Lord of Scoundrels, the first post

I am only 64 pages in. I feel compelled to post and say thank you to the few people who told me to make this my second Loretta Chase book. I can already tell - this is the story of the hero, not the heroine. The book starts off telling how Sebastian Ballister, Lord Dain, came into this world, how he grew up, and of his parents. Sad stuff. But necessary to the reflective way that the rest of the book is structured.

I feel compelled to share some of the prrime examples that have sucked me in just in the first few interactions between Dain and Jessica Trent, our heroine.

On thinking of their first meeting...

He was used to towering over women - over most everybody - and he had learned to feel comfortable in his oversize body. Sports - boxing and fencing, especially - had taught him to be light on his feet. Next to her he had felt like a great lummox. A great, ugly, stupid lummox.

On a challenge Jessica had just put forth...

What he felt was the old monster howling within. He couldn't name the feelings any better than he could when he'd been eight years old. He'd never bothered to name them, simply shoved and beaten them out of his way, repeatedly, until, like his schoolmates of long ago,they stopped tormenting him.

Having never been allowed to mature, those feelings remained at the primitive, childlike level. Now, caught unexpectedly in their grip, Lord Dain could not reason as an adult would. He could not tell himself that Bertie Trent was an infernal nuisance whom Dain should have sent packing ages ago...

...All Dain could see was an exceedingly pretty girl teasing him with a toy he wanted very badly. He had offered his biggest and very best toy in trade. And she had laughed and threatened to throw her toy into a privy, just to make him beg.

Much later, Lord Dain would undertand that this - or something equally idiotic - had been raging through his brain. But that would be much later, when it was far too late.

And I'm just getting to the good part. This is what made me finally stop to post...

He had relieved whores beyond counting of frocks, stays, chemises, garters, and stockings. He had never before in his life unbuttonened a gently bred maiden's glove. He'd committed salacious acts beyond number. He'd never before felt so depraved as he did now, as the last pearl came free and he drew the soft kid down, baring her wrist, and his dark fingers grazed the delicate skin he'd exposed.

Wow. I just want to cradle the poor little boy he was, and I'm already in love with the scoundrel of a man he is. And I'm only on page 64. More to come...