Title: The Man Before You Author: Shalana Battles Genre: Contemporary Romance
Time may not actually heal all wounds, but love just might.
Eloise’s husband was dead and she wished she were too. She quit going to work, refused to answer her phone or her front door, and shut out the people who cared about her. She felt imprisoned by her tainted memories, but couldn’t escape her own home or recliner, because she had to focus on breathing.
Six days after she buried her husband, Jack pounded on Eloise’s door. Jack, a man she hadn’t seen or spoken to in over a decade. Jack, the only man including her husband, who Eloise felt truly knew her.
Jack’s life hadn’t been without its fair share of loss. Breaking contact after Eloise’s marriage had seemed the best thing for them, but regret tortured Jack when Eloise swung open her door and he saw the shell of the woman he once loved.
Eloise pushed Jack away ten years ago and never expected him to come back into her life. She hated herself for wanting Jack to stay, but she couldn’t help but remember the love they once shared and the life that they could’ve had—or the life they could have now.
The longer Jack stayed, the more he realized Eloise blamed herself for not being there when her husband died. Jack wanted a second chance, but Eloise didn’t think she deserved one. Eloise wanted to find herself, but wasn’t sure she could while dealing with grief, Jack’s deployments, PTSD, and a universe that seemed determined to keep them apart.
Jack was at a loss. He told himself he wouldn’t let this happen. He went to check on her, not to fall in love with her. Damn Eloise and everyone’s inabilities to tell her no. He hated that about her. The way she always got what she wanted, but he loved it, too, in a way, because it meant she was happy. Eloise would rip him to shreds. God, he loved her. He loved her from the first day she walked into that theater at eighteen, but now it was different. It wasn’t just her body or sex or lust, it was friendship and trust. It was months of messages, packages, and phone calls. It was knowing that she’d finally let him in, let him within reach.
Jack couldn’t help but wonder what that would be like once he got back. They’d have so much to talk about. He’d go wherever, leave the Army if he had to, be as much in this as she’d allow. He just wasn’t sure how much she’d actually allow. If he gave up everything, changed his whole life for her and she pushed him away, he wasn’t sure he could live through that. He’d lost Eloise once, but he’d never really had her, or at least that’s what he told himself. This would be a relationship, with labels, with attachments. It was something they’d had the entire time, but never said so out loud. Talking about it made it real, and Jack wasn’t sure Eloise was ready for real.
Jack looked at the letter in his hand and reflected on what Eloise had said about the words leaving her soul. He needed that too. He carefully folded the letter, stuck it back in its envelope and then in his chest pocket, and went to find Chase.
“Chase,” Jack yelled and found him at one of the tables with a few other men. “I need some paper.” Jack remembered that Chase kept a couple of notebooks to write his wife. Everyone mostly used social media, but as Jack now knew, there was something about a physical letter.
“Writing Miss Eloise?” Chase stood and Jack followed him.
“She said she loves me.” Jack slammed into Chase’s back. “What the fuck?”
“Sorry.” Chase turned to face him. “You shocked the shit outta me. She said what?”
“You heard me, man.” Jack didn’t want to tell Chase that Eloise had endured more trauma. He didn’t want Chase to bring up the possibility that Eloise only said that because she was hurting and didn’t have anyone else. He didn’t want Chase to suggest that it didn’t mean anything, that she’d take it back, or that once he was home and she had to face her written words, she’d cover them in friendship and destroy him in the process. Jack already felt those things. No, he didn’t need Chase to say them.
Shalana Battles is a YA/Adult writer who tells stories about love…sometimes with witches and ghosts. Her debut novel, SOUL JUMPER is coming out October, 6, 2020. Be the first to hear about upcoming projects and book updates by signing up for her newsletter below!
Title: Fused With Him Author: Kylie Kent Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
Reilly I learnt the hard and painful way that men don’t stay, ever. Even the ones you trust the most can be taken away in the blink of an eye. It’s easier to keep them at a distance. I have my fun with men and then part ways.
I’ve spent the last five years of my life avoiding any and all emotional connections with men. I’ve been successful at it too. I’ve built up walls with so much mortar and rendered them around my heart.
That is until Bray freaking Williamson came barging into my life with his perfectly sculpted tattooed body and entrancing green eyes. He was like being tempted by the most delicious chocolate brownie, the perfect mixture of rough on the outside and soft gooey on the inside. He came at me with his damn bulldozer, effectively destroying my carefully constructed walls, brick by brick, leaving a pile of rubble behind
Do I follow what my fragile heart wants and give into temptation? Give him the key to my heart knowing how easily he could crush it? Or should I follow my brain and run far, far away from this god of a man?
Bray I’m a fighter not a lover. I’m ruthless in the cage, an undefeated champion.
I always fight for what I want, and I always win no matter the odds. What I want comes in the form of a beautiful feisty, independent redhead.
She won’t agree to be mine, yet, but I’m happy to agree to disagree with her on that, because she is mine. She wants to run, that’s fine I’ll run faster. She wants to hide, I’ll hunt her and I won’t stop until I find her. Everyone in Sydney is about to learn that the fusion of Bray and Reilly is happening.
Run, hide and deny all you like, I’m a fighter and this is one fight I won’t give up on. Brielly is here to stay.
“Bray, you can wake up now. Everyone’s gone home for the night so, you know, if you wanted to get laid, now’s your chance, babe.”
I grab hold of his hand. I could have sworn it twitched just then. Sometimes I’m convinced that I want it that bad that I’m imagining it.
“You can’t leave me here, Bray. I still want you. I need you. I need you to wake up. You can’t leave me. My dad left. Dylan left. I will not let you leave me. You know I never told you this, but when Dylan died, I thought I would never feel a pain so deep. I was wrong, because this, this right here, fucking hurts. It hurts that you’re not keeping up to your end of the bargain and fighting for us. You’re meant to be the undefeated fighter, Bray. Well, guess what, this, whatever this is, it’s winning and you’re losing. I’m losing.”
I swipe the traitorous tears from my cheeks, take big breaths, and count to five before continuing.
“You want to know what I talk to Dylan about on those Sundays I visit him? Lately it’s been about you. I tell him about everything that’s been happening in my life. I tell him about Holly and my mum and dad. The first time you took me there, I asked him to give me a sign that you were the one I should take a chance on. That you were the one I should open my heart to. That same day, during the visit with my dad, he told me to give you a chance, to give happiness a chance. My dad had never led me wrong before, so I took a leap of faith.”
Great, now my eyes are going to be red and blotchy again. I roll over and grab a tissue off the table before settling back in.
“I haven’t been to see him, either of them, since you’ve been asleep. I can’t bring myself to leave here, to leave you. If I could talk to Dylan right now, I’d tell him that my heart is shattered… that as much as I want to believe you’re going to wake up and come back to me, I’m so freaking scared that you’re not. Damn it, Bray, come back to me, please. I can’t do this anymore. I’m tired; it’s my turn to sleep. You need to wake up. I’m drowning right now and you don’t even know. If you don’t wake up, Bray, if you don’t come back to me, then I’m likely to do something selfish and stupid and follow you. Because living like this, living without you, is not an option for me. I can’t do it. I’m not that strong.”
Kylie made the leap from kindergarten teacher to romance author, living out her dream to deliver sexy, always and forever romances. She loves a happily ever after story with tons of built in steam.
She currently resides in Sydney, Australia and when she is not dreaming up the latest romance she can be found spending time with her three children and her husband of twenty years, her very own real life instant-love.
Do you want to know what it means to live like me? It means being forced not to look at him, not to touch him, not to be left alone in the same room as him. Not to seek him out. Not to want him. Not to love him. Do you know how it feels to spend your entire life pretending to be someone else? Do you know what it’s like to love someone who doesn’t want to be loved? I’ll tell you how it feels. It feels as if you’re living in constant torment: you know which path you should follow, but you also know that, if you follow that path, you can never turn back. And I can’t do that to him. Every day I come back, because I know that he’s waiting for me. Every day I promise him that he will never have to live without me.
Andy
Do you know what it means to live like me? It means being forced not to touch him, not to kiss him, not to be able to leave the room while he’s still in it. Not to breathe him in, not to lust after him. Not to love him. Do you know how it feels to spend your entire life pretending to be someone else? Do you know what it’s like to love the only person you’re not allowed to love? I’ll tell you how it works. You can’t seem to feel anything other than him; when you walk away, you know that you’re turning your back on the only thing that’s good in your life. Yet you still walk away. Every day I leave, knowing that he will be standing there, watching. Every day I ask him to promise me that I will never have to live without him.
He turns towards me, and I immediately regret getting so close to him, in the darkness, the roads around us almost deserted. No one can see us. I regret even coming here tonight, having watched him for three hours with my stomach in flames. I can’t believe I thought I could do this.
I can’t believe I told him that we couldn’t do this.
Not that it’s easy every day, seeing him in a crowd, always surrounded by friends, or with his family. Paddling around in a kayak, or playing a gig, talking, laughing.
Pretending.
He moves quickly, grabbing my face between his hands and bringing it closer to his, until our foreheads are touching. I can’t feel anything, can’t think, can’t speak; his hands are touching me, holding me against him. His large, warm hands are against my skin. I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed them until I felt their heat again. I didn’t think that wanting them on me, all over me, would be so painful.
And then, Andy kisses me, stripping me of my anger and making me forget why it was even there in the first place.
I grab hold of his wrists as he pushes against my mouth, breathing into me, reminding me of the reason I could never want anyone else.
Andy’s kisses aren’t easy to handle: they’re strong and powerful, fuelled by impatience and uncontrollable desire.
Andy’s kisses are laced with bitterness and silence. They taste of lost nights and bad timing.
Andy’s kisses taste of lies, of shortness of breath. They taste of mistakes and decisions we never made.
Andy’s kisses are pain and regret; they’re anxiety and frustration; they’re darkness and desperation.
I hate Andy’s kisses. I hate them so much that I can’t help but love them.
