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    Fire and Ice
    Fire and Ice
    Fire and Ice
    Ebook46 pages38 minutes

    Fire and Ice

    By Portia Da Costa

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    About this ebook

    Sharing their body heat...

    Super efficient P.A. Cally Hobbes burns with desire for her handsome boss, Innes McKenzie, but hides it beneath her cool, businesslike exterior. She knows he's not entirely immune to her either, despite their platonic working relationship.

    But icy weather, broken central heating, and a dose of twenty four hour flu change everything. With Innes laid low in his frozen flat, Cally's golden chance finally arrives. What else can a girl do but climb into her boss's bed to warm up his chilly limbs with an enthusiastic application of TLC? And Innes' overnight recovery soon leads to a sizzling and more passionate kind of therapy...

    10,000 words of delicious contemporary romance, plus a 700 word excerpt of the novel Lessons and Lovers.


    A version of this story was originally published in The Mammoth Book of Hot Romance.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPortia Da Costa
    Release dateNov 19, 2013
    ISBN9781497767003
    Fire and Ice
    Author

    Portia Da Costa

    Portia Da Costa is a British author who has lived and worked in West Yorkshire, in the north of England, all her life. She began her writing career almost by mistake, when she was asked to write a story for an artist friend to illustrate. A librarian at the time, and a voracious reader since childhood, Portia had never considered becoming an author, but not one to shun a challenge, she took up her pen and wrote her first-ever piece of fiction, a melodramatic tale of the doomed romance between a mortal woman and an unusually handsome and nondecrepit zombie. The story was rubbish, of course, but Portia enjoyed the creative process so much that she resolved to learn how to write properly. After a number of years writing purely for pleasure, Portia's first published story appeared in 1991, and was about a sexy ghost this time. Since then, she's gone on to write well over a hundred stories for magazines and anthologies, and she's also produced almost thirty novels across a variety of genres. Although she's written gentler tales in her time, she's known best of all for her sizzling-hot erotic romances, and her steamy contemporary Suite Seventeen, won the 2007 Romance B(u)y the Book Best Contemporary Erotic Romance Award. Chance of a Lifetime, a November 2008 SPICE Brief, was Portia's first-ever work for Harlequin Books and represents the fulfillment of a long-cherished dream. Her very first attempts at writing for publication were category-length semisweet romances targeted at Mills & Boon. None of these early efforts was successful, but Portia's deep yearning to write for the world's best-known romance publisher has never waned. Portia is a now full-time author and lives in a small, typically Yorkshire town with her husband of many, many years, and also the three beautiful cats they both adore. When she's not writing, she likes to read, just generally chill out and watch television. A lot of television. She also loves to spend time online with cyber friends at her favorite writers' message boards and on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Among her other interests are art, fashion and popular science, and she also shares her husband's passion for the military history of World War Two. Portia loves to hear from her readers via her email: portiadacosta@gmail.com

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      Book preview

      Fire and Ice - Portia Da Costa

      Table of Contents

      Fire and Ice

      Thank You!

      About Portia

      Self Published by Portia Da Costa

      Mainstream Erotic Romance by Portia Da Costa

      Lessons and Lovers – Excerpt

      Fire and Ice

      It's Christmas Eve, and I'm home alone, wrapped in my fleecy throw, and tucked up in front of the television with a lovely bottle of wine. Not for me the purgatory of fractious family shindigs that turn into Armageddon over the mince pies. I'm just happy on my own, doing my own thing, chilling out but toasty.

      Of course, there is someone with whom I'd like to spend Christmas; someone with whom I'd gladly share my blanket and my wine. But if he was here, you could forget about the television.

      Innes McKenzie is my boss, my unbelievably gorgeous boss, and the one I can thank for the yummy wine. He's just the sort of guy to remember a casual conversation from months ago, and take note of my favorite tipple for future reference. He's like that, thoughtful and inventive.

      The African Queen is on the box now, another Christmas favorite. I try to imagine Innes on a rackety riverboat covered in grease, like Bogart, but it's a reach. My boss is cool and immaculate and as beautiful as an angel. A very manly angel, naturally, and needless to say, I'm head over heels in love with him.

      I can't help but wonder about his Christmas though. I picture his apartment, a place as immaculate and elegant as he is, maybe done out in white with monochrome silver decorations. He and some groomed, smart and sexy woman are eating a gourmet Christmas dinner, and later, they retire to his wide, expensively sheeted bed for some gourmet Christmas sex.

      My mouth waters. Mmm, Innes a la carte.

      His rich fruity wine is slipping down a treat now, and in my mind it's me in that snowy bed with him. It’s me, writhing and grappling with my hot, elegant boss. I've never seen Innes with his clothes off, of course, but imagining him is a pastime I indulge in all the time.

      Inside my fleecy cocoon, I shimmy and wriggle, pretending that a naked and perfect Innes McKenzie is touching me. Here… there… everywhere. His skin is warm, his blue eyes are as brilliant as lasers, and his rampant cock is as magnificent as the rest of him.

      I open my legs, sliding in my hand in lieu of his.

      At work, he always moves in a very neat, spare, precise fashion, and I suspect that in bed he's just the same. No action wasted or over-done, everything efficient, full of meaning, accurate and fiery.

      I'm wet now, thinking about him and mellowed by the wine. I start to moan, and Bogey and Hepburn are forgotten as my arousal circles around the imaginary totem of Innes McKenzie.

      He likes me; I know he does. But relationships in the same office are frowned upon at work. For the hundredth time, I consider a transfer, but then in another section, I wouldn't see Innes every day.

      Innes… Innes… I moan, my pleasure rising as dark desire burns in those blue, imagined eyes. They glitter in my mind and I'm moments from the brink. I’m almost there, with him, in my dream world.

      Then my mobile phone rings and snatches the orgasm from my grasp.

      Bugger, hell and damnation!

      Who can it be? I've told my family I'll visit

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