Excerpt 2:
“There came a
point, we jumped ship, the three of us, Justin and Christiana and me. Our next berth was with a Welsh smuggler who
plied his trade…here…and there. Then
came the king’s pardon, that I couldn’t take under my own name, there likely
being a desertion charged against it, so I took the name of Jean Delacorte, got
pardoned, and found us—Christiana and me—a berth on a Dutch square rigger that
plied the Atlantic trade. Back and forth
we go. When I got to be captain, I did
take us to Italy once. I’d promised
meself to see Michelangelo’s chapel before I died, and I’m happy to say, I took
it off the list.”
He paused,
remembering the soaring ceilings, God’s outstretched finger imparting life to
Adam. Adam, in his full glory, with the
tiniest penis imaginable. If there’d
been any competition, Eve wouldn’t have given him a second look.
“We saw the
Sistine Chapel, and the Pope, and the Coliseum and other antiquities, but the
city was pure filth, so we saw what we came to see and hied ourselves back to the
Caribbean. There we sailed, all about
the West India Isles, until Christiana was old enough, she needed to be in
school, needed to learn to be a lady, which was nothing to be done aboard ship,
so I took her to Havre.”
The Captain’s
finger made a sad, slow line to France.
“I left her with the Ursulines.
She did fine,” he told himself.
“She’s bright, and bold, and now she lives here.”
He pointed to
the south side of Saint-Domingue.
“Justin’s own island. Calls it
Valhalla, a nod to him being part Viking and all. You’ll know it, soon as you see that
white-blond hair. It’ll be worth laying
odds to see what comes out on top, with the mix between the two of them. Christiana’s hair is dark, but her mother was
a red head, and Christiana’s got the highlights.”
He angled a
glance at her and pretended he was changing the subject. “You didn’t happen to see any red-headed
grandbabies?”
“Aye,” she
admitted, though they didn’t come from Christiana. It was too soon, and the future was not
set. He still had healing to do.
Patience.
She spoke to
herself, but the laudanum seemed to let him hear it. Maybe it was just as well he thought it was
about his other grandbabies rather than about her. About them.
He angled his
head. When she ignored the question in
his eyes, he shrugged a shoulder and turned his attention back to the map.
“All right,
then. While Christiana’s in Havre,
I’m…here, when I win The Oaks in a card game that lasted three days and nearly
put me under the table, but I came out on top with the biggest purse I’d yet
taken and still have yet to match.
I’m…here,” he said, “when I win the Deirdre
and get a second ship. I’m…here, at Mrs.
Smith’s House of Entertainment in Road House, on Tortola, when I win the purse
that lands me in prison…here.”
Jamaica.
And there he
was, back in the space of a heartbeat.
Port Royal prison. A mute
roommate who painted with piss. One
guard who enjoyed torture, and another who enjoyed making men cry.
Beth’s heart
hurt for him, for what he’d had to live through. Picking up a piece knocked loose, she tucked
it away and anchored it with light and love and a wishful bit of pixie dust.
“You’re here,
now,” she said softly, taking his hand and bringing him back to her. You’re
here. You’re safe. I won’t judge you. I promise.
Suddenly, he
stopped breathing. For a moment
suspended in time, she did not move.
Then, she rubbed slow circles on the back of his large hand, over the
dark hair that dusted his knuckles and the scar where he’d startled his dog and
it bit him. Her bottom hand was eclipsed
by the width of his calloused palm, a captain come from the sea, bearing such
terrible wounds.
“Aye, here,” he
said, pulling free, breaking apart.
Feeling less
than a man.
How could she
tell him how special he was? He’d
rescued his Marie from the uncle who’d have raped her. He’d saved his “niece” any number of
times. Didn’t he know he was a man worth
the wait?
She willed him
to listen to her; the laudanum should let him.
But she wasn’t certain he’d heard until he raised his head, and she
looked in his beautiful green glass eyes and saw it for herself.
Ian blew out
softly, frustrated beyond bearing, recognizing that lambent look in her eyes
and knew that her interest in him had gone beyond tending his wounds. He might be better than he was, but he was
still a broken man. He wanted her too,
but wishes alone wouldn’t make that happen.
He wanted to
feel her lying naked against him, with her wild red curls and eyes the color of
Aruba and her pomegranate breasts and those pretty feet of hers. But she’d tended him enough, she’d seen his
lifeless member when he should have been standing at attention and giving her a
salute.
Adam might have
had a tiny penis, but at least it worked.
His hadn’t since Jamaica.
“Give it time,”
she said.
As if she
thought that’s all it took. But how
could she know?
Eavesdropper. She gave him a smile, soft and sweet and full
of hope. “Can ye nae feel the truth of
it?”
“Aye,” he said,
surprised. The first time she’d asked
him that, he hadn’t been able to fathom it.
But now….
Now he’d eaten a
man’s breakfast. He’d eaten electrick
strawberries. He’d put Jamaica behind
him again, and told himself that would get easier with time. Time, the healer of most wounds, even if the
scars remained.
For now, she was
willing to wait, willing to give him however long he needed to be able to come
to her and take what she would share.
Their time had not yet arrived, but when it did, he was sure it would
feel like heaven, and he would not be remiss if electrick strawberries were
involved.
Excerpt 3:
At the stables, they
found that the Marshall men and O’Flaherty boys and Theo had everything under
control. Ian still didn’t know why Red Beth had to drag him from his
sickbed and make him walk all the way down here, feeling uncomfortably weak as
a kitten, when she could just as easily have told him a bedtime story about
it. But she’d insisted. Mindful of his indebtedness, he had humored
her, and so it was that they had come to this, poised in the role of passive
observers in an empty stall, until the mare was brought in. Red Beth
excused herself and went over to talk to the chestnut, rubbing her head and
whispering in her ear and adjusting the leather cover that would protect her
neck from an overzealous stallion’s bites.
Zephyr smelled the mare,
even before Thomas brought him into the stable. Outside, he whinnied his
pleasure, and he came in dancing with an erection that hung to his hocks.
Ian almost called out to beg her not to when Beth dared to approach his
horse.
Zephyr reared up, and
Ian swore that his heart stopped. It would have been too late; there was
no way he would have reached her in time to save her, but the prancing, padded
hooves miraculously cleared Beth as they came down. Ian exhaled sharply
and released the breath that he’d been holding.
Thomas had his hands
full, controlling the stallion and keeping an eye on Beth, who was talking to
the beast, no doubt sharing a bit of breeding etiquette, warning him not to
play too roughly. Zephyr whinnied, and Thomas waited until Beth was free
and clear. She rejoined Ian in the empty stall, closing the short door
behind her. Zephyr pranced up to the pretty chestnut mare, who had
twitched her tail to the side to ease his way. She was good enough to
welcome the stallion’s weight as he reared up and covered her, shoving his
massive member inside her and thrusting home like the magnificent stud that he
was.
And all the while, Beth
stood, almost breathless, watching spellbound, wincing when Zephyr bit at the
leather-covered neck. She gripped the door of the empty stall that was
their viewing room, and Ian knew she was not unaffected. Forget
Zephyr. He watched Beth watching the horses. He listened to her
telling breath, and felt the hum in her body that sang to him as surely as the
fiddle’s phantom tune.
And because they were in
a place where they could see without being seen, Ian stepped behind her and
slipped his hands around her waist and pulled her back against him. She
shivered, and inhaled sharply, then forgot to breathe altogether. He
leaned down, bending until his teeth found the base of her neck. “Red,”
he whispered against her petal-soft skin just before he tasted it, tasted her,
and asked her to take him home.
“Please,” the Captain
begged when she stayed rooted, transfixed, watching his stallion cover the
chestnut mare as he wanted to cover her. “Have mercy. Don’t do this
to me. You don’t know what it’s been like.”
But she did. She
did. She knew exactly what he’d felt. It was her gift. Her
curse. Like now, feeling the blood pump in old haunts, the word made
flesh, the promise of resurrection fulfilled. The Captain wanted her, and
she wanted him to want her, and Herne would just have to understand.
The stallion finished
and disengaged, dropping onto all four feet, with his penis tamed and near
normal size already, while the Captain’s was just coming to life. She
wished he could have taken her right then and there, amidst the sharp scents of
the stable as they tumbled in the straw and hay.
They headed for the
house, each one priding themselves on moving at a reasonable pace, when every
step brought them closer to the bedroom upstairs, with its urn full of dead
honeybees and a plate of herbs and sliced ginger root and an odd number of
pinch-necked glass cups. Back in the day, Ian could have swept her into
his arms and carried her up the stairs. Now it was all he could do to
navigate under his own power and pray the feeling wouldn’t go away once they’d
gotten to where he could do something about it.
When they reached the
front door, he took her hand and pulled her through the house he’d won on a
turn of the cards, gotten by chance and kept by pretense, until he could clear
his real name. At least his Christian name was the same, and the subtle
change from O’Malley to O’Manion was still a damn sight better than the years
he’d played Jean Delacorte.
He counted the steps on
the sweeping entrance stairs, marked the feet from the landing to his bedroom
door, and numbered the eyelets on the back of her bodice as he put his fingers
to the task of unlacing them. While he was busy in the back, she unpinned
her apron front, reaching around and pulling one tie so that the thing fell
free, landing in a puddle on the wide board floor. He opened his mouth on
the back of her neck, and he knew she remembered his stallion, covering the
chestnut mare, giving her that enormous member of his in a mating that was as
intense as it was brief. A stallion did his business in a minute; it took
three hundred forty days, give or take, for a mare to finish hers.
Beth felt the Captain’s
breath on her skin, like dragon’s fire. No sooner did she wonder if he
intended to consume her than he put an arm around her waist, pulled her back
against him, and opened his mouth on the base of her neck. He scored it
with his teeth, not quite biting, and then he did bite her, inhaling sharply
with his mouth fastened on a spot that made her knees go weak. His hands
skimmed up her sides and pulled down her bodice; he splayed his calloused
fingers and lay claim to her breasts.
Ian wanted it to be good
for her. He wanted it to last, but he couldn’t wait for layers of clothes
and shoes and stockings, no matter how much he enjoyed a leisurely
disrobing. For the first time in months, there was life in every part of
him.
“Red,” he whispered
against her hair. “I’m sorry, I can’t wait. Forgive me.”
He kept one arm wrapped
around her, kept her backside pressed tight against him when he turned her and
guided her onto the edge of the bed, bending her so that her face nestled where
he’d lain. She inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with his scent. He spread her legs with his knees, fumbling
at his buttons and praying he didn’t go off too soon. This had been such
a long time coming, he didn’t know what to expect.
Hello,
old friend.
Ian felt a full-body
smile come over him. Red felt it too, or had read his damned mind again.
Beth purred and buried
her face in his bedsheets, pressing her hips back against him, waiting for him
to enter her. There was no finesse left by the time he opened his
breeches and threw up her skirts. Finding her wet enough, he drove
himself inside her, sheathing himself to the hilt.
Ah,
God. Sweet Jaysus.
A stallion finished in a
minute and he did too, thrilled that he’d accomplished that much, at least, but
hating himself for her sake, for giving such a disappointing performance when
she deserved so much better. Red Beth, in whose body the source of
pleasures lay, whose clever hands and kind heart had saved him from himself.
How can
I thank you? I wanted to die. I would have, if not for you.
She heard him. He
could tell, because when she turned her head to smile softly at him, he saw
that her pink lips were quivering and her brilliant blue eyes were filled with
tears. She deserved so much better than this, than him, and he told her
so.
He told her with
words. He told her without words. He told her with his hands, his
mouth, his touch, his breath as he pulled her into his arms and unwrapped her
like the treasure she was. Her dress went first, then the single
petticoat she wore to flaunt convention—but then, she’d been working.
Working to cleanse him. Working to heal him. Freeing him from the
laudanum and restoring his manhood.
The stays were a
surprise. “They’re for my back,” she told him, eavesdropping again.
“I hate them, but they help.” Her chemise was utilitarian and well
constructed, with generous gussets under the arms that suited someone who tamed
foxes and gathered honey and could have the most vicious horse eating out of
her hand like a child’s pet pony. And under the chemise, there was what
he remembered, what he dreamed of, with and without laudanum: the trim waist
and pomegranate breasts and just the slightest swell of a woman’s belly above
nether curls that were as wild and red as those that crowned her head.
He pulled her onto the
bed with him, his own clothes be damned. This was for her, the least he
could do after all she’d done for him.
He dried her tears with
his thumbs and bent his head and kissed her. Every fiber of his being,
every breath, he owed her more than he could say, more than he could ever
repay. Darlin’ girl, do you know what you’ve done to me?
Of course she
didn’t. He didn’t know himself, so there was nothing for her to pull from
the whispers of his mind. Quieting himself, he focused on the woman in
his arms, with her trim ankles and pretty feet. He undid her buckled
shoes and pulled them off, dropping them beside the bed. He ran his
fingers on the inside of her thighs and smelled the musk of their
joining. He untied her garters and pushed her stockings to her ankles,
taking care to pull them off as she’d put them on, figuring it was the least he
could do. Attention to details in lovemaking counted; even something as
small as right-turned hose could never be underestimated.
The cheeky thing
laughed, delighted with his philosophical approach to coitus.
Ian smiled. She
had no idea.
Really?
Now who
was reading whose mind?
It didn’t matter.
She’d seen too much of him to hide, and he’d learned more of her than he had
any woman in his life, even the one he’d left with child. Someday he
would tell her, but not now. Now he wanted to think of Beth. Only Beth,
who slept with foxes and talked to bees and communicated with horses and
whispered to trees and made a man dare to dream again.
He kissed her feet,
those pretty, pretty feet, and worshipped her ankles. Like a sculptor’s
apprentice, he explored the masterpiece that was her body so closely he could
have copied it, had he a block of marble and the tools and the skill to breathe
life into stone. She could. She had. He was proof. He
said nothing, in case it came to naught, but he swore he felt himself
thickening even as he thought about it.
He refocused his
attention on Beth, lying breathless in his bed, at his mercy after he’d been
dependent upon hers since the new moon. He wondered, what would she do
tonight, when the full moon—the Buck Moon—rose over the wooded hills and called
to her pagan blood?
ERINN
ELLENDER QUINN AUTHOR BIO
Erinn Ellender Quinn is the softer side of erotic
author Nia Farrell, one of Mr. Blackthorne’s Wicked Pen Writers and a multi-genre author
who is published in nonfiction, poetry, music,
articles, and children’s books, with one documentary screenplay under
her literary belt. She’s an old soul and
a period reenactor who’s been into corsets for centuries, although she wears
them more to Civil War events these days.
Erinn has been involved
in the metaphysical community for over twenty-five years. She is a Reiki Master and crystal healer
whose work encompasses this and other lifetimes. Erinn was fortunate enough to meet her soul mate early on. She married her
high school sweetheart, raised two children, and began writing at her husband's
suggestion. She has been published as Nia Farrell in erotic romance since 2015.
Ride
the Wind is her debut romance novel.
CONTACT INFORMATION AND LINKS:
Nia Farrell
Titles:
The
Three Graces Series
By Nia Farrell
and Jane Austen
Upcoming releases:
REPLAY BOOK 2:
TRIPLE PLAY September 1, 2016
RIDE THE WIND
(w/a Erinn Ellender Quinn) October 1, 2016
REPLAY BOOK 3:
HONOUR BOUND November 1, 2016
TOUCH THE WIND
(w/a Erinn Ellender Quinn) December 1, 2016
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31126388-ash?from_search=true
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