Somebody to Love
Page 25
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Turn the page for an excerpt from the first half of Baptiste and Samira’s story, NO ORDINARY LOVE…
Chapter 1
Jean-Baptiste Mercier washed his hands, checked his teeth for any lingering signs of dinner and left the men’s room.
Whereupon he ran directly into Queen Nefertiti.
Who was on her phone.
She was tall, or maybe that was simply an illusion created by her wedge-shaped electric blue crown, upon which glittered many colorful jewels in the shape of a cobra. At a quick glance, he saw that she wore a matching goddess gown. He had a startling glimpse of dramatic dark eyes, heavily lined. Ridiculously high cheekbones in a stunning shade of mahogany. A whiff of sandalwood. A lush mouth, thinning with annoyance as he plowed straight into her.
He tried to slow his trajectory, but he didn’t have his wits about him because she’d startled him. Not by standing in the middle of a hotel hallway where he meant to walk. No. This one startled with her beauty and elegance.
Without thinking, he caught her by the upper arms. Steadied her, even as the smooth warmth of her bare skin sparked a frisson of awareness along all his nerve endings. Perhaps she felt it too, because her eyes widened. She backed up a hasty step, taking her silky flesh with her, and he felt the unexpected hardness of her gold cuffs as her arms slid out of his grasp.
“Pardonne-moi, ma Reine,” he said hastily, shocked into forgetting his English.
“Ça va,” she said, startling him again.
Actually, that was two startles. First, because she spoke French, and second, because she had the sort of voice—smooth; throaty—that belonged on a Left Bank jazz club singer.
“You speak French,” he blurted, the soul of couth and sophistication in that proud moment.
She didn’t smile. A fourth surprise. Americans, in his experience, were great, bounding Labrador retrievers, happy all the time and willing to grin at every passing fire hydrant on the street. This one? She was all Parisienne, a sleek cat who required patience and wooing before she’d deign to trouble herself with your existence.
No, she didn’t smile. But the lines of her beautiful face eased, bringing her aloofness level down a notch or two.
“Un peu,” she said, nodding. A little.
With that, she pivoted to go on her sky-high heels, blowing the tattered remnants of his mind as she went. There were slits in the bottom of her gown that happily gave way to miles of gleaming brown legs. Bright red toenails. Her sandals were golden, with straps that crisscrossed and wound their way up to the knees. Her ass? Big. Round. High. What would his buddy Daniel call it? Oh, yes. Tight.
Queen Nefertiti had a tight ass.
Her tits looked every bit as promising, although her half-moon jeweled collar sadly blocked a good portion of his view in front.
His heart sank as he watched her walk toward the early Halloween party that was evidently in full swing in the hotel’s ballroom down the hall, but his stupefaction tripped him up at the very moment he needed to be quick on his feet.
Still, he managed a hurried step after her, his heart thumping in time to the burst of dance music from the party. “Nefertiti.”
She stopped and looked back over her shoulder at him, which was both good and bad news. Good because she hadn’t disappeared yet. Bad because the long line of her neck distracted him and made it official:
He wanted to touch, nip, lick, suck, bite and possess every inch of this woman. He wanted her silken limbs wrapped around him the way the straps on her sandals wrapped around her shapely calves, her scratches down his back, her tongue in his mouth and her cries in his ears.
“What a relief,” she said, and her delicious lips crept closer to a smile. “You don’t know how many people have called me Cleopatra tonight.”
“Of course you’re not Cleopatra.” He approached her, edging around some sort of a zombie and his companion, a ruby slipper, short skirt and garter-wearing version of Dorothy who had evidently spent some time in a pornography shop. “You’re Nefertiti. I’ve seen your bust in the Louvre.”
She made a dismissive sound. “That’s hard to do, since it’s in Berlin at the Neues.”
Everything inside him rose to attention, not least of all his verge.
Oh, yes.
This one.
He looked her up and down as he stepped closer, his hot blood all but humming through his veins. “Are you challenging me, madame?”
She looked him up and down, her expression disdainful even though her eyes were alight with mischief. “I can prove you wrong in five seconds.” She held the phone up for him to see. Gave him a rueful shrug. “Not much of a challenge there, monsieur.”
He grinned. Stepped closer still, which put him right in kissing range. “This is an important issue. We must get to the bottom it. For…international relations.”
One sleek brow rose. “International relations?”
He pressed a hand to his heart. “What could be more crucial?”
She ducked her head, dimpling, but denying him the full smile.
“I’m just finishing a business dinner with my colleagues in the restaurant.” He gestured to the Asian restaurant at the other end of the lobby. “Let me say good-bye to them, then I’ll join you at the party. For a drink.”
Her head came up. She studied him for a long, measured beat or two. Long enough for a glorious flush to creek up her neck and over her sculpted cheekbones. She opened her mouth. He waited on high alert, oblivious to a passing stream of costumed partygoers.
“As important as it is to maintain good international relations—”
“Between old allies,” he added quickly, sensing that the wind was not blowing in his favor. “Because if the French didn’t have your backs, you Americans would all be celebrating absolutely nothing on July Fourth, and you’d fly a funny flag and sing ‘God Save the Queen’ at all your sporting events.”
That did it.
She finally laughed for him, a breathtaking display of sparkling eyes, dimples and white teeth in sharp contrast to her dark skin.
Desire coiled tighter inside him, pooling low in his belly.
“And I’m very grateful, because I don’t know all the words to ‘God Save the Queen.’”
He laughed again, at least until her smile tapered off and died.
“But I’m with my girlfriends tonight. And I didn’t come to flirt with handsome French men.”
“Then you shouldn’t have worn that costume,” he said, trying to dial back some of his intensity at this confirmation that the attraction was mutual. “Not a very good plan, was it?”
She blinked and looked away, hesitating.
All was not lost, then.
“You can have a drink with me,” he murmured. “No doesn’t have to be your final answer tonight, does it?”
Another hesitation. A longer pause.
And then she surprised him again.
“It’s a private party,” she said, tipping her chin up in a gesture somewhere between an invitation to kiss her and a challenge. “Shame you don’t have a costume…”
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If you enjoyed this excerpt, buy your copy of
NO ORDINARY LOVE now!
Also by Ann Christopher
JOURNEY’S END Small-Town Contemporary Romance Series
“Book” 1: A JOURNEY’S END Novella
Book 2: LET’S DO IT
Book 3: ON FIRE
“Book” 4: LET’S STAY TOGETHER Novella
Book 5: UNFORGETTABLE
Book 6: ALL OF ME
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Billionaires of Journey’s E
nd Contemporary Romance Series
Book 1: NO ORDINARY LOVE
Book 2: BEYOND ORDINARY LOVE
Book 3: EVERYTHING I HOPED FOR
Book 4: EVERYTHING I NEED
Click here for more titles in this series!
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Lovers of Journey’s End Contemporary Romance Series
Book 1: SOMEBODY TO LOVE
Click here for more titles in this series!
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DEADLY Romantic Suspense Series
Book 1: DEADLY PURSUIT
Book 2: DEADLY DESIRES
Book 3: DEADLY SECRETS
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IT’S COMPLICATED Contemporary Romance Series
TROUBLE
RISK
JUST ABOUT SEX
SWEETER THAN REVENGE
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The Davies Family Contemporary Romance Series
Book 1: SINFUL SEDUCTION
Book 2: SINFUL TEMPTATION
Book 3: SINFUL ATTRACTION
Book 4: SINFUL PARADISE
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The Warner Family Contemporary Romance Series
Book 1: TENDER SECRETS
Book 2: ROAD TO SEDUCTION
Book 3: CAMPAIGN FOR SEDUCTION
Book 4: REDEMPTION’S KISS
Book 5: REDEMPTION’S TOUCH
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Boxed Sets
DEADLY Series
IT’S COMPLICATED
SWEET LOVE
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Single Titles
CASE FOR SEDUCTION
THE SURGEON’S SECRET BABY
SEDUCED ON THE RED CARPET
* * *
Novellas
TAILS OF LOVE
GIFT OF LOVE
To Richard
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to:
Damonza, for the beautiful cover;
Su at Earthly Charms, for the lovely Journey’s End map;
Martha Trachtenberg, whose hilariously snarky running commentary makes the tedious copyediting process bearable; and
My wonderful readers, for opening their hearts to my little Journey’s End Community.
© Copyright 2019 by Sally Young Moore
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
This is a work of fiction. All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone, living or dead, bearing the same name or names. All incidents are pure invention from the author’s imagination. All names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information or retrieval system, is forbidden without the prior written permission of both publisher and Author copyright owner of this book.
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For information, contact:
Blue Iris Press LLC
7350 Montgomery Road #36476
Cincinnati, OH 45236
www.BlueIrisPress.com
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eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-948176-23-1
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Excerpt from No Ordinary Love © 2017 by Sally Young Moore
About the Author
A recovering lawyer, Ann Christopher has been published since 2006 and writes contemporary romance and romantic suspense.
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When she’s not writing, Ann likes to do the following, in no particular order: read; cook; eat; hang out at Target looking for new stuff she doesn’t need; play with her 2 rescue dogs and 2 rescue cats; and travel the world with her family. She lives in Ohio with her family.
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