Three Excerpts

How about a reading from one of Fiorella's romances to start your day?

   "I stink like he''," Jase said, wiping the sweat off his forehead as he came through the back door. "Been checking out available land from here to Waco and back." He slapped his hat down on the counter and looked around the kitchen, then at the table, innocent of all but a napkin holder. "What about dinner?"
   Laurel would never have guessed she'd be so turned on by the stench of honest labor. Her first impulse was to yell "Catch me, catch me if you can" then take off up the stairs  with Jase in hot pursuit. Instead, she pulled the belt of her terry cloth robe tighter and frowned at him.
   "Go take a shower in the bedroom across the hall, then give me twenty minutes. "We're eating in the dining room tonight."
   He paused, looking her robe up and down, and his voice lowered to a growl. "I hope you don't have anything on under that."
 *
   Was he rushing her? He skimmed his mouth across her fevered cheeks and let his breath whisper in her ear. "You okay? We can slow down."
   "No, don't slow down. " Her voice was husky. She ran her hand up under his loosened shirt and buried her fingers in his chest hair.
   His brain rocketed into outer space and he took her mouth again, releasing the hooks of her bra at the same time.
*
It was full dark now. The smell of honeysuckle was on the heavy summer air, votive candles in silver dishes floated aimlessly in the pool like enchanted lotuses, and the helium balloons glistened in the moonlight. Further back, Laurel could see the silver-bowed hurricane lamps that marked the edge of the turf to warn guests away from the dangers beyond, and above the lamps, thousand of tiny lights strung in the wide-armed oaks extended the horizon into the stars.
   She could almost pretend they were lovers from long ago, united at last on some supernatural plane of existence. In a way, that was true. So many years lay between them, years of pain and denial. Years that they had the rest of their lives to make up for.