It's in the Cards

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An Excerpt From: IT’S IN THE CARDS

Copyright © LYNN LAFLEUR, 2003

All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

A flash of purple caught her eye. A flash of purple always caught her eye; it was her favorite color. She could see just the top of a card on the lowest shelf of the display rack, hidden behind several other cards. Catherine frowned. She’d already looked at that row and she hadn’t seen this card. There was no way she would’ve missed a purple card.

Unable to resist, she touched the part of the card that she could see. She felt…something. She didn’t know how to describe it, but something electric, almost shocking, passed through her fingers.

Taking the card between her thumb and forefinger, Catherine slowly drew it out of the slot. The front was a deep, solid eggplant color with the words “Happy Birthday” in a flowing silver script scrawled across the front. There was nothing special about the card—no beautiful picture, no romantic saying, nothing that should draw her so intently to it, yet she felt compelled to look at it. Her fingers trembling, she opened the card, peered inside…and gasped.

It was him. Him. Her fantasy man. The man who filled her dreams at night, and her mind by day. The man she imagined in her life, in her bed, in her body.

She stared at the picture, which took up the entire inside of the card. He reclined among rumpled white satin sheets, his torso propped up on several pillows. His handsome face was tan, with the beginning of a five-o’clock shadow covering his cheeks and chin. His deep brown eyes were half closed, a hint of a grin turned up the corners of his mouth. A corner of a sheet draped over his groin, but she could still see his bare hip. One arm was folded under his head, showing her his impressive bicep. Long, dark brown hair spread over the pillow. That same dark hair generously spread over his chest and tapered down his stomach until it disappeared beneath the sheet. Tanned legs, lightly sprinkled with dark hair, peeked out the other end of the sheet. His body was muscled in all the right places…not the muscles of a bodybuilder, but of a strong, healthy man.

The bulge in the sheet indicated that he didn’t lack anything in that department.