"It is a fine line between love and hate, especially when social standing is involved"
Reviewed by Jaime Zalinski
Posted August 19, 2011
Romance Historical
After what seems to be endless war, the country of Maldania
has finally won peace at great cost to the royal family and
the people they are suppose to protect. Now that the borders
are safe from foreign invasion, it is up to the sole living
heir to rebuild his family. Prince Sevastian Maksimi must
travel to neighboring England to find a bride who will one
day be the Queen of Maldania. It is the duty he must perform
for the health of his country if he likes the young lady or
not.
Grier Hadley has always know she was the illegitimate
daughter of some unknown man but she ignored the taunts of
the other children because she knew her stepfather loved
her as if she was his own. Life was difficult after the man
she called papa passed away but she did what she had too to
survive. Her world was turned upside down when her true
father, a wealthy ring leader of London's underworld,
appears in her life and persuades her to enter London's
social scene. He promises her a respectable husband with the
dowry he offers to the gentleman who marries her despite her
tainted bloodline.
WICKED IN YOUR ARMS is a story of first impressions gone
array and opposites attract. Sevastian sees a peasant in
fancy dresses when he looks upon Grier and she sees a stuck
up man who has had the silver spoon treatment all his life.
Even though neither can stand the other the attraction
between them is hard to deny. This story was a wonderful
read filled with humor, passion, and lust for someone you
know you can not have. The characters' personalities and
circumstances have you rooting for them till the end. An
excellent first book to what I see becoming a must read
series.
SUMMARY
For fiercely independent Grier Hadley, being the
illegitimate daughter of one of London's most unsavory
characters has only one advantage: an enormous, ill-gotten
dowry.
Prince Sevastian Maksimi knows where his duty lies: he must
find a well-bred young lady—one with a considerable fortune
to her name—wed her promptly, and get to the business of
producing an heir.
The last thing Grier needs is some unattainable prince
curling her toes with his smoldering glances and wicked
suggestions. As far as Sev is concerned, she lacks the
breeding to become a princess. And yet one kiss from this
arresting female is all it takes for him to realize that
anyone else in his arms would be unthinkable . . .
ExcerptGrier glared down at where he gripped her arm. "Perhaps
ladies in your country find primeval manhandling charming.
Why don't you seek one of them out and unhand me?"
He said nothing. Simply stared, clinging to her arm with
hard fingers.
She inhaled raggedly, her chest rising and falling with
deep breaths. She couldn't remember ever feeling so angry.
And truth be told, it wasn't all entirely at him. She found
herself frustrated at herself, at this whole wretched
scenario. Finding a husband -- a man who only wanted to
marry her for her sudden fortune ... It was becoming quite
the distasteful task, contrary to the hope she had felt when
she started this whole endeavor.
She shook her head. This night had simply been too much.
She glared down at his hand on her arm. He followed her gaze
before looking back up at her. Even garbed in her silks and
satins, Grier felt out of place, an imposter in his
glittering world.
The moment stretched interminably, so unbearably intense
as they stared at each other that Grier thought she could
hear the rush of blood in her ears.
She felt the clear shape of his hand, each press of his
fingers over her arm. Awareness of their closeness, the
intimacy of the situation, came crashing down over her. Her
gaze flicked around the empty music room with its lonely
instruments.
Her skin snapped, awake and alive. In fact all of her
felt alive.
More alive than she had felt in quite some time.
Her gaze drifted, settled on his perfectly carved lips.
Temptation incarnate. A man's lips should not look so
beautiful. He was as seductive as the princes of all her
girlhood fairytales. For a moment she allowed herself to
forget that this prince lacked the heroic qualities to go
along with such looks, that he thought her unsuitable, a
mere nobody rubbing elbows with her betters.
With a deep breath, she let herself forget all of that.
She let herself step outside her numb self and dive into
life.
Before she could regain her common sense and think to
stop herself -- before she could let him think enough
to stop her -- she stood on her tiptoes and slid a hand
around his neck, delighting in the sensation of his silky
hair against her fingers.
This. She'd have this before sentencing herself to
a cold marriage of practicality, to a life of loneliness.
For a moment, Grier glimpsed the prince's widening eyes
as she pressed her lips to his. Her heart beat so fiercely
she feared it might burst from her chest.
Then she saw nothing as her eyes fluttered shut.
In closing her eyes, she only felt. She
surrendered herself to sensation, to the waking of desire
within her blood.
She was no stranger to kisses, but it had been a while.
The moment she tasted the prince's lips, she knew he was the
perfect cure for her numbness.
For a several heartbeats he didn't move. He held himself
as still as marble against her, and she feared his
rejection. That he would set her from him. Then his arms
slipped around her and he was kissing her back, his lips
parting against hers.
She opened her own mouth with a small gasp at the
suddenness of his reaction. He swallowed that sound, drank
it deep into himself. She pressed herself closer, tighter
against him, her muscles straining to get ever nearer.
A shudder racked him as she tentatively tasted him with
her tongue. She buried her hands in his hair, pulling him
down just as he urged her up against him. He tasted her back
and she moaned at the sinuous stroking of his tongue along
her own.
His large hands roamed over her back, holding her
tightly, fiercely. One of those hands slid around to span
her ribcage, his thumb grazing the underside of one aching
breast and her body burned from the inside out.
There was nothing delicate or dandified in the way he
kissed. She felt consumed. By her own desire and by the
magic of his expert mouth on hers. Her hands delved deeper
into his hair. With a hard tug on the strands, she forced
his head to a different angle, positioning his head for her
and slanting her mouth against his one way, and then
another. She didn't know herself, this woman losing herself,
taking, seizing what she craved as if it were hers. As if
he were hers.
He groaned into her mouth. The sound shuddered through
her.
She relished the feverish movement of his lips, the slide
of his tongue deep in her mouth. Her made her feel wanted,
and that made her feel powerful.
She burned from the inside out. In that moment, she
didn't feel as if any of it could ever be enough -- as if
she could ever have enough of him.
Impossible as it seemed, the kiss deepened. They
staggered together, clutching one another, stopping only
when they collided with a pianoforte.
She nipped at his bottom lip and then sucked the bruised
flesh into her mouth, clutching his head closer to her
starving mouth.
And still she wasn't close enough. Her body hummed, alive
and awake as she had never felt. That's all that mattered.
The extraordinary thrill of this moment.
She wanted to crawl into his drugging warmth, let it
continue its waking heat through her. Nothing could ruin
this moment.
Nothing except him.
As she dragged her lips to his jaw, kissing his bristly
flesh, his voice rumbled in her ear. "My, my, Miss Hadley, I
had no idea such a hellcat lurked beneath. Perhaps you've
reconsidered my offer."
She stilled, his words sinking in, reminding her where
she was, who she was -- who he was.
The fire in her blood cooled. The humming life that had
so thrilled her slipped away until she was naught but the
cold, numb shell again.
His hand drifted up from her ribcage to brush over her
breast. The touch jolted her, sparked her to move, to react
as any female of proper breeding should. As any unwed
female who had not initiated a passionate kiss would do.
The crack of her palm against his cheek rang through the
cavernous room. His arms dropped from her.
She stumbled away, gaping at him as he lifted a hand to
his cheek, fingering the afflicted flesh.
"What was that for?" he demanded.
"You-you-" Her hand waved between the two of them, words
of outrage strangling in her throat.
"Kissed you back?" he finished.
"No!" she denied. "You touched-" She swallowed, unable to
say it, unable to face how close she had come to
surrendering herself to the wretch. "You touched me.
Intimately."
"The way you attacked me with your lips, is it any
surprise?"
"So this is my fault?" she charged, even as a small voice
inside her head whispered, yes. This is your
fault. You attacked him with your lips like a man-starved
harlot.
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