Jillian's Job!
Have you ever had an older back-list book that outsold all your newer releases? An older book that seemed to simply "take off" and start selling well? Over the past six months I have noticed that Jillian's Job seems to be getting more and more popular in the UK! Whoot! Love you, Great Britain!
Never read Jillian's Job? Well, here is an excerpt...
An Excerpt From: JILLIAN’S JOB
Copyright © FRAN LEE, 2009
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing,
Inc.
She straightened her shoulders and headed for the curved
staircase that led up to the third level of the huge house. She noted the
heads that turned to follow her, and bit the corner of her lip. The sapphire-blue
silk gown with its overdress of gold netting was certainly an eye-catcher,
especially with the back of the dress practically nonexistent. Draping
seductively from a crossover halter neckline that left barely enough room
for the exquisite diamond and sapphire choker to rest above the material,
it fell away to her feet in a sultry, swirling fall that brushed over
breasts and hips like a soft hand. The matching tennis bracelet and the
long dangle earrings sparkled under the track lights that lit the staircase
with a soft glow.
She had not had time for a hairdo, so she had simply
swept the thick red-gold curls up into a high-set ponytail at her crown,
and had wound another bit of sapphire silk around the band to conceal the
elastic. It gave the impression that her neck was longer and left the
gorgeous earrings plenty of space to sway and glitter breathtakingly.
She stepped up the final carpeted stair and paused,
glancing around the smaller salon that opened up over the gallery at the
head of the stairs, before narrowing to the corridor that led to the
bedrooms at the back of the level. The bronze and smoked glass chandelier
at the apex of the vaulted ceiling cast warm light over the area, and made
her shimmery gold overdress and glittering jewels look even more amazing
than they had in the showroom. She decided that not a soul would recognize
her unless she introduced herself, so she gathered her courage and moved
slowly toward the center of the gallery, looking about for Furie.
Heads turned to follow her progress, but no one called
out her name. She was not a familiar face to the beautiful people. Only his
employees knew her well enough to recognize her. Her anonymity was assured.
And then she saw him, standing uncomfortably in a tight
group of people, with a stunningly beautiful supermodel type holding onto
his arm like she had grown there, her laugh a high tinkle of feigned
amusement that never quite reached those gorgeous amber-colored eyes. She
stood for a long moment, relishing the amount of discomfort he was
experiencing, waiting for his eyes to swivel her way before she made her
grand entrance.
A man turned to glance at her from a jovial conversation
beside her, and gave her a keen once-over before sidling up to her and
introducing himself. He didn’t have to. She would have known
his face from the magazine covers
and the tabloids as Jerrod
Lane, two-time Academy Award winning actor and
heartthrob of millions of females the world over. She glanced at him with a
cool smile and replied to his outrageous compliment with a simple
thank-you, before turning her gaze back to her boss.
“I haven’t seen you around before. And from the look of
that boulder on your hand, I’d say you were taken…but Heaven help me, I
wouldn’t be a red-blooded male if I didn’t try.” Jerrod slid one lean hand
around her waist, and tried to draw her closer. His reward was an acid
stare that could have wilted the entire White River National Forest. He
grinned and released her waist, and said in a husky tone that had dropped
an octave, “Who’s the lucky devil who’s got you wrapped around his pinkie?”
The moment he spoke, Michael Furie
glanced up, his ice-laden dark blue gaze locked with hers, and his body
unfurled from the defensive posture he’d assumed, forcing the female
hanger-on to loosen her grip. Jill tried not to look shaken. She tried not
to react to the heat that ran through her like a shot of fire from head to
toe-tips, making her wonder numbly if the Manolo Blahniks had melted
off. She smiled across the room at him, and Jerrod followed her gaze,
instantly whistling softly and backing off a step.
“I should have guessed, Gorgeous. But if you ever decide
to trade up, I’m always around.” He vacated his spot beside her as Furie slowly extracted himself from the other woman’s
grasp, with a quiet, “Excuse me.” Heads turned as he stepped out of the
tight knot of bodies and moved across the gallery toward her, and she
fought the urge to bite her knuckles and whimper. That man had such a walk!
She managed a brilliant smile up into his eyes as he stopped
so close, she could feel his body heat through the silk of her gown, and
she placed her hand with the blinding rock on it on his forearm, and said
just loudly enough to be overheard for about ten feet, “Mike! Darling! I’m
sorry I’m late!”
She noted the circuitous route those eyes took as they
slipped over her gown, her jewelry, and the impressively breathtaking
engagement ring she was prominently displaying, and a muscle twitched in
the deep groove beside his mouth. He seemed to be fighting some dark and
angry emotion that she feared she would hear about later, and in the most
uncomplimentary tones possible, but surprisingly, he gave her a sexily
crooked smile.
“Don’t I even get a kiss after waiting all this time for
you to finally show up?” His voice was a sexy growl that was just loud
enough for everyone within ten feet to hear clearly, although he pretended
to be speaking for her ears alone. Jill felt like they were in a fishbowl,
the way all eyes were glued to them. She stood up on her tiptoes and aimed
for his cheek. But before her lips made contact, he turned his head and she
ended up planting one smack-dab on his smiling mouth. And oh, what a mouth
the man had…
And he didn’t settle just for a friendly kiss. He slid
his arms around her body and dragged her up against his chest, smoothly
covering her jerk of shock by catching the back of her head in the palm of
one hand and slanting his mouth to take hers completely. His strong,
champagne-flavored tongue slipped easily past her lips as she opened them
to ask what the hell he was doing. Her heart rate ratcheted up as he traced
the inside of her mouth sensuously. If she hadn’t known her boss so damned
well, that kiss might have fooled even her, but she figured he had paid
through the nose to be kissed, and she decided that she might as well let ’er rip.
Warring with his tongue, she explored the warm depths of
his mouth as she slid her hands up behind his head and arched her body into
his tuxedo, pressing her hips against his suddenly burgeoning cock, ignoring
the rush of excitement his highly obvious arousal gave her, as she did
exactly what she had wanted to do for the past six-plus years.
She kissed him—savagely, hungrily, possessively! Giving
as good as she got from him, even though with him it was just an act to
discourage the positively fuming blonde who had turned and stomped off
toward the stairs back to the second level.
His mouth was decadently hot and delicious. The
expensive champagne was dry and heady on his tongue, and she could not
possibly have imagined how it would feel to have him kissing her like
this—not even in her wildest wet dreams! His hot, spicy masculine scent
filled her nostrils. Her heart felt like a super ball that might easily zap
its way straight out the front of her silk gown and go bouncing wildly
across the carpet if he kept kissing her.
Tongues tangling voraciously, breathing uneven and
heated, their bodies were plastered hungrily against each other as his arms
pulled her so tight into his embrace she could almost feel his spine. And
then his hand cupped her ass in a familiar, possessive squeeze, and she
inhaled and tried to back away. He murmured huskily against her lips,
“Relax. You’ll survive.”
I am having a small contest (today through Saturday at midnight) in celebration of an older book doing so well. Hooray! Simply come over to my website and click on the link to Jillian's Job there. Find the reviews and the reviewers and the ratings and then go to my "Contact Fran" page and send me an e-mail with the subject "Jillian's Job Celebration!" with the results of your search in the body. Don't forget to tell me your name. Tell me if you already have a copy of the book or whether you have never purchased it (This is so that if you win, you won't get a duplicate copy). If yours is the name drawn at midnight on Saturday, and you already own the book, I will send you something else nice as your prize.
And please don't forget the pre-release giveaway underway for My Sexy Sensei. If you have not yet entered, do it at the same time and kill two birds with one stone...or should I say "one visit"?
Have a marvelous week, kiddies!
Fran Lee
