Excerpt from "Falling for Mr. Dark and Dangerous"

Maggie swallowed as saliva pooled in her mouth. After seventeen years of celibacy, she was afraid. Afraid of looking silly. Afraid of the intensity. Afraid of another man seeing her body. She wasn’t twenty anymore. She’d had a child. She’d aged. And his body was youthful and perfect.

“Maggie?”

Nate called as he came in the door and she couldn’t stop the flood of welcome that rushed through her. When had she started truly looking forward to his return every day?

“I’m in here.”

She let out a slow breath. This was silly. He was only a man. This was only a crazy reaction to having him so close; to being alone together.
She hefted the laundry basket, settling it on her hip. It wasn’t in her to make the next move. No matter how much she wanted to.

She turned the corner into the kitchen, the basket sliding off her hip to the floor as she saw his face.

“Have you got bandages, Maggie?”

His voice was calm, reasonable, but all Maggie saw was blood streaming from a gash that ran down his forehead to just below his eyebrow.

“Maggie. Bandages.”

She sprang into action, the sight of the cut always before her eyes as she ran to the bathroom for the first aid kit.

When she came back, he’d pulled out a kitchen chair and sat in it. Maggie grabbed an ivory hand towel from the spilled basket and immediately pressed it to the cut, staunching the blood as it seeped darkly through the cotton. “Hold this for a minute.”

She opened the kit and saw her fingers trembling. He was fine, it was just a cut, she reassured herself. But seeing the blood, the open gash, had sent pins and needles through her extremities. What if he had a concussion, or needed stitches?

She looked up, gauze and scissors in her hand, and watched as Nate’s face paled and he weaved slightly.

She dropped the items to the floor and knelt before him, pressing one hand to the towel and the other to the back of his head, pushing him forward.

“Put your head between your knees,” she commanded, hoping to God he didn’t pass out or get sick. Either one might mean concussion.

He obeyed, saying nothing.

“Take slow, deep breaths, Nate.”

She moved to the side a bit, still holding the towel to the wound and rubbing a hand over his shoulders. The movement gave her time to find her own bearings, and she realized something shocking.

In the instant she’d seen his blood, known he was injured, her only thoughts had been for him. Not of Tom. Not of Jen. Not of fear born from years of loss and anxiety. But for him.

It was more than lust, more than feeding a hunger. It was Nate, the man, and he inspired feelings Maggie had thought long extinct. For her, it had suddenly become much deeper and meaningful. And complicated.