WINNER WINNER!

THANKs to all of you who came for the bag of goodies contest and the giveaway goes to...drumroll!
Debby236. (Do email me your snail mail addy!)
THANKS AND ENJOY!
Kisses to all who are so excited about LADY VARNEY'S RISQUE BUSINESS!
She sits on 3 top 10 best seller lists  and I am tickled!

Nibble on my new cherry, LADY VARNEY!

LADY VARNEY’S RISQUE BUSINESS is a bit of funny business that I hope you enjoy!

A nibble of my newest cherry?

Of course! (Copyright 2011, Cerise DeLand.)

Available at Resplendence, but also at Allromanceebooks.com where I am dying to rise on that list (as my other Regencies did there). Help me out, will you? http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-ladyvarney039srisquebusiness-549359-160.html

He hurried her along the hall and into an alcove. “While I am relieved to hear that you are not pregnant—”

“Hush! Are you an idiot?”

“Mad, delusional, a cretin in the mix!” He stepped inside a tiny hallway lined with cupboards and closed two doors on either side of the four foot space. “Call me any name you like, my Puss. You are driving me out of my head!”

“Well deserved, too!” she blustered as he pulled her into his arms and she once more felt the marvelous sensation of being captured by him. Held against his warmth. His might.

“Not by half, you minx. You cash my bank notes. But you will not receive me at home. You avoid me at church. Walk around me in the Park. I am reduced to waylaying you like a highwayman at a party on Wednesday afternoon!”

A laugh bubbled up from her throat but she squelched it. “We have nothing to say to each other.”

“No,” he said with dour tone. “We have so much to say that only this will do.” He caught her chin, wrapped one arm around her waist and kissed as he had that first night in her drawing room. Long and lavishly. Repeatedly. Killing her reason and her resolve.

Her fan slid from her fingers. Her hands pulled him closer. These past weeks, she’d pined for him like a schoolgirl. She’d relived every moment in his arms, in his bed, even in his rose garden at his cottage. She had cried and mooned and railed at fate for what she could not have.

He took her mouth with ravenous delight, trailing kisses across her cheek and down her throat to her bodice. His hands molded her to him and suddenly, she felt his fingers lift her skirts and slide to her pussy. Caress her seam. “Darling, I am so delighted you wear none of those ridiculous pantaloons. You are so plump and wet for me,” he murmured and what words came next became a serenade of all the endearments he had declared in his cottage and all that still lived in her heart.

He undid his flies, and plunged up inside her. Against the cupboard, she braced herself and gave over to the rapture of his possession.

He was warm and turgid and—

Something shattered.

Tinkled all around them.

“Don’t move,” he warned as he held her tightly.

“What?” she asked soundlessly, her cunt so full of him, her breasts so needy of his kisses she thought she’d scream.

Blinking repeatedly to clear his vision and his head, he glanced about them. “Dear god, sweetheart, we’ve broken the family crystal.”

She surveyed the tiny room and the astonishing wreckage. “Justin. Oh, hell! We’re in the butler’s pantry!”

Contest to win bag of books, goodies

To celebrate my newest erotic Regency release, LADY VARNEY'S RISQUE BUSINESS over at www.resplendencepublishing.com, I am holding a contest to win a bag of books (mine and others'--all erotica!) and other goodies. Goodies include EC tote, EC playing cards, Wild Rose Press waterbottle, EC calendar, eye mask and more!

Rules?

There are rules:

1. Write and tell us all please why you prefer contemporaries or historicals as erotica to straight romance in contemp or historical period!

Also tell us the title of the book you have RECENTLY READ that you ADORE!

2. Post on this blog here as a Comment

3. Do it between Monday, 5.16.11 at 12:01 Midnight EDST and Tuesday at 11:59 PM Eastern Daylight Savings Time!

4. Leave your email address so that I can notify you of the win!

I will pick a winner later on Tuesday 5.17.11, email you (and ask for your snail mail address)!

And in the meantime, hope you like funny, endearing parlour stories which is exactly what LADY VARNEY'S RISQUE BUSINESS is!

You see, Kitty Varney is a widow who has opened a very unique business. Her late husband's creditors demand payment and she had to find a way, didn't she, to pay them? But a discreet way. Little did she expect that the one man she had always loved would come to take advantage of her offerings. Your job, Dear Reader, is to see if she permits him to do such a thing.

And will the ton discover them?

Kitty, brave woman, fervently hopes NOT.

Ciao!

LADY VARNEY'S RISQUE BUSINESS or What's a lonely widow to do with all her time and her...ambitions for the future?

LADY VARNEY'S RISQUE BUSINESS debuts today over at www.resplendencepublishing.com and I am thrilled about it.

My previously pubbed Regency eroticas have all been in the Top 5 Best sellers on 3 different sites. Hope you will read this and be tempted to read the others and see why.

Here's a nibble of my story about a widow who decides to open a match-making business and gets caught in her own snare by the man she once loved and could not have.

Copyright 2011, Cerise Deland. All rights reserved.

“Your list limits me severely,” Kitty objected to his outrageous list of qualifications.

“I am aware of that.” Justin remained cool, indifferent, unchallenged at all.

“There are few women who possess all the qualifications,” she objected

He rose and came to stand before her.

So close now, she breathed his cologne. Smelled the mint on his breath. Admired the dimple in his left cheek and the facets of green and brown in his large heavy−lidded eyes. “In fact, there are only three women who meet all of your requirements.”

“Ah. But wait, you have not heard them all.”

“No? Preposterous! There is a very small pool of possible candidates, Justin. To add more requirements would be burdensome—”

“But my fortune will be very large. My homes, here and in the country, are grand estates. I will be married to this woman for many decades, and I need the best companion possible.” He frowned, very determined looking. “I have the right to declare to whom I shall be joined!”

“Precisely so, my lord, but we must be prudent.”

“You be prudent! I shall be as I am!”

His virulence shocked her.

“Your fees are high. I shall have whom I want! Who is best suited to me.” He strode closer and seized her arms, his powerful body dwarfing hers. Once his might had been comforting, but now, full of fury, his size made her wince. She had been intimidated by her husband far too often and she would not be by any man ever again.

She stiffened her spine. “Tell me your other requirements.”

“She must spend twenty-four hours with me at Belmont Manor.”

“Oh, I see.” She let out a breath, relieved. “You want her to visit.”

“No, I want her in my bed.”

Kitty blinked. “I...I’m sorry. You want her--?”

“Naked. I want to learn if she likes men. Me, to be exact.”

“I see.” Women do like you, from what I hear. One mistress in particular who boasts of your prowess in the art of pleasing a woman. “Why wouldn’t she?

“I need to learn if she is a dry piece of toast. Or a willing woman who likes a man’s touch. If she’ll be a desirable partner.”

“Most women are.”

“Really? You think so?” With a sound of derision, he spun away and walked toward the window. “I have learned that women in English society tend to be naïve and foolish. Certainly the ones who have been shoved at me as appropriate are witless ninnies, reared in tiny rooms by smaller-minded governesses. I want a woman in my bed, a full blown beauty with brains.”

“I see.” Did you also think me witless? A ninny?

“Can you find one?” He peered at her with narrowed, merciless eyes.

She felt undressed from so far across the room, but she lifted her chin and carried on in a snit. “Indeed, I can, my lord. To fit your qualifications, I have two candidates.”

“Two. Damn me! So many!” he scoffed—and his expression implied he was surprised at her capabilities. Odd. He ought to be damn pleased. “I am delighted at your resourcefulness, Lady Varney. I wish to interview each of them, naturally. At my home in Kent.”

“First, I shall inquire if each is interested and accepts your terms.”

He waved a hand. “Of course. Do it within the week. I need to know quickly. My uncle is not well and he wishes this matter of my marriage resolved before he sheds his mortal coil.”

Kitty frowned. Had she been wrong all these years to remember Justin as kind and caring? Had she varnished him with a romantic veneer of her own making?

He strolled closer. His magnetic allure nearly buckled her knees. But she stood taller, met him toe to toe, damn his eyes!

“And who are these women you have chosen for me?”

She gathered her courage. “Maribella Winter, Baroness Avon. And Susanna Curtis, Marchioness Hamill.”

“But to be honest, there is one more. Is there not, madam?”

“A third? No, none that I—”

“What of the illustrious blonde beauty who travels in the best of Society? What of the widow who has a son by her deceased husband? What of the heiress who holds through her own ancestry the ancient title of Lady Downey?”

Kitty caught her breath at the mention of her own ancient title. “She is not available.” Not rich. “Not suitable.”

“I say she is.”

She stared at him, tempted and hating herself for it. “She is older.” Wiser than to do this.

“She will be presented to me at Belmont Manor.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“I triple my fee.”

“Triple?” she parroted like a simpleton.

“One sum of five thousand pounds for each candidate.”

She could not refuse him. Not that sum. That amount would nearly free her of Henry’s gambling debts and give her enough to buy a few new frocks for next Season. The ability to hire a governess for her son. “Justin, fifteen thousand pounds is a startling sum. But I cannot take it. Cannot ask three women to rendezvous with you. Really, how could I? I want to, but I cannot because--”

“Kitty! Stop this!” Justin stepped toward her so quickly, she scarcely noticed that he’d moved. But his arms crushed her close. His fingers lifted her chin. His lips took hers. Once, twice. Damn him, three times. Her own arms twined around him. She whimpered and moaned into his mouth while her breasts beaded and her nether regions flooded with a wet hot desire. She had not felt so gloriously wanton since last she stood in his embrace.

“Oh, you’ll take it. Look at me,” he demanded. “Tell me who the third candidate is.”

She stared up at him, the devil. He had planned it this way. Devised this scheme to torture her, punish her for how she had not fought to stay with him eleven years ago. Poor man, he believed the ton. Thought she was rich. But he’d get no wife in her, only a lover. For one day and night. One risqué affair. “The last woman is me.”

My newest Regency comes tomorrow and in honor of Prinny...

Here he is! Prinny in his coronation robes.

But Prinny in his Regent's role was not so encumbered!

By rules of conduct or social class. Only by his spendthrift ways. And his numerous mistresses. Seems the more things change, the more they stay the same.

But Regencies are the dawn of a new age in so many ways.

Manners were refined, kept under wraps, but all that pent up emotion came out in other ways.

Women cut their hair. Or they did during the period of Josephine. They wore diaphanous fabrics, showed their ankles, and wore no drawers. Really! Not until the 1820s do we see drawers demanded by ladies.

Women still had no rights of inheritance unless so decreed by kings or special court decree. Their fortunes were controlled by their husbands or their fathers. And so too were the candidates for husbands declared by the men in their families.

Men too were freed of a few strictures. Ruffles, lace and satins for shirts or jerkins and breeches were replaced by simpler, form fitting styles. Wool and cotton, well-tailored were the ideal. And costly to obtain from a first rate tailor, too!

Beau Brummel led the style in clothes and impoverishment to them, as well.

Now we have wash and wear.

Thank goodness.

Women can wear long hair, marry whom they wish and wear...almost anything. Even an egg to a nationally televised party!

Tomorrow? A nibble here of my newest cherry, THE BASTARD'S PASSIONATE PRIZE, the 4th in my Stanhope Challenge series.