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FROM THE BACK COVER
HE' S WANTED HER FOR SEVEN YEARS
Samuel McDougal never could take Harriet out of his mind since the first day he met her as a freshman at Oxford. But with his too red hair and too big spectacles, he surely has no chance. He must forget her and move on; though he's not been with a woman before.
AND SHE'S JUST A GOVERNESS
Harriet always knew of Samuel's infatuation with her, expecting he'd grow out of it. For some time though, she's been stirred by his tall and lean person. More than stirred in fact. Albeit he's the heir to a powerful Scottish clan, expected to make a lofty match. As a humble widow, she can only dream of him.
BUT RANKS DON'T COUNT WHEN DESIRE SIMMERS.
Erotic novella
EXCERPT
“Professor Hayley has a book on types of soil,” she replied as she stood up and reached the shelves to her left.
With a forefinger put forth, she looked for the tome. The books were organised by themes, and she remembered the one treating of soil lay on the top shelf. Extending her left arm, she tried to reach it, but her five feet three inches of height made it impossible.
Samuel scrambled from his seat. “Allow me to help you,” and approached her back with a clumsy move.
He reached up for the volume, gluing to her spine in the process as the sandalwood enveloped her in a tempting cloud. The hot, flat planes of him touched her curves, and she froze. She was sure he did not realise it would happen until it did.
His long arm covered her extended one and the heat that suffused her skin made her go boneless. Her right hand grabbed onto the lower shelf edge in a futile attempt to cling to sanity. His head lowered and she sensed his lips so close to her hair. Air halted in her lungs while her heart skipped on a wild race.
Harriet felt something twitch on her hair as the flow of air told her it was his nose sauntering the loose strands. His left hand met hers on the higher shelf, covering it with his warm, big one.
She found nothing to say, found no voice to say it, nor the will. The sensation of his tall, imposing frame on hers was beyond description. And then his right hand spanned her waist to start a slow, so slow, glide towards her midriff, peppering goose-bumps wherever it went. His touch seemed stilted, almost as if he needed to contain himself, and held that white-hot incandescence that melted everything in its wake. But a reverent one, too, like he was touching something sacred, precious that he would find once in a lifetime.
His palm reached her flat, soft stomach, causing ripples of warmth to arrow downwards. Air escaped her in what could only be described as a sigh in the same second his mouth touched the shell of her ear. Without enough will to keep standing, she sagged on his lean chest, her head coming barely to his shoulder. That was when his hand closed on hers still stretched on the higher shelf, effectively trapping her between him and the books. The hand worshipping her midriff inched perilously upwards to the base of her breast. The simple notion that he might cover the puckered tip drove her nether regions to produce scorching, shameful moisture. On its own volition, her other hand covered his to halt it or to urge on, she could not tell.
When had he plastered her this much against the wood she did not know, but it made her realise his body had lengthened, hardened, and nestled on the small of her back.
How could a man display such purity after having been with a prostitute the previous night? The shaft of lucidity that came with the question brought her to her senses. With a sudden push, she untangled herself from him and stumbled to the other side of the desk as if it was a fortress against the sensations he incited in her.
“Harriet?” it came an octave lower than normal, which caressed her senses.
Her eyes languished on the sight of him against the books, wide eyes on her, ragged breath and the bulge, good gracious, the bulge, that led her to wonder how it would feel in its wanted place in her body. The fantasy made her flush crimson.
With a huge effort, she erased the lustful musing and stared hard at him. “Having lain with a lightskirt does not give you the right to touch every woman in your radius,” The wry note on her voice bellied the steep temperature of her insides.
CHAPTER ONE
Oxford, England, 1816
He had been hard for her for the better part of the morning. If you did not count the last seven years that is.
For seven agonising years, he relied on his own imagination and self-relief to keep his sanity in place. Or his insanity in check, more like.
Samuel Bryce McDougal, or Sam as the McDougal and his wife Aileen called him, sat at the desk in his professor’s study with Mrs Stratham. Her role in this household comprised of being the professor’s children’s governess, doubling as assistant when her duties allowed. For now, she was Sam’s assistant, since Professor Walter Hayley travelled to Cambridge on an academic assignment together with Mrs Dora Hayley and their two children.
Which meant Sam and Harriet were alone in the house.
Which meant they had to make progress with the paper he would present shortly.
And it also meant that he was at bursting point for the woman he had wanted since he first set eyes on her as a freshman at eighteen.
He would present the lecture to a group of visiting botanists in a few weeks. The professor had recommended Sam to them as a highly specialised scholar.
The green eyes so like his father’s went no higher than her creamy ample bosom covered by her demure dress for fear of giving himself away. Those prominent mounds had haunted his dreams and carnal fantasies for such a long time. He knew exactly what he wanted to do with them, had he the improbable chance of one day coming within touching distance.
The image almost undid him. His rampant erection engorged to the point he was sure he would shame himself on the spot. The breeches he wore when in Oxford squeezed the poor flesh cruelly. His nostrils sucked in air, twitching his spectacles, his skin flooding with that kind of colour that afflicted only a red-haired person. In short, him.
For years, his fellow students tried to convince him to go with them to those rackety bawdy houses they used to frequent, rich noble heirs that they were. In between lectures, they boasted their prowess with the so-called Cyprians on offer.
Invariably, he declined.
He wanted none of them. He had no wish for a meaningless tumble whe
n there was only one woman who never left his mind.
The result being he remained a virgin.
Perhaps, he should follow their advice and try to assuage the urges of his body with one of those dolls. He careened too close to obsession, and it was getting out of hand.
“Is anything the matter, Samuel?” Even her lyrical voice contained the power to unbalance him.
With no other choice, his stare met hers. Those enormous blue eyes seemed to engulf him in a maelstrom of madness. On an oval face, framed by wheat ringlets, they fairly frayed him.
At twenty-five, his hormones clamoured for the satisfaction that one of his own hands was not capable to offer anymore. Solely, a woman. This woman.
