EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT – First Kiss: Wanting a Family Man by Dani Collins
I’m thrilled to be returning to Fresh Fiction with an exclusive excerpt from the third book in my Raven’s Cove trilogy, WANTING A FAMILY MAN.
In WANTING A FAMILY MAN, Trystan is finishing out the season as a whale-watching captain on British Columbia’s isolated west coast. Cloe is his baby sister’s aunt, someone he hasn’t decided yet whether he can trust. Cloe is starting her life from scratch after her last boyfriend took everything.
Trystan and Cloe are warily starting to like each other as they walk through an abandoned town. Nature has begun swallowing up the past and their own romance is starting to blossom.
If you love a slow-burn to sexy romance full of a closely-knit community, laughs and a few tears plus tons of heart, you’ll adore this series.
Trystan absently helped himself to a huckleberry as they passed a bush growing out of the top of a broken, rotting stump.
Cloe stopped in her tracks. “Can you eat those?”
“I just did. They’re like blueberries only red.” That one had been a little tart because they weren’t quite ripe yet. “Try one.” He picked a fat one and offered it.
She warily took it and popped it into her mouth, sealed her lips, and started to make a sour face before giving it a considering nod of not bad.
“Can I pick a few for the guests to try?” she asked.
“Sure.” Leaving ample food for wildlife was as instilled in him as breathing, but they would only take a handful. “Step there and get those ones. They’re riper.”
She set her foot on the gnarled root of the stump and he braced her elbow while he reached up to tilt the branch down for her. She stretched, one hand splayed on his shoulder for balance—
“Whoop!”
He caught her as her foot slipped and she toppled against him. His arm was full of lithe waist and he was intensely aware of the press of her breast against his chest.
“City girl. Did you never climb a tree as a kid?” He tried to yank his libido back under control as he helped her find her feet, but he was way too aware of how soft and pretty and flushed she was, eyes bright and lips parted.
Really pretty lips that rolled inward before the tip of her tongue wet them. She was still leaning into him, gaze flickering to his own mouth as if she expected…
He bit back a groan.
With a disconcerted blink, she dropped her hand from his chest and stepped back only to stumble over the same root.
“Oh, dang!”
He caught her again and now they were both laughing and holding on to each other.
“Are you drunk?” he teased. “Are you okay? Are you sure?”
The sun was hot on his neck and shoulders and arms. Maybe it was something else filling him with heat. His senses sharpened so he could smell every layer in the air: summer and earth, forest and salt water. Her. She smelled vaguely of his own body wash and Storm’s laundry soap and an underlying spicy almond warmth that was purely her.
He felt the imprint of her fingertips on his forearm and chest. He heard her swallow and could have sworn her heartbeat was in his ears.
Her silvery-gray gaze was pinned to his mouth again, making his lips sting. When her gaze lifted to search his eyes, her eyelids grew heavy. Her body tilted forward a fraction.
Yes. He tightened his hold, drawing her closer.
The first touch of Trystan’s lips was just that. A touch. Not even quite resting into a chaste kiss. It was a question. Do you want this?
She did. Her heart had been replaced by a trapped bird that fluttered and was trying to break free of her rib cage. It wanted to soar.
Almost instinctively, she pressed onto her toes to increase the pressure, silently urging, Yes. Kiss me.
He tilted his head ever so slightly. The angle deepened the contact and parted her lips and her stomach swooped. They began to kiss. Kiss.
It was like falling off a cliff and plunging deep underwater at the same time. Nothing existed, not even her breath, no sound, only the feel of his hand cupping the back of her neck and his arm hard around her and his mouth consuming hers.
She slid her arms around his neck, pulling herself higher against him, crushing herself against the wall of his hard chest. When his tongue swept across hers, her whole body caught fire. He wasn’t moving his hands, but she felt caressed everywhere, across her bare arms and down her spine and into her thighs. Her breasts ached and a sharp point of need flowered between her thighs.
She had thought she was a low-sex person and that whatever she was capable of feeling had died after Ivan’s betrayal, but desire consumed her in a wrathful type of fury, punishing her for giving herself to someone who wasn’t worthy when she could have had this. Trystan.
She greedily chased each small sensation, sifting his short hair through her fingers and tasting deeper into his mouth. He was hard against her stomach and her knee crooked upward in reaction, encouraging him to hold her closer. Tighter.
With a growl, his hand slid down to her ass butt. He cupped the underside of her cheek, lifting her an inch higher so his erection pressed against her mound. His fingertips grazed where her shorts ended and the bare skin of her thighs began. His touch was so teasingly close to where she was growing damp and filled with longing, she melted. Moaned.
They should stop, she thought distantly. This was too intense. Their breaths were hissing and jagged, but she couldn’t make herself pull away.
He was equally unrelenting, drawing her deeper into the thicket of their kiss, sucking at her bottom lip and slowly riding his hand over her breast so the desperate darkness behind her closed eyes shot with stars of every color. Whatever secrets she thought she might retain, whatever pieces of herself had not yet been crushed and lost, were being sought out, turned over, and claimed by him.
A burst of laughter and slapping footsteps crashed into her ears, breaking them apart.
Trystan jerked up his head and shifted his grip to cradle her as though the sky were falling down upon them. His heart slammed against her cheek where he tucked her against his chest.
She was shaking with arousal. The world felt tipped upside down.
Want to start reading WANTING A FAMILY MAN? The first two chapters are here: https://danicollins.com/books/wanting-a-family-man/#excerpt
Raven's Cove #3
He prefers his own company. She longs for family…
Cloe Vance had one goal when she learned she’d lost her sister: reach her infant niece. Though unable to assume custody—Cloe is broke, homeless and unemployed—she’s determined to ensure Storm is loved and cared for, even if that means working with her celebrity crush, Trystan Fraser, who doesn’t trust her.
The isolation of Raven’s Cove inspired the wilderness survival series that made Trystan famous. He refused to return until the unexpected death of his father forces him to help his estranged half-brothers refurbish the resort, hoping to secure a future for their infant half-sister. When Storm’s aunt arrives, for once the brothers are aligned…and scared. Does she want Storm or money?
Trystan’s tasked with discovering her motives by hiring Cloe to help with the week-long whale watching excursions. Their chemistry sizzles, yet Trystan resists behaving like his philandering father. In the fall, he’s returning to his globetrotting career. Cloe is a temptation he doesn’t need, but can she teach him that home is where the heart is?
Cloe Vance had one goal when she learned she’d lost her sister: reach her infant niece. Though unable to assume custody—Cloe is broke, homeless and unemployed—she’s determined to ensure Storm is loved and cared for, even if that means working with her celebrity crush, Trystan Fraser, who doesn’t trust her.
The isolation of Raven’s Cove inspired the wilderness survival series that made Trystan famous. He refused to return until the unexpected death of his father forces him to help his estranged half-brothers refurbish the resort, hoping to secure a future for their infant half-sister. When Storm’s aunt arrives, for once the brothers are aligned…and scared. Does she want Storm or money?
Trystan’s tasked with discovering her motives by hiring Cloe to help with the week-long whale watching excursions. Their chemistry sizzles, yet Trystan resists behaving like his philandering father. In the fall, he’s returning to his globetrotting career. Cloe is a temptation he doesn’t need, but can she teach him that home is where the heart is?
Romance Contemporary [Tule Publishing, On Sale: October 1, 2024, e-Book, ISBN: 9781964703114 / ]
Award-winning and USA Today Bestselling author Dani Collins thrives on giving readers emotional, compelling, heart-soaring romance with laughter and heat thrown in, just like real life. While she is best known for writing contemporary romance for Harlequin Presents and Tule Publishing, she also writes historical and erotic romance. When she’s not writing—just kidding, she’s always writing. Dani lives in Southern BC, Canada with her high school sweetheart husband.
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