Inflamed: A Love Letters Novel

by Kristen Blakely

  She did not ever want to let him go.

  The salsa music faded, but a ballad set to a slower beat came on. No furious fancy footwork, just the intimacy of dancing so close together their bodies brushed with each perfectly matched step. A saxophone wailed in the background, a counterbalance to the melodic crooning of the band’s lead singer. The glare of colored spotlights gyrated over the wooden dance floor, and the body heat of other dancers kept the room comfortably warm. Anjali was content to let her mind drift as her body, trained to respond to and dance with Jon, settled into the comfort of his arms.

  “Are you falling asleep on me?” His amused voice sounded in her ear.

  She smiled. “Comfy.”

  “I love holding you. It feels right.”

  It had always felt right, from the first moment he took her into his arms at that first salsa lesson six years ago. Several weeks passed before they officially began dating, but she had been his from that first moment. Was it the way he held her, the way he looked at her, as if he could not believe his luck? Did he know how precious it was to be cherished the way he cherished her, to know that he saw only the best in her?

  He shifted his weight, and she chuckled, low in her throat. She knew that movement all too well—his uncomfortable need to shift the hard press of his aroused body against her inner thighs. “Do you want me?” she murmured, her voice a husky whisper.

  “You know it, babe.” His voice was rough. He tugged her against him, as if she needed to know the extent of his physical attraction. “Come with me.” He pulled her away from the dance floor, pushing past the crowd of dancers to escape through the front door. The relative coolness of the night was a welcome relief from the stuffiness of the club, but it did not cool the heat pulsing through her body.

  His hands pressed against the curve of her buttocks. The firmness of his grip betrayed the urgency of his need. “My hotel is closer than your apartment,” he said.

  “No time.” She breathed into his ear as she unlocked her car and pulled open the door of the backseat.

  “Damn it, Ange. We’re too old for this.”

  “Never too old.” She leaned her weight into him, sending him sprawling on his back against the smooth leather seat. His breaths came hard and fast as she unbuckled his belt and tugged down on his zipper.

  “No, not like this,” he gasped. His objection ended on a ragged sigh, his head falling back and baring his throat as she closed her mouth around him. His hands clutched at her shoulders; she could not tell if he was trying to hold her back or push her on. His body tensed as she teased him with lips and tongue.

  He grunted; his eyes squeezed shut, fighting against his release.

  No, it would never do to leave him aroused and unfulfilled. Anjali gripped his narrow hips, knowing that the sensation of being restrained would set him off. She drew him into her mouth, as deep as she could go, and hummed.

  His fingers dug into her shoulders. “Ange!” he croaked. His hips jerked against her mouth as he came hard, spurting into her throat.

  A rush of relief flooded through her as she swallowed the familiar salty taste of him. He had come, thank goodness.

  He sagged against the leather seat, and his hands stroked her hair as his breathing slowed into its regular pace. “Why did you rush me through it?” he asked, as he did every time. “What about you?”

  She shifted around in the backseat of the car, laughing at the snug fit of their bodies in that small space. “Come on, baby.” She spread her legs, giving him a glimpse of her tiny black thong.

  His mouth closed around hers, sharing the same breath as he deepened the kiss. The heat of his hand closed over her thong, and she pushed into his touch. Every nerve ending in her body seemed concentrated right down there, craving more of him.

  His expert fingers slid past her thong and into her slick folds. He broke the kiss to whisper against her cheek. “You’re so wet, so ready for me.”

  A mewling sound escaped from her throat as she arched against him. His thumb thrummed against the heat of her body. She could have sworn lights exploded in her brain. “More,” she wanted to beg, but the sound emerged as a pleading whimper. She almost sobbed with relief when his other hand tugged down on the collar of her body-hugging nylon dress to cup her breast. Her nipple hardened in his hand, so aroused it almost hurt.

  “You’re gorgeous,” he whispered. “Come for me, baby. I want to see you fall apart in my hand.” He pulled his finger out of her and plunged two in. He knew where and how to touch her; he had known for years. She arched sharply as he stroked the spot that overloaded her senses and sent her plummeting over the edge, screaming and burning as she fell. His mouth closed over hers as she had always known he would, swallowing her cry of ecstasy.

  Drained by pleasure, she lay unmoving in his embrace, content to wait until her heartbeat settled into its normal rhythm. His chest rumbled with low laughter. “You couldn’t wait.”

  “No, I couldn’t.”

  A moment passed in silence, and Jon broke it with a quiet question. “Will we ever actually have sex?”

  A cold fist seemed to close around her heart as he voiced the question he had asked more than once, the question she always dreaded hearing from him. When will we actually make love? She forced the answer through the lump in her throat. “We are.”

  “You know what I mean. I want to be in you.”

  “I’m not…I can’t.”

  “Why not? Do you love me?”

  “You know I do. More than anything.”

  “Then why won’t you? You’ll do practically anything, including go down on me in the car, in public, but you won’t let me come in you. You’ll rush me into coming just to avoid the possibility that I might find the time to enter you.”

  Anjali flushed. “I just want to make sure you come.”

  “I will, but I want to come in you. I can use protection, and I know you’re on the pill. You won’t get pregnant.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

  “Then what could it possibly be?”

  She shook her head. “You don’t understand. It’s complicated. It’s different where I come from.”

  His narrowed eyes glittered with frustration even in the dim light of the car. “And where is that? London?”

  Continue your journey through Love Letters with JILTED.

  Love Letters

  ADORED

  I ended up dating an escort, but it didn’t happen the way you’d think…

  I don’t have the time to find Mr. Right…but when a sexy male escort walks into my volunteer clinic for his annual checkup, I’m tempted into accepting his invitation…without realizing all the emotional baggage that comes with it.

  Rowan Forrester might have model-gorgeous looks, but his single-minded attentiveness that boosts my shaky confidence. I know better than to believe his interest is genuine, but his easy sincerity is irresistible.

  Too bad this fantasy can’t last. After all, he’s an escort. And when the truth of his past finally catches up with him…with us…it risks destroying our love, and any hope of a future together. What will it take for us to battle this storm together…and still come out all right on the other side?

  BETRAYED

  I can turn every man’s head…except his.

  I command attention on the haute couture catwalks of Milan, Paris, and New York, but whenever I’m face-to-face with Drew Jackson, I feel like a gawky thirteen-year-old again—in love with a superstar who will never see me as anything more than his younger brother’s ex-girlfriend.

  I tell myself Drew’s no longer a superstar. A long-ago car accident shattered his knee and destroyed his football career. What is he compared to the celebrities who whirl me through one-night stands or Tyler, the brilliant and witty social media maverick who is determined to win my love?

  Drew’s just…Drew. All logic and rationality aside, I want him.

  When betrayal knocks me off my supermodel pedestal, it’s a long way to
the bottom. Will my tenuous friendship with Drew survive my career, my fame, and the rocky transition to love?

  CRUSHED

  I need a hero…but not him.

  Losing my job wouldn’t have fazed me.

  Losing my brother and then my job almost broke me. I’m down to my last hundred dollars and ready to accept help in any shape or form when Cody turns up on my doorstep with a job offer. And not just any job offer.

  My dream job.

  I can’t accept. I’m not that desperate.

  Because I know Cody.

  He’s the daredevil black sheep of the esteemed Hart clan, and should never have made it to his twenty-fifth birthday. What he probably hadn’t counted on, though, was his best friend dying instead of him.

  His best friend. My brother.

  I’m out of options, but nothing on Earth could possibly entice me into the arms of the man who killed my brother.

  DESIRED

  I want a divorce. And I don’t know why.

  “The Plan” we made twenty years ago as naive seventeen-year-olds is on track. Married. House with a white picket fence. Two matching BMWs. Two kids. And Gabriel is on track to becoming a partner in his law firm.

  How can one have everything and still need something more…something different? How do I tell the man I married that he’s practically a stranger to me now?

  “The Plan” is about to go completely off track. Far worse, I’m not sure if it’s his fault…or mine.

  ENSNARED

  They were named for the archangels. They should have come with warning labels.

  The two Falconer boys, Raphael and Michael, were named for the archangels. I know they are anything but. At twenty-two, I married Raphael, the first Falconer boy. By twenty-five, I was divorced. I traded my wedding ring for two near-fatal bullet wounds—and it was the best damned trade of my life.

  Now it’s time to go back to the place where it began, where Michael, the second Falconer boy, waits; his life on pause ever since I married his brother.

  He’s convinced I’m there to destroy his life.

  He’s not wrong….

  FLAWED

  I’m out of dreams. He’s full of them.

  I wanted to be an actress. I got as far as waiting on tables while waiting for the call backs that never came. Disillusioned and burned-out, I head out on a lavish, all-expense-paid vacation before facing up to the fact that life has dealt me a big flat zero.

  And then I meet him, and our mutual attraction is immediate and scorching. Jake Hunter is a professional beach volleyball player with gold in his sights. Olympic gold.

  And perhaps another kind of gold. He thinks I’m something I’m not.

  Rich.

  No amount of attraction is going to survive those false impressions and clashing expectations. I’m not going to make it out of this summer fling with my heart intact.

  And neither will he.

  GRACED

  I've outgrown him, but I haven’t forgotten him...

  My ambitions have always been bigger than the town of Havre de Grace, but when my father has a heart attack, I return home to find the town little changed—

  —except that Connor Bradley, the high school nerd, is now the town’s doctor, a Grade-A hunk, and a widower with two young children.

  He doesn’t have time for distractions, not while juggling single parenthood and his clinic on five hours of sleep a night. I’m the girl he remembers as the high school flirt who left Havre de Grace for the bright lights of the city. I’m a dangerous distraction he doesn’t want and can’t afford.

  When Connor’s plans for his first Christmas without his wife are derailed, I know I can step in and save the day for his adorable children.

  But do I want to?

  I’ve come so far, and I don’t know if I can go back…not even for him.

  HAUNTED

  Not all gifts are treasured. Only one can be kept...

  I’ve given up on love, but Christmas unexpectedly ignites my bleak and solitary life with three men who represent my past, my present, and my future.

  Peter Warren, my high school and college sweetheart, who shattered my heart but rules my dreams…

  James Kerrigan, the principal of Havre de Grace Elementary School and my boss…

  Brandon Smith, the dashing New York City lawyer, who promises an escape from the confines of my small town life…

  Which man offers the gift of true love and happily ever after?

  INFLAMED

  There are no happy endings; not for “The Other Woman.”

  In a small town, there’s just no way to start over.

  Eight years after the worst mistake of my life, my life as a single parent is a grind of exhaustion in between spikes of fatigue—an endless struggle to make ends meet.

  But then Sean Orr, Havre de Grace’s newest firefighter, comes to town and shows my son and I a new and beautiful kind of “normal.”

  The happiness can’t last—not for Sean who is on the run from his past. When it catches up with him, will it bring my fragile normality crashing down around me, or will I find the strength to finally define my own happy ending?

  JILTED

  Can love ever measure up to perfection?

  Jon Seifer is almost everything to me. He’s the security that anchors me and the love that raises me up.

  However, I was, at birth, promised in marriage to an even more amazing man who holds a medical degree from Harvard Medical School, works as a cardiac surgeon at Mayo Clinic, and hails from the lofty Brahmin caste.

  Like me.

  And he is a good man. A man I could love given half a chance. Everyone agrees he’s perfect for me.

  And everyone knows that I—an overachiever from birth—would never settle for anything less than perfection.

  So where does it leave Jon…?

  KINDLED

  Second chances. Impossible odds.

  Nicholas Dragov, a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre, is the bad boy of ballet. On stage, his grand jeté defies the laws of physics and gravity. Off stage, he lavishes money on fast cars and fast women. His small-town roots are abandoned in the past, until a career-ending injury traps him back home, in the care of the woman whose heart he broke…

  Me.

  I was Nicholas’s first dance partner, but he alone made it onto the world stage. In the eight years since we’ve seen each other, I married, became pregnant, a widow, and a mother.

  Now, Nicholas is home, his beautiful body broken, and his attitude darker and deeper than a volcanic crater. I know how to work with sports injuries, but no amount of training or professionalism can help me endure the man who abandoned me when I needed him most.

  LURED

  He ruined my holiday. And then my life…

  When an accident—his fault...okay, maybe mine—cuts short my bicycle tour through Italy, I’m rescued by a brusque, career-driven American lawyer—the same kind of man who once broke my heart.

  A week in Brandon Smith’s company, however, convinces me that the similarities are superficial. My Italian fling with Brandon becomes the highlight of my life, but can the glow of romance survive the harsh light of reality when we return to America and find ourselves on opposite sides of the courtroom?

  MALIGNED

  Is my past too much for a future with him?

  Life is rosy as an aspiring college graduate and influential fashion blogger, but it wasn’t always that way.

  I have secrets—shameful secrets, precious secrets—and a past that could shatter my carefree present and promising future.

  And then I meet Tom—a brilliant lawyer, single father and devoted brother. Falling in love is easy.

  I should have known better. Life doesn’t have an easy mode. Not for me.

  When he discovers my secrets, will he trust only the facts he can see, hear, and touch, or will he be the first and only man to accept me for who I am—past, present, and future?

  About the Author


  “Heart, Humor, Heat, and Happiness…”

  At 4 a.m., when her husband and three sons are asleep, Kristen Blakely weaves unforgettable characters into unexpected stories.

  Love Letters, starting with Adored, features Kristen's contemporary romance series, which proves that, at the very least, she knows how to alphabetize books.

  Kristen's devious plan for world domination begins with making all her readers as sleep deprived as she is.

  LOVE LETTERS by KRISTEN BLAKELY