Black Knight, White Queen Read online

  As the memories brought a nostalgic smile to his face, he paid no attention to the women who were trying to catch his eye or the men who were sizing him up. Standing six and a half feet tall and packed with muscle, he always drew people’s attention. He was used to it, and if a pretty woman was within a twenty-foot radius, he often enjoyed a good flirt to pass the time.

  Today, however, he was lost to his thoughts about a girl he loved like a sister. This summer was going to be stressful with the merger he was heading up for the family business, but he had already moved things around to show Oops the city like she’d never seen it before. Her mother had told him how Zoe was aching to spread her wings as an adult, and Gage chuckled at the idea of the gangly little Oops as a grownup. Last time he’d seen her had been at Cade and Trevor’s wedding three years ago, and she’d looked as pretty as a June bug in her fancy dress and all made-up. He’d danced with her four times, and during the slow one, he’d lifted her ’til she balanced on his feet the way she did when she’d been younger. His heart had given a little pang when he noticed her head now reached to his chest, when before it’d been only as high as his stomach. Yup, she was growing up, but to him she’d always be a baby.

  A crowd was moving around the baggage terminal, and Gage looked up to scan for Zoe when a woman caught his eye. She was curvy in a lush, mouthwatering way that made his palms itch. She had jet-black hair that bounced around her shoulders with every step she took. As he watched, one long lock looped over an arm and curled around her right breast as though outlining it, and Gage started forward without meaning to. All thoughts of his beloved kid sister vanished as he kept his sights on that curl and the gently bouncing breast it cradled. He was going to have those breasts by nightfall, he promised himself, and everything else that went with them. Just as he was drawing close and getting ready to make an introduction, the gentle bounce became a faster one as she started running. He stopped in his tracks, unwilling to disrupt her when she was obviously rushing to greet someone. He hoped like hell it wasn’t a man, because that would seriously ruin his whole “get her naked and devour every inch of her” plan.

  She was going to run right by him, he thought as she drew closer and closer, and just when he started to sidestep, thinking he must be in front of whoever she was meeting, she squealed, “Gage!” and launched herself at him.

  I’m going to Hell. I’m going to burn in Hell. The devil is going to cut off my dick and then burn me in Hell forever.

  It was Zoe. That luscious pair of breasts and all that midnight hair belonged to Zoe. He’d been drooling over his best friend’s baby sister.

  “Gage.” Her voice had changed—it was deeper, smoky and sensual, and did not match the trilling little girl voice she’d had even just three years ago. “God I missed you so much.” She pulled back from her hug, and he looked into her face for the first time.

  She had that Marshall blue in her eyes, surrounded by a forest of lashes. The eyes were the same, he supposed, swallowing up her face, and heart-meltingly beautiful, but no longer in a little girl way. Her skin was creamy flawless perfection and—God help him—she had a mouth that looked as wanton as her figure.

  “What the hell happened to your braces?” As hellos went, it sucked, but he was in shock—she was going to have to forgive him.

  Her smile was slow, and damned if it wasn’t also sensual. “They came off over a year ago.” He almost dropped her when her tiny pink tongue came out and licked along the perfectly white, perfectly strait top row. “Mmm, I still can’t get over how good it feels to have them gone.” Then she tugged him down and laid those soft, pillowy lips right on his.

  Yup. He was going to Hell.

  Black Knight, White Queen

  Jackie Ashenden

  One night in Bangkok changes all the rules.

  Professional chess player Aleksandr Shastin never lets emotions rule his life, or his game. Not even the unexpected death of his mentor shakes his icy control—at least that’s what he thinks. Until he meets a woman in a Bangkok rooftop bar, a woman whose raw sexuality and emotional honesty find every invisible crack…and pries them wide open.

  Graphic artist Izzy Cornwall fled to Thailand to escape suffocating grief and guilt after her sister’s suicide. As she locks gazes with Aleks, their instant attraction sets her on fire. And the way he looks at her makes her feel what she hasn’t felt in months: that she actually exists.

  In the heat of a Bangkok rainstorm, their chemistry steams up what was supposed to be one night of pain-numbing passion. Neither expected that a single encounter would change all the rules, making Aleks the novice, and Izzy the grandmaster. But if Izzy wants his heart, she’ll have to show him that in order to win, sometimes you have to lose.

  Warning: Contains one hot, controlling Russian chess master, a heroine who’s more than capable of taking him on in a game of strip chess, and a checkmate to make Kasparov proud.

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  They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

  11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

  Cincinnati OH 45249

  Black Knight, White Queen

  Copyright © 2013 by Jackie Ashenden

  ISBN: 978-1-61921-744-7

  Edited by Christa Soule

  Cover by Lyn Taylor

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: July 2013

  www.samhainpublishing.com