loved, had died of an illness, leaving him without an heir. All the tender years they’d shared had proved fruitless, and now the duke was hoping that our upcoming union would produce the heir she’d been unable to give him.
If only he wasn’t so kind. There were times when I wanted to hate him, to fault him for the deal he’d struck with my father. Yet I knew I could have done worse.
“My lady,” he said, then indicated the direction of the stranger. “I would like to introduce you to someone.”
Beneath my lace-trimmed, pearl-encrusted gown, my guilty heart knocked against my corset. Still, I nodded dutifully. Of course, when didn’t I? Dutiful was the word that best described me.
“Your Grace?” Not to be ignored, Lady Milford addressed the duke. “May I be introduced, too?”
If her bold request offended him, he didn’t let it show. Forever the gentleman, he responded, “Most certainly,” and escorted both of us toward the stranger.
Who, at that very moment, looked up and caught sight of us, too. As a smile skirted past his lips, he made direct eye contact with me. Swift as it was, I understood the secret he was trying to convey.
No one had noticed me watching him earlier. But he had.
He knew all along that I’d misbehaved.
CHAPTER ONE
Amber Pontiero enjoyed misbehaving. She lived to be bad. But as she stood at the front door of a Hollywood Hills rental house, she asked herself what the hell she was doing.
She had no business getting involved with two men. Sure, she’d already had a threesome with them last summer, but that was just a one-night fling. This, she told herself, as she prepared to ring the bell, could lead to something dangerous.
Something emotional. Something completely out of Amber’s realm. Why? Because ever since the threesome, she couldn’t get either of them out of her mind.
She glanced back at the street. The airport limo was still there, the driver waiting until she was admitted into the house. She wasn’t scheduled to be here, at least not at this hour. She’d taken an earlier flight.
But in spite of arriving early, this visit wasn’t a surprise. Jay and Luke, her former one-night flings, were expecting her. They’d all agreed that she would stay for a month.
Still poised to ring the bell, she looked down at her luggage. She hadn’t brought a ton of luggage, but she didn’t need to. Amber preferred to shop when she was on holiday, to buy whatever she needed in whatever city she was visiting.
As a rich and spoiled fashion heiress, she’d been everywhere and done just about everything. Her family had mansions all over the globe, including a beach house in Malibu. It wasn’t as if Southern California was foreign to her. This was one of her playgrounds.
Naturally, she had the looks to go with her jet-setting lifestyle. She even spoke with a slightly European accent from all the years she’d spent in exclusive boarding schools. At twenty-seven, Amber was one cosmopolitan chick.
So why was she standing here with her pulse thudding in her throat?
Before the limo driver declared her insane, she rang the dang bell.
Footsteps sounded on the other side, and her heart thudded again. She took a quick moment to run a hand through her hair. Cut in an angular bob, it was dark and straight and shiny—retro Sassoon.
Her embossed tank top, pin-striped vest and short slim skirt had come from her mother’s latest collection. Beneath her Pontiero couture, she was tan all over. Amber frequented clothes-optional beaches and sunbathed in the nude.
She waited a second longer, then boom!—the door flung open and there stood Jay Novak: actor, model, surfer, snowboarder, all around California guy. He wore his light brown hair short and just a little messy. Tall and leanly muscled, he sported a tee shirt and Hawaiian-print shorts.
A grin stretched across his handsome face, and she realized that although they’d done all sorts of decadent things to each other, she barely knew him.
Same with Luke, her other partner in sex. She’d met both men through their talent agencies, but she’d hooked up with them at a masquerade ball. Amber’s mother had been hosting the ball at her Santa Fe, New Mexico, mansion, and Jay and Luke had been hired to impersonate another guest.
In the costumes, makeup and wigs that had been provided, Jay, Luke and the other guest had looked remarkably similar. In real life, they resembled each other, too. But not to the point of mixing them up, not like at the ball.
The other guest was a former lover of Amber’s, and he’d been playing a trick on his new lover to see if she could tell him apart from the other two men. Amber had helped arrange the charade, suggesting that each man wear a different-colored rose on his lapel, which had become their identities that night.
Luckily the tricked lover had picked the right man. Caught up in the fun, Amber had zeroed in on the other two, flirting shamelessly and then inviting them to her room.
During the threesome they’d turned out the lights and the men had kept on their masks, heightening the thrill and making it difficult for her to distinguish between them.
Since the masquerade, Jay and Luke had become friends and roommates, making her wonder if they’d been sharing other women the way they’d shared her. Both of them were highly heterosexual though. Amber didn’t dally with bisexual men. She preferred having the male attention all for herself, which she’d gotten that night.
Regardless, she hoped they weren’t having other ménages. She wanted their threesome to be exclusive. Special, she supposed, which was downright stupid.
“You’re here,” Jay said, shattering the stare-at-each-other silence. “And you’re gorgeous as ever.”
“You, too.”
He came forward to hug her, and she got a sexy chill. She deliberately bumped his cock and felt him shudder. He turned to kiss her, and their mouths came together in illicit remembrance.
Lord, he was hot. She could’ve mauled him forever. Every detail, every hot, naughty image of their night together zinged through her body.
Only something was missing.
No, not something. Someone.
She ended the connection, took a deep breath and asked, “Where’s Luke?” She wanted a tongue-thrusting kiss from him, too.
“He had an audition today. He’ll be back in a while.” Jay paused. “One man isn’t enough for you?”
Did she detect a note of jealousy?
“Sometimes. But I prefer multiple partners.” Because the more lovers she had, the less of a commitment she had to make. “Ménages are my favorite.”
He picked up her bags, inviting her into the house. “Then I’m glad I can oblige. Our threesome was the wildest night of my life.”
“Mine, too.” And that was saying a lot. The reason, she assumed, why she craved this reunion and was spending the next month with him and Luke.
Jay smiled and the note of jealousy was gone. Or maybe she’d imagined it. From what she recalled, he seemed to be the less possessive of the two. Less romantic, too. Luke, she decided, was the one to watch out for. The day after the masquerade, she’d received two long-stemmed roses. One had been pink, the other red, representing the boutonnieres the men had worn on their costumes the night before. Soon after, she discovered the roses had been Luke’s idea and Jay had simply gone along with it.
Amber preferred to downplay romantic gestures. But even so, she’d fussed over the flowers, drying the loose petals and placing them in an antique powder compact for safekeeping.
She glanced back at the limo and waved the driver on his way. As the car pulled away from the curb, she prayed that she wasn’t getting in over her head.
Men weren’t supposed to have this kind of effect on her. Single, double or otherwise.
