title: Starlight
author: Rose, Isadora
description: Consumed by the memories of a dark past, the very last thing that Esther Ellis wants is to become swept away on another love affair that will end in inevitable heartbreak. But the salacious French count, Tristan de Laurent, proves to be impossible to resist and he convinces her that six sinful days in his arms can do no harm. However, when the ghosts of days gone by force themselves into the present, they threaten to ruin everything for them both...
  ~
  The jasmine vines that she had been lingering beneath seemed to conspire with the moonlight. Its heady, cloying scent danced around the two of them as he lowered his head to seek out her wide blue eyes with his own. Consumed by his need for her, Tristan turned his head to the side and brushed the gentlest of kisses against the curve of her throat. “We have not met, I think?”
  She shuddered. “No – I would remember if we had.”
  Her nervous answer pleased him. “Yes.”
  The unknown Frenchman was making no attempt to mask the dark spark of lust in his eyes as he pulled his head back to stare at her intently. To Esther’s frustration and fear, just the briefest touch of his soft lips upon her throat had been enough to drive away any thoughts of fleeing from him. She wanted him more than she had wanted any other man before and she did not think she had the strength to deny herself.
  A slow, lazy smile began to play around the corners of Tristan’s thin lips as he correctly read her reaction to him. “So, tell me your name, beautiful stranger.”
  His whispered command was impossible to disobey. She closed her eyes with a low, tremulous sigh as he brushed a stray tendril of blonde hair away from her flushed face and left his hand there to capture her chin, tilting it up towards his as he awaited her answer.
  “Esther,” she slowly replied, tensing as his free hand moved up from her waist to rest against the exposed line of her collarbone. “Esther Ellis, Lady Malone.”
  “Ah, how very lovely!” Tristan could not hold himself back. The creamy skin spilling out over the top of her bodice was far too tempting. As he spoke, he allowed his fingers to dance across the curve of her full breasts and gloried in the sharp and ragged breath that she drew, for it was loaded with the same desperate hunger that he too felt. “Your name means ‘star’, Esther, does it not?”
  The sound of her name murmured so intimately in his sultry accent had her arching against him as he became bolder, cupping her breasts through the gown and brushing his fingers over the treacherously stiffened nipples that he so longed to capture between his lips. “Y-yes, sir.”
  He laughed softly. “And of all the stars in the skies above us, Esther, you are the one that shines most brightly, the one I cannot take my eyes away from.”
  His charming words were those of a man evidently well-versed in seduction, but Esther found that she did not even care how many women were in his past. She was hardly as pure as the driven snow – but their pasts did not matter. All that mattered was submitting to the control of the gloriously abandoned and debauched lust that was coursing through her feverish body...
  ~