A Sprinkling of Crumbs

Hi everyone! Sorry to be so late dishing out the crumbs!!! I do have a few things for you. Not too much, but a few…
Here’s an email I received from my editor today…she’s such a damn tease!!!!

Oh, and BTW, I did see some shots of just the model
they used for the cover. He is bee-yoo-ti-ful! All the shots are from the back and he
has amazing musculature! (And he looks really good in his breeches :-))

I seriously cannot wait to see his cover!

This next little excerpt if from a scene which is a turning point not only in the book, but in Jane and Wallingford’s relationship. I really like this scene, how he opens up, and Jane, who is a tough nut to crack begins to weakens.

Jane looked up. His breathing seemed harsh to her ears. His gaze, she noticed, was focused intently upon her. Jane struggled to not look away from that intense, almost passionate gaze.
“We have done what we promised never to do,” he said, his voice husky in the dark quiet of the hall. “We—both of us—thought never to expose ourselves to the prying eyes of others. And yet we have done the unthinkable, we have sold ourselves to each other.”
She could not help but stiffen at his words. Indeed, they had agreed to complete honesty, to shed the mantle of secrets they both wore, and yet, the reminder of it did little to settle her nerves. She had known what she was getting into the minute she stepped into the carriage for Evesham. She had known that her secrets would now belong to him, yet that had not prevented her from coming to him.
“We are both damaged souls, Jane, marred by darkness and sin. We’re both scarred,” he whispered, brushing his thumb against the uneven skin of her top lip. “You wear your scars on the outside, while mine are hidden deep. But they’re there, Jane. You just have to look hard.”
“And will you let me, my lord, look deep?”
He swallowed hard, but nodded, even though it was only a slight incline of his head.
“You’ve made it clear that this is the only way I can have you, Jane.”
“Honesty will set you free.”
He smiled, a soft sound of amusement passed between his lips. “The truth enslaves, Jane. It will chain us, bind us in a way that the two of us will fight to get free from.”
“I can bear the burden.”
“I wonder if you can? Because beyond this door we will cease to be the people we show to the world. Agreed?”
“Yes.”
“I will be only Matthew here in this room with you, Jane. Tell me, who, am I to expect? Who are you really?”
“I do not know,” she said, her voice trembling despite her attempts to appear as though she were firmly in control of her feelings. “I always thought I knew myself so well. But then…” The words froze in her throat and she looked away, but he caught her chin with the edge of his fingers and turned her face to his.
“Only honesty, Jane. We promised. We will not go beyond this door until I have your word that you will be completely honest with me, as I have vowed with you.”
“I thought I knew what I wanted—who I was—that is, until that day I first saw you in the carriage. You…you awakened feelings in me that were strange, terrifying yet exhilarating. These feelings were all things I forbid myself—feelings I’ve never wanted to have. I was quit satisfied with never having felt pleasure or passion, and then when I met you, I questioned everything I have ever believed in. You ask me who I truly am? The truth is, I do not know.”
“Do you wish to know?”
“I fear the answer I may uncover.”
His expression seemed to soften. She saw the flicker of something in his eye, before he shielded it with his thick lashes as he watched his thumb glide along her mouth, parting her lips. “I, too, am afraid, Jane. I fear what I will find inside me as well. I fear the things you will ask, and the answers I shall have to give you. Shall we forget this bargain of ours, then? Shall we pretend that we never agreed to bare our souls to one another? Should we forget that we have never met, never touched. Never kissed?”
Suddenly she felt breathless, anxious. “Is that what you want?” she asked, fearing the answer.
“No,” he said in a hard, almost choking voice. “It is not what I want. I want to know you, Jane. I want to understand what makes you different from the women I have known. I want to understand these feelings I had, that I still have.”
“Then we will go forward. And we shall never tell a soul what happens in this room. We will never speak of each other’s secrets or use them to hurt one another once this week is over.”
“Agreed,” he murmured brushing his thumb along her mouth. “Our secret.”
Together they released the latch on the door and stepped into the room. With a quiet click the door closed behind Matthew. They were now completely alone. While clothed, Jane knew that Matthew would strip her utterly naked, and he would not have to remove one stitch of her clothes to do so.

This is for Barbara who coerced a bit of sexy scene out of me….

Matthew’s arms felt strong beneath her as he carried her to his bed. He wore a linen shirt that was unbuttoned, allowing her to feel the hot skin of his corded neck beneath her lips. Aware of the steely strength in his shoulders, Jane slid her fingers beneath the opening of his shirt and caressed his chest. His flesh was taut over the thick muscle, warm and scented with the smell of eastern spices and man.
Feeling brave, knowing that she only had but a week to indulge herself with him, Jane threw caution to the wind and allowed her hand to slide further into his shirt. Cupping his breast, she discovered his chest was nothing but chiselled muscle that felt as unyielding as rock and as contoured as a sculpture. She ran her finger along his nipple and felt it grow taut and erect, pressing urgently beneath her finger.
She wanted nothing more than to discover what his hard body would feel like beneath her hand and what he would look like naked to her gaze. Tilting her head back, she looked up into his face and saw that he watched her with unblinking eyes. His irises had turned to a brilliant, glistening shade of India ink and she could not help but think once more how beautiful and mysterious his eyes were.
He reached the bed and instead of tossing her on it, he gently placed her atop the blankets which were folded back and followed her down until his body half covered hers. Pressing against her, his weight sank them both deep into the mattress. She should have felt smothered by his strength and the strong, large bulge of his arousal that pressed eagerly at her pubes, but she felt only desire and comfort and a strange sense of safety and rightness.
“I was too anxious the last time. I did not take my time to explore you as I should have—as I wanted.”
She covered his sculpted mouth with her finger, stopping his words of regret. “You gave me what I needed, Matthew. And I needed you so fiercely, and somehow you knew that. My body has not stopped crying out for more of it.”
His eyes darkened further and his lashes lowered. She followed the path of his gaze and saw that he was busy untying the strings of her petticoat and she became mesmerized by the beauty and elegance of his long, dark fingers pulling and tugging and freeing the perfectly tied bow. Her breathing became rapid and she felt the light brush of his knuckles along her belly as he parted the cotton over her hip.
“I want to give you more, Jane. I want to savor you, to kiss and lick every inch of you.”
Her womb clenched, the muscles of her core tightened in yearning.
“I want to tongue you,” he said in a deep, provocative voice. Then he flicked the tip of his tongue between the seam of her lips. “Everywhere. Your lips, your neck, your breasts, your rounded belly. Your quim,” he growled, sending a wicked, forbidden tremor throughout her limbs. “I want you to tell me your desires. I want to know what you want me to do to you. And I want to do them, Jane. I want to give you what you need.”
Her corset was off and he tossed it to the side of the bed where it fell to the floor in a heap with her petticoats. She lay partially beneath him in only her chemise and she felt his wide palm slide up her calf, then thigh, nearly engulfing her flesh in his hand. He caressed her to her hip, running his hand appreciatively up and down the rounded contour.
He reached up, above her head, and she froze, stiffening beneath him. It was a silly response, but she could not hide it nor could she look away from his gaze that studied her so quizzically. But he would not allow it, and tipped her chin up so that she could not avoid his gaze.
“Please don’t,” she whispered, seeing how his hand was against the bed curtains. “I don’t want it to be dark, not with you. I...I want to see you—us.”
“I would never want you in the dark, Jane. You were made to be seen beneath a man.”
“I want see you, too,” she said, slipping her hands beneath his shirt. He helped her tug the linen over his shoulders and when his head pulled free, his hair was mussed and she ran her fingers through it, thinking how rakish he looked peering down at her with his dishevelled hair.
Sliding his hand beneath her pillow, he raised himself slightly above her. It was then that she saw how beautiful he was—how strong—how wonderfully muscled beneath skin that was a rich tawny brown. Her gaze skimmed down to his belly that was fashioned out of the same hard muscle and resembled a washerwoman’s washboard.
Black silky hair ran in a straight line from his navel, disappearing below the waistband of his black trousers. Her gaze slipped lower and she noticed that his trousers were tented with a formidable erection. Her stomach curled in a knot, knowing she was going to have him covering her with this hot, hard, very male body.
“You’re beautiful,” she said on a sigh, sounding awed even to her own ears. “You feel like steel beneath this soft skin.”
His fingers sought and found the silk tie holding her chemise and he tugged the ends of the bow taut, freeing it and allowing her chemise to gape open. She barely registered the fact that he was parting her shift, preparing to bare her breast to his gaze.
She let out a deep satisfied sigh as their skin brushed together when he pulled her chemise from beneath her.
Matthew looked down between their meshed chests and studied Jane’s lush body. She was naked now and he watched how the rain drops on the cottage window dappled shadows on her skin. He saw the reflection of a crystal shaped drop snake over the roundness of her hip. He traced it with his fingertip until it ran down her thigh, racing to the shadow of her apex, until another drop followed, then another, reminding him of tears.
Brushing his cheek against her thigh, he closed his eyes, smelling Jane’s skin, relishing her fingers running through his hair, absorbing the feel of her naked body against his. His heart hurt, despite knowing what they would share. It ached at the loss he knew was coming closer, day after day.
They would go their separate ways soon. The secrets and pleasures they shared would forever be kept within the confines of his cottage. Every time he gaze out this window, he would see rain, and the shadowy droplets on Jane’s flesh. He would think of tears and forever wonder if Jane would shed any for him.
“Matty?” she whispered, and he pressed his eyes shut, willing the pain to subside. “What is it?”
She lifted his head from her lap and he smiled, a sad smile, mixed with joy and desire, loss and loneliness. “I want to make you weep with pleasure, Jane,” he murmured, sliding up the length of her luscious body. “I want to take your tears away on my lips and keep them with me forever. And after, I want to paint you like this, with the shadows on your body and the remnants of pleasure casting a glow over your body.”

This next scene was the first scene that came to me for Sinful. I actually wrote it while writing Addicted. I knew then, that Wallingford was going to be really tortured, really passionate and really possessive. Here’s a little snippet.

The door opened and Jane’s gaze darted to the door, only to see him shouldering his way through and pressing his back against the door until it clicked firmly shut. His gaze met hers and then suddenly he was on his knees before her, his face pressed into her skirts as he rubbed his cheeks against her thighs.
“I am in hell,” he groaned, and his fingers fisted into the silk of her skirt. “Seeing you tonight has been my salvation and my agony.”
Lifting her face from the arm of the lounge, she bent over him, kissing the top of his head and running her hands through his tousled hair.
“When, Jane,” he asked, his voice gruff and full of emotion, “when will I look at you and think of you as a friend? When will I see you and not feel my body harden and ache to be inside you?”
His hot hands slid down her calves and snaked their way beneath her skirt so that he could wrap his fingers along her ankles and slide them up along her stocking clad leg.
“When will I stop dreaming of you wearing nothing but crème stockings and lace garters? When will I ever be able to dress you and kiss you and think of you as mine?”
He bent to kiss her ankle then slowly he raised her skirts, pushing the silk and the petticoats up so that her stockings were revealed to him. His mouth was everywhere, nipping at her calves, her knees, and the inside of her thighs. He hesitated for a moment then ran his lips along her mound that she had not been able to bring herself to cover with drawers.
“I dream of this naked, wet flesh. I crave it,” he whispered and dropped a kiss amongst her curls before wrapping his arms around her hips and clutching her close to him so that his face rested on her bare thighs, and his breath caressed her apex.
“When I saw you tonight without your spectacles, I nearly went mad.” He raised his head and looked at her, and she had never seen him more handsome than he was peering up at her from behind the crinkled blue silk. “I’m supposed to be the only man to see behind the glass.” Her lips trembled and she smothered a soft sob of longing. “It is only me that should be removing them. Only me you should see atop you.”
“Matthew,” she whispered shakily, raking an unsteady hand through his hair.
“God help me, Jane,” he cried, grasping her to him as buried his face in her lap. “I cannot do this! I cannot let you be. I swear I need you—need the little piece of Heaven you can give me. I need it so much.” When he looked up at her, his expression shattered her heart. “Please tell me that you’re lonely too, Jane.”

Till next time, guys!!! Hope this satisfies!!!