Title: Lord of Vice
Author: Erica Ridley
Publisher: WebMotion
Pub Date 31 Aug 2018
Summary
Appearances can be deceiving…
Vice merchant Maxwell Gideon is wickedly handsome, sinfully arrogant, and devilishly ruthless. Rumor has it, his gaming hell has the power to steal souls and grant miracles. Truth is, Max only owns half of The Cloven Hoof. He’d buy out his silent partner if he knew the man’s identity. But it’s hard to focus on business matters when a fallen angel tumbles right into one’s lap…
Miss Bryony Grenville has a well-earned reputation as an unrepentant hoyden. But even the gossipiest of the pinch-faced matrons ruling High Society could never imagine the daughter of a baron secretly financing the ton’s most infamous gambling parlor. Its maddening, sexy proprietor doesn’t suspect a thing… and two can play at temptation!
In the Rogues to Riches historical romance series by USA Today and New York Times bestselling author Erica Ridley, Cinderella stories aren’t just for princesses…
Lord of Vice
Excerpt
Although this was only her first kiss, Bryony realized in a heartbeat that Max’s “ice king” demeanor and melting kisses had ruined her for all other men.
His body was hard, his muscles stiff, as if fighting an uncontrollable urge to plunder far more than her mouth. His lips were firm, possessive. Demanding, freely taking what the rest of him would not.
He did not seek her submission, but her very soul. Coaxed her innermost desires to the surface with every brush of his lips, every stroke of his thumb against the side of her cheek. He treated her not as if she were an unwanted interloper, but as if she were a treasure more precious than silver. Softer than rose petals. More addictive than opium.
Heaven knew she felt the same.
Her heart pounded faster than ever. She’d been lost from the first, was losing further ground by the moment. She clutched him like a life raft rescuing her from a sea of doubt and denial. In his arms lay both safety and seduction.
In the back of her mind, the whirlpool of reality threatened to pluck her out of his embrace and pull her down into the depths of despair where moments like these were forbidden and wrong.
If she were honest, she had believed giving into her desires would prove their incompatibility.
That he was not for her. That together they were nothing.
Instead, everything about him was horribly, perfectly, right.
She ran her hands over his chest and secretly thrilled that he permitted her to do so. As if his body was no longer his to defend, but hers to explore. To enjoy.
His ardent kisses made it all but impossible to think. She did not mind. This was not a time for thinking.
The palms of her hands told her the width of his shoulders, the coiled strength in his arms, the softness of his black hair where it curled over the edge of his starched cravat.
He was like her, she realized. He had not cut his hair to a more fashionable length, nor had he shaved his jaw to appear more respectable. He was none of those things.
He was wild and untamed and devastatingly handsome. The starch in his cravat was not for Society, but for her.
