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WORTH THE WAIT
Divine Island #1
Julie Ann Levin
Releasing May 17th, 2016
Tropical beaches and second
chances...
As a
rule, Chase Hammond avoided going home to Divine Island whenever possible. But
when his father has a heart attack, he's left with no other choice but to go
back and hope that he can avoid trouble and stay focused.
Recently
divorced and struggling to keep all the elements of her life together, Natalie
Rey has absolutely no desire to make her life any more difficult than it
already is. But when Chase Hammond shows up on her doorstep, the man who
rejected her years earlier, she'll have to do her best to avoid the monumental
distraction.
The last
thing either of them needs is their sizzling chemistry getting in the way of
their goals.
Can
Natalie resist the sexy man who broke her heart years ago?
Will
allowing him back into her life only lead to more heartache?
Chase
returned to Natalie's close to eleven at night.
The rental's
lights were on, and a repetitive clunking sound came from within. He followed
the sound until he reached the laundry room. There was Natalie, no longer in
her work scrubs, but in a pair of low-riding sweatpants and a tank top.
A small strip
of her smooth skin showed as she bent over, hitting the water heater with the
wrench for all she was worth.
“Nat, we have
to stop meeting like this.”
She gasped
and stood up. “Jesus Christ, Chase. Don't sneak up on me like that. I almost
hit you over the head with this wrench.”
Chase smiled.
“You and your trusty wrench, huh?”
“Sometimes it
helps.”
Chase crowded
her in the small room. “Sometimes what helps?” She'd showered and smelled so
damn good.
“The water
heater. Sometimes it helps when I hit it with the wrench. I saw Dylan do it one
time, and it worked.” She then proceeded to bang on the heater some more.
Chase curled
his hand around her wrist to stop the assault on the machinery. “Why don't
we...”
“I'll figure
it out. I always do. I don't usually have an audience, of course.” She gestured
at him with her hands.
“You don't
have to be good at this, you know? You're good at lots of other things.”
“Don't have
to be good at what?”
“At plumbing,
electrician work, you name it. You don't have to be good at it. You can ask for
help.”
She shook her
head. “You're wrong. I do have to be good at it, and I am. Fifty percent of the
time.”
“I thought it
was sixty percent of the time.”
“The past
twenty-four hours have seriously weighed down my averages.”
He gripped
her shoulders, stroking her upper arms. “Is it that terrible if I use your
shower?”
“Yes! No...”
She exhaled. “It's not that. I need to get it to work and don't tell me you're
going to look at it because you already fixed the bathroom stuff. I'm sorry if
I didn't thank you already.”
Her hair was
down, tangled, framing her face. Without putting any thought into the action,
he cupped her jaw and ran his thumb across her cheek.
Her body
turned rigid. “Chase.”
“Tell me
something,” he said. “Is there something going on between you and my brother?”
Natalie shook
her head. “Dylan? No.”
He paused
since her answer left room for interpretation. “Any of my brothers?”
“No. Why?”
He tipped her
chin up so he could look her in those caramel eyes, and traced his thumb along
her full, bottom lip. “Because I'm going to kiss you right now.”
“Oh. Wh—What
if I were seeing someone else?”
“I don't give
a shit about anyone else, so you'll have to stop me if you do.”
He stepped
into her until their thighs were touching. He put one hand against the wall
above her head and curled the other hand behind her neck before his fingers
weaved into her hair. “Are you?”
“Am I what?”
she asked, her eyes already closed.
He pressed
further against her body. “Going to stop me?”
She shook her
head before Chase covered her mouth with his. This was a bad idea because she
tasted incredible. He'd meant for it to be short and sweet, but there was
nothing short and sweet about what he was doing now.
It turned
into a hot, wet kiss, as Chase held Natalie up in his arms. He nudged her
thighs apart with his leg. The sweet moan that escaped her hit him like a punch
to the gut.
And then much
too soon, she tensed in his arms, probably because the evidence of his own
tension pressed up against her inner thigh. She pushed at his chest gently. He
pulled back from her mouth and stared down at her. Her lips were swollen,
cheeks flushed, and her already unruly hair was a mess as his hands were still
tangled up in the locks.
“What are you
doing?” she whispered.
“Kissing you.
Here, let me try that again.”
She
disentangled herself from his body and took a step back in the small space.
“Why did you do that?”
“Hell if I
know.”
“You're
unbelievable,” she said, pushing past him and leaving the confines of the small
laundry room.
“Nat,” Chase
said, following her through the house. She was booking it through the living
room and right out the front door. He purposely didn't catch up with her,
because he didn't know what he was going to say.
They were
outside, walking across the vast expanse of gravel that separated the two
houses. The moon waned and he barely made her out in the night. He stopped when
she whirled around.
“I can't
believe you did that.”
“It was that
bad, huh? Because I gotta to tell you, for me, it was holy shit, Natalie.”
She threw her
hands up in the air and muttered something unintelligible before making off
toward her house. Just as abruptly, she turned back to him again. “Bad, Chase?
Of course, it wasn't bad.”
“Then what's
the problem?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“The problem,
Chase, it that it's ten years too late!”
The words
felt like a slap in his face. She turned and started back to her house. Chase
followed her but stopped at the bottom of the porch steps.
“Nat,” he
said. He had no right to kiss her, but he hadn't exactly been thinking with his
head. Well, not the right head.
She turned
around and pursed her lips. Chase braced himself for verbal assault, but
instead she launched herself at him with her whole body pressing up against
him, sliding her fingers into his hair to better clutch his mouth to hers. She
kissed him with all she had, and before he had a chance to get his arms around
her, she retreated two steps.
“Unbelievable,”
she said, her chest rising and falling with labored breaths. And then she
turned around, walked right into her house, and slammed the door in his face.
“The good
kind of unbelievable?” he asked.
BUY NOW
Julie Ann Levin grew up in Miami,
Florida. She graduated from Florida State University with a degree in English,
majoring in Creative Writing. She loves to read all genres of Romance and
especially loves contemporary, suspense, and paranormal.
She is
known to binge read and is always binge writing.
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ReplyDeleteCrystal, Tasty Book Tours
This sounds good!
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