A Whisper of Wanting
Harlequin Blaze
October 2006
Series: Lust Potion #9
ISBN: 0-373-79288-3

As a police detective, Nicole Arroyo has heard it all. But a potion that renders people crazy with lust? Right. This colorless liquid is just another one of journalist Ethan Ramsey's schemes to get her into bed. With her weakness for sexy men who break women's hearts, there's no way she's giving him a chance.

So how can she explain the sizzling urge that leads to the hot encounter with him in the backseat of his car…or the one against her front door…or the one…? Well. For some reason, she now wants Ethan. But a lust potion? It couldn't possibly be real…could it?

More About The Book

Dear Reader,

Working with Colleen Collins and Carrie Alexander to create the Lust Potion #9 miniseries gave me more than a few laughs, and also a few challenges as we tried to decide exactly how our lust potion would work (really well!), what the side effects would be (careful what you wish for...) and how our characters would stumble upon and use the world's most powerful aphrodisiac. Brainstorming with two such talented authors whose work I've always admired challenged me creatively, and I know my own writing was improved thanks to their input. Because of that and so much more, I am thrilled to have been included in this project.

I hope you fall in love with the Lust Potion #9 series. Look for Colleen's book, A Scent of Seduction, in November 2006, and Carrie's book, A Taste of Temptation, in December 2006. And don't forget to drop me a note at jamie@jamiesobrato.com to let me know what you thought of A Whisper of Wanting.

Sincerely,

Jamie Sobrato

Excerpt

"Crazy passion, hot sex, multiple orgasms—you can have it all."

The whispered male voice came from somewhere in the vicinity of Ethan Ramsey's left elbow. He turned toward the sound and did a double take at the person standing next to him. It was a tiny lizard of a man, five feet tall at most. Raisin eyes and leathery skin framed a beak of a nose, and his bald head shone as if it had been waxed.

"You want crazy-passion-hot-sex-multiple-orgasms?" the man hissed again, his voice a little bolder now, but still reminiscent of the drug dealers in Amsterdam whispering "Ecstasy, ecstasy" on every street corner.

The raisin-eyed gaze darted between Ethan and his two co-workers standing a few feet away. The three had wandered into the little tourist trap shop called Jag's on their way back to the office from lunch, and this man, presumably, was Jag.

Maybe Ethan shouldn't have had that martini at lunch. He couldn't possibly have heard the man correctly. But he looked at Zoe Aberdeen and Kathryn Walters, both of whom were staring at the man as if they'd heard the same thing he had, and he knew he couldn't blame this weird tableau on vodka.

"Excuse me?" Ethan said, figuring he might as well know the truth of it.

"You, the two ladies," the man said, then glanced over each shoulder to make sure he wasn't being overheard, "you want crazy-passion-hot-sex-multiple-orgasms."

Kathryn and Zoe were still staring, jaws agape now. The three of them had heard rumors that the place was hawking a fake aphrodisiac to tourists at an exorbitant price. Being the naturally curious journalists they were, they figured they'd better investigate, and since Zoe had claimed to be in search of a voodoo doll, here they were.

Yet somehow, this lizard of a man had still managed to catch them by surprise. He was like the human version of an Internet pop-up ad, the promise of the impossible in a tiny, annoying package.

Ethan cleared his throat and tried to think of an appropriate response to the idea of his having multiple orgasms with his heretofore platonic co-workers. Not that he hadn't engaged in his share of fantasies starring each of them, but hell, he'd also fantasized about having sex with pretty much every attractive female he knew. That didn't mean he was going to act on it.

Before he could respond though, the lizard man spoke again. "Balam K'am-bi—it's the love potion of the Gods. From deep in the heart of the Yucatan peninsula comes this elixir that brings the world's greatest sexual experiences to the person who dares to use it."

Ethan glanced from Zoe to Kathryn again and caught them trying not to laugh. He wasn't the only one who'd had a martini with lunch—Zoe had, too. But Kathryn, as usual, had abstained.

"So what do you think, girls?" Ethan said.

"Multiple orgasms for all?"

Zoe shot him an in-your-dreams look, then to the storekeeper she said, "How much for a bottle?"

"For a lovely lady like you, only fifty dollars." Her perfectly arched brows shot up. "I'll give you ten bucks, tops."

The lizard man held up his hands and shook his head. "That's impossible. I pay forty dollars just to get one bottle into the U.S. I'm a working man, I have to—"

He lost his train of thought when he seemed to spot something over Zoe's left shoulder. Ethan followed the man's gaze to a police cruiser parking in front of the shop.

At that moment, Kathryn glanced at her watch. "Whoa, we're due back from lunch in, like, thirty seconds."

The shopkeeper instantly lost interest in trying to sell them his fake love potion. His gaze darting between them and the cops climbing out of the cruiser, he edged his way back as Ethan and his co-workers headed for the door.

"Oh, wait a sec, guys—I wanted to buy that voodoo doll with the pointy boobies," Zoe said, stopping as they reached the door.

Ethan and Kathryn loitered in the doorway, watching as two police officers surveyed the store-front, then headed for the entrance. By the time the cops reached the door, Zoe was hurrying after them with her bag containing the voodoo doll, and the three of them headed back to work, leaving the shopkeeper to deal with the cops.

"That little guy was seriously weird," Zoe said, inspecting the contents of her bag as they walked.

Kathryn shuddered. "There was something creepy about him. He reminded me of..."

"Lew from marketing?" Ethan offered, recalling the similarity between the two men's appearances.

"Yes!" the two women said simultaneously.

"I bet he has a forked tongue," Zoe said.

"Lew asked me out once," Kathryn said, wincing.

"He wanted me to go to open mike night at some coffeehouse and listen to him read his haiku about global warming or something. It was bizarre."

"And you didn't jump on that fabulous opportunity? Are you insane?" Zoe said and laughed.

"Wow, the 'come listen to my haiku' pitch—I haven't tried that one yet," Ethan said, pretending to be impressed with the idea.

"Don't," Kathryn said. "It's not exactly a turn-on." Outside in the bright Southern California sunshine, Ethan felt a short pang of longing for London, where he'd grown up. It was mid-October for chrissake, and barely a hint of autumn taking hold. Not that he could complain about all the lovely bare-skinned American girls he got to admire in the warm weather.

And then another pang—a ridiculous wish that he'd grabbed that bottle of lust potion when he'd had the chance. Why he wanted it, he didn't dare guess.

Normally, Ethan didn't have to rely on much more than his crooked smile and a little old-fashioned Brit charm to get pretty much any girl he pleased out of her knickers, so he wasn't about to jump all over the offer of crazy-passion-hot-sex-multiple-orgasms in a bottle, but hey, he had to keep his journalistic interests in mind too. He'd love to have known what the hell was in the little bottle.

Probably a nice cocktail of tap water and piss.

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