Need Me Page 20

  Ben was pretty sure he would never breathe again, but he forced oxygen into his lungs. “If I need you?” He gave her a hard kiss. “Honey, I don’t need anything else.”

  She opened her mouth for his kiss, tongues sliding together, drawing groans from both of them. “Later, you’re going to take me home and show me where you live. Where you sleep.” Her lips edged into a smile. “But first, we’ve got a baseball game to win.”

  As he carried her down the sidewalk toward the field, they were greeted by loud, noisy cheers from their friends. Ben could barely hear it over the pounding of his heart.

  Can’t get enough of the Broke and Beautiful girls?

  Don’t miss Abby’s story . . .

  MAKE ME

  The next new adult novel from

  New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

  TESSA BAILEY

  Coming August 11 from Avon Impulse!

  About the Author

  New York Times and USA Today bestselling author TESSA BAILEY lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and young daughter. When she isn’t writing or reading romance, Tessa enjoys a good argument and thirty-minute recipes.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  By Tessa Bailey

  Broke and Beautiful

  Chase Me

  Need Me

  Line of Duty

  Protecting What’s Theirs

  Staking His Claim

  Asking for Trouble

  Officer Off Limits

  His Risk to Take

  Protecting What’s His

  Unfixable (New Adult)

  Give in to your impulses . . .

  Read on for a sneak peek at four brand-new

  e-book original tales of romance from HarperCollins.

  Available now wherever e-books are sold.

  CHANGING EVERYTHING

  A FORGIVING LIES NOVELLA

  By Molly McAdams

  CHASE ME

  A BROKE AND BEAUTIFUL NOVEL

  By Tessa Bailey

  YOURS TO HOLD

  RIBBON RIDGE BOOK TWO

  By Darcy Burke

  THE ELUSIVE LORD EVERHART

  THE RAKES OF FALLOW HALL SERIES

  By Vivienne Lorret

  An Excerpt from

  CHANGING EVERYTHING

  A Forgiving Lies Novella

  by Molly McAdams

  Paisley Morro has been in love with Eli Jenkins since they were thirteen years old. But after twelve years of being only his best friend and wingman, the heartache that comes from watching him with countless other women becomes too much, and Paisley decides it’s time to lay all her feelings on the table.

  Paisley

  I fidgeted with my coffee cup as I tried to find the courage to say what I’d held back for so long. Twelve years. Twelve years of waiting, hoping, and aching were about to come to an end. With a deep breath in, I looked up into the blue eyes of my best friend, Eli, and tensed my body as I began.

  “This guy I met, Brett, he’s—well, he’s different. Like, he’s a game changer for me. I look at him, and I have no doubt of that. I have no doubt that I could spend the rest of my life with him.” I laughed uneasily and shrugged. “And I know that sounds crazy after only a few weeks, but, honestly, I knew it the first day I met him. I don’t know how to explain it. It wasn’t like the world stopped turning or anything, there was just a feeling I had.” Swallowing past the tightness in my throat, I glanced away for a moment as I strained to hold on to the courage I’d been building up all week. “But there’s this other guy, and I swear this guy owns my soul.”

  Eli crossed his arms and his eyebrows rose, but I didn’t allow myself to decipher what his expression could mean at that moment. If I tried to understand him—like I always did—then I would quickly talk myself out of saying the words I’d been thinking for far too long.

  “Eli,” I whispered so low the word was almost lost in the chatter from the other people in the coffee shop. “I have been in love with you since I was thirteen years old,” I confessed, and held my breath as I waited for any kind of response from him.

  Nothing about him changed for a few seconds until suddenly his face lost all emotion. But it was there in his eyes, like it always was: denial, confusion, shock.

  I wanted to run, but I forced myself to blurt out the rest. “I’ve kept quiet for twelve years, and I would’ve continued to if I hadn’t met Brett. These last few weeks have been casual, but I know he wants it to be more. But if there is a chance of an us, then there would be absolutely no thoughts of anything else with him.”

  Eli just continued to stare at me like I’d blown his mind, and my body began shaking as I silently begged him to say something—anything.

  After twelve years of being his best friend, of being used by him as a shield from other women, of being tortured by his pretending touches and kisses . . . I was slowly giving up on us. I couldn’t handle the heartache anymore. I couldn’t stand being unknowingly rejected again and again. I couldn’t continue being his favorite person in the world for an entirely different reason than he was mine. I couldn’t keep waiting around for Eli Jenkins.

  This was it for me.

  “Eli, I need to know.” I exhaled softly and tried to steady my shaking as I asked, “Is there any possibility of there being an us?”

  An Excerpt from

  CHASE ME

  A Broke and Beautiful Novel

  by Tessa Bailey

  Bestselling author Tessa Bailey launches the Broke and Beautiful trilogy, a fun and sexy New Adult series set in New York City!

  Roxy Cumberland’s footsteps echoed off the smooth, cream-colored walls of the hallway, high heels clicking along the polished marble. When she caught her reflection in the pristine window overlooking Stanton Street, she winced. This pink bunny costume wasn’t doing shit for her skin tone. A withering sigh escaped her as she tugged the plastic mask back into place.

  Singing telegrams still existed. Who knew? She’d actually laughed upon seeing the tiny advertisement in the Village Voice’s Help Wanted section, but curiosity had led her to dial the number. So here she was, one day later, preparing to sing in front of a perfect stranger for a cut of sixty bucks.

  Sixty bucks might not sound like much, but when your roommate has just booted you onto your ass for failure to come through on rent—again—leaving you no place to live, and your checking account is gasping for oxygen, pink bunnies do what pink bunnies must. At least her round, fluffy tail would cushion her fall when her ass hit the sidewalk.

  See? She’d already found a silver lining.

  Through the eyeholes of the bunny mask, Roxy glanced down at the piece of paper in her hand. Apartment 4D. Based on the song she’d memorized on the way here and the swank interior of the building, she knew the type who would answer the door. Some too-rich, middle-aged douchebag who was so bored with his life that he needed to be entertained with novelties like singing bunny rabbits.

  Roxy’s gaze tracked down lower on the note in her hand, and she felt an uncomfortable kick of unease in her belly. She’d met her new boss at a tiny office in Alphabet City, surprised to find a dude only slightly older than herself running the operation. Always suspicious, she’d asked him how he kept the place afloat. There couldn’t be that high a demand for singing telegrams, right? He’d laughed, explaining that singing bunnies only accounted for a tenth of their income. The rest came in the form of strip-o-grams. She’d done her best to appear flattered when he’d told her she’d be perfect for it.

  She ran a thumb over the rates young-dude-boss had jotted down on the slip of paper. Two hundred dollars for each ten-minute performance. God, the security she would feel with that kind of money. And yet, something told her that once she took that step, once she started taking off her clothes, she would never stop. It would become a necessity instead of a temporary patch-up of her shitstorm cloud.

  Think about it later. When you’re not dressed like the fucking T
rix Rabbit. Roxy took a deep, fortifying breath. She wrapped her steady fingers around the brass door knocker and rapped it against the wood twice. A frown marred her forehead when she heard a miserable groan come from inside the apartment. It sounded like a young groan. Maybe the douchebag had a son? Oh, cool. She definitely wanted to do this in front of someone in her age group. Perfect.

  Her sarcastic thought bubble burst over her head when the door swung open, revealing a guy. A hot-as-hell guy. A naked-except-for-unbuttoned-jeans guy. Being the shameless hussy she was, her gaze immediately dipped to his happy trail, although, on this guy, it really should have been called a rapture path. It started just beneath his belly button, which sat at the bottom of beautifully defined ab muscles. But they weren’t the kind of abs honed from hours in the gym. No, they were natural, I-do-sit-ups-when-I-damn-well-feel-like-it abs. Approachable abs. The kind you could either lick or snuggle up against, depending on your mood.

  Roxy lassoed her rapidly dwindling focus and yanked it higher until she met his eyes. Big mistake. The abs were child’s play compared to the face. Stubbled jaw. Bed head. Big, Hershey-colored eyes outlined by dark, black lashes. His fists were planted on either side of the door frame, giving her a front-row seat to watch his chest and arms flex. A lesser woman would have applauded. As it was, Roxy was painfully aware of her bunny-costumed status, and even that came in second place to the fact that Approachable Abs was so stinking rich that he could afford to be nursing a hangover at eleven in the morning. On a Thursday.

  He dragged a hand through his unkempt black hair. “Am I still drunk, or are you dressed like a rabbit?”

  An Excerpt from

  YOURS TO HOLD

  Ribbon Ridge Book Two

  by Darcy Burke

  In the second installment of Darcy Burke’s contemporary small-town saga, the black sheep of the Archer family is finally home, and he’s not looking for love . . . but he’s about to find it in the last place he ever expected.

  Kyle Archer pulled into the large dirt lot that served as the parking area of The Alex. He still smiled when he thought of Sara coming up with the idea to name their brother’s dying wish after him. It only made sense.

  The hundred-plus-years-old monastery rose in front of him, its spire stretching two hundred feet into the vivid blue summer sky. The sounds of construction came from the west end of the property, down a dirt lane to what had once been a small house occupied by the head monk or whoever had been in charge at the monastery before it had been abandoned twenty-odd years ago. It was phase one of the project Alex had conceived—renovating the property into a premier hotel and event space under the Archer name, which included nine brewpubs throughout the northern valley and into Portland.

  Alex had purchased the property using the trust fund left to each of them by their grandfather, then set up a trust for each sibling to inherit an equal share of the project. He’d planned for everyone to participate in the renovation, assigning key roles to all his siblings. And he’d made his attorney, Aubrey Tallinger, the trustee.

  She’d endured copious amounts of anger and blame immediately following Alex’s suicide because to all of them it had seemed unlikely that she’d established the trust without knowing what Alex had planned. But she insisted she hadn’t known, that Alex had told her he was simply preparing in the event that he died young, something he’d convinced her was likely with his chronic lung disease.

  However, things hadn’t quite worked out the way Alex had envisioned. Not everyone had been eager to return to Ribbon Ridge, least of all Kyle. He shook the discomfort away. He’d fucked up. A lot. And he was trying to fix it. He owed it to Alex.

  While Alex had been tethered at home with his oxygen tank and debilitating illness, the rest of them had gone off and pursued their dreams. Well, all but Hayden. As the youngest, he’d sort of gotten stuck staying in Ribbon Ridge and working for the family company. His participation in the project should’ve been a given, but then his dream had finally knocked down his door, and he was currently in France for a year-long internship at a winery.

  Kyle stepped out of Hayden’s black Honda Pilot. He’d completely taken over his brother’s life while Hayden was off making wine—his car, his job, his house. Too bad Kyle couldn’t also borrow the respect and appreciation Hayden received.

  He slammed the car door. It wasn’t going to be that easy, and he didn’t deserve it to be. He should have been driving his own goddamned car, but he’d had to sell it before leaving Florida so the same shit that had driven him from Ribbon Ridge wouldn’t also drive him from Miami.

  But hadn’t it? No. Things hadn’t gotten as bad as they had four years ago. No one had bailed his ass out this time. He’d learned. He wasn’t the same man.

  An Excerpt from

  THE ELUSIVE LORD EVERHART

  The Rakes of Fallow Hall Series

  by Vivienne Lorret

  Vivienne Lorret, the USA Today bestselling author of Winning Miss Wakefield, returns with a new series featuring the three roguish bachelors of Fallow Hall. Gabriel Ludlow, Viscount Everhart, was a fool to deny the depth of his feelings for Calliope Croft, but the threat that kept him from her five years ago remains. Now he must choose between two paths: break her heart all over again or finally succumb to loving her . . . at the risk of losing everything.

  “Surely you’ve heard of the Chinese medicinal massage,” Gabriel said, attempting to reassure her. Yet the low hoarseness of his voice likely sounded hungry instead. Slowly, he slid his thumbs along the outer edges of the vertebrae at the base of her neck.

  “I don’t believe I have,” she said, relaxing marginally, her voice thin and wispy like the fine downy hairs above her nape teasing the tops of his thumbs.

  “Taoist priests have used this method for centuries.” His own voice came out low and insubstantial, as if he were breathing his final breath. As it was, his heart had all but given up trying to lure the blood away from his pulsing erection. This was a terrible idea.

  He was immensely glad he’d thought of it.

  His fingertips skirted the edge of her clavicle. Hands curled over her slender shoulders, he rolled his thumbs over her again.

  Calliope emitted the faintest oh. It was barely a breath, but the sound deafened him with a rush of tumid desire. As if she sensed the change in him, she tensed again. “Are you trying to seduce me, Everhart?”

  “If you have to ask,” he said, attempting to add levity with a chuckle, “then the answer is most likely no.” Yet even he knew differently. The most likely was said only as a way of not lying to himself. He wanted to seduce her, slowly and for hours on end.

  For five years he’d wanted to feel her flesh beneath his hands. For a moment this evening, he’d even thought this one touch would be enough to sate him. He hated being wrong.

  Those pearl buttons called to him. He feathered strokes outward along the upper edges of her shoulder blades, earning another breathy sound. Only this time, she did not tense beneath the heat of his hands.

  “I’ve read—heard stories,” she corrected, “where the young woman is not certain of seduction until it is too late.”

  Gabriel caught her quick slip and was not surprised. Her penchant for reading was another aspect of her character that drew him to her. Earlier today, in fact, he’d spotted her disappearing through the library doors.

  Unable to control the impulse, he’d found a servant’s door off a narrow hall and surreptitiously watched her from behind a screen in the corner. Browsing the shelves, she’d searched through dozens of books. Yet her method fascinated him. She only viewed the last pages of each book. When she found one she liked, she clutched it to her breast and released a sigh filled with the type of longing he knew too well. He had little doubt that she sought the certainty of a happy ending. All in all, it had taken her over an hour to find three books that met her standards. Yet, instead of being bored, he’d been enthralled by every minute.

  And now, here they were . . .

  Un
der the spell of his massage, her head fell forward as she arched ever-so-slightly into his hands. Rampant desire coursed through him. Even so, he was in no hurry to end this delicious torment.

  “I cannot imagine that a woman would not suspect an attempt at seduction in some manner.” He leaned forward to inhale the fragrance of her hair, the barest scents of rosewater and mint rising up to greet him. “Aren’t all young ladies brought up with the voice of reason clamoring about in their heads?”

  His gaze followed the motions of his fingers, gliding over her silken warmth, pressing against the supple flesh that pinkened under his tender ministrations. He’d always wondered . . . and now he knew she felt as soft, if not softer, than any one of his dreams.

  “Curiosity has a voice as well,” she said, her voice faint with pleasure. “And are we not all creatures put upon this earth to learn, just as you have learned this exquisite medicine?”

  And sometimes curiosity could not be tamed.

  It was no use. Did he truly imagine he could resist her? “Well said, Miss Croft.”

  Unable to hold back a moment longer, Gabriel gave in to temptation, lowered his head, and pressed his lips to her nape.

  Copyright