The Bareknuckle Groom - Holly Bush Page 0,74
her drawers.
“This is why I don’t want a valet,” he whispered, running his tongue around her ear.
“What?”
He smiled, knowing that Lucinda in a passioned state was not quite lucid. “A valet, love. I don’t want one. He might walk in here just as I do this,” he said and shoved himself inside her wet heat.
“Oh God, James,” she said on a groan and pulled his mouth toward her, her hips bracing against his. “Harder.”
And that was the last rational thought he had as he drove into her, her climax coming fast, bringing a shiver to her shoulders and a moan from her lips. He followed soon after, shouting his release and breathing heavily against her hair as he recovered.
He kissed her deeply. “I love you. I will try very hard to not be an ‘unpleasant ass’ to your father, but I can make no guarantees. I’ll have to thank him, which will be difficult enough.”
“Don’t ever change, James,” she said softly, smiling and looking into his eyes, brushing his hair away from his face. “I love you just as you are, even when you are, on occasion, an unpleasant ass.”
He grinned his lopsided smile. “What a lucky man I am, Mrs. Thompson.”
Afterword
I hope you have enjoyed James and Lucinda’s story, the second in the new Thompsons of Locust Street series. Please follow me on FaceBook, Twitter, or on my website hollybushbooks.com, for announcements about the next book in this series, Kirsty’s story, due out in the fall of 2021.
Other American set historical romance series:
The Crawford Family Series includes Train Station Bride, Contract to Wed, companion novella, The Maid’s Quarters, and Her Safe Harbor and tell the tales of three Boston sisters, heiresses to the family banking fortune.
The Gentry’s of Paradise chronicle the lives of Virginia horse breeders and begins with Beauregard and Eleanor Gentry’s story, set in 1842, in the prequel novella, Into the Evermore. The full-length novels are set in the 1870’s of the next generation of Gentrys and include For the Brave, For This Moment, and For Her Honor.
Reader favorites Romancing Olive and Reconstructing Jackson are American set Prairie Romances and Cross the Ocean is set in both England and America.
Politics & Bedfellows and All the News are my general fiction titles published under Hollis Bush.
Please leave a review where you purchased The Bareknuckle Groom or on GoodReads or other social sites for readers. Thank you so much for your purchase. I love to hear from readers!
The first few pages of Into the Evermore and the third book in this series, the yet untitled Kirsty’s story follows.
All the best,
Holly
Excerpt from Kirsty’s Story
July 1870
Philadelphia Harbor
Chapter One
“Wait,” Kirsty Thompson shouted as she hurried across the deck of the steamer Maybelle. “Wait! Stop!”
A uniformed man with sideburns that reached his chin turned from directing sailors. “Miss?”
“You must stop moving the boat,” she said breathlessly, coming to a halt in front of him.
“It’s a ship, not a boat,” he said impatiently.
“It doesn’t matter what you call it, you must stop, set the break or whatever, because I need to get off.
“I’m sorry, miss. The lines have been pulled. We’ll be underway any moment now.”
“But I must get off,” Kirsty repeated, feeling a rising panic.
The man eyed her. “Where’s your ticket, miss?”
“I . . . I don’t have one.”
“Then how did you get aboard?” he asked, hands on his hips.
“Well,” she said. “There was a woman going up the ramp ahead of me, a rather large woman with flowered dress that nearly blinded me, with a little dog, a child, and three or four servants.”
“And you walked in with her. Hiding amongst her party,” he said. “You didn’t want to pay passage and you thought you’d sneak aboard.”
“Of course not! I’m no thief! I just needed to speak to someone. Just for a moment, I just needed to speak to him.”
“Lovers gone bad?” the man said and turned away to shout at a sailor. He turned back and regarded her. “Well, you’re stuck on this ship with him now.”
“Lovers! How dare you! I am not with him or anyone and that is why I need to get off!”
“You can get off in New York harbor because that’s our next stop,” the man shouted back at her.
Kirsty stepped closer to the man and wagged a finger at him. “You, sir, are rude and I’m going to report you to your superiors!”
“Now see . . .”
“Miss Thompson?”
Kirsty turned quickly. “Oh, Mr. Watson. I am so glad to see you! Please tell this man to stop