Hot For It. Melissa MacNeal

      APHRODISIA

      KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

       http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

      For Leslie and Julie, cousins who love a good pirate yarn—or just a good pirate! Thanks for your love and laughter, girls!

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Chapter 30

      Chapter 31

      1

      Cat Gamble rested her aching head in her hands, squinting at the manuscript page on her laptop screen. Her lips moved as she read silently.

      Clarissa’s heart thundered when he tossed her onto his bed. The pirate’s lips, so brutally chiseled into his sea-beaten but handsome face, parted in a hard smile as he ripped open her bodice.

      “Ah, such lush beauties, these,” he breathed, wedging his knee between her thighs. “Peaks like berries, just awaitin’ my tongue…lappin’ at your creamy skin, sweet lady, as I feast upon your fleshly delights.”

      Gasping at the sandpaper texture of his face, Clarissa curled in upon herself. Quite against her will, she writhed beneath his hot, solid weight. That was no ordinary sword pressing into her abdomen…surely long and thick enough to ravage her down there, the way this swashbuckler had already taken her imagination captive. Again against her will, of course.

      “Please, sir,” she rasped. “I’m betrothed to Lord Lustingworth, pledged to him as a virgin bride—”

      “Lustingworth, eh?” The buccaneer raised up, shaking with his laughter. “You haven’t heard about all his little bastards? By all the wenches a-workin’ in his castle? He won’t notice your bein’ broke in. Ripe and ready for—”

      “YO, HO, HO!”

      “—and a bottle of rum!”

      “—it’s a poi-rate’s loife fer me!”

      “No! No! That’s the wrong frickin’ movie, Trev!” came a strident cry. “You can’t play Captain Jack if you’re gonna mess up the script and—”

      A startled intake of breath made Cat look up from her story. From her nook in the loft, she peered over the railing to see the tallest of the three costumed swashbucklers pressing the point of his glimmering sword to his challenger’s bare chest…right between the swells of that low-cut hot pink evening gown.

      “It’s my house,” came Trevor Teague’s terse reply. “If you don’t like the way I play pirate, take your balls and bat and go elsewhere, Bruce.”

      “Gentlemen, gentlemen!” Grant Carey crooned. The sleeves of his flowing laced-front shirt billowed as he stepped up to deflect Trevor’s sword with his finger. “I see no need for bickering over petty—”

      “I am not being petty!” Bruce insisted with a swish of his long blond wig. “As Elizabeth—the smart one, who gets things accomplished!—I’m only pointing out—”

      “If you want to make points, stud your bra,” Trevor muttered. “Cat should play the part of Elizabeth. She would at least bring some originality—and real breasts—to the role. Something besides flicking that fake hair in my face every time—”

      “Don’t even think about it, guys. I’m trying to work.” Cat immediately regretted the frustration in her voice, but it was getting late and she hadn’t reached her page quota for today. Her story felt way too clichéd, and Lord Lustingworth’s name had flown too far over the top. She’d lost sight of the solid grounding this whole book needed but didn’t have a clue what to do about it.

      She had no room for whining or feeling ungrateful, however: as Trevor’s house guest, living rent-free, thanks to the architect’s compassion, she was damn glad for this loft…even if, as the choir loft of a Catholic church he’d renovated, it overlooked the open great room where voices carried with crystal clarity up into the vaulted, frescoed ceilings he’d restored.

      “Oh, dear, we’ve interrupted you again,” he said with an apologetic smile. “I’m terribly sorry, sweetheart. Rough day?”

      Her shoulders sagged. Cat shook her head, more at herself than at the three gay blades who loved to cavort in costume. This huge unique house was the perfect place to pretend they were pirates instead of an architect, an attorney, and a landscape designer, and she envied them their sense of play. She’d never known grown men who gave themselves over to role playing with such childlike glee and dedication to detail.

      “Just a little distracted. Conflicted. Whatever,” she muttered. “The beginnings of books are always the hardest part.”

      “You’ve had enough on your plate since Laird died to distract even the most disciplined writer,” Grant remarked. He placed a placating hand on his companions’ shoulders. “Come on, guys, let’s give her some peace and quiet while she—”

      “No, it’s all right. Tomorrow is another day,” she drawled, trying to match their sense of movie drama. “Didn’t mean to spoil your fun with my funk.”

      The three smiled up at her, raising two swords and a beaded fan in salute. They exited the great room through the door behind the tall carved pulpit that Trevor had ingeniously transformed into a freestanding waterfall.

      The room—still a sanctuary in a very real sense—sighed with silence and the sound of the trickling water then. Tall stained-glass windows depicting the miracles of Christ glowed with the direct rays of the sunset, casting the cavernous room in brilliant hues of ruby, cobalt, and amber. These colors had inspired Trevor’s decor when he removed the pews and chose the groupings of furniture that made his unique home such a showplace. Cat sighed again, awed by the beauty of this sanctum…at how fortunate she was to be here after her husband’s suicide had revealed his extensive gambling debts and an excessive lifestyle she’d had no idea about.

      Things would