Wild Star — Catherine Coulter

He had stopped kissing her...leaving her parted lips trembling, waiting for more. Oh, how she wanted him

But Byrony knew that Brent Hammond was the last man in the world she should want. This handsome San Francisco gambler was legendary for all the women he had had -- and used only to slake his lust and nothing more.

And Byrony was married -- married to an older man she did not love, but whom she had vowed to honor and obey. Yet the moment Byrony felt Brent's mocking eyes upon her, mentally stripping away her clothes even as he taunted her propriety... the moment he held her in his arms, caressing her warm, velvety flesh. . . she knew she was his for the taking.

And in the San Francisco boomtown where he ruled as king... and on a great southern plantation where she discovered the secrets of his dark past, the flaming intensity of her love welded her to him for better, for worse, forever ....