I’ve just sent Hold Me Fast off to Dragonblade. Here’s a foretaste–Jowan’s and Tamsyn’s first kiss. (And before you ask, those are traditional names in Cornwall.)

Her smile faded. “Jowan, why are you upset? Do you not wish to be my friend?”

Exasperated all over again, he snapped back, “I wish to be your husband and your lover.”

Tamsyn gaped at him. “You do? Still?”

He couldn’t believe she said that. “What did you think I was about? I’ve been courting you for months!”

“But you have never even tried to kiss me,” she replied.

It was the mystified tone that shredded the last of his self-control. If it was a kiss she wanted, then a kiss is what she would have. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to him, but all his indignation eased as his lips touched hers, and he gentled the kiss, his lips firm but tender.

She opened beneath him, her tongue darting out to taste him, and his hands left her shoulders and pulled her closer. Her arms went around his waist and she plastered her body to his, and an endless moment passed as their tongues explored one another and so did their hands.

It wasn’t until he felt her hands pulling his shirt from his trousers that he remembered they were standing on a lookout above the village, where anyone could see them. Reluctantly, his lips attempting to cling, he pulled back.

“The village,” he panted.

“Oh! I forgot.” Tamsyn cast a glance in that direction, and Jowan’s ego celebrated the fact that his kiss had made her unaware of their surroundings.

“I was waiting to be invited,” he told her.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The kiss. You said I never even tried to kiss you, but I was waiting to be invited. Tamsyn, you couldn’t control what has happened to you over the years, and you didn’t need another male forcing their desires on you. If that gave you the impression I had stopped wanting you to be my wife, then I am sorry. But I am not sorry you were upset I didn’t kiss you.” Jowan was, in fact, decidedly smug about that last fact, and about how enthusiastically she had responded when he did kiss her.