Missing in Milan

By Elizabeth Coldwell (Guest Blogger)

Erotic romance from Total-e-bound

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When I saw Total-e-bound were looking for novellas with an Italian hero and setting, I knew I finally had the opportunity to set a story in Milan, a really beautiful city where I spent a fantastic weekend, packed with shopping, sightseeing and fabulous Italian football, with my partner and a good female friend of ours several years ago. The title came immediately, and once I had it, I then had to decide who was missing and who was searching for them. The storyline took me into romantic suspense territory for the first time, and I had great fun creating a heroine who’s vulnerable and in need of help, but still retains some feistiness, and a hero who’s charming, intellectual and hot – but who may have some unwelcome secrets lurking beneath the surface.

Blurb:

A weekend in Milan with her student sister, Charlie, should be a welcome break in Laura’s stressful life. When Charlie fails to meet her at the airport as arranged, Laura isn’t too concerned at first. After all, her sister has always been impulsive and forgetful where she is cautious and thoughtful. But when she goes to Charlie’s apartment, only for the landlady to tell her she hasn’t seen Charlie for several days, Laura begins to worry something sinister has happened.

With the aid of Gianmario de Rossi, Charlie’s personal tutor, begins to probe the mystery of Charlie’s disappearance. But how much does the handsome, intelligent Gianmario know about what’s really happened to Charlie, and by giving in to her impulse to have wild, passionate sex with him, is Laura being lured to a similar fate?

Excerpt:

Kicking off my boots, I tucked my feet underneath myself. “Thank you for everything you’ve done. You really didn’t need to, considering all that my sister’s ever been to you—to all of us—is a right royal pain in the backside.”

That’s when the stresses of the day finally hit me. My anger with Charlie at having put me—and Gianmario, for that matter—through all this combined with my fear that something really terrible had happened to her, and I burst into tears.

“Hey, it’s all right.” Gianmario pulled me into an embrace, making soothing noises as he stroked my hair. Pressed against his shoulder, I breathed in his woodsy aftershave, underlain with something muskier and more masculine. The smell was as reassuring as it was arousing.

I lifted my face towards his, but whatever I’d intended to say was forgotten as our eyes met. Behind the lenses of his glasses, his pupils were deep pools of desire. He bent his head, his lips brushing mine. That was all it took.

He cupped my face in his beautiful, versatile hands. His tongue traced the contours of my mouth, softly and surely drawing me in. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been kissed with such passion, such authority, and my body was responding, my pussy growing wet and my nipples pushing hard against the cups of my bra.

I pushed his hair away from his forehead, noticing a small, crescent-shaped scar above his left eyebrow as I did. I broke the kiss long enough to ask, “How did this happen?”

He chuckled. “I was climbing a tree when I was a little boy, and I fell. I was always doing things like that. I used to drive my mamma crazy. She said I loved danger too much.”

Gianmario kissed me again, and now his hands were moving over my body, pulling the hem of my top out of my jeans so he could stroke the bare skin of my stomach. Our mouths were locked together, my hands twined in his hair. I felt as though my body was waking after a long sleep, coming alive and being reminded of its full potential to give and receive pleasure.

Keen to see the physique he was hiding beneath his sensible plaid shirt, I fumbled with the buttons. “Slow down,” Gianmario murmured in my ear. “We have all night.”

“But I can’t wait,” I replied. “I want to see you naked.”

“Then let’s go somewhere we can really stretch out and be comfortable.” With that, he picked me up in his arms, carrying me through to Charlie’s room. I was struck by his strength, wondering what he did to keep himself in such good physical shape.

He laid me down on the bed. “We can’t do this on my sister’s bed!” I exclaimed, still clinging to the hope that, unlikely as it was, she might come home at any moment.

His grin was irresistibly wicked. “I told you, I love danger too much.”

Bio: Elizabeth Coldwell lives and writes in London. She worked on the UK edition of Forum magazine for over twenty years, learning all about the fascinating world of human relationships and sex in its many and varied forms. Her short stories and novellas have been published by numerous imprints including Black Lace, Cleis Press, Ravenous Romance and Total-e-bound among others, and her time-travelling, body-swapping, packed with horny rock musicians novel, Someone Else’s Skin, is available from Xcite Books. She can be found at The (Really) Naughty Corner, http://elizabethcoldwell.wordpress.com, when she isn’t following her beloved Rotherham United home and away or whipping up some of her legendary Yorkshire parkin.