Authors: Cherrie Lynn
Ross 02 Rock Me (34 page)
“A little sore, but good. I love it.”
“I told you.”
“I know you did.”
“Maybe you’ll learn to listen to me someday,” he teased, and she gave his arm around her a playful smack.
“It’s like everything else in my life, I guess,” she said after a moment. “Even with you. I worry and I stress and I freak out over everything. But once I let go and get through it…it’s beautiful.”
“I’ll always do what I can to make sure it’s beautiful in the end, sunshine. No matter what it is we have to get through.” He chuckled. “And on that note, my parents want to meet you this weekend.”
She responded with that girly giggle that never failed to summon every iota of testosterone in his body and send it raging. “Oh, no. We’re not starting all over, are we? What if they hate me?”
“I’m really concerned that they might. I guess I’ll just have to let you go if—”
He burst out laughing as she twisted in his arms and shoved him onto his back, rising up to straddle his hips. “You deserve to be punished for that one. Severely.”
“Do your worst, baby.
Please
.”
She stared down at him, her pretty eyes twinkling in the dim light. “Give me a minute while I decide your punishment. It must be slow and torturous.” She ran her hands down his arms, leaning over to follow
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one of them with her mouth. Shit, he loved that his ink drove her so wild. It made him want to get more. And here he’d thought he was done.
She drew away, lifting so she could look at him. “Your family seems a lot cooler than mine. We should totally blow their minds. Maybe I ought to dye my hair purple, just for that occasion.”
He grinned like a fool. With each passing day, she proved more and more she was a girl after his own heart. She loved horror movies. She loved his music. His body art. She’d even get down and dirty in a mosh pit with him.
But beyond all that superficial, surface stuff, she challenged him, she drove him, she opened his eyes to everything that was beautiful in the world, everything he’d always overlooked before. Why God had seen fit to smile upon him in such a way, Brian would never know. Candace leaned down to nibble his shoulder, and against the softness of her coconut-scented hair, he smiled. “And there’s always that Mohawk I’ve been considering…”
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About the Author
To learn more about Cherrie Lynn, please visit
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Look for these titles by Cherrie Lynn
Now Available:
Unleashed
One week in paradise will make or break them…
Unleashed
© 2009 Cherrie Lynn
It’s not enough that Kelsey’s husband left her for another woman. Oh, no. The “other woman” had to be her best friend Evan’s fiancée. Not only has she lost her marriage, she fears losing Evan to the lingering awkwardness and humiliation that hangs between them.
Evan has no intention of letting that happen. He’s got plans…namely, an extra plane ticket to Hawaii now that his future wife is out of the picture. There’s only one person he wants on the trip with him, the one who’s always been there for him. The one he should never have let slip away into the arms of a traitorous friend who shattered her heart.
Kelsey is anticipating a week of fun in the sun with the man who’s always treated her like a little sister. No one’s more surprised when she discovers that Evan has seduction on his mind—and that she’s more than ready for it.
Love is the most powerful healing force of all. But past demons have a way of ripping open old wounds, and threatening the survival of even the strongest friendship…
Warning: This title contains explicit sex between best friends, graphic language…and a hero who
knows how to put the hot in “hot tub.”
Enjoy the following excerpt for
Unleashed:
“So why do you think you can’t come during sex?”
If Kelsey had been drinking something, she’d have spit it through her nose. Her heart was hanging by threads somewhere around her stomach at the intimacy and bluntness—Evan had never said anything like that to her in all the years she’d known him. Now she was the one stuttering. Damn him. “I-I…just never…”
“He couldn’t get you hot?”
Oh. My. God.
Was
he
drunk? Was she? What universe was this? And he wouldn’t look away from her. His gaze was inescapable. And burning. Her nerve endings came to life, agitated by the rushing water, the heat of it. Of him, so close to her. Evan Ross made her hotter just by
existing
than Todd Jacobs had in eight years of sex. All put together. It was horrible to admit.
“Evan…”
“God, Kelsey, you’re looking at me like you used to.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. You haven’t answered my questions.”
“I can’t…”
“Can’t what?”
“Talk about this with…you. I know I started it, back in the bar, but…”
His lids fell over his eyes, hooding them. She didn’t know how she was supposedly looking at him, but he was looking at her as if he wanted to eat her. She couldn’t be mistaking it. “He didn’t take care of you,” he murmured, and her breath stilled as his hand smoothed back a strand of hair plastered to her forehead. “I was afraid he wouldn’t.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this back then?”
“I did. You didn’t listen.”
No, she didn’t. He was right. She’d thought he was being a jerk for never wanting her yet questioning the happiness she’d finally attained with someone else. What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t have Evan, yet she couldn’t have anyone else, either? “I needed someone.”
“You didn’t
need
anyone.”
“I didn’t
need
anyone, but I wanted someone. And he was a good guy, for the most part. He shouldn’t have done what he did, but I stopped making him happy.”
He sighed. “How long ago did he stop making
you
happy?”
The question caused her to freeze. He went on. “Todd and I grew up together, lived on the same street, played baseball all through school together… I probably know him better than anyone, better than you, better than even his parents. I’ve known him practically my whole life, and I’d seen him do some shady stuff before. I never thought he was quite good enough for you, but I never thought he would betray either of us like he did. Kelsey, truth be known, I don’t think there’s a guy walking this planet I would trust with you. So you can’t really listen to me, I don’t guess.”
Now she could feel her blood heating, and it had nothing to do with the water or his proximity. She wasn’t going to condemn herself to a life of loneliness and remain a slave to this infatuation just so Evan Ross could know she wasn’t with some guy who was neglecting her needs. It made no sense. It was pissing her off.
She made a move to stand, though she had no idea where she might go. The suite keycard was in his pants—probably the only thing she would ever get out of that particular article of clothing, and that was damn fine with her at the moment—but if she ran back there he would only follow.
“Kelsey.” His hand caught her arm, keeping her seated. “Don’t get upset. We don’t have to talk about any of this, if you don’t want. But maybe it’s not such a good idea to keep it bottled up.”
“Then why don’t you talk about Courtney? You haven’t mentioned her at all.”
Even in the darkness, she saw his expression tighten. “I have nothing to say about her.”
“I think it hurt you more than you let on.”
“Kelsey, you have to let it go. Courtney is what she is and she’s not for me. Good enough? I think you need to face what happened and move on.”
“Oh, I did face it, Evan Ross. I faced it head on. When I faced it, she was on top of my husband. You didn’t have to see it. I did.”
Kelsey sensed his demeanor change—he stiffened as if she’d doused him with ice water. “If I didn’t know better, I would think you
are
blaming me for not being able to hold on to my woman.” His voice had taken on a dangerous edge she’d never heard before.
She licked her lips, the urge to challenge him rising up in nearly undeniable waves. Despite her earlier words to the contrary, the thought had crossed her mind. Not lately, of course…but back when her heart had been lying in bloody shards along with her life, after having to move out of the house she loved so much into a closet-sized apartment—putting most of her stuff into storage because it wouldn’t fit there and spending Christmas in Lisa and Daniel’s empty house rather than facing the pity in her family’s eyes—she had wondered why Evan hadn’t kept Courtney happy enough to keep her hands off Todd. But she’d been thinking irrationally. She’d made some mistakes, but she’d done everything she knew how to make her marriage work. There was no reason to believe Evan hadn’t done the same with his relationship. “No, that isn’t what I’m saying at all. If it were, it would go for me, too, not being able to hold on to him.”
He relaxed a bit, taking his hand from her arm, but the darkness still shadowed his expression. She didn’t like it there. She wanted to wipe it away. From him, from her. God, why did this have to happen to them? Adding another layer of complication over the catastrophe of their friendship?
She might as well add yet another.
“No.”
A vertical line formed between his dark brows. “No what?”
“He really couldn’t get me that hot. For most of our relationship, I overlooked it.”
One corner of his mouth tugged upward, showing a flash of white teeth in the darkness. “Why?”
She shrugged, dropping her gaze from his. She put a hand in front of one of the water jets, letting the pressure tickle her palm. “Why did I overlook it? Because I loved him.”
“Then what was missing?”
It was a good question. “I really don’t know. But there was an emptiness there. Even if he got me off some other way, something was just…lacking. I never felt it as strongly as I did after we had sex.”
She wasn’t looking at him—she couldn’t—so she tried to tune in to him in other ways, gauging the sound of his breathing, the tension in his limbs that were somehow brushing against hers now. He seemed to be holding himself perfectly still. She dared the briefest glance upward to find his gaze riveted on her. It made her suck in a breath. It trapped her.
“Am I completely crazy?” she asked.
“Not at all.”
“I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”
“I’m glad you are. I get to be the one to assure you that you’re not the problem.”
She laughed, though the insinuation had her heart brimming with hope she probably had no right to feel. “How can
you
be so sure?”
“Look at you. Beautiful, sweet. I remember how whenever I touched you your muscles would pull tight, your breath would catch. It still does. I see how you’re looking at me. There’s no reason a woman as sensitive and loving as you should feel
empty
after a man makes love to her. If there’s a problem, it’s not with you, and I get the feeling he tried to tell you it was.”
Kelsey was trying to control her breathing and her pulse. Both threatened to spiral out of control at his words. Jesus Christ, he knew, he always had. And he was moving closer to her. Her eyes closed, purely an involuntary action. Her senses were overloading and one of them had to go. “Not in so many words…but, yes.”
“Kelsey,” he whispered, his voice tinged with sweetness and reassurance…but not pity. She couldn’t stand that, and he knew it. His fingers whispered across her shoulder. True to his words, her entire body pulled taut. “Come here.”
Scorching sex: Definitely on the menu. Hold the love, please…
Romeo for Hire
© 2010 Jane Beckenham
Workaholic Carly Mason is caught between a rock and a hard place. The rock: an invitation for four days of sun, sand and…well you get the picture…with her friends. And her mystery man. The hard place: Mr. Invisible, who lusts after her with delicious abandon, is a fantasy that doesn’t really exist. Then she encounters a motorbike-riding Adonis whose image taunts her during the wee small hours. And when fate drops him in her sights the next day, she grabs the opportunity to offer him a job. Pretend to be her Romeo, just for the duration of her getaway.
Exhausted from months negotiating his multi-million dollar company’s expansion, Marco Valente is more than tempted by Carly’s outrageous proposal. If nothing else, it’ll give him a temporary escape from his high profile life—and his mother’s serial bride attitude.
Once on the island, Carly realizes she’s been tricked. She and Marco are the only ones there. Neither has a mobile phone—and the helicopter is disappearing into the distance. For the next four days and nights, it’s just Carly and her hired Romeo. And a growing connection that definitely wasn’t part of the contract…
Warning: Contains two unbelievably stubborn people undergoing serious cell phone withdrawal, and
seriously scorching sex on the beach. Not responsible for reader’s failure to apply sunblock before reading.
Enjoy the following excerpt for
Romeo for Hire:
Marco’s touch set Carly on fire. It was sublime, everything she thought it would be, and more. As she lay on the bed, she watched him strip, clothes falling where he dropped them. He was a magnificent man and she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Broad shoulders tapered to slim hips, the smattering of jet-black chest hair beckoning her fingers. Carly lowered her gaze, suddenly filled with a raging, hungering need to explore his glorious body and any residual calm she thought she possessed shattered as he eased his long, taut body next to hers.
He reached for her, and her body grazed his, chest to chest, hip to hip, the hard sensual thrust of his arousal a potent reminder that Marco was all male. Slowly his eyes darkened to a blue-black, holding hers in a powerful force. His lips sought her mouth, arousing her with a whisper-soft touch. Carly groaned and her body yielded, arching against his. Marco’s breathing came in short, sharp intakes and the pulse in the base of his throat throbbed. She ran a finger over it, felt it skip an erratic dance. She couldn’t help but smile, enjoying his reaction to her.