New York
Times and USA Today Bestselling Author Brenda Novak is the author of more
than fifty books. A four-time Rita nominee, she has won many awards, including
the National Reader’s Choice, the Bookseller’s Best, the Book Buyer’s Best, the
Daphne, and the Holt Medallion. She also runs an annual on-line auction for
diabetes research every May at www.brendanovak.com (her youngest son has this
disease). To date, she’s raised over $2 million. For more about Brenda, please
visit www.brendanovak.com.
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Blurb:
When
Maximillian Wilder joins the notorious body snatchers known as the London
Supply Company, the last thing on his mind is love. He’s worried about
Madeline, his vanished half sister, who was last seen in the company of Jack
Hurtsill, the gang’s conscienceless leader. Raiding graveyards, stealing
corpses, and selling them to medical colleges as dissection material is dirty
work, but he has to gain Jack’s trust. He’s determined to find out what
happened to Madeline—and to bring Jack to justice if she was murdered for the
coin her body could bring.
Beautiful,
spirited Abigail Hale, daughter of the surgeon at Aldersgate School of
Medicine, detests the challenging, hard-bargaining Max. But she must procure
the necessary specimens if she is to save the college and her father’s career.
She believes she is going to be successful—until Jack double-crosses her. Then
she’s swept into a plot of danger and intrigue, one where Max must intervene
and protect her, no matter the risk to his plan . . . or his heart.
Excerpt:
“Ouch! That hurts! What are you doing?” she asked, trying to
wiggle away from the roughness of his chin as he chafed it against her face and
neck.
Max could feel the ridge of Miss Hale’s collarbone beneath
his cheek, then more smooth skin as he slid his chin up the column of her throat.
“I am leaving a few marks on you, for Jack’s edification,” he said. “He will
never believe you were ravished without something to show for it.” Pausing just
below her left earlobe, he began to suck on her neck.
She squirmed some more, resisting, but that soon subsided
and she started to giggle. He guessed from her bossiness that she didn’t laugh
often but, strangely enough considering all the trouble she had caused him, he
liked the sound of it.
“Nothing in my father’s books said anything about this,” she
said. “What on earth are you doing? Stop! It tickles. What could possibly be
the point?”
He lifted his head only when he was satisfied that he had
left a deep purple mark. “What your father’s books didn’t tell you, Miss Hale,
is that much of what goes on between a man and a woman, at least in the
bedroom, has no point. It is simply for the sake of pleasure, for the pure,
heady passion of reveling in the opposite sex, of letting go of all inhibition
long enough to enjoy giving everything and receiving everything all at the same
time.”
He knew his voice sounded slightly hoarse, but she smelled
so damn clean and fresh. And her skin—it had to be the softest he had ever
touched.
Moonlight lit her face as she cocked a finely arched eyebrow
at him. “You seem quite well-versed on the subject.”
“I have never read any bloody medical journals, that’s for
damn sure. After hearing what they have to say, I think I’m glad.”
“What’s wrong with what they say?”
Max ignored her in favor of nipping at her neck again. Why
did she have to feel so good? Not five minutes earlier, he had told himself he
wouldn’t have any difficulty sharing a room, even a bed, with Miss Hale. He
could control his “drive to mate” as she put it.
But that was before, when Miss Hale—Abigail—was at an arm’s
distance. Now that she was so close and not nearly as stiff as he had expected,
he found his perspective changing. And he was only rubbing his chin on her
cheeks and neck. What would it feel like to part her lips and slip his tongue inside
her mouth for that first sweet taste?
Under the guise of more chafing, he let their lips brush
once, felt their breath mingle, and measured Miss Hale’s response. The tension
in her shoulders, where he had anchored his hands, relaxed ever so slightly.
Her eyelids lowered as her gaze fell to his mouth, and she kept her head tilted
at just the right angle for their lips to brush again.
She’s curious, he realized. She has never been kissed.
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