Love, Hear My Heart
STUBBORN STOWAWAY

Radiantly lovely Cassandra St. James was painfully aware of what everyone else wanted her to do. Her mother hoped she'd marry a rich socialite and her father longed to wed her to his business partner; the handsome river pilot, Sylvestre Diamond. But the petit blond needed time to figure out what she wanted, so she slipped aboard the side-wheeler, River Minx, for a trip down the Missouri River. As the floating palace churned the water to pearls of foam one moonspun evening, Cassa shared a silvery kiss with the very man she had sworn to escape -- and found to her surprise that her body ached for more of Sylvestre Diamond's steamy caresses.

PERSISTENT SUITOR

Golden-eyed Sylvestre Diamond had always loved the strong-willed Cassandra, with her tousled cornsilk hair and her crystal blue eyes. He was confident that she'd end up marrying him, even if only to please her father; but once he kissed her on the deck of the River Minx, h vowed that she would be his alone, in heart and soul as well as in name. On fire with passion, Sy knew that he must capture Cassa's elusive, rebellious heart, take her aboard his own Raggedy Dreamer, and spend his life holding and caressing the loveliest lady on the long Missouri River…his own satiny, sensual Cassandra!



FIRST ECSTASY
Overhead the stars were hundreds of sparkling diamonds and the moon was an orb of yellow gold as Cassandra felt Sylvestre come close, his lips on hers in the first truly passionate kiss they were to share. Wonderful, frightening, expanding sensations began to gather in her breasts, everywhere, as, gloriously, abandoned, Sy's kiss sang like a fever through her veins. Her dusky lashes lowered and then closed over her creamy cheekbones. Soft moonlight flowed over them. Sylvestre held Cassandra, willing the heat of his flesh to soothe her, warm her until the trembling in her untaught body ceased and he felt the treasure of her desire yielding. He moved his mouth gently over hers, savoring her honey, devouring the velvet softness of her lips, and it was a penetrating sweetness that turned him inside out. He seemed to be drowning in sensations and. he couldn't get enough of her sweet nectar and his mind repeated and repeated the aching words, over and over in his brain: I love you. It was as if she had heard his words. Cassandra did not hear her own low, answering moan, revealing a need in her that she had not known existed.

