Good morning!

I know, I fell off the planet there for a while.  It’s been a tough couple of months – some crazy family and work stuff that basically took over my life.  I got to the point where I just had to drop everything and deal with it.  Very happy that I’m finally getting back to writing.

I owe you some books!  This is going to be a great month – Kringles and Bright’s Ferry coming your way, and I’d like to finish Shiny Things and get that out to you as well.  ALSO, I’ve got a new romantic suspense series starting up – adventure, danger, and of course a hot relationship between a reckless spy and the assistant to a spoiled pop princess.  I’m hoping we’ll follow Knight and Zoe through a few books, to really get a chance to play around with them.  Hopefully Book #1 for August – I still have some research to do.

Enjoy and stay tuned – details as I have them!!!  It’s so good to be back.

xoxo,

Lily

Knight’s Temptation – Book #1 of KNIGHT AFFAIRS

Agent Knight is on the trail of a killer. Again. But after a decade of saving the world from criminals, despots, terrorists, and all their deadly toys, the game is starting to wear thin. Knight is seriously thinking of calling it quits, right after he takes down this assassin, preferably before he makes an attempt on the life of the American Ambassador to Malaysia. Piece of cake. Unfortunately, Knight is distracted by a touring pop star’s mousy little assistant, who seems determined to get in his way at every turn. She’s stubborn. She’s opinionated. And Knight has never wanted to taste a woman so badly in his life…

Zoe Fenelon has made a career of smoothing ruffled feathers as personal assistant and BFF in residence to Violetta Lang, a high maintenance pop princess on a world tour. Zoe knows how to handle the adoring fans and the media frenzy, how to keep her charge happy and on schedule, and how to deal with months on the road. But when six-plus feet of rumpled hotness stumbles past security and into her hotel suite one night, the ever-resourceful Zoe is completely out of her depth. The heat that sparks between Zoe and the man who calls himself Knight could burn down a city, but this is neither the time nor the place. Zoe has a tour to run and Knight has…well, whatever it is that puts a man in constant danger of being shot, stabbed, kidnapped, and tortured on a daily basis. It isn’t long before Zoe gets swept up into Knight’s world of secrets and spies, but is their connection more than just irresistible temptation? And will they survive long enough to find out?

EXCERPT:

A sleepy Zoe has just stumbled into the posh hotel suite kitchen to find a rumpled Knight wrapping his bleeding arm with a dishtowel….He’s a little surprised that she’s not more freaked out.

SHE HADN’T NOTICED THE blood, he realized.

“Oh please, you’re not the first man to sneak out of Vi’s bedroom in the middle of the night. At least you had the courtesy to get dressed first. Take the service elevator a couple of floors down and then take the stairs. Violetta told the press that she’s off men for the length of the tour and I’d like to keep it that way.”

She opened the fridge and retrieved a water bottle, giving him a better glimpse of her in the dim room. Not mousy as he’d first thought. She had delicate features and huge blue eyes, and an hourglass shape that her camisole and sleep shorts did nothing to hide. Knight liked details, and this woman – whoever she was – had some very fine details. Like the creamy, toned legs that led down to cute little purple-painted toenails. Like the curve of her throat as she tipped the bottle back for a long swig. Like the pretty, full tits that pressed against the front of her camisole – not huge, but exquisite. Knight suddenly found that his mouth was dry. Very, very dry.

She was looking at him expectantly.

Oh right, I’m leaving.

“I didn’t sleep with her.”

The words just popped out, and Knight cursed inwardly. Better to let her think he and Violetta were having a one-night stand, and leave them to puzzle it out in the morning. But suddenly it seemed important that this woman not lump him in with the rest of the idiot male population who would no doubt leap at the invitation.

She frowned.

“I don’t understand. If you didn’t – ”

“The window was open.”

Knight winced as the words came tumbling out.

What is wrong with me?

Her eyes widened, and Knight saw the fear creep in as her hand tightened on the water bottle. Knight watched her eyes flick toward the phone, and moved before the thought was even fully formed, impressed with how she fought back. He dodged a knee to the groin and pinned her to the fridge, careful not to injure her, a hand tight over her mouth, her wrists captured behind her.

Should have just knocked her out, Knight. Idiot.

“Don’t scream,” he whispered, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She was panting, her eyes wide and scared, and Knight hated himself for it. He was very aware of her under his hands and against his body, lush and feminine and delightfully curved, everywhere, with intriguing muscle tone under warm skin. Her breasts pressed into his chest and he levered his hips back from hers, away from temptation. His cock had a mind of its own and the last thing he wanted to do was to scare her further.

“Just listen. I am running from some dangerous men. I didn’t know whose window this was. I just want to get out of here before the guys with guns realize that I’m not where they left me. Do you believe me?”

She watched him for a long moment, scanning his face with wide blue eyes. Finally, she nodded. Slowly, Knight moved his hand from her mouth, tense in case she changed her mind.

“I’m glad someone taught you to defend yourself,” he said.

“Well, obviously it didn’t work.”

She sounded pissed.

“If I were any other man, it would have.”

She frowned at that.

“Oh, but because you’re you, it didn’t? You’re unbelievably arrogant for a…whatever you are.”

Knight grinned.

“Gonna smack me if I tell you how cute you are when you’re angry?”

“And sexist, too,” she spat.

She wriggled in his grip, but he held her fast. The movement brought him flush against her again and she froze at the inadvertent press of his hard cock against her stomach. Knight wanted to groan at the sensation, but stifled it.

“You’re not cute because you’re a woman and therefore inferior. You’re cute because you’re cute.”

 

ZOE WAS PRETTY SURE this was some kind of dream. A very weird, very confusing dream. Being around Violetta meant being subjected to awkward interactions with her brief paramours, but Zoe had never had one pin her against a fridge and insult her before.

But this isn’t one of Vi’s flings, she reminded herself, This is…I don’t know what this is.

Whoever he was, he was big but surprisingly agile, and it was infuriating that her weeks at self-defense boot camp had been so easily trounced with a flick of his wrist. She’d taken down drunken fanboys twice her size with those moves, but this one hadn’t broken a sweat. He had nondescript, sandy brown hair, and in the dark his eyes were either gray or green, but the way they looked at her made her feel bare in more ways than one. And every inch of his hard, muscled form was pressed to hers, the fridge cold against her back, an impressive bulge pressed hard against her stomach.

She could practically feel it as his eyes skimmed down her body.

“Is this what you sleep in?” he asked, distracted.

The Tardis-printed boxers and blue camisole weren’t exactly high fashion.

“When I’m alone, yes.”

The stranger’s eyes lingered on the pulse at the base of her throat.

“What about when you’re not alone?”

The words were soft, rhetorical, but sent a spear of heat straight to Zoe’s gut.

“That’s none of your business,” she said, breathless.

His tongue darted out to flick his lip and Zoe felt her pussy clench in response.

He’s so fucking hot.

He still had her pressed against the fridge

“I really have to go,” he said.

He sounded confused.

“That’s a good idea.”

Please, before I self-combust.

But he didn’t move.

Was he closer?

He seems closer.

“I’m sorry I disturbed your evening,” he said conversationally, but dipped his hips, subtly, just enough to align his cock with her softness.

Traitorous body. Everything inside Zoe melted, and she gasped, breathing in a drugging lungful of a subtle, bay-scented aftershave and man.

She moaned.

“Fuck me,” murmured the man holding her wrists, and then his mouth lowered to brush against hers once. Twice.

He tasted so good.

Bastard.

With a yank, Zoe’s hands were free, but instead of pushing him away, it felt like second nature to pull his head down and make him do it right. Her mouth attacked his, hot and wet and conquering.

And he kissed her back.

Oh. My. Sweet. Fuck.

For several long minutes it was nothing but heat, pleasure swamping Zoe as the stranger’s mouth and tongue and hands and body erased all previous notions of what a kiss should be.   It wasn’t until she felt a warm palm cupping her breast, her bare breast, teasing the nipple with a deft, exploratory touch, that she pulled back with a gasp, even as she wanted to arch into him for more, and then pull him to the floor so that she could have her wicked way with him.

He stepped away from her, nearly stumbling back.

“Your…” he began, running a hand over his mouth, waving toward her torso.

Shakily, Zoe realized that her cami was down around her waist, her nipples peaked and on display for the total stranger in her hotel suite.

Totally hot stranger.

She urged her libido to shut up and yanked her shirt up.

“That was…I’m going to go now.”

Zoe could only manage a nod. He shook his head as though stunned, and with a last searing look, slipped out the door, leaving her in the dark kitchen, alone.