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Review
I've added a new shelf to my list: debut author. Some days I am blessed with authors asking me to read their book babies. Sometimes they are just 'babies' in the world of publishing. These are special because they are often finding their voice. This debut has a very strong voice.
From the blurb, I was in. Huge sucker for second chance romance. Throw in older adults (i.e. read as over 25) and I am ready to read. Quincy and Jamie have been circling each other for years. Each marrying (settling) and having families. But now is their time.
But this is more than just a love story of second chances, this is a story on how to make lives fit when the puzzle pieces are worn or brittle and need tender care. With ex's that - well, that's a story - that create unique tension to the work environment stressors, the reader will find them rooting for the characters to have their happily ever after for their new blending families.
I enjoyed the drama without being rung out. This author has found her voice and will get better with each story she shares. 4.5 out of 5 stars.
Excerpt
“A penny for your thoughts?”
I swear every time he talks to me my heart just about
explodes out of my chest. Jamie’s voice is so different. It’s changed. It’s
deeper and rumbly, and it makes me think and imagine things that I don’t
usually go out of my way to think about let alone imagine. It makes my belly do
acrobatics and my mouth water.
How is that possible? How can his voice alone do that to me?
“Are you still angry with me?” He asks as he sits on the
edge of the hot tub my parents had installed on the first floor balcony.
It’s such a pretty view. The water and the trees that
surround one side of it with all the beautiful grey, white and light blue lake
houses that line it in a cosy and enclosed U. You can just make out the green
rolling hills surrounding us with the large church spire just about breaking
the treeline. It’s just so wonderfully beautiful.
“I’m not upset with you,” I hear myself reply even though I
am a little.
To be honest I think I’m a little more heartbroken that he’s
leaving than I am angry. I was so looking forward to having Jamie around at
Oxford, but he’s going to do an Overseas Exchange to UCLA so he can learn from
some great minds like Doctor Wilson Weller—a teaching and practicing
Neurosurgery god. Or whatever Jamie calls him. Phillip decided to stay close to
home at UCL even though he got an offer to Oxford just like Jamie and Richard
did three years ago. He doesn’t want to leave his new girlfriend, Jamie’s
sister and one of my best friends, behind. I think I’m a little bit jealous of
them, even if am happy for them. Jamie is just coming round to the idea, and I
know that the only reason why he came to find me is probably because he still
doesn’t know how to handle them being so touchy and lovey dovey with one
another.
“You’re not?” He shuffles closer until the side of his thigh
touches mine.
His legs are different too. They have a light smattering of
hair that kind of matches his chest and the trail down from his navel. I can’t
help but run my eyes down his slightly defined torso and down the light trail
of fuzz that leads down to the top of his shorts, all the way down his shorts
to his thighs and knees.
I’m so distracted by all his golden skin that I don’t even
realise how fast my heart is beating until I feel the hammering in my chest
pulsing up my neck to the back of my throat.
Seriously?
My skin heats as he wraps his arm around my bare shoulders.
His thumbs lightly strumming the string holding my bikini top up around my
neck. It’s like the sun shines brighter in that moment and the UV rays become
laser strong and solely focused on me.
“Then why did you throw the Uni hamper we gave you in the bin?”
“Because it’s stupid. I don’t need wine and condoms and…”
“You say that now, but when you get there you’ll be
thankful. You don’t want to be caught short, the dial-a-condom service isn’t as
discreet or anonymous as you think.”
“Guys don’t even look at me like that.” I shrug.
He goes super still next to me. His arm becomes slightly
heavier on my shoulders and his thumb tucks under the halter neck string of my
red bikini top. He clears his throat and I can hear his Adam’s apple bob as he
swallows.
“Quincy, that’s not true. Believe me, my sisters have made
it a point to tell me every chance they get.”
He pulls me closer to him so that I have no other option but
to rest my head on his shoulder.
“Why would they do that?” I mumble into the soft skin of his
shoulder.
It’s shiny and taught. It wraps flawlessly around his lean
muscled arms with the odd sun freckle here and there. He smells briny and
citrusy. A combination of his cologne, sweat and the lake water.
I inhale deeply as his shoulders shake with humour.
Wait, why is he laughing at me?
“Why are you laughing at me?”
He clears his throat again before he sighs, “You have no
idea.”
“No idea of what?”
Our eyes lock as I look up at him. His bright blue eyes are
like ocean blue sparkling glass as the sun lights them up. They have these
silvery grey flecks that bleed to the edges of his irises and form these thin
dark rings that are only marginally lighter than his pupil.
“You’re so pretty…so beautiful…”
It’s like he can read my mind and steal the words on the tip
of my tongue as he reaches for my hair with his hand and wraps it with my long
tresses.
And if my heart wasn’t already hammering into my ribcage
it’s now batter ramming its way out like it’s trying to break free or get
closer to his heart.
I don’t know. All I know is that I can’t actually say
anything. I can’t verbalise with the way that he’s looking at me. The way his
eyes are eating up every inch of my face and the way they flitter down to my
chest and then up to my lips.
His wet and shiny pink tongue darts out and moistens his
lower lip before he draws said lip in with his teeth and bites down so hard
that the blood and colour drain around the trenches his teeth have made.
I can’t help but mimic him with my own tongue and lips and
teeth. He gasps lightly and as my eyes meet his again the pupils are so big
that there is only a perfectly slim ring of silver speckled cerulean
surrounding them. And I can’t breathe. The air feels too hot and dry. And
thick? Why does the air feel so thick? It feels like I’m filling my lungs with
invisible oil. My lungs feel so full that they have to push the air back out in
deep and long unsteady breaths.
The arm around my shoulders falls and he brings his hand up
to cup my cheek. And I know what’s happening because I’ve seen it in films and
I’ve seen other people around us kiss. I can even kind of picture it in my
mind—what we must look like right now. But I still can’t quite comprehend why
he’s coming closer to me. Why his breathing is just as manic as mine. I can’t
understand why he’s about to kiss me with wide eyes and desperate breaths. The
hand in my hair tugs slightly and my face tilts marginally so that our lips
touch.
Oh, God.
His warm lips are so soft and so tender as they brush over
mine and I want to throw my arms around his neck, straddle his lap and just
fucking devour him.
Fuck, I’m like some lust crazed person.
I don’t even know how I manage to stay so still with all
those thoughts and all the electricity zapping through me.
I don’t know what to do next. If I should open my mouth or
lick his lips. Whether I should touch him. I want to touch. I am touching him.
He’s groaning as he licks my lips and as my hands hold on to
his waist so tight that my nails bite into his flesh. But then it’s not just my
nails biting into his skin, it’s his teeth sinking into my lower lip. It’s his
hand cupping my face so hard that I know it should hurt, I know that it’ll
leave a mark, but I don’t care because it feels so fucking good. It’s his
fingers weaving so tightly into my hair that the sting makes me want to pull on
his hair too.
I can’t help the strangled moan that escapes my mouth as he
slips his tongue inside and licks my own.
I’ve never kissed or been kissed like this before and even
though I’m unpractised and new to this, my hands seem to be in the know as they
travel brazenly down his sides to the top of his swimming shorts and as unsure
as I am, I know that I want to slip my hands under the elastic and become
acquainted with every last inch of his sexy skin.
Shit, I don’t think I’ve ever used that word to describe
another person, let alone a boy…a man. Jamie.
He grumbles a shallow growl right at the back of his throat
as my fingertips skim around the navy elastic of his shorts. His tongue licks
deeper and twirls around mine.
I want more. I want to tell him that I want it too, but I
don’t want to stop kissing him back and I have this unsure tightness in chest
that makes me bashful and fearful that he’d reject me anyway.
I want him to touch me in ways that I’ve only heard other
girls boast and brag that they’d been touched. I want his mouth and his tongue
to taste a lot more than just my own.
Before I even realise it we’re both standing in the middle
of the warm, soft rolling water and his hands are squeezing my bum cheeks to
the point that I think they’ll leave bruises. And it makes me feel excited in
ways that I’ve never felt before and it makes me feel like a livewire.
All this and he never stops our kiss. His tongue tastes mine
with a ferocity that feels like years of need all at once. I rove my hands up
his sides and his back, relishing the feel of his muscles pulling and
tightening under his hot skin. By the time my hands round to his chest and
travel up to his hair our bodies are completely flush and my boobs feel even
bigger and heavier than they already are. My nipples feel sore like they’re
being pinched and pulled and there’s this familiar, yet new ache that’s
building between my legs and the bubbling water is only making that ache
stronger whilst making it feel better at the same time.
I’ve never felt the arousal of a man, but I can feel his and
it’s pressing deliciously to my lower belly. I feel the heat creep up my neck
and flush my cheeks and all I want to do is find a way of getting closer. My
fingers tighten their grip in his sun bleached brown hair and I can’t help but
pull him down to me, even as I feel him softly pull away.
No. Please don’t stop.
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