Welcome to my First Kiss Friday blog. I’m excited for you to read this incredible first kiss scene from my friend Cerise DeLand and her latest novel LORD RAMSEY’S RED HEADED RUIN! We hope you enjoy this excerpt. Happy reading, my lovelies!
Excerpt:
Amber walked right up to him, her breasts spilling from that blue silk, heaving and gilded by the moonlight. “Edouard’s young friend says the new muskets are going to Sedan.”
His face fell. “Good to know.” After a moment’s consideration, he marched on.
“Wait! Ram! Stop. We must go to Sedan!”
He scowled, then walked around her.
She ran in front of him again.
He stepped to one side.
“Sedan, Ram. I will go to Sedan. You too.”
“Really? How wonderful. But in reality, my darling, it changes nothing.”
“Because I won’t go to London? Or…or all those other places?”
He whirled on her, an arm out, anger in every growl. “Oui, madame! Because I can’t leave. Because you won’t go. Because the night is long and my temper short. Because I am a man who needs to go swimming in the river, and you”—he poked a finger at her—“cannot follow.”
She looked as if he’d struck her. “I… But… It’s night. Not safe.”
He spun away and back again, so quickly that she teetered on her feet.
He caught her arms and held her against him. Every sensuous muscle in her supple body rubbed against his. Damn his chivalry!
“This is not safe. This!” He crushed her against him. “And this!” He jammed one hand up into the thick curls of her hair and, with the other hand, found her arse, plump and hard. “And this,” he whispered against her lush lips, brushing them with the most innocent kiss and prying them open to explore all of her with his tongue.
***
She melted into his embrace as his tongue seized every bit of her mouth.
He lifted away. She hung there in his arms while he squinted at her in the moonlight as if she were a stranger who had shocked him with her presence.
That was exactly what he had been to her. A stranger become friend. A friend who was now dearer. Necessary to her.
Fighting for logic as he took her lips again, she went, lost in the music of sweet security he alone brought her. The rhapsody he created played in her head like a score of violins leading to freedom. Cares gone, love embraced, she drew him closer. Why could he not be her lover? She could not remember, did not want to. She only knew that to clutch him close and sink her fingers in his long, silken hair was assurance of ecstasy. And she had not had that in so very long.
He gave it freely. Always had.
“There is no rule,” she murmured to him when he raised his face. “No reason to this.”
“True.” He let her go so quickly, she struggled to find her balance again, waving her arms in the air.
He steadied her…and left her.
She would not let him go angry and without resolution.
Amber ran and caught him, seized him by his frock coat, and rose on her toes. Her arms around his shoulders, she looped a leg around one of his thighs and nearly climbed him like a cat. He was hers. She was his and she’d have him. His anguish, his need, matched her own.
And oh. Ohh. He felt like every lovely sentiment he’d ever spoken to her. Allow me to protect you, defend you, guard you from all harm.
She stared up at him. “Let me,” she begged him. “Please let me kiss you. I yearn…”
His face went lax with want, his eyes shimmering with hunger in the translucent light of the moon.
“I want you, Ram. I do.”
He did not budge, but waited as she smiled at him, two tears running down her cheeks, and stretched up to claim him once more.
His lips were sublimely warm and firm, his mouth as wide and as generous as she’d imagined. He tasted of red wine and smelled of citrus and sweat. He held her with urgent passion, and shook with a raw hunger that shocked her. This was real, right—Ram was hers.
LORD RAMSEY’S RED HEADED RUIN
By Cerise DeLand
It’s dangerous to be an honest woman—and torture for the man who loves her.
It’s dangerous to be an honest woman.
Amber St. Antoine flees Paris—and her role to spy on Bonaparte. The deputy chief of police, a venal man, craves Amber as his mistress. He’ll do anything to seduce her, even imprisoning her friends and charging them with crimes.
Amber, rescued from neglectful parents as a child by her influential aunt, grew up in the shadow of the Terror and went to prison with her aunt and Josephine
Beauharnais. Despising the tyranny of a few corrupt men, Amber learned to value freedom.
As a result, when she was approached to serve in an espionage network, she accepted—and excelled. Now in fear of Vaillancourt, she flees Paris, her home—her friends.
It’s torture for the man who loves her.
Godfrey duClare, Lord Ramsey, comes to Paris, part of the British diplomatic mission now that peace exists between his county and France. His first assignment by his superior, Kane, Lord Ashley, is to find the illusive agent Amber St. Antoine and keep her safe.
Following gossip and logic, Ram finds the stunningly beautiful woman deep into the French countryside. He declares she needs his protection, especially since she refuses to leave France. Defiant, Amber agrees to his company, even if they must petend they are married.
The two travel France, discovering in each other each day, a delight that leads to a passion neither can deny.
But when they also find new evidence of Bonaparte’s warlike plans, they must change their own. Suddenly, Vaillancourt surprises them with a ploy neither Amber nor Ram considered.
But Amber decides to outwit him.
Ramsey is furious—and wild to save her from herself. What’s a man to do if he seems foiled at every turn?
Is he a fool to believe that love conquers all?
Buy link ore read for FREE in Kindle Unlimited: https://amzn.to/4d5xZzY
About the Author:
Cerise DeLand is the USA TODAY Bestselling Author who believes love brings rich rewards from a life lived with honesty, valor—and a functioning funnybone.
Known for her poetic elegance and accuracy of detail, she’s won awards for many of the more than 70 novels she’s written.
Her work has been nearly life-long! First published in 1991 by Kensington, then Pocket Books, St. Martin’s Press and independent presses, she is now published by DRAGONBLADE PUBLISHING. Plus her books have been monthly selections of the Doubleday Book Club and the Mystery Guild.
To research, she’s dived into the oldest texts and dustiest library shelves. She travels abroad taking good walking shoes, big notebooks, trusty pens and a camera! She visits chateaux and country homes she loves to people with her own imaginary characters.
And at home every day? She cooks. (Every night.) Never dusts. (That can be a problem.) She goes swimming or pumps iron once a week and tries (desperately) to grow vegetables in her arid backyard in south Texas!
Website: https://www.cerisedeland.com
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Cerise-DeLand/e/B0089DS2N2/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cerise.deland
Blog: https://cerisedeland.blogspot.com/
BOOKBUB: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/cerise-deland
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCba82P_Q1kUrJUVVW0CwJmw