No restraining order will stop Dare from protecting Teal.
The blackouts started happening when Teal was eight. There are long periods of her youth she doesn't remember. She has woken up in strange places, feeling disoriented and unaware of how long she's been out.
After two years abroad attending a private school and sessions with a top-notch psychiatrist, she's been deemed cured. The blackouts have ceased, or so Teal thought, until she wakes up in a ditch back home in North Carolina. Dare, the man pulling her broken body from the wreckage, has a restraining order against him. He’s no longer the clean-cut boy she went frog gigging with but road-hardened. His lean, muscular arms, riddled with tats, drag her out of the SUV. She should fear him, but instead, his touch sparks memories that tell her she once worshipped him with all her heart.
New Adult Romantic Suspense.
Steamy psychological thriller for 18 and older. Standalone and part of a collection.
“I dare you to kiss me,” I say in an emotionally flat voice, even though my stomach somersaults.
He glances at his heavily tattooed girlfriend Shannon, then his head swivels back to me. He chews on his lower lip, stares hard at me, and mouths, “We shouldn’t go there,” and continues walking away.
“You slept in my bed,” I mutter.
Shannon punches Dare in the jaw.
“I double dare you.” My voice rises. I’m about to look like a complete fool. Kami pushes me forward in encouragement. That’s what friends are for, making you look stupid.
Dare stops. He doesn’t turn around, but he unhooks Shannon from his waist.
“What are you doing?” she screams. When she goes to hit him again, he stops her.
“I’m tired of your shit, Shannon,” Dare says, holding onto her wrists.
His brothers stand around Dare’s racecar, unusually silent.
Jackson glares at me. “Keep walking, Darius.”
“She double-dared you,” Sam mocks. “Are you going to take that, little bro?”
Randy glances between Sam and Jackson, looking unsure whose side to pick.
Dare’s fists clench at his side, and I take a step backward. This was a bad idea. I should go now, but Kami latches onto me to wait.
Dare spins around and marches over to me.
“What the hell are you doing, Darius?” Shannon snaps. “You get back here right now.”
His gaze locks onto me, scraping the skin off my body so that I feel completely exposed. The intensity burns me from the inside out. My stomach revolts, tossing and turning while my heart winds up like a baseball pitch. I swallow hard, not knowing what will happen next.
He crushes his body against mine. I’m so nervous I can’t breathe.
“You better deliver, Teal.”
His hands cup my cheeks, and his lips slam so hard against mine that his beard burns my chin. He latches onto me, his solid chest pressing against my breasts. One hand lets go of my cheek and reaches around to my back to force my body into his. His groin molds into my hips, his cock stiffening between us. My body arcs toward his.
The pungent sweat on his skin indecently soaks my shirt, yet my body craves to feel his heat, his desire, and his eager kiss.
The kiss deepens, his tongue sliding into my mouth. His hand slips from my cheek to the back of my head. His mouth claims mine. My thighs tighten, and my panties moisten. No guy has ever made me this hot to the point I want him to take me. If he threw me onto the hood of his car, I wouldn’t stop him.
Several of the boys whistle and catcall. “Hey, take that behind the bleachers,” one guy calls.
Dare’s lips twist on my mouth and his tongue intertwines with mine. I’m melting into him, the world dissolving around me. My fingers slip into his fireproof suit rolled down and tied around his taut abs. His breath stops momentarily. He sighs into my mouth but doesn’t stop assaulting it with his tongue. His lips don’t move from mine. It’s the best kiss I’ve ever had.
My knees wobble, but Dare’s strong arms steady me, like he did that day in the swamp until he saw what I saw. He remembers something that I don’t.
His tongue reaches for mine. I want him inside me right now. My hands have moved to his well-muscled shoulders where they clutch onto him. I don’t want this to end. His heart races alongside mine, tearing up the tracks. I pant and it’s hard to catch my breath.
“Hey Darius,” Jackson says. “We have a race here. Get your head in the game, and put your dick back in your pants.”
Dare pulls his lips away, his breathing staggered, and his forehead bumps into mine. “Happy Birthday, Teal.”
Author Bio
Chris Myers spends most of her free time writing and dreaming up new characters who fight each other for page time or hiking and fishing in the beautiful Colorado mountains. She is an award-winning author of several published novels in the New Adult Contemporary Romance, Teen, and Thriller genres. Chris's work has appeared in the NewsMag and has earned several awards including first place Paul Gillette, Colorado Gold finalist, and two time semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. She has taught writing workshops for PPW and Delve Writing and was an adjunct professor at CSU.
Love was my weakness. In the light of the truth, no one can hide.
Derek had ignited a spark inside of my heart, a hope for a love I never expected to find. However, our connection lacked the substance it needed to burn. Weakened with resentment, our relationship crumbled under deception, slowly dissolving into ash.
I had sacrificed myself for him and paid the price.
By the time Brandon entered into my life, the longing in my heart had turned cold. But fate was not done with me. His crystal blue eyes and fluid touch revived a wish that had been frozen in time. He gave me hope once again.
Hope is a dangerous thing, especially when you dare to dream.
**WARNING: This book contains adult content and drug use.
E.M. Abel was born and raised a Marine Corps brat. She spent a large portion of her life moving and living in her mother's home country, Japan. As a result, she gained independence and a unique perspective on the world. The youngest of three girls, E.M. Abel spent a lot of time alone in her room writing or sketching in her journals and dreaming up stories. Growing up, she wrote poems, short stories and articles for her high school newspaper. She also fell in love with art and discovered her deep need for self-expression.
Now, a Navy wife with two small children of her own, she still loves being creative and most of all translating her stories into novels. E.M. Abel, now referred to as E or Em by her friends and readers, can often be found with her headphones on jamming out to punk rock, in a chair getting tattooed or cooking dinner for her kids and attending gymnastics practice. No matter what she's doing in her life, she's always sure to do it her way.
Isaiah Wright is broken. So broken he's positive he'll never be fixed again. Surviving every soldier's worst nightmare is enough for him to want nothing more than to give into the blackness that plagues him.
Emma Nicholls knows pain. Four years after the devastating loss of her fiancé, she's set up her own business providing service dogs to veterans in an attempt to put her own life back together.
Circumstance brings Isaiah into her life, but neither are prepared for the fire that burns between them. It's immediate, one broken soul finding solace in another, but it's also... terrifying.
His soldier's heart is surrounded by walls ten feet high. But maybe, just maybe, Emma and her brood of trainee service dogs can break through and be the light he so desperately needs.
“I hope you’re ready soldier, because today, your training begins.”
A wide grin spreads across Emma’s face as I approach her, one of the dogs trying valiantly to wriggle out of her arms. I smile back.
“I thought I was here to train. Not be trained.”
“Well, you thought wrong. You need as much— if not more— training than any of these little guys do. Dogs are born with the instinct to learn and perform. Humans…not so much. You need to learn to work with them as much as they need to learn to work with you. Otherwise, the relationship will never fully form.”
I want to tell her she’s wasting her time. I’ll never have a relationship with one of these dogs. But I can see in her eyes how much the idea of my ‘training’ excites her. So I’ll play along. For now.
She hands me a whistle and a little plastic thing with a button in the middle. The whistle I get, but I have no clue what in the hell this other thing is or what I’m supposed to do with it. Without any explanation, she turns and lets all five of the puppies out of the kennel. They bound forward, rushing out into the yard. Maggie slowly walks out behind them and settles in the shade of a nearby tree.
Emma stands in front of the dogs like a military drill sergeant and the picture it paints in my head is laughable. The puppies tumble over each other, forming no semblance of a line. It’s like she’s the drill sergeant at a school for juvenile delinquents. I half expect her to blow the whistle and tell them to fall in line.
Instead, she turns and barks her orders at me, causing the smile to fall momentarily from my face.
“You sure as hell can’t do anything from clear over there, soldier. Get your ass over here.”
When I meet her eyes, my smile returns. All five foot four of Emma smirks up at me, trying to look as intimidating as she can. But her playful stance gives her away. She’s trying to put on a show, impress me with her gruff demeanor. But deep down, she knows she doesn’t have it in her. She’s too damn sweet to be mean.
I slap my arms straight at my sides and march over to her. I turn when I reach her, giving her a quick salute.
“Sir, yes sir.”
She smacks me on the arm. “Excuse me? Do I look like a sir to you?”
No, she sure as hell does not look like a sir. She’s in a tight pair of worn jeans and work boots. But the fitted top she’s wearing hugs all her curves in all the right places, reminding me every time I look at her just how much of a woman she is.
She turns her attention back to the dogs and I follow suit. I still can’t tell which one is which, other than Jasper. I remember he has the black collar. And as far as dogs go, he’s the most tolerable of the bunch. If I have to deal with a dog, might as well be one who isn’t completely fur-brained.
She points to the one with the green collar. “Show me how you’d make him sit.”
I look skeptically at the dog, who’s currently occupied with chasing a butterfly. Make him sit. Right. Like that’s going to happen.
Megan lives in northern Utah with her husband, Adam, and incredibly spoiled dog, Tucker. She spends far too much time reading anything and everything she can get her hands on.
