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It's my privilege to welcome western author Tanya Hanson today! If you've read Marrying Minda, the first of her Paradise Brides novels from The Wild Rose Press, you already know you're in for a treat with the second, Marrying Mattie. She's here to introduce us to her amazing hero in Mattie, but first, a little about Tanya.Tanya Hanson is a California beach girl happily married to a firefighter. Her two kids are the best thing she’s ever done, and now, she gets to be a gramma to the dearest little boy ever.
Favorite things after her family: Travel, being left-handed, McDonald's iced coffee, and Brooks and Dunn.
Although she’s totally hooked on the Western historicals she writes for The Wild Rose Press, she is finding a wonderful home writing contemporary Western inspirationals for White Rose Publishing.
Her hubby is a two-year testicular cancer survivor and since his ordeal, her mission is to encourage readers to get the guy in their lives to check his family jewels regularly. It could save his life.
Blurb:
Call Hackett knows everything abour horseflesh and nothing about women, yet he's managed to snare beautiful Mattie Carter's heart. With their wedding coming up and him nervous and inexperienced, his beautiful bride manages to ease his worries in just the right way.
Mattie Carter, betrayed by her wealthy husband back home, seeks a new life with the handsome horse doctor she's promised to wed. But her ex halts their vows, claiming to the whole church she's still his wife. Can she regain Call's trust? And can the two of them find out the truth?
Excerpt:
But right now, he still had his secret to reveal, and his heart began to thump with dread. “Mattie?”
Her forehead crinkled. “Call, is something wrong?"
“About tomorrow…”
“What about tomorrow? Caldwell, are you having second thoughts?” She grasped both his hands right, and the despair in her words and use of his full name broke his heart.
“Oh, no. No, my dearest darlin'.” He draw her close like he’d never let her go. Even through her thick velvet, her breasts merged with his chest, and an erection raged. His stomach churned as his heart pumped wildly. His bridal night couldn’t come soon enough, yet he wanted it to hold off. What if he ruined everything?
“Then what?” She pulled back from him a little.
Seeing her eyes misting, Call took a deep breath. To ease her fears, he needed to let it out now. But he had to look away for her troubled gaze.
“I want tomorrow night to be perfect,” he said, low. “But I fear I’ll disappoint you.”
“Disappoint me? We discussed this, love. I don’t want a fancy hotel room. I want our wedding night to be right here. In our very own house.”
He fidgeted against her, but it had nothing to do with the hard wooden bench. “Mattie, I’ve never… I’ve never had a woman. It’ll be my first time.”
For a while she was quiet, dead quiet, and then she smiled. “Is that all? Sweetheart, it’ll be my first time, too.”
“What?”
She cuddled closer than ever “With you.”
“But…”
“No buts,” Mattie insisted. “My other life was long ago.”
A peaceable feeling lay on him, warm as sunshine. She was loving and understanding, hadn’t gasped or looked at him as if he were a zoo animal. Still…
“Call, my life with Woodrow was very brief. I’ve blocked most of it from my mind. And I haven’t been with a man for two years. He never truly loved me. You do. Now, stop your fretting.”
In spite of their close embrace, she shoved him off and stood up. “I debated whether to wear this dress tonight. But it’s such a sultry evening. I’m quite uncomfortable.”
A thought crept into his mind, a dream that would come true tomorrow night. Seeing her wearing nothing, nothing at all. The heat in the crotch of his trousers grew to boiling.
As if reading his thoughts, she smiled, coy, eyes half-lidded. Even in his virginal state, he understood the look completely. “All these buttons. The ties, the boning. Thank God I have a landlady close by. Women just simply cannot easily dress themselves. Or…” She turned her back to display the row of carved fasteners up her spine and tossed back over her shoulder. “Or undress themselves.”
He stood up promptly, front against her back, bending his head with his lips at her ear. “Just what are you saying, Mattie?”
“The bridal bed is a nerve-wracking place, Caldwell.”
He swallowed so hard he was sure she could hear.
She turned to face him, her arms right around his neck. “Most cultures hold the promise of betrothal to be as binding as the wedding vow.” Stepping back, she began a slow unbuttoning of his shirt. Then she looked him straight in the eye with a dare. “I happen to share that conviction.”
Then she held her head her mouth met his nipple. Then her tongue swirled, her teeth gently tugged. Deep inside, stunning pleasure like a wildfire raged through his privates.
“Oh, Mattie, we can’t—”
“Oh, Caldwell, yes, we can. Now unhook all my contraptions.”
Lord, have mercy, how could he refuse? Even though he’d never undressed a woman before, he understood most of the mysterious components after his boyhood unloading stock in his parents’ store, and he had no difficulty at all.
“Why on earth do you wear this fool bustle? You—” He breathed shaky and deep before he placed a kiss at the small of her back. She gasped. “You are so perfectly made.”
When she stood before him, white and soft, bare as a goddess in a myth, she cupped her breasts as if to invite his lips. Red-gold curls beckoned between her legs. Then she pulled his shirt from him and tossed it on the floor. When they embraced, her nipples heated against his chest, and he cooled them by dipping his head to suckle gently.
She tasted of the sweetest desire he could have imagined. Summer, sunshine, and strawberries all at once. He groaned as she undid the placket of his trousers. Then she reached inside his drawers.
Her hot soft hands traveled the ridge of his desire, playing him like a musical instrument. Then her hand tightened into a fist, releasing pressure now and again as her fingers they made their way from his groin to the tip. His groans became calls for survival.
“Come. Get out of these,” she whispered.
In a daze, Call obeyed, and his clothes puddled on the floor. Hanging hard on her hand, he hobbled into the bedroom.
In full view of his wondering eyes, she knelt between his legs and placed just the end of her tongue on his tip.
“I’ve heard of that,” he gasped, “but I didn’t…” A tingle raced into a flaming surge from his gut to his erection, and his heart thundered along with the blood in every vein.
Mattie’s breath came quick. “Let’s wait on that. I don’t want anything to happen unless you’re inside me.”
He shuddered from head to toe, and shivers settled at his cock, growing it harder than ever. Oh, how would he ever survive entering her if the mere tip of her tongue drove him to such distraction?
