“Where is he?” she demands of Rhyson without any preamble.
“Uh, hey, Tessa.” Rhyson glances up the driveway and widens his eyes meaningfully at his best friend.
Rhyson may be looking at Grip, but Grip is looking at me, and if I didn’t know better, I would say he’s panicking. Before I have time to process what’s happening, how my world is about to be ripped into tiny pieces, Tessa begins her tirade.
“How you gonna ignore my calls and text messages?” Yelling, she fits her hands to the swell of her hips. “For two damn weeks, Grip?”
“I didn’t.” Grip looks at me with troubled eyes over her shoulder and then back to her face. “We just kept missing each other. What’s going on? What’s this about?”
“This is about me trying to tell you something I wanted to talk about in person, not over some voice mail.” Her strident voice pitches across the yard at him.
“Okay, damn, Tessa,” Grips says, irritation evident on his face. “I’m going with Rhyson to take his sister to the airport. Can we talk later? When I get back?”
“Who is she?” I whisper to Rhyson.
“That’s Tessa.” Rhyson stretches his eyebrows until they disappear under his unruly hair. “Grip’s girlfriend.”
“His girl—” I choke on the rest of the word as a tight hand vices my throat. That can’t be. Last night’s water-dappled promises and sea salt kisses. The perfect kiss under the stars at the top of the world. All lies? We shared deep, dark lonely things. We shared everything, and it was the most honest connection I’ve ever had with anyone. And under it all was the lie that he could be mine? That maybe I could be his? That he didn’t belong to someone else? He would have said.
“No, we can’t talk when you get back,” Tessa snaps. “We need to talk now. I’m sick of chasing your ass down. You are taking responsibility for this.”
“Responsibility?” Grip shakes his head and shrugs “For what?”
“For this baby, that’s for what,” she retorts with harsh smugness.
His wide eyes snap to my face, and any doubt that she might be the one lying, that somehow this is all a prank, a hidden camera stunt, dissolve. That guard I forgot about and dropped all week falls back into place over my heart just in time.
We don’t cry in front of strangers.
My mother’s admonition, the voice of reason in my head that I ignored the last few days, slips iron discs between my vertebrae.
“Rhyson, can we go?” I ask. “I can’t miss my flight home.”
“Bristol!” Grip yells over the screeching banshee with wildly gesticulating arms in front of him. “Wait. I can—”
I open the door to Rhyson’s car and get in, not wanting to hear the dollar-late, day-short explanations disguising his lies.
Rhyson gets in, glancing over his shoulder at the spectacle on the yard, the beautiful woman screaming at Grip’s rigid face and ticking jaw. He looks at me through the car window, his eyes begging me for something I won’t give.
Second chances.
“Drive, Rhyson.” My voice is rock and resolve. “Let your friend sort his shit out. I’m going home.”
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The full-length novel that tells the rest of Grip & Bristol’s story!
KENNEDY LOVES TO write about herself in third person. She loves Diet Coke . . . though, she's always trying to quit. She adores her husband, who she'll never quit. She loves her son, who is the most special boy on the planet. And she's devoted to supporting and serving families living with Autism.
And she writes love stories!
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THE BENNETT SERIES
When You Are Mine (Bennett 1)
Loving You Always (Bennett 2)
Be Mine Forever (Bennett 3)
Until I’m Yours (Bennett 4)
THE SOUL SERIES
My Soul to Keep (Soul 1)
Down to My Soul (Soul 2)
Refrain (Soul 3)
Soul Series Audiobook
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Read on for an exciting excerpt
from LOST IN BETWEEN by USA Today Bestselling Author K.L. Kreig
AVAILABLE NOW!!
Click here for all of K.L. Kreig’s titles
As long as Noah and I have known one another and as close as we are, he’s far from an open book. He holds some of life’s secrets so close to the vest, he’ll likely take them to his grave. So how he knows Ms. Randi Deveraux of La Dolce Vita is still a mystery he won’t divulge.
When he told me his plan and showed me the picture of the woman who’d play my love interest for the next several months, I was immediately drawn to her, but it took me a few seconds to realize why.
It was her.
My spicy little Goldilocks.
The one I haven’t heard from.
The one I haven’t been able to get out of my fucking head for the past eight days.
The one my cock involuntarily gets hard for in the dark of night.
The glossy-colored print I stared at for long minutes was a complete contradiction to the fiery woman I’d met.
On paper her exterior was flawless. Not one sculpted eyebrow out of place. Striking blue eyes rimmed with the right amount of shadow, liner, and mascara that made them alluring but not slutty. Pouty lips painted a deep shade of maroon, lined impeccably so the stain didn’t seep, then glossed enough in the middle to draw your attention to their fullness. Hair curled into loose ribbons that fell over her shoulders and down her slim back.
But while the outside was practiced perfection, the inside screamed dead. Not damaged, not broken or bruised, but lifeless. This beautiful creature went through the motions. She moved through life without living. I don’t know how I saw it, or why, but I know it wasn’t a product of my overactive imagination. This woman’s pain was rooted deep but she put on an award-winning façade that told the outside world otherwise.
I saw the same thing when I stared into her fierce eyes under the cover of my sunglasses days ago, but I also saw something else. Smoking embers buried under piles of ash. God help me, but for some reason I want to be the man who stokes those smoldering cinders until they spark into a burning inferno, bringing her roaring back to life.
Standing before her now, I’ve no doubt I’m the igniter, the single match needed to wake her from the living dead.
“Summer, is it?” I close the door behind me and move to the couch, gesturing for her to sit.
She doesn’t. She just blinks rapidly like she’s seeing a ghost. That makes me smile for some reason.
I know the name she’s using is fake. I hate it. Not the name, per se, but the fact that I don’t know her real one. I told Ms. Deveraux my circumstances and my concern around using a fake name. The press will eventually find out and it’s best if we’re up front in the beginning rather than if they dig, thinking we’re hiding something. That would be disastrous. She agreed but told me the decision was up to Summer. If she agreed to my terms, I could plead my case. If not, then her anonymity was still protected.
“You don’t look like a Summer,” I say casually as I take a seat and cross my legs.
Although in a way she does. She’s hot and sultry and I’ve no doubt she’s nice and moist in the place I’m dying to drive my cock. Jesus, she is absolutely mouthwatering. And she has the sexiest fucking voice I have ever heard. It’s no wonder I can’t stop thinking about her.
She crosses her arms and cocks a hip in irritation. “Is that so? What do I look like then?”
Mine.
Why that disturbing word pops into my head, I haven’t a clue. She is yours temporarily, though. If she agrees.
“How is your neck by the way?”
That seems to catch her off guard because her cocky bravado falters. “Uh . . . fine. It’s fine.” She unconsciously reaches up to palm it. My fingers itch, wishing they were on her skin instead. I still remember the electricity that ran down my arm when I touched her before. It set my cock on fire and it hasn’t stopped burning since. “You’re lucky, you know. I could be wearing a neck brace right now and be lawyered up.”