Texas Viscount
Page 32
Then he gave it, and all the stars of the heavens exploded behind her fluttering lashes. As she came back to earth, he kissed the insides of her thighs and used his hands to cup her derriere and knead the soft flesh. She moved her hands from where they had gripped the sheets and reached for his shoulders, pressing him onto his back as she rolled over beside him. “Now it's my turn,” she whispered, stroking the proud erection as he lay with his fists clenched at his sides.
“Any...thing...you want,” he finally managed to get out.
“I should hope,” Sabrina murmured.
She knelt and looked at him, her powerful lover, made utterly helpless by her touch. His bronzed skin and night-dark hair were in stark contrast to the whiteness of the sheets. With her free hand, she traced a pattern from the stubble on his jaw line down through the forest on his muscled chest, following the narrow line of black hair that arrowed down his belly to the bush at his groin. Then she took him in her mouth and applied the most ladylike pressure with her lips and tongue, until she had him arching and bucking helplessly, crying out her name.
When he knew he could hold out no longer, Josh reached down quickly and pulled her up to him, rolling on top of her. “Not this time,” he said breathlessly. “I owe you this.” As he plunged deep inside her, he remembered all the times she had made love to him while recovering from their children’s births. It was his greatest pleasure to even the score afterward.
“We owe each other,” she whispered, clutching his shoulders, drawing him into a deep kiss.
They moved rapidly at first, then slowly, prolonging the pleasure. Each time he could feel her begin to peak, he would stop, panting and eager as she, determined to make the beauty of their joining last. Then just when they both mindlessly believed the ecstasy could go on forever, a sharp squall sounded from the nursery door.
“Maggie,” Sabrina murmured through the haze.
“Time to go,” Josh said on a sigh, increasing their rhythm until he could feel the contractions of her velvety sheath. As she arched up in culmination, he spilled himself deep within her, shuddering and collapsing on top of her in utter satiation.
They lay together for a moment, tangled in the sheets, still panting and damp with perspiration in spite of the cool spring air. He nibbled kisses across her face, planting one on the tip of her nose. “I thought we had an hour,” he said. “That little gal is as insatiable as her mama.”
“You misjudged the time. And who is her father to condemn her for being insatiable? She comes by it from you.”
“All my children have Texas-sized appetites,” he said with a proud chuckle.
“You once told your uncle my good manners should rub off on you. I rather believe your hungers—for good or ill—have rubbed off on me.”
“Aw, darlin’, as long as we keep on rubbin' together, who cares?”
Their daughter demanded attention. Sabrina gave a joyous laugh as she slipped from his arms and reached for her robe to attend to another Texas Cantrell.
Author’s Note
Historical events often provide the framework for a story. There were two treaties between Great Britain and Japan directed against Russian encroachments in the Far East. During negotiations over the first alliance, Tadasu Hayashi was the Japanese minister to the Court of St. James, Lord Salisbury was the British Prime Minister and Lord Lansdowne was Foreign Secretary. President Theodore Roosevelt supported the alliance as a means of using the Royal Navy and the Japanese military to protect American interests from Russian aggression. The Siberian Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1901, giving the Russian Empire access to the Pacific.
However, I took some literary license in writing Texas Viscount. Minister Hayashi was only presented with the final draft of the treaty in the fall of 1901. It was not signed by his government until January, 1902, but since I wanted warm weather for my story, I fudged the date. Roosevelt had no direct involvement in the process until he negotiated the end of the Russo-Japanese war in 1905, for which he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. Nor, as far as I know, did any Russian agents attempt to assassinate Tadasu Hayashi or disrupt the diplomatic process leading up to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902. But considering how much was at stake in the Far East, it is not inconceivable that some disgruntled Russian faction would have plotted to scuttle the treaty. One last confession: ne'er-do-well "Georgie," so enamored of Natasha Samsonov, is as fictitious as she.
I had a ball creating Josh and Sabrina, the third and last pair of lovers in my American Lords Series after Jason and Rachel in Yankee Earl and Brandon and Miranda in Rebel Baron. As always, my husband Jim refined the dialogue. If you laughed at Josh's bawdy humor and Sabrina's sassy retorts, I owe that in large measure to his able assistance.
Michael Jamison's family history may have sounded a bit familiar because his infamous grandmother was the heroine from Wanton Angel, the last book in my Blackthorne Family Trilogy. Perhaps somewhere along the way he'll get his own story. Like his cool spymaster grandfather Derrick, Michael deserves a happy ending, too. Let me know what you think.
Happy reading!
Shirl Henke
About the Author
SHIRL HENKE lives in St. Louis, where she enjoys gardening in her yard and greenhouse, cooking holiday dinners for her family and listening to jazz. In addition to helping brainstorm and research her books, her husband Jim is “lion tamer” for their two wild young tomcats, Pewter and Sooty, geniuses at pillage and destruction.
Shirl has been a RITA finalist twice, and has won three Career Achievement Awards, an Industry Award and three Reviewer’s Choice Awards from Romantic Times
“I wrote my first twenty-two novels in longhand with a ballpoint pen—it’s hard to get good quills these days,” she says. Dragged into the twenty-first century by her son Matt, a telecommunication specialist, Shirl now uses two of those “devil machines.” Another troglodyte bites the dust. Please visit her at www.shirlhenke.com.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Author's Note
About the Author