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Gorgeous, right??
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In THE KING'S OUTLAW, get ready for a sexy, thrilling ride through Crusades-era Europe!
Travel to medieval France & England and get a taste of the Holy Lands with King Richard the Lionheart. Visit a sea town shrouded in darkness and corruption, sneak into hidden caves, sail on ships, and get snowbound in a firelit cottage with no one but a dangerous outlaw and the way he's looking at you, firelight glinting in his eye… (yes, there is snowbound-ness!)
The story originally appeared in the anthology Captured by a Celtic Warrior.
It's expanded for this single title release to show more of the hero & heroine's journey across England, including scenes from the secret cove that forms the nexus of the Renegades & Outlaws collection.
Here's an except for you!
♥♥♥
The King's Outlaw©
…She didn’t know how long she listened, or how long he spoke, in his low, lilting voice, drawing pictures so vivid she could almost feel the Irish sun on her skin, smell the grass under her feet. “…and in Ireland, Maggie,” he said, making her shiver every time he called her that, “you’ve got to take care, for the otherworld is close to hand, fey close, so close that on some nights, you lay and listen to things you know cannot be real, but they are, and then you know the world is far more wide and wonderful than ever the priests did tell.”
They faced each other. His eyes were gleams of fading firelight, hers of distant hope.
“It sounds a most worthy place,” she whispered.
“I never should have left,” he agreed, regret thick in his voice. “But glory beckoned.”
She knew that thick coating in her own throat, all too well. Impulsively, she touched her fingertips to his hand. “That is the way of it, though, for some of us,” she said urgently. “We leave that which we do have, to seek that which we might have. Sometimes, we stumble along the way.”
Tadhg looked down at her hand, her fingertips barely skimming the back of his. Offering comfort, she emanated innocent desire. Her long hair spilled in glorious disarray over her shoulders, and her eyes were bright and full of fire—he greatly approved of fire in a woman, and so infrequently found it—and her lips were far too full to be only three inches away from his own, half parted, breathing on him.
“A besetting sin, then?” he murmured.
“That is it,” she whispered happily.
She smelled like sunshine, and her smile punched a hole through the densest, darkest part of him, the cloud of him, the roiling, rising thunderstorm in his heart. “Lass,” he said in a thick voice, “I swear on my life, I will settle this debt to you.”
She shook her head. “You already have.”
He smiled grimly to himself. She had no idea what he meant. She thought he meant what had already come, and that it was all over now. But it was not over, and to the almost certain damnation of his soul, he was not yet done using her.
A melodic sound penetrated the walls of her shop. Church bells, calling the faithful to midnight mass, as they would every night of these Twelfth Night revelries.
Magdalena jerked a little, yanked out of the fairy-like cloud that had descended over her shop, almost startled to find herself still sitting behind her counter. In every way but the truth, she’d been far, far away, on the green hills of Ireland, with….
She sat up straight. “What is your name?”
He blew out something that sounded like a sigh. “Tadhg Nessan Cenn Fáelad O’Malley.”
The words tumbled out swiftly, a lyrical and utterly incomprehensible combination of syllables. “My,” she laughed. “It sounds nice and noble.”
“Oh, aye, quite. Nessan means stoat.”
She laughed—she’d laughed more with this man in a half-day of trials and tribulations than she had in a twelve-month of calm, proper living. Or a hundred-month of it.
“You can call me Tadhg,” he said, looking at her mouth.
“Tayg,” she whispered, sounding it out. “What does it mean?”
“Poet.”
“And are you one?”
“I’m thinking of one just now.” He looked from her lips to her eyes. “’Tis bawdy.”
A long, wide ribbon of excitement unfurled through her as she tipped her head back and laughed again. He watched her appreciatively.
The bells finished their tolling.
“You should go.” She forced herself off the crate, away from the ribbons of excitement and laughter. “There is only one guard at the gate at this hour, Gustave, and he is quite amenable to negotiation.”
“So now you know the gate guards, too?” he grumbled as he got to his feet.
She pushed gently on his shoulder. “Go.”
Oh, how she did not want him to go.
He did not go. For a long minute he looked down at the ground, and when he lifted his head, there was something in his eye that made her breath slow down and her heart speed up.
“Do you need anything?” she said softly. “Food?”
He shook his head.
“Oh, your money! That you gave me on the quay.” She started to turn to where she’d hidden it, in a pouch under the counter.
He put a hand on her arm, stilling her. “Keep it.”
“But—”
“Keep it.”
His fingers were warm bands encircling her upper arm. She looked into his eyes and felt oddly, shockingly bereft. “Oh, I wish—”
She cut the words short before they did something dangerous, like instill hope, in however small a degree.
He lifted a hand to her cheek, brushed a bent knuckle across it. “No, you don’t,” he murmured. “You do not wish for that.”
“Yes, I do.”
Faintly he smiled, but his voice was hard. “Lass, you do not want what I have.” As if to prove it, he overturned his hand and dragged a calloused thumb roughly across her bottom lip.
All the breath came out of her in a hot rush. “Oh.”
It was a gasp of arousal, of desire and pent-up wanting, as far as she could retrieve the memory from the dusty cabinet of her mind. It made her want to weep for the lost memory of it.
He watched her with dark, unreadable eyes, then slid his thumb back again, a little harder, rolling her lip down the slightest bit. She tipped her head back and let her mouth part under the rough caress.
“That is a mistake,” he ground out. “You do not realize….” He shook his head once. “How much I want you.”
She stepped to him, pressed her breasts up to him. His thighs were hard against the front of hers, the hilts of his weapons bumped against her hips and belly, and dark, dangerous desire burned in his eyes. She wanted all of it. All of him.
“Show me.” She slid her arms around his neck. “For I have been dying to be wanted the way you do.”
♥♥♥
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Let me know what you think of the cover!!
Scorching hot, epic, lush historical romances, the books in the R&O collection feature heroes & heroines who visit the same secret cove, Renegades Cove. You’ll experience all eras of the middle ages in these sweeping stories of hard-willed alpha heroes and fiery, determined women who use the cove to escape villains, plot perilous missions, and of course, fall in love.
Get ready for these bad boy medieval warriors and their fiery, strong heroines!
