High school sweethearts Mia and Luke get a second chance at love in this brand-new contemporary romance from award-winning author Garrett Leigh.
When Mia Amour returns to England to open a florist shop, all she wants to do is put her lousy ex behind her and never look back. But getting a fresh start is easier said than done when her first love, the boy who once broke her teenage heart, strolls back into her life. He’s every bit as sexy as she remembers, and the urge to melt back into his arms almost makes her forget how devastated she was when he took off without a word. Almost.
Left with no choice, Luke Daley did what he had to do, leaving town to earn enough money to save his broken family, though it just about broke him, too. But now he’s back, running his uncle’s business and trying desperately to forget about Mia, the girl he left behind all those years ago. When he runs into her in town, the shock of seeing her again brings an intense rush of emotions: love, guilt…and an overwhelming urge to find out if it’s still as amazing between them as it used to be.
It doesn’t take either of them long to give in to desire and discover the fiery passion they once shared burns hotter than ever. With each new touch, each moment of forgiveness, old hurts heal and the future they’d hoped for ten years ago becomes possible again. But their fragile connection is tested by a threat neither of them saw coming—a threat that could end their second chance before it even gets started.
Any choices available to her will ultimately lead to sacrifices. Fay must figure out what she is ready to sacrifice—her heart, her soul, or even…her life.
I was playing darts with some dude-bro of my dad’s when Gus walked in. An automatic grin spread across my face, but he wasn’t alone. Mia flitted in behind him and went straight to the bar without looking my way.
Gus shrugged and followed her.
It stung. I had plenty of old schoolmates knocking around Rushmere, but Gus got me. His easy company had made the transition to civilian life seem almost normal. Perhaps I’d become too reliant on him. Too demanding, and Mia was right. He was her brother, not mine.
I turned my back on them and focussed on flinging darts at the board. My aim had always been good, and I won several times over, but still the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and no matter how much I drank, my skin tingled with her imagined gaze all over me—imagined, because I reckoned I still knew her well enough to be certain she was stubbornly refusing to face me.
Calling time on my darts marathon, I drained my drink, bid my opponents goodbye, and left the pub without glancing in the direction I’d last seen Gus and Mia. It was a mile walk back to my house, but I was glad of it; at least I would be come the morning.
I fished my phone from my pocket and checked that my alarm was set, even though military life had left me incapable of sleeping more than four hours at a time. An Instagram notification from my brother caught my attention. I swiped it and immediately wished I hadn’t. Wasted and trashing whatever shithole town he lived in now, treating them to the same havoc he’d wrecked my mum’s life with after our dad died. Not that I could judge him right now for being wasted, but I’d go home, fall asleep in my own bed, and wake up in time to keep my life moving forward, even if I had no idea where I wanted it to go. Billy was destructive to himself and everyone around him. I loved him, but sometimes I just couldn’t fucking look at him.
A muttered curse behind me spun me around.
Mia glared at me. “For God’s sake. Is there nowhere in this town I can go without you loitering around the corner?”
The absurdity of it was so unfair I just stared.
She stepped closer, her face pretty much twisted in the kind of half snarl that had made me so fucking hard in the past.
Would make me hard now if I let it.
If I let her.
I swallowed thickly. We’d been in the same room all night, and yet somehow the sight of her in front of me seemed brand new. “I’m going home.”
“Yeah. I figured that when you left the pub ten minutes ago.”
She didn’t move. Neither did I, and I cursed myself for not going straight home. The rare glimpses of her were bad enough, but these face-to-face staredowns clawed at my insides. I had stubborn feet, a steady gaze, and hands that never faltered, but with Mia so close a gust of wind would blow her hair into my face, everything trembled.
I inhaled fresh air, hoping it would clear my mind. It didn’t. “Whatever. I’m going home now.”
“Uh-huh.”
Still I didn’t move. I glanced over Mia’s shoulder at the pub. “Where’s Gus?”
“Talking to some bloke from Grindr, I’d imagine. He left with a spring in his step.”
“He left you there by yourself?”
“No, he just left like an adult, because I’m old enough to make the three-hundred-metre walk on my own.”
Mia started to step around me. In a fit of nonsensical recklessness, I grabbed her arm, then braced myself for the inevitable answering shove.
But she didn’t shove me. She stared, apparently transfixed by my fingers circling her slim wrist, and did nothing at all.
Reeling, I let her go. “Sorry.”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why are you sorry?”
Perhaps she was drunk too, and heat swam in my veins. Getting lit with Mia had always been awesome. Back in the day, I’d lie back and let her take whatever she wanted from me, but that wasn’t the picture dancing through my beer-addled brain right now. I wanted to grip her again, spin her around, and pin her against the wall. She’d never let me dominate her—I’d never wanted to—but fuck if it wasn’t an image I couldn’t shake.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”
It was my turn to move past her, and her turn to stop me in my tracks with a strong grip. “Luke.”
“What?” I spun around to face her again, my shout ringing out in the quiet pub car park, the vehemence in it surprising me as much as Mia. “What?” I tried again, softer this time, but no less desperate. “You don’t want to talk to me, I get it, okay? So leave me the fuck alone, and I’ll do the same for you.”
“I never asked you to leave me alone.”
Our eyes met and held on for the first time since our chip shop reunion two weeks ago. I fell down the rabbit hole of those fucking stormy blues, and as the seconds ticked by, so did my resolve to walk away.
Bonus Material available for all books on Garrett’s Patreon account. Includes short stories from Misfits, Slide, Strays, What Remains, Dream, and much more. Sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/garrettleigh
Garrett Leigh is an award-winning British writer, cover artist, and book designer. Her debut novel, Slide, won Best Bisexual Debut at the 2014 Rainbow Book Awards, and her polyamorous novel, Misfits was a finalist in the 2016 LAMBDA awards, and was again a finalist in 2017 with Rented Heart.
In 2017, she won the EPIC award in contemporary romance with her military novel, Between Ghosts, and the contemporary romance category in the Bisexual Book Awards with her novel What Remains.
When not writing, Garrett can generally be found procrastinating on Twitter, cooking up a storm, or sitting on her behind doing as little as possible, all the while shouting at her menagerie of children and animals and attempting to tame her unruly and wonderful FOX.
Garrett is also an award-winning cover artist, taking the silver medal at the Benjamin Franklin Book Awards in 2016. She designs for various publishing houses and independent authors at blackjazzdesign.com, and co-owns the specialist stock site moonstockphotography.com with photographer Dan Burgess.
I’m not too proud to admit that finding Mr. Right involves swiping right. Right? Welcome to dating in avocado toastland.
Here I am, on my first blind date, ever, courtesy of a smartphone app and my two annoying best friends.
So what is Chris “Fletch” Fletcher doing, walking across the room, looking at his phone like he’s pattern matching a picture to find a real person he’s never met before?
Oh.
Oh, no.
The guy I drop-kicked in seventh grade cannot be my blind date. The guy who earned me this infernal nickname.
That’s right.
Feisty.
Any choices available to her will ultimately lead to sacrifices. Fay must figure out what she is ready to sacrifice—her heart, her soul, or even…her life.
I answer with a kiss. A kiss I initiate. My glasses lift up as our faces meet and I reach up to pull them off, holding the stems in my hand as it lingers at his neck.
If a kiss can be perfect, this one is, crossing time and space to pull emotional tendrils together. I’m kissing him for seventeen years of confusion and craziness, for seventeen years of rejecting a piece of me that was just fine to begin with, for seventeen years of being defined by a fellow tween’s impulsive move.
He’s kissing me back for his own reasons, and whatever they are, they’re mighty fine, as his mouth takes mine and tells it stories that make my heart smile. Hands around my waist, he pulls me close, belly to belly, my coat still on but unzipped, the press of his flat torso and muscled terrain achingly tactile. My hands go up behind his neck, fingers brushing the ends of his short hair as his tongue uses a kind of energy I have never encountered before.
Breathless, we break apart, then come together again, the world spinning slowly without us, our bodies here but the rest of us, on every plane, lost in each other.
The cool air against my lips is the first sign that he’s pulled back. I open my eyes to find him so close, staring deeply, chest rising and falling as the scent of him mingles with the frankincense and rose oil I put on earlier today.
“So?” he asks.
“So… what?”
“Is that a yes?”
“You think that was a no?” One arm still around him, unable to let go, I cover my mouth with my hand, laughing.
“I think I need a clear yes, Fiona.”
On tiptoes, I kiss him lightly, then drop back, body pulsing.
New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author Julia Kent writes romantic comedy with an edge. From billionaires to BBWs to new adult rock stars, Julia finds a sensual, goofy joy in every contemporary romance she writes. Unlike Shannon from Shopping for a Billionaire, she did not meet her husband after dropping her phone in a men’s room toilet (and he isn’t a billionaire). She lives in New England with her husband and three sons in a household where the toilet seat is never, ever, down.
Lucifer is up to his old tricks, causing problems for the Forgotten Brotherhood. This time, he’s had a woman removed from the Norse afterlife and placed her right in the path of Bjorn Knutson. After the slaughter of his wife and family centuries ago, tortured and broken, Bjorn was cursed as the first Norse werewolf. Now he’s been tasked by Odin himself with killing the woman who escaped. Failure is not an option.
Before he can track her, he stumbles across a woman being accosted by three men in the middle of the night. Even though she’s human, he intervenes and is shocked to recognize the face of the one woman he could never kill — his wife Anja.
She’s also the one he’s hunting…and if he doesn’t kill her then both their lives are at stake.
He spun around and raced toward her with the other wolves hot on his heels.
Like some avenging Valkyrie, she stood with blood dripping from her fisted hand. A werewolf crouched on the sidewalk, blood pouring from one of his eyes and pure hatred radiating from the other.
“I’ll kill you, bitch,” the wounded male vowed.
Animal instinct took over. The threat to his mate must be eliminated. Bjorn ran straight at the wolf rising to his feet.
Before he could get there, Asher appeared seemingly out of nowhere, clamped his hands on the man’s shoulder, and shoved down. The werewolf might be bigger and broader, but he was no match for the powerful vampire. His knees slammed onto the pavement.
“What are you doing here?” Bjorn demanded. The man on the ground was his. His wolf howled inside him, furious at being denied his prey. Bloodlust ruled. His vision narrowed, becoming keener. Claws unleashed, fangs flashed.
“Thought you might need some help, and I was right. Aren’t you lucky I’m such a giver?” He inclined his head toward Bjorn’s claws. “You might want to put those things away before you hurt yourself.” When Bjorn didn’t comply, Asher sighed and lowered his voice. “Anja is watching.”
Nothing could have pulled him back from the brink of disaster faster. She stood by the open door of the truck, a knife clenched tight between her fingers. He recognized it as one he kept in the glove box. She found it and was prepared to stand and fight.
Her face was as pale as the first snow of winter. Her lips were pressed into a firm line of determination. She was breathing much too fast. Blood stained her hand, a reminder she’d protected herself from an attack.
Once again, he hadn’t been there, had let her down. Her hand trembled and the stench of fear permeating the air around her. Was she afraid of him now that she knew what he truly was?
“Bjorn?” Her voice quavered. Her uncertainty was apparent, but likely only to him.
It was more effective than a fist to the jaw to snap him back to reality. He willed his wolf into submission. With his hands on his hips, he sucked air into his lungs, driving back the fury that threatened to erupt.
But seeing blood on her, knowing she’d had to defend herself, had brought out the killer inside.
And now she knew.
He was no longer the man she’d married. He was a monster. One he’d created with his own arrogance. He was no different than the men hunting her. Actually, he was worse because he was the cause of it all.
If he was a better man, he’d leave her with Asher for protection while he figured out a way to deal with the threat facing them. His wolf growled, enraged that he’d even consider such a thing. Both man and beast were in agreement. For better or worse, she belonged with him. No one would do more to keep her safe.
The others hunting them approached with caution, their primal instinct finally kicking in, alerting them that there was more to Bjorn and the situation than they understood.
As much as he longed to tear them all limb from limb, fighting wasn’t the best or safest option. He’d have to try to reason with them. Yeah, that was likely to work. They were as stubborn as he was.
Once upon a time N.J. had the idea that she would like to quit her job at the bookstore, sell everything she owned, leave her hometown, and write romance novels in a place where no one knew her. And she did. Two years later, she went back to the bookstore and her hometown and settled in for another seven years.
One day she gave notice at her job on a Friday morning. On Sunday afternoon, she received a tentative acceptance for her first romance novel and life would never be the same.
N.J. Walters is a New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author who has always been a voracious reader, and now she spends her days writing novels of her own. Vampires, werewolves, dragons, time-travelers, seductive handymen, and next-door neighbors with smoldering good looks–all vie for her attention. It’s a tough life, but someone’s got to live it.
