Secret Pleasure: Part 2

By Lora Leigh

Previously released and available as a full-length novel, Secret Pleasure is now available as a three-part e-serial for those who want to savor the pleasure…

Welcome to The Club. A secretive, select group where uninhibited desires and forbidden fantasies run wild, in the second part of #1 New York Times bestselling author Lora Leigh’s novel Secret Pleasure.

Alyssa has closed off her heart. A senator’s daughter in the political spotlight, she’d rather be quiet and safe than feel the emotional intensity Sebastian and Shane roused within her years ago. But when the sexy cousins blaze their way back into her life, Alyssa cannot help but succumb to the heady pleasures the two men can give her...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: May 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9781250125347

Lora Leigh

Lora Leigh lives in the rolling hills of Kentucky, and is the esteemed author of many novels of erotic fiction including Dangerous Pleasures, Guilty Pleasure, Forbidden and Deadly Sins. Far from shades of grey, her writing is best known for its fiery tales of secrets, suspense, dangerous control and erotic obsession.

Book preview

9

SIX YEARS LATER

Stepping into the house she had moved into with Harvey Stanhope five years before, Alyssa stared around the pristine, far too opulent D.C. home his father had purchased for them.

How ecstatic Marion Stanhope had been when she and Harvey had married. Certain his son was turning over a new leaf, as his father called it, and giving up his depravities. The judgmental bastard. He’d been furious when he’d learned his son was gay. So furious he’d beaten Harvey to the point that when he showed up on the Hampstead doorstep he’d nearly been dead.

He had been her friend at one time. He and Summer had been the only friends she’d really had when she was younger. Summer had remained, but Harvey had followed his own pursuits until she’d returned from Barcelona.

He’d begged her to marry him even before he’d learned of the baby. Begged her to give him just a few years of peace from the beatings to enable him to find a way to make it stop. Against her mother’s arguments, she’d married him.

For her baby. To ensure Shane and Sebastian knew she had no intentions of asking them for anything. That she would raise her child without them.

That was six years ago. It seemed a lifetime ago. They’d been each other’s shields, so Alyssa had allowed the marriage to stand. The platonic relationship had given them both a chance to recover in some ways. Except something had changed.

It had been slow. A subtle contempt she’d felt at odd times. An anger that had begun building in the past years. And she’d had enough of it. She’d had enough of a lot of things, though. The political machinations, her sterile life, the dreams that haunted her until she thought they’d drive her insane.

Taking the staircase to the second floor, she entered her private suite and, collecting fresh clothing, entered the bathroom. Her return from England had left her exhausted but unwilling to remain in the house with Harvey. Before leaving he’d been a little erratic. Just enough to begin worrying her. Just enough to make her start looking into certain things. Things like her personal checking and savings and the huge amount taken out in the last month. The money was hers. Her income for the past years working as her parent’s social director and he’d forged her signature to her checks and stolen it. The bastard. She’d been saving for a reason, and it wasn’t so Harvey could steal it all.

She’d called her father on her way home and told him she’d be returning later that night. She just needed to pack a bag and wash the stench of the flight from her body.

Once the divorce was final she intended to leave for Pennsylvania and the house her grandparents had left her next to a gorgeous mountain lake. The house she’d once dreamed of living in with a husband, a houseful of children.

That dream was forever dead. After six years she’d accepted the fact that something vital inside her was dead as well. Shane and Sebastian had so destroyed her that once she’d lost the baby there had been nothing left for another man. No desire left for more children.

She, who had dreamed of a house filled with children, would die childless. How ironic was that?

And there was no way to revive those dreams. She’d tried. God knew she had, but she’d failed. Just as she’d failed at so many other dreams she’d had before that summer in Barcelona. Before she’d given every part of herself to two men. She should have seen the writing on the wall there, she thought painfully. Two men willing to share her? As Summer said once, where was the love?

Not that Alyssa had ever made herself fully believe that there had been no love. She’d tried. It wasn’t as though there wasn’t enough proof. There was. But believing it … if she believed it, she wouldn’t still dream of them or awake with the feel of their arms and their warmth surrounding her.

She wouldn’t still lie in silence and try to reach out to them as she once had, just to imagine she could feel their warmth.

Finishing her shower and dressing in a pair of jeans with a soft cotton shirt, she laced the sneakers she’d chosen to wear before entering the attached closet and packing a small leather bag. Just enough clothes for a few days. Anything else and she risked Harvey learning that she wasn’t coming back.

Harvey was up to something and it wasn’t just stealing her money.

She didn’t know what or what it involved, but whatever it was, it hadn’t been working out for him. He’d been confrontational and insulting when she called the night before, and she didn’t expect it would be any different now that she was home. She refused to stay and listen to his ranting when the bottom fell out of whatever plans he had this time, which was no doubt his problem.

Stepping from the bedroom, she paused at the sight of her husband waiting for her.

She hadn’t expected this, she admitted. She’d been certain he wasn’t home when she arrived.

Hello, she greeted him as though everything were fine and moved to her dresser. I need to go to my parents’ for a few days. Dad has a Senate briefing he has to have completed before Monday. I should be back that evening.

Not if she could help it.

Placing her makeup in the bag along with the small box of jewelry she kept in her dresser, she turned to face Harvey once again.

Is everything okay? she asked, as though everything were perfectly normal with her.

Trepidation was beginning to build inside her, though, the certainty that Harvey was far more dangerous than she’d suspected.

Not really. He stood at the bottom of her bed, his hazel eyes narrowed and glittering with malice.

That look had the first feeling of fear that she’d ever felt in his presence rising inside her.

Is your father bothering you again? Gripping the bag, she left the bedroom, desperate to get out of the house now. She should have never returned to the house, but he was supposed to be gone this weekend. He’d told her he wouldn’t be there before she left, that he had business to take care of out of the country.

And he followed her. Moving behind her from the bedroom, he followed her to the stairs and moved quickly to catch up with her.

Reaching the landing, Alyssa headed for the front door only to have him push her roughly to the side, throwing her against the wall as he blocked the exit.

What the hell is your problem? Straightening, Alyssa slid her hand into the pocket of the light jacket she wore and hit the emergency button her father’s chief of staff had programmed on her phone. Get away from the door, Harvey.

The sneer that contorted his face wasn’t in the least complimentary to his looks. Though in the past years the once almost pretty features had taken a turn for the worse anyway. Whatever he’d been involved in hadn’t been healthy. Nor had it been sane, evidently.

Like hell! he snapped. Tell me, Wife, why do you think I married your bitch ass, anyway? Do you really think I needed you to protect me from dear old Dad? Do you really think Marion Stanhope would lay a hand on his only heir? Gay or not? He didn’t beat me that weekend. I did that to myself. I knew that pathetically soft heart of yours would feel sorry for me.

Well, didn’t that just figure? She hadn’t expected it, but she wasn’t really surprised at this point. She should have suspected it, actually.

Panic was beginning to set in now. She could hear someone yelling at her from the phone in her pocket, knew she’d connected with either her father or his chief, Raeg. Someone would be there soon, she assured herself. Once she hit the panic button her father and Raeg would be rushing to the house.

I don’t care why you married me, Harvey, she informed him calmly, despite the fact that she felt anything but calm. It didn’t matter to me then and it doesn’t matter to me now.

Because poor little Alyssa’s heart was already broken. He seemed to take mocking delight in that. Not that she’d ever told him it had been broken.

You don’t know what you’re talking about, she assured him. Now get away from the door and let me leave. We’ll discuss this at another time.

They would discuss it never. She’d be damned if she’d ever allow him to so much as be in the same room with her.

The smile that curled his lips was far too confident. Far too knowing.

You mean I don’t know about Shane Connor and Sebastian De Loren? he asked softly, the malice in his gaze growing brighter. But I do know about them, Alyssa. I know about how you fucked both of them. Do you know how long I’ve waited to throw that in your goody-two-shoes face? That I know you were dumped by the De Loren get? That you left Barcelona with a baby and a broken heart? He laughed at that. Poor little Alyssa. It was too bad about the kid. I could have said it was mine. How I would have loved that.

As he crowed over whatever triumph he felt he had over her, Alyssa slid her hand from the pocket of her jacket, the phone gripped in it to allow everything he said to be heard by Raeg. She was certain it was Raeg. His voice had a particular timbre when he was

Reviews for Secret Pleasure

[Sills Family · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

just like her other books. hot captivating and I'm looking for more