Spotlight/Excerpt: Taken by the Duke by Jess Michaels

Blurb:

An eye for an eye, a sin for a sin…

The Pleasure Wars, Book 1

Amid all the lies and scandals that fuel Society’s gossip mill, one truth has stood out: House Rothcastle and House Windbury have always hated each other.

Lady Ava Windbury prays the feud will someday end, to no avail. One dreadful night, her brother accidentally causes the death of Christian Rothcastle’s sister, a tragedy that leaves both men maimed.

Consumed by grief, Christian makes a grim decision. He will kidnap Lady Ava so that her family will feel the pain of loss as keenly as he feels the loss of his own sister. But once he has Ava in his clutches, desire takes unexpected hold. Even more surprising, she willingly surrenders to his every sexual whim—after haggling over the terms of giving up her virginity.

Too late, he realizes she is using her body for peace, not war. But just as their affair of revenges turns into an affair of the heart, the past rears its ugly head to take matters into its own hands…

Product Warnings

This book contains scenes of erotic seduction, sexual revenge and the healing power of love.

Excerpt:

Ava remained on the bed for a few moments after Christian left, simply staring at the door between them. She was…confused.

After all, she had given him what he wanted. Truth be told, she had enjoyed giving her body to him. After so many years out in Society, she had begun to feel a twisting tightness of anticipation and anxiety. She had longed for the intimacy she sometimes saw between the love matches in her circles. She had wondered what she would be missing if she never found a man willing to overlook the issues that made her a spinster.

Now she was freed of those questions. She might never experience love, but passion had been well covered in just one afternoon, with more promised to come.

Yet Christian did not seem pleased with her. In fact, when they interacted he was more uncomfortable than ever.

She rose, wrapping the blanket around herself, and paced the room slowly.

They were very different people, it seemed. He was utterly comfortable when touching her. There was no hesitation then, no anger, no resentment despite who she was. But when they talked, when they made any kind of emotional connection, that was when he squirmed.

“Could that be…power?” she murmured as she pushed the curtain aside and looked out the window to a pretty garden below.

Power. She had never had any in this war between their families. She could beg her brother to stop the madness, she could pray that cooler heads would prevail, but she had never had true control over any of it.

But if she could approach Christian from an emotional point of view, if she could set him off kilter with her reactions to him, with her questions, by becoming closer…perhaps she could finally have a weapon in a war where she was too often nothing more than an innocent victim.

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Do you think love can heal everything? Why or why not?

I’ll be reviewing this title soon. I hope you’ll come back and check it out. Thanks for stopping by.