Title: A Gentleman's Wager
20th Anniversary Edition
Author: Madelynne Ellis
Genre: Historical Romance
Tropes: MMF Ménage/Enemies to Lovers
Release Date: May 23, 2023
BLURB
Rivals clash over the man they both intend to claim, resulting in truly scandal worthy seduction.
When Miss Bella Rushdale sets out to win Viscount Marlinscar’s hand in marriage, she doesn’t expect her main rival to be another man. Vaughan, the decadent Marquis of Pennerley, has loved Lucerne for years, and now, at remote Lauwine Hall on the wild Yorkshire Moors, scandalously intends to claim him.
A passionate struggle results between the debauched rakehell and the wilfully improper young lady determined not to be cheated out of an advantageous match. Ultimately, it will be up to Lucerne to choose the victor, though he wonders if there isn’t another—admittedly forbidden—far sweeter arrangement they could agree upon that would satisfy all their desires.
A Gentleman’s Wager is a Regency historical romance that includes blistering heat, strong language, and lashings of forbidden MF, MM and MMF interactions. Readers ill-disposed to lewd and crude rakish behaviour or ladies disinclined to swoon as a result are advised to look the other way.
This 20th anniversary edition is a re-envisioning of the original story published in 2003, which has been completely rewritten and now contains approximately 50K of additional material.
‘Explicit, romantic and flawlessly authored… A sizzling, refreshingly unconventional love triangle… passionate power struggles and absolutely searing bisexual sex.’ GOOD VIBRATIONS
“Excessively naughty- Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters would have fainted dead away.” Goodreads Reviewer.
“Intense, subtle, and heartfelt.” Author Lisabet Sarai, for ERWA.
‘Forbidden passion, risqué love, & smouldering desires – A GENTLEMAN’S WAGER had it all!’ Romance Junkies.
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B&N / KOBO / APPLE BOOKS
EXCERPT
To her joy and his disgust, Lucerne reached three hundred points first.
“What shall I claim as my prize?” he mused, as the two men joined her by the fireplace. Lucerne’s blue eyes were merry and alert as they met hers, full of impish good humour. “A kiss?”
Bella purposefully put her glass aside, thrilled and delighted that he’d ask such a thing. She remembered Vaughan’s warning about staying away from Lucerne and felt her pulse quicken at the chance to defy him while he watched. To her astonishment, Lucerne turned to kiss not her but Vaughan. He caught the other man completely off-guard and stole a deep passionate kiss right off his lips.
Never in all her days…
Her mouth fell open. Two men kissing—astonishing—but a warming prickle in her cunny told her she wholeheartedly approved. Heavens, if it wasn’t the most sensual, inspirational thing she’d ever witnessed. They were like dark and light, a devil and an angel. Was this behind Vaughan’s motive in warning her off? Were they embroiled in a romantic liaison? She’d heard vague murmurings of such things, men who masqueraded as women and courted other men, but had never paid them any heed. This was different though, there was no womanly affectations involved. She recalled the blond hair in the locket she’d found stowed beneath Vaughan’s pillow. Could it be… was it Lucerne’s? The colour matched – that buttery gold.
The two men parted.
Vaughan’s lips were reddened from the passion of it. It’d been no sweet or jovial peck.
“Cat got your tongue?” Vaughan sniped. He bristled in a way that made her think he hadn’t wanted her to witness such intimacy. He drank deeply for several seconds, while he re-established his typical hauteur. The cat had indeed got her tongue. She had no words for him that could appropriately express all that was running through her head at that moment, nor the sensation of prickling arousal chafing her skin.
“I think you may have untethered her mind, Lucerne. I don’t know if Rushdale will congratulate or curse you for it. Look, the poor creature is quite thoroughly dumbstruck.”
“I’m… I’m perfectly fine,” Bella croaked. But she wasn’t. Not really. Her mind had been opened in an altogether unexpected way. She could not gaze upon them and unsee what she’d witnessed. Her disconcertedness seemed to magnify the wickedness of Vaughan’s grin.
He grasped her about the waist, pulling her close. “You’re not so innocent as to be this perturbed by witnessing a kiss. Now, receiving one, on the other hand…” She ought to have resisted him, but the instant his lips touched hers, she was aroused and ready for him. He seemed to breathe carnal fire into her veins that cranked her already enflamed passions even higher. Bella groaned, opening her mouth and allowing him to possess her with his tongue. She groaned again, then near spontaneously combusted when Lucerne’s lips simultaneously brushed the side of her throat.
“I think it’s your bedtime,” Lucerne whispered into her ear.
For a moment, she imagined herself a game-piece between the two men as they pressed into her from the front and behind, both pleasuring her at once. Between them they’d raise her to a zenith she’d never achieve with only one man. She’d heard talk of rakehells and how they behaved. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine them sharing her. She sighed, ready to surrender herself to such bliss, only to then realise there’d been no trace of innuendo in Lucerne’s voice. He meant precisely what he’d said. That it was her bedtime. And hers alone.
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AUTHOR BIO
Madelynne is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling author. She wrote her first novel after discovering Black Lace Books in the 1990s. Having escaped the Hotel California, she dived into storytelling full-time. Her books are filled with bisexual bad boys who like to get down and dirty, and stories so angst-filled you know they’re going to hurt.
She lives in the UK near the Welsh border, where you can find her surrounded by books, drinking rapidly cooling decaf coffee, and listening to loud music. Her family still haven’t grasped that noise-cancelling headphones really do mean she can’t hear them.
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