Hot Autumn Nights

Welcome to the Hot Autumn Nights Blog Hop sponsored by authors H.D. Thomson and Caris Roane. Grand prize for the hop is a $70.00 gift card for Amazon or Barnes and Noble. At the end of the hop, the organizers will choose the grand prize winner using random.org by putting in the number of blog sites that participated. From there, they will use random.org again to choose a winner from the winning site, so the more sites you visit and comment at, the better your chance to win.

My prize is a $10 e-gift card of the winners choice: Amazon, BN, Starbucks, etc. Leave a comment to enter. You can earn additional chances to win by liking my Facebook page, following me on Twitter or signing up to the this blog. Let me know in the comments if you have earned additional points.

Now to the fun part. What does a hot autumn night mean to you? Is it snuggling before a roaring fire with your sweetie? That's a classic scenario, and one I used in my historical romance Rogue's Hostage.


His hostage... 

In 1758 the Pennsylvania frontier is wild, primitive and dangerous, where safety often lies at the end of a gun. Mara Dupre's life crumbles when a French and Indian war party attacks her cabin, kills her husband, and takes her captive. Marching through the wilderness strengthens her resolve to flee, but she doesn't count on her captor teaching her the meaning of courage and the tempting call of desire.

Her destiny...

French lieutenant Jacques Corbeau's desire for his captive threatens what little honor he has left. But when Mara desperately offers herself to him in exchange for her freedom, he finds the strength to refuse and reclaims his lost self-respect. As the shadows of his past catch up to him, Jacques realizes that Mara, despite the odds, is the one true key to reclaiming his soul and banishing his past misdeeds forever.

In this excerpt, Mara shows up when Jacques is at his lowest point with a bottle of wine and Swiss fondue:

She bustled over to the table and began arranging the items on the tray. “Have you ever had fondue before?”

He shook his head and stared doubtfully at the melted cheese mixture.

Mara picked up a fork, speared a cube of bread, dipped it in the fondue, and held it out to him.

He took a bite and nodded his approval. “Delicious.”

“It would be even better if I had real Gruyère cheese, but this will have to do.” She handed him the fork. 

“Now you try it.”

He mimicked her actions, but when he pulled the fork out of the pot, the bread was gone.

“Ah,” Mara said, “now you must pay a forfeit.”

He turned to her with an amused look on his face. “What kind of forfeit?”

She cocked her head to one side, a teasing look on her face. “Sometimes it is a bottle of wine.”

He clapped a hand to his forehead. “I knew it, you are after my vintage Bordeaux.”

She giggled. “Since I am still not overly fond of wine, I will not demand a forfeit.”

“Is there no alternative?” he asked. When he saw a blush creep up her face, he pressed the point. “What are you not telling me, madame?”

“Sometimes it is a kiss.”

He drew in a quick breath. “A much better idea, do you not agree?”

She looked at him uncertainly. “I suppose so.”

Jacques’s heart began to pound in his breast. It had been more than six months since he had kissed her, that last night at Fort Duquesne. Careful not to alarm her, he cupped her chin with one hand and lightly touched his lips to hers.

“I think I am going to like fondue very much,” he decided.

He pulled out a chair for her, and inched his own close so that their knees touched under the table. When she dipped her fork in the pot, he jostled her elbow, and she lost the bread.

“You did that on purpose,” she accused him with a smile.

He shrugged. “A forfeit is a forfeit. It is your turn to kiss me.”

She shook her head but complied with his request, kissing him sweetly but tentatively.

Jacques lost more bread than he ate, and soon he was intoxicated on wine and kisses. With each kiss, he grew bolder, slipping his tongue inside her mouth, savoring the tangy taste of cheese and Bordeaux.

Finally she put a hand on his chest. “Enough.”

He smiled lazily. “Oh, no, madame. I will never get enough of your kisses.”

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Rogue's Hostage is also part of the Romance Super Bundle, ten full-length romance novels for one low price. Available at Amazon, All Romance eBooks, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, iTunes and Smashwords.

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What's your idea of a hot autumn night?

Linda

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