Lily MacIntyre's life is offtrack, and she knows exactly how to right it: shed her America's sweetheart image in a big way. Getting down and dirty in a limo with rocker Nate Lansford seems like the perfect solution. Plus, she's had a mad crush on him practically since birth. The only problem? Nate is her brother's best friend…and he doesn't see her as anything other than a surrogate little sister.
“Don’t.” Her words were a whisper, but still loud in the back of the limo.
“Don’t, what?”
Finally she looked at him, her deep brown eyes molten in the darkness. “Don’t be my brother’s best friend tonight. Don’t be my cheerleader. Just…” Her hand trembled against his on the cool leather seat. “I’m not America’s favorite sixteen-year-old any longer. I don’t need to pretend I’m still sixteen, and the magazines are already burning me at Trey’s sacrificial altar, so why not send that old image up in flames all the way?”
She leaned across the seat, brushed her sweet lips across his cheek, and Nate nearly lost it. He was holding on by a thread. This was Lily.
The same girl he’d grown up with. The Lily who’d brought him home after school because she noticed he hadn’t eaten lunch for three days. The Lily who cheered for him at the high school talent show. The Lily who couldn’t really want him, because if she did…he would ruin her.
Nate groaned when her lips brushed against his. A bit of her hair had come loose from the sleek updo and brushed against his neck, fanning that trickle of flame even hotter.
Her hand traced the line of his jaw, and Nate’s resistance burned to the ground. He pushed her back into the corner and dug his hands into her hair. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
She panted. “I know exactly what I want, Nate Lansford, and what I want is you.”
Nate lowered his lips to hers, tasting the sweetness of her lips for the first time. Her tongue tangled with his, pushing him further, asking him for more. And Nate gave it.
When Lily arched her back, Nate reached for her breast, feeling her nipple pucker beneath the fine silk of her dress. She moaned, a tiny sound, but it was enough to pull him back into the present.
What was he doing? This was Lily. The girl who made him want to be more than the kid from the wrong side of Malibu’s tracks. His friend.
He couldn’t mess that up.
Nate pushed away from her, fisting his hands in his hair as he tried to put a few more inches between them. The back of the limo was too tight. He was too close to Lily. He needed air. Space.
Distance.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was rough. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
Matchmaker Nina Wright might work in LA but she keeps Hollywood types off her client list. She doesn't need their drama and she doesn't like the way so many of them exchange lovers like last year's accessories. But she needs one happy, high-profile client to get her business off the tabloid pages and back on solid ground.
Hollywood hottie Chase MacIntyre wants the gossip surrounding his lastest fling to stop and he knows exactly how to do it: show up on his next red carpet with a new woman and once he meets Nina Wright he knows she is the woman to stop the presses.
The problem? Once they're under cover, this business-only agreement is definitely too hot to handle…
She sat back, crossing her arms over her chest. "You can't be serious."
His posture was the exact opposite of hers. Everything about him was opposite. Where she wore a pretty Stella McCartney blouse and prim pencil skirt, he wore ripped jeans and a tight black tee. Her strappy Manolos hadn't a single scratch. His Dr. Martens had to be from 1999 and looked like they'd cleaned up after one too many groupies in the green room.
You're in control here, Nina. You're the professional. He's the client. Shoo him away like the ass he really is.
Oh, but what a fine ass he has, the part of her brain she was definitely not listening to today said.
"I assure you I'm serious. I need a non-clingy, well-proportioned date for a gala fundraiser in two days and I'd prefer she have no illusions as to what this is about." He sat forward in his chair and Nina was sure she saw his abs ripple. She caught her breath and then forced her gaze from the spectacle and back to those blue-blue eyes. And promptly forgot to breathe again. "The money raised will keep music programs in at least fifteen local schools. To keep the cash coming I need the headlines to be about the event, not my social life."
"Then you should go alone."
"Going alone will keep the gossip rags talking. What I need is a pretty date for a one- night-only performance."
Nina blew out the breath she'd been holding. She didn't believe for a second this was a mercy date situation. More like a mercy hookup. She didn't do hookups. Her business set up marriage minded people who were matched based on an algorithm her aunt developed ten years before. An algorithm that had made the company a go-to in Los Angeles.
She shot a glance out the window at the press corps on the sidewalk below her window.
Well, until this morning, anyway.
"I think you've got my firm confused with…something else entirely, but for future reference—" she typed a few words into the search engine on her computer and flipped the screen to face him "—I am a matchmaker. A noun, meaning one who arranges relationships or marriages." She opened the next tab and gestured to the computer screen. "I am not a madam, although madams are also nouns. There is a very large, very cavernous area between matchmaking and houses of prostitution."
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| Release Date 10/12/15 |
Katrina Phillips is itchy. The job that has always challenged her seems stifling, her friends are all pairing off and she's been without male companionship for seven long months.
Josh Hanna is paying off a debt: fly to LA, play backup for the house band during the season finale of Star Power and then back to his boring - and sober - life in San Francisco.
But five years hasn't been long enough to douse the flames between them, and its hard to remember why things went so badly in the first place...
“Hello, Josh,” she said, echoing his tone from a few minutes before.
He blinked and then sat up straight. “What the hell are you doing in my car, Kat?” His smooth baritone slid over her senses and, just like that, she was pulling herself back from the abyss she’d been in five years before. This was just a one-night stand. Nothing to get excited about.
Okay, one thing to get excited about. He knew all her secret places. She knew how to push him to the edge. And in the past few years, they’d probably both learned a few new things.
“What do you think I’m doing here?” she countered, crossing her legs and spreading her arms over the back of the seat. “You practically invited me.”
The car began moving. Well, at least he hadn’t kicked her out of the limo.
“I said hello.”
“You told me not to leave on your account.”
“And then you did.”
“I thought you might want a little more privacy.” She slid across the side bench to Josh’s seat, bent her leg to sit sideways and rested her head against her elbow. “This is pretty private, I’d say.”
He watched her for a long moment. “You’re here for sex.”
Kat nodded. “I don’t usually go for casual, but since we have a history, this isn’t your typical one-night stand.”
“This isn’t what I expected when I came down here tonight.”
“This isn’t what I expected when I showed up for work tonight.” She reached out to trace her finger along his jaw. That contact zinged along her nerve endings straight to the butterflies flapping around in her belly, electrifying their beat.
“I’m headed straight to the airport.” He leaned toward her.
“LA traffic’s a bitch no matter what time of day it is.”
“You’re not the girl I remember.” This time he reached for her, his hand drawing a path of fire down her arm. “The girl I remember—”
She cut him off before he could get started on the girl she used to be. The girl who was of so little importance he felt no qualms about walking away from without a single word. Well, she’d grown up since then. Had other relationships. Sure, none of them as serious or deep as what she thought she’d had with him.
But then, she’d never really had him, had she?
Once upon a time, Kristina Knight spent her days running from car crash to fire to meetings with local police--no, she wasn't a troublemaker, she was a journalist. Her career took her all over the United States, writing about everything from a serial killer's capture to the National Finals Rodeo. Along the way she found her very own Knight in Shining Cowboy Boots and an abiding love for romance novels. And just like the characters from her favorite books, she's living her own happily ever after.
Kristina writes sassy contemporary romance novels; her books have appeared on Kindle Best Seller Lists. She loves hearing from readers, so drop her a line!
