Love Letters Volume 4: Travel to Temptation Read online

  Love Letters Volume 4: Travel to Temptation

  By Ginny Glass, Christina Thacher, Emily Cale and Maggie Wells

  Passion is only a short trip away in Love Letters Volume 4: Travel to Temptation.

  M Is for Melting by Maggie Wells

  When Samantha Walters contacts childhood pen pal Luca Camilleri, she discovers the boy she knew is now an incredibly desirable man. And a not-so-innocent comment in an online chat spurs Sam to give in to impulse, heading to Malta for a vacation fling.

  N Is for Naughty by Christina Thacher

  Chasing a reclusive author sends Steve Collins to New Zealand—and into the bed of smart and sexy Gemma Robinson, the writer’s granddaughter. Can Steve earn her forgiveness when she learns he used her to find his idol?

  O Is for One More Night by Ginny Glass

  Winnie Caesar only intends to ask Silas Quinn for help in locating a stolen artifact, not to relive the steamy night they once shared. But when Winnie tracks him down in Brazil, her plans are derailed by their unstoppable passion…

  P Is for Predicament by Emily Cale

  Finally single and ready to move on with his life, Jason Logan plans a getaway to the Indian Himalayas…but so does his ex, Dillon Waters. Soon a simple chat leads to much more intimate encounters.

  Q Is for Quarrel by Ginny Glass and Christina Thacher

  The last thing Zane Harrison expects to find in his borrowed Majorcan villa is an undressed-to-impress woman! Turns out he and Tara Curtis were both promised exclusive use of the villa. They quickly discover a way to broker a truce by sharing a bedroom…

  54,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  I feel as though every month I start my letter the same, gushing over our month of releases and telling you how amazing and fantastic they are. This month, I’m going to change things up and start by telling you that they’re all quite awful. Okay, not really. Poor authors, I wonder how many of them reading this just had a mini heart attack? Of course you should be excited about this lineup of releases, because it’s another wonderful and diverse month.

  In the new-and-unique category, this month we have our first ever decide-your-own-erotic-adventure. Christine d’Abo’s Choose Your Shot is an interactive erotic adventure that not only lets the reader choose who the heroine ends up with, but what kinky fun the characters get up to along the way.

  We’re thrilled to welcome Karina Cooper to Carina Press. She’s moving her steampunk series, The St. Croix Chronicles, to Carina Press—starting with a prequel novella, The Mysterious Case of Mr. Strangeway, in which a young Cherry St. Croix takes on her first bounty, only to find her efforts challenged by a collector whose motives run deeper than a hefty purse. Look for book three in The St. Croix Chronicles, Corroded, releasing in September 2013.

  We have a strong lineup of contemporary romances this month. Fiona Lowe returns with her next Wedding Fever book, Picture Perfect Wedding. Tamara Morgan brings us The Derby Girl, in which a roller-derby girl lives up to her “bad girl” image to woo an unattainable plastic surgeon, only to discover that he’s the one man trained to see past the surface. In the humorous contemporary romance category, Stacy Gail’s Ugly Ducklings Finish First will be a hit with fans of high-school reunion romances, and with those who like their romance on the more lighthearted side.

  I’m also thrilled to welcome three debut authors to Carina Press this month, all with contemporary romances. In Kelsey Browning’s Personal Assets, book one of the Texas Nights series, a recovering good girl needs the right man to help her find her inner bad girl—which is easier said than done in a small Texas town. Next, when the bank refuses Emma the loan she needs to save her family home, she must turn to her neighbor Mitch McKenna, a sexy real-estate investor whose reputation she’s spent the past six months pulverizing into sand, in Unexpectedly You by Lily Santana. And last, but certainly not least, Knowing the Score by Kat Latham features a smokin’ hot rugby player with a scandalous past who gives up his vow of celibacy to help a virgin overcome her fear of intimacy. Three debut authors offer up three terrific contemporary romance novels—make sure to give them each a try!

  This month we also have three fantastic male/male romances. Kim Knox kicks off a fun-filled science-fiction historical trilogy. As described by the author, Agamemnon Frost and the House of Death is Sherlock Holmes meets The Scarlet Pimpernel. With aliens. Check out further Agamemnon Frost stories in September and October 2013.

  John Tristan joins Carina Press with his male/male fantasy romance, The Adorned. A beautiful young man indentures himself to a tattooist and becomes a living canvas for the artist and his inhuman patrons. And for those who like their male/male romance in the contemporary genre, Libby Drew’s Bending the Iron is sure to hit the mark as she builds a brand for emotional, wonderful male/male romance.

  Following book one of her Magick Trilogy, Magick by Moonrise, Laura Navarre takes us back into her historical paranormal world. When the Angel of Death falls in love with life, will a secret Tudor princess pay the ultimate price? Tudor England and the celestial realm collide in Midsummer Magick.

  Last, Love Letters Volume 4: Travel to Temptation continues the collection of A to Z erotic short-story romances penned by Ginny Glass, Christina Thacher, Emily Cale and Maggie Wells. Volumes 1 through 3 are now available. Look for volumes 5 and 6, Exposed and Cowboy’s Command, on sale in September and October 2013.

  As always, we have a significant backlist of books that I hope you’ll browse and take a look at, in genres from horror to mystery to fantasy to female/female and across the ranges of romance. There’s an adventure waiting for every reader!

  We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to [email protected]. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  www.carinapress.com

  www.twitter.com/carinapress

  www.facebook.com/carinapress

  Contents

  M Is for Melting

  N Is for Naughty

  O Is for One More Night

  P Is for Predicament

  Q Is for Quarrel

  About the Authors

  Copyright

  M Is for Melting

  By Maggie Wells

  “May I fetch you another glass of wine?”

  Samantha expected to find a waiter hovering when she glanced up. Instead, she found a tall, distinguished-looking gentleman with Cary Grant’s silvered temples and Mid-Atlantic accent. Handsome as he was, he wasn’t the man she’d traveled halfway around the world to see.

  Startled and discomfited by the attention, she stared blankly at the computer screen for a long moment then shifted her gaze to the glass of white wine centered on a cocktail napkin. “This one is nearly full.”

  “I…” He straightened, running one hand over his already smooth silk tie. “I was hoping you’d allow me to join you.” The come-on was accompanied by a good-natured chuckle.

  “Oh.” She blinked. He blinked. They blinked in unison before her suitor started looking for a graceful exit.

  “Unless you are waiting for someone?” he asked, leading her on with the arch of his dark eyebrows.

  “Oh!” Feeling unsophisticated and hopelessly American, Sam sat up straighter. Unfortunately, the movement only hiked her too-short skirt higher on her thighs.
She tugged at the hem, then remembered the very reason she’d bought the ridiculous garment in the first place—because it was too short. Pressing an imaginary wrinkle with her palm, she drew a deep breath and latched on to the lifeline he threw her. “Yes. I’m sorry. Yes, I’m meeting someone.”

  “Of course. My loss.” He gave her a courtly nod, his charming smile in place. “Enjoy your stay.”

  She stared after him, wondering for the millionth time if she’d completely lost her mind. She wasn’t the kind of woman who got hit on by handsome European men with Cary Grant accents. She was a kindergarten teacher, for cripes sake, and this entire trip was the work of a madwoman.

  Only someone completely bereft of her senses would drain her savings dry and hop a plane for Europe after sharing nothing more than a few instant messages with a man she’d never met. But that was what she’d done. She’d arrived in Malta nearly twenty hours and three planes later, rumpled, sleep-deprived and convinced that the men in the white coats were mere steps behind her.

  Sam glared at the laptop, certain that the winking cursor was mocking her. Two hours had passed since she sent a second message. He hadn’t replied. Yet. Drawing a bracing breath, she lowered the screen on the laptop.

  She’d probably freaked him out. Hell, she was freaked out. She was unemployed, untethered, and most likely, completely unhinged. And while she sat there sipping warm wine like the miniskirt-wearing fool she was, he was probably hopping on his boat and setting sail for Sicily or Tunisia.

  She wouldn’t blame him if he did. Most people would be a little wary of a childhood pen pal popping up out of the blue. Swapping life stories with someone she only knew from a dozen or so letters mailed a decade before should have been an easy game of catch-up and nothing more. He probably felt safe being half a world away from her during their spill-your-guts-out-in-one-thousand-characters-or-less IM sessions. After all, she lived in Memphis and he lived in Malta. What were the odds they’d meet?

  She’d lost touch with Luca when her parents were killed in an auto accident and she was sent to live with her grandmother, but it had been stunningly easy to find him. One simple query revealed twenty-two Luca Camilleris listed in the FriendsLink network. Four lived in the States and three in South America. She ruled them out because she had to start somewhere, and if a girl was going to go digging up an old European pen pal, it only made sense to start in Europe. Refusing to entertain wine-soaked thoughts of gender-altering surgeries, she nixed the two women too. Ten Lucas were too privacy-conscious to even give their locations, but acting on fifteen-year-old memories, she narrowed the field to three based on their proximity to the Mediterranean Sea. The Luca she knew loved boats and everything about the sea. Banking on that snippet of information, she chose the one with a sailboat for an avatar.

  A carefully worded missive inquired whether he was the Luca Camilleri who attended St. Joseph’s Technical school in the mid-nineties and had an American pen pal named Sam. Hours later a reply popped up in her inbox.

  He did. He was. She had the right Luca Camilleri, and she was his American girlfriend named Sam.

  That was what he once called her in his letters, and he used the same line in his reply. It was an ode to the discovery that the baseball-loving American boy he’d picked to be his international pen pal partner was actually a girl named Samantha.

  She wound her fingers around the stem of the untouched wineglass and gave the golden liquid a swirl. The recent death of her grandmother had left her cast adrift. School district budget cuts had resulted in her being laid off. Too much Pinot Grigio had excavated his name from her memory. Their increasingly intimate conversations had eased the gut-twisting loneliness that had become her constant companion. The hope sparked by a bit of wishful thinking had her logging onto a travel site.

  Sighing, she glanced at the tourists gathered on the hotel terrace. She had a week. One full week to be the adventurous woman she always wanted to be. Tucking her hair behind her ear, she crossed her legs and tried to ignore the speculative glances from a table filled with boisterous businessmen. She turned her cheek to them, playing it off as if she spent many an evening sitting on a sun-streaked terrace thousands of miles from home waiting for a man she’d never met but couldn’t forget.

  “Hello, my American girlfriend, Sam.”

  Her nape tingled. She whirled in her seat but a rogue breeze tossed her hair into her eyes. Clawing it away, she zoomed in on the smiling man beside her table. This was no Cary Grant wannabe. No, Luca Camilleri was more of a George Clooney/Gerard Butler mix, without the gray hair or Scots burr, but with the smiling eyes and laugh lines fanning from the corners.

  “Please tell me you are my good friend Sam and I’m not making a fool of myself in front of a beautiful woman.” His voice dropped to a hush. “Lie to me, if you must.”

  “I am,” she managed to whisper. His smile widened and she responded accordingly, grinning like the fool she was. “I’m Samantha Walters.” He rocked back on his heels as she rose from her chair and offered her hand. “Hello, Luca. It’s nice to meet you at last.”

  His fingers curved around hers and he pulled her close. Soft lips grazed her cheek. A hint of stubble rasped her chin when he moved to kiss the other. The scent of sun and sea mixed with musky aftershave flooded her senses. She sighed as he leaned back and gave her the crinkle-eyed smile again.

  “What are you doing here?”

  The question should have been expected, but still she had no good answer so she deflected. “You speak English so well.”

  Dark eyebrows rose and his brown eyes sharpened. He wasn’t as easily distracted as her kindergarteners, and she wasn’t off the hook, but judging by the quizzical tilt of his head he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

  “I just…I mean, many people know the mechanics of a second language well enough to write, but speaking is a different story. Right?” She was babbling. She knew she was babbling but she couldn’t stop. “I was always impressed with your command. Of the language, I mean.” The smile returned, and this time the warmth in his eyes was backlit by deviltry. “Idioms and stuff.”

  The wider his smile, the faster she talked. Mortification burned hot in her cheeks as she barreled ahead like a runaway horse, leaping over common sense and common courtesy as if they were pesky fences in her way.

  “Did you learn them from television? I’ve heard that many people pick up American English by watching American television shows.” She sucked in a short, sharp breath when he took her hands in his. He moved in closer, and she couldn’t pull back on the reins hard enough to halt her wagging tongue. “Which ones were your favorites again? I know you loved Seinfeld—”

  “I do.” His breath tickled her lips.

  “Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” she added in a rush. She waited a beat, hoping he’d fall into the banter they lobbed back and forth so easily on FriendsLink.

  “No, not at all.”

  Those smiling lips covered hers and she slumped against him, so relieved to be silenced she barely recognized the means. Until his hand slid into her hair and his fingers curved around her neck. Luca hummed soft approval when a start of recognition straightened her spine. He took full advantage as she relaxed into the embrace. His mouth was warm and tender, the kiss slow and gently coaxing.

  She hadn’t been far off in her admiration of his command. The kiss might have lasted seconds, but it seemed to stretch for minutes. He withdrew by millimeters, his fingers tangled in her hair, the other hand splayed wide at her hip. Her lips clung to his. Hungry for the heat of his body, she stroked the beard-roughened skin of his throat with the tips of her fingers. He pressed his forehead to hers and closed his eyes.

  “Is that why you’re here?” The question wafted across her damp lips like the warm summer breeze. “Because I told you I used to dream about kissing you when I was a boy?”

  No point in denying it. Not when the truth was so sweet and sexy and tasted so damn good. “Yes.”


  Luca unfurled his fingers, letting them slide the length of her hair as he drew back to gaze into her eyes. “And you flew halfway around the world to make it reality?”

  “I, uh…” She blinked and his face swam into focus. “Yes.”

  He nodded as he digested her confession, gradually loosening his hold on her. “Let’s have a drink.”

  The abrupt segue caught her off guard. The loss of his hand on her waist left her unbalanced. Sam teetered on her too-tall heels, but Luca caught her elbow and deftly helped her back into her chair.

  He dropped into the seat across from hers and signaled for a server. The last rays of the setting sun flared, washing the terrace in brilliant rose-gold and backlighting the handsome semi-stranger across from her. She took deep breaths as he spoke to the waiter in rapid-fire Maltese. Pressing her hand to her throat, she let the throb of her pulse against her fingertips soothe her frayed nerves as she drank in every detail of him.

  His hair was darker than she expected. He was tan, but the shade was more golden than the nut-brown he’d been in the photographs he’d sent her as a boy. The smile was the same delighted grin he wore in the pictures posted on his FriendsLink page, but rather than the T-shirts and board shorts he favored in those pictures, he wore suit pants and a wilted dress shirt with the sleeves rolled back. Dark hair dusted muscled forearms and strong wrists. Long, graceful fingers pressed against the metal tabletop. The same fingers that had been in her hair just moments before.

  “Sam?”

  She jumped, startled by the gentle prod. When he eyes met his, he gave her a cocky little half-smile that dripped of masculine pride. As if he could read her mind.

  “Another glass of wine?”

  She reached for the tepid wine and bolted half the glass. “Yes, please.”

  “What are you drinking? Chardonnay?”

  “Pinot Grigio.” She took a smaller sip and sighed into her glass, watching Luca finalize their order. She lowered the glass and what was left of her defenses, telling herself there was no sense in trying to play it coy after she’d traveled thousands of miles to see him.