ROAD TRIP anyone? Read an EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT of Dear Life by Meghan Quinn!
Trust us... you want to.
Trust us... you want to.
**CARTER**
Focus on the goddamn road. Stop thinking about Daisy, wrapped around your waist, her fingers dancing across your abs, her head resting against your back, and those tight-as-fuck jeans she’s wearing.
Focus on driving the bike and not getting in an accident.
But hell, those jeans. The way her innocent eyes ate me up with excitement when she saw me. The way she practically bounced up and down with glee from the stupid sticker.
Why did I put a sticker on it in the first place? Because I saw it in one of those little quarter-candy machines at the grocery store.
Christ.
What am I even doing picking her up?
Who the hell am I kidding? I know exactly why I’m picking her up. I can’t get her out of my head. I tried, fuck did I try hard. But every time I made the attempt to forget about her, somehow, someway, she found her way back into my mind, with that infectious smile and her thirst for life.
That’s why I found myself driving toward her place, a new helmet with a goddamn daisy sticker on the front tucked in my bike, and a plan to help continue her pursuit to experience new things.
And hell, right about now, I’m not regretting that decision. Seeing her, after a few days of only feeding on the images of her I have in my head, was like a breath of fresh air. She renewed my spirit with one simple, yet gorgeous smile.
How is that even possible? That this woman, who knows nothing except how to be positive, can have such an effect on me? Maybe that’s what I need in my life, a little positivity, even though the cards I’ve been dealt in this lifetime are pure shit.
Either way, for whatever reason, I crave to be around her right now. She’s the only bright spot in my life. It might not be permanent—it can’t be permanent—but I’m going to be a selfish bastard and soak her up as much as possible, because at least around her, I don’t hate myself as much.
I just hope she likes my idea for today.
With her arms gripping me tightly, we fly down E-470 at eighty-five miles per hour, the dry, somewhat snow-covered Colorado landscape whizzing by us. We head north on the stretch of road toward Denver International Airport.
In a blur, we pass housing developments, shopping centers, and flat plains, dried grass peeking out from under the light snow on the ground. It’s always said when you drive east in Colorado, you might as well be in Kansas because the terrain becomes extremely flat, very farm-like. It’s true. If I weren’t living in the city, I would live on the west side, near the mountains, where I can marvel at their size and expanse.
But the city will have to do for now.
I pull off at exit twenty-four and make a right off the highway, onto East Fifty-Sixth Ave. Farmland passes us by, but it doesn’t take us long to get to where I want to go, an empty lot in the middle of nowhere.
Once we arrive, I put the bike in park, pop the kickstand, and turn my head toward Daisy. “Swing around me.”
“What?” she asks, confusion written all over her face.
Instead of explaining, I just force her into position myself. I grab her legs and swing her around until she’s sitting on the little portion of the seat between me and the handle, her eyes looking straight into mine, her lips parted on a gasp.
“Goodness.” Her legs drape over mine, and it’s an intimate position that I don’t mind one bit. Bastard. She’s an innocent, for fuck’s sake. Mind out of the gutter.
Needing a little breathing room, for some reason my body seems to heat up whenever I’m around her, I take off my helmet and toss it into the soft dirt a few feet from the bike. I can feel the heat of my head, my hair damp from the helmet. She removes hers as well, but carefully leans down to place it on the ground beside us.
“Do you think you can handle my bike?”
Her eyes widen, searching me to see if I’m telling the truth. “You mean, drive your bike?”
“Yeah. We have to learn something new. Why not learn how to drive a motorcycle?”
The idea came to me when I was thinking about how hot Daisy would look driving it. I had to make the dream a reality. Had to. Like I said, bastard.
She gulps hard, her hands resting at the base of my jacket, her fingers playing with the end. “Um, when we were told to learn something new, I was thinking of something more in line with learning a new knitting knot.”
This comes as no surprise to me.
“That’s too safe, Snowflake. You have to put yourself out there more. Knitting is in your wheelhouse, step outside of your shell, like you’ve been trying to.”
“By driving a motorcycle?” she asks, her voice rising with slight hysteria. “That seems a little extreme, don’t you think?”
“Not at all.” I smile and cup her face. How is her skin so soft? “I’ll be behind you the whole time, guiding you.”
“But I don’t have a license to drive one. I don’t want to get a ticket.”
“You won’t get a ticket. We’re in the middle of nowhere. Now, are you going to grab life by the balls and do something unexpected, learn something new?”
She bites her bottom lip adorably as she thinks. “Well, I’ve never really grabbed anything by the balls. Even a man.” Her face turns bright red. “Not that I want to grab a bunch of balls or anything, I just haven’t done it before.” Exhaling hard, she leans forward and says, “I hear when you grab a man’s testicles, you have to be gentle because they’re sensitive.”
My hand drops from her face, my head flies back, and a bark of a laugh comes out of me from the serious tone coming from her. Is she really asking me about “testicles” right now?
“What’s so funny?” she asks, swatting my stomach. “That’s a legitimate question.”
“I don’t know.” I laugh some more. “Do you like it when your boobs are squeezed hard?”
If I didn’t think her face could get any more red, I’d be wrong. She casts her eyes down and shakes her head. “I’ve, uh, never done the boob or testicle grabbing thing before.” Peeking up at me through her long, dark eyelashes, she says, “I’m a, uh, virgin.”
This comes as no shock to me. I could have guessed that given how sheltered she was, but she hasn’t even fooled around?
Curious, I push her a little. “Let me ask you this. Have you ever kissed anyone before?”
Shying away, she shakes her head, no.
Never been kissed? This beautiful, vivacious woman has never been kissed? How is that even possible? Those sweetheart lips are going to waste, just resting on her gorgeous face, never once connecting with another soul.
Why do I feel the need to rectify that?
Because her lips are one of the things I haven’t been able to out of my head the past few days. I want to know how they taste, how soft they are, how they would feel up against mine. Would it be serendipitous? Like we were meant to be?
There’s a scary side of me that believes that very well could be true. I block out that side of me though. I can’t go there. Not right now, not with Daisy.
Instead, I focus my attention back on her. “You’ve never been kissed, Daisy?”
She shakes her head, unable to really look at me, so I fix that. Lifting her chin, I force her to make eye contact. Those depths of blue hit me hard, harder than I was expecting, drawing me closer. Slow, intense seconds pass between us, the air growing thicker with each breath despite being outside. The heady atmosphere sucks me into her intoxicating orbit. Just one taste, that’s all I want, just one, simple taste.
“Never been kissed, huh? We’re just going to have to change that now, won’t we?”
Wrapping my hand behind her neck, I pull her forward, her hands now shaking against my thighs. I’m millimeters away from her mouth, our lips barely able to graze against each other. “Tell me to stop, Daisy. Tell me you don’t want this.”
Gripping tightly onto my jacket now, she ever so slightly shakes her head. “There isn’t one part of me that can tell you no, Carter. I want this. So much.”
“Not as much as me,” I mutter right before I close the distance between us, our lips molding together in a gentle caress.
At first, I take it easy, letting Daisy get used to the feeling of our lips pressed together, of our heads bending in opposite directions, of our hands clamping onto each other. Once I feel she’s comfortable, I move my hand down to her back and pull her closer, needing to feel her on a deeper level, not just on her lips, but with her body as well.
When I scoot her closer on my lap, she quietly moans in my mouth, her lips parting just enough that I slip my tongue inside, eliciting another moan from her. The sexiest sound I’ve every fucking heard.
For never kissing someone before, she’s fucking blowing my mind with the way she tentatively moves her hands inside my jacket, how her tongue barely grazes mine, and her lips move in conjunction with mine, like she’s trying to form a rhythmic dance with our mouths.
It’s sexy as fuck. Sinful almost, the way she lightly strokes my lips, sending chills up my spine. This isn’t just some kiss, this is nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Hot, wet, explorative, tentative, scared, yet excited all wrapped up with a tiny little Daisy bow.
Fucking perfection.
Fucking terrifying
Nipping at her lips one last time, I pull away, and watch like a proud motherfucker as her eyes flutter open, lust pouring out of them as she catches her breath.
“Never been kissed? Not anymore, Snowflake.”
She takes a deep breath, her hand going to her lips as if to check if they’re still attached. Don’t worry, Snowflake, they’re still very much attached, and looking just as sexy as ever. Staring up at me in awe, she says, “I guess not.” Then with the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen, she adds, “Thank you, Carter.”
Ah hell. I’m so fucked when it comes to this girl.
Focus on the goddamn road. Stop thinking about Daisy, wrapped around your waist, her fingers dancing across your abs, her head resting against your back, and those tight-as-fuck jeans she’s wearing.
Focus on driving the bike and not getting in an accident.
But hell, those jeans. The way her innocent eyes ate me up with excitement when she saw me. The way she practically bounced up and down with glee from the stupid sticker.
Why did I put a sticker on it in the first place? Because I saw it in one of those little quarter-candy machines at the grocery store.
Christ.
What am I even doing picking her up?
Who the hell am I kidding? I know exactly why I’m picking her up. I can’t get her out of my head. I tried, fuck did I try hard. But every time I made the attempt to forget about her, somehow, someway, she found her way back into my mind, with that infectious smile and her thirst for life.
That’s why I found myself driving toward her place, a new helmet with a goddamn daisy sticker on the front tucked in my bike, and a plan to help continue her pursuit to experience new things.
And hell, right about now, I’m not regretting that decision. Seeing her, after a few days of only feeding on the images of her I have in my head, was like a breath of fresh air. She renewed my spirit with one simple, yet gorgeous smile.
How is that even possible? That this woman, who knows nothing except how to be positive, can have such an effect on me? Maybe that’s what I need in my life, a little positivity, even though the cards I’ve been dealt in this lifetime are pure shit.
Either way, for whatever reason, I crave to be around her right now. She’s the only bright spot in my life. It might not be permanent—it can’t be permanent—but I’m going to be a selfish bastard and soak her up as much as possible, because at least around her, I don’t hate myself as much.
I just hope she likes my idea for today.
With her arms gripping me tightly, we fly down E-470 at eighty-five miles per hour, the dry, somewhat snow-covered Colorado landscape whizzing by us. We head north on the stretch of road toward Denver International Airport.
In a blur, we pass housing developments, shopping centers, and flat plains, dried grass peeking out from under the light snow on the ground. It’s always said when you drive east in Colorado, you might as well be in Kansas because the terrain becomes extremely flat, very farm-like. It’s true. If I weren’t living in the city, I would live on the west side, near the mountains, where I can marvel at their size and expanse.
But the city will have to do for now.
I pull off at exit twenty-four and make a right off the highway, onto East Fifty-Sixth Ave. Farmland passes us by, but it doesn’t take us long to get to where I want to go, an empty lot in the middle of nowhere.
Once we arrive, I put the bike in park, pop the kickstand, and turn my head toward Daisy. “Swing around me.”
“What?” she asks, confusion written all over her face.
Instead of explaining, I just force her into position myself. I grab her legs and swing her around until she’s sitting on the little portion of the seat between me and the handle, her eyes looking straight into mine, her lips parted on a gasp.
“Goodness.” Her legs drape over mine, and it’s an intimate position that I don’t mind one bit. Bastard. She’s an innocent, for fuck’s sake. Mind out of the gutter.
Needing a little breathing room, for some reason my body seems to heat up whenever I’m around her, I take off my helmet and toss it into the soft dirt a few feet from the bike. I can feel the heat of my head, my hair damp from the helmet. She removes hers as well, but carefully leans down to place it on the ground beside us.
“Do you think you can handle my bike?”
Her eyes widen, searching me to see if I’m telling the truth. “You mean, drive your bike?”
“Yeah. We have to learn something new. Why not learn how to drive a motorcycle?”
The idea came to me when I was thinking about how hot Daisy would look driving it. I had to make the dream a reality. Had to. Like I said, bastard.
She gulps hard, her hands resting at the base of my jacket, her fingers playing with the end. “Um, when we were told to learn something new, I was thinking of something more in line with learning a new knitting knot.”
This comes as no surprise to me.
“That’s too safe, Snowflake. You have to put yourself out there more. Knitting is in your wheelhouse, step outside of your shell, like you’ve been trying to.”
“By driving a motorcycle?” she asks, her voice rising with slight hysteria. “That seems a little extreme, don’t you think?”
“Not at all.” I smile and cup her face. How is her skin so soft? “I’ll be behind you the whole time, guiding you.”
“But I don’t have a license to drive one. I don’t want to get a ticket.”
“You won’t get a ticket. We’re in the middle of nowhere. Now, are you going to grab life by the balls and do something unexpected, learn something new?”
She bites her bottom lip adorably as she thinks. “Well, I’ve never really grabbed anything by the balls. Even a man.” Her face turns bright red. “Not that I want to grab a bunch of balls or anything, I just haven’t done it before.” Exhaling hard, she leans forward and says, “I hear when you grab a man’s testicles, you have to be gentle because they’re sensitive.”
My hand drops from her face, my head flies back, and a bark of a laugh comes out of me from the serious tone coming from her. Is she really asking me about “testicles” right now?
“What’s so funny?” she asks, swatting my stomach. “That’s a legitimate question.”
“I don’t know.” I laugh some more. “Do you like it when your boobs are squeezed hard?”
If I didn’t think her face could get any more red, I’d be wrong. She casts her eyes down and shakes her head. “I’ve, uh, never done the boob or testicle grabbing thing before.” Peeking up at me through her long, dark eyelashes, she says, “I’m a, uh, virgin.”
This comes as no shock to me. I could have guessed that given how sheltered she was, but she hasn’t even fooled around?
Curious, I push her a little. “Let me ask you this. Have you ever kissed anyone before?”
Shying away, she shakes her head, no.
Never been kissed? This beautiful, vivacious woman has never been kissed? How is that even possible? Those sweetheart lips are going to waste, just resting on her gorgeous face, never once connecting with another soul.
Why do I feel the need to rectify that?
Because her lips are one of the things I haven’t been able to out of my head the past few days. I want to know how they taste, how soft they are, how they would feel up against mine. Would it be serendipitous? Like we were meant to be?
There’s a scary side of me that believes that very well could be true. I block out that side of me though. I can’t go there. Not right now, not with Daisy.
Instead, I focus my attention back on her. “You’ve never been kissed, Daisy?”
She shakes her head, unable to really look at me, so I fix that. Lifting her chin, I force her to make eye contact. Those depths of blue hit me hard, harder than I was expecting, drawing me closer. Slow, intense seconds pass between us, the air growing thicker with each breath despite being outside. The heady atmosphere sucks me into her intoxicating orbit. Just one taste, that’s all I want, just one, simple taste.
“Never been kissed, huh? We’re just going to have to change that now, won’t we?”
Wrapping my hand behind her neck, I pull her forward, her hands now shaking against my thighs. I’m millimeters away from her mouth, our lips barely able to graze against each other. “Tell me to stop, Daisy. Tell me you don’t want this.”
Gripping tightly onto my jacket now, she ever so slightly shakes her head. “There isn’t one part of me that can tell you no, Carter. I want this. So much.”
“Not as much as me,” I mutter right before I close the distance between us, our lips molding together in a gentle caress.
At first, I take it easy, letting Daisy get used to the feeling of our lips pressed together, of our heads bending in opposite directions, of our hands clamping onto each other. Once I feel she’s comfortable, I move my hand down to her back and pull her closer, needing to feel her on a deeper level, not just on her lips, but with her body as well.
When I scoot her closer on my lap, she quietly moans in my mouth, her lips parting just enough that I slip my tongue inside, eliciting another moan from her. The sexiest sound I’ve every fucking heard.
For never kissing someone before, she’s fucking blowing my mind with the way she tentatively moves her hands inside my jacket, how her tongue barely grazes mine, and her lips move in conjunction with mine, like she’s trying to form a rhythmic dance with our mouths.
It’s sexy as fuck. Sinful almost, the way she lightly strokes my lips, sending chills up my spine. This isn’t just some kiss, this is nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Hot, wet, explorative, tentative, scared, yet excited all wrapped up with a tiny little Daisy bow.
Fucking perfection.
Fucking terrifying
Nipping at her lips one last time, I pull away, and watch like a proud motherfucker as her eyes flutter open, lust pouring out of them as she catches her breath.
“Never been kissed? Not anymore, Snowflake.”
She takes a deep breath, her hand going to her lips as if to check if they’re still attached. Don’t worry, Snowflake, they’re still very much attached, and looking just as sexy as ever. Staring up at me in awe, she says, “I guess not.” Then with the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen, she adds, “Thank you, Carter.”
Ah hell. I’m so fucked when it comes to this girl.
✰✰✰✰✰✰
About this book
Four lives. Four stories. Four sets of letters. Four brave souls in need of guidance while facing life's greatest challenges.
The anonymously published Dear Life program is designed to help them step outside of their comfort zones, face their obstacles, and relinquish their demons...and prove their existence.
With their lives teetering between wanting more and losing it all, all four souls dive into the program as a New Year’s resolution, sending them on a crazy, life-altering journey.
Dear Life,
Please be kind.
Yours truly, Hollyn, Jace, Daisy, and Carter.
Four lives. Four stories. Four sets of letters. Four brave souls in need of guidance while facing life's greatest challenges.
The anonymously published Dear Life program is designed to help them step outside of their comfort zones, face their obstacles, and relinquish their demons...and prove their existence.
With their lives teetering between wanting more and losing it all, all four souls dive into the program as a New Year’s resolution, sending them on a crazy, life-altering journey.
Dear Life,
Please be kind.
Yours truly, Hollyn, Jace, Daisy, and Carter.
NOW LIVE & FREE ON KINDLE UNLIMITED
When I was in high school I occasionally read books but was consumed by other teenage things so I didn't take the time to appreciate a good book on a cloudy day, wrapped up in a blanket on the couch. It wasn't until I received a Kindle for Christmas one year that my world completely flipped upside down. When looking for books I came across the Contemporary Romance genre and was sold and I haven't turned back since.
You can either find my head buried in my Kindle, listening to inspiring heart ripping music or typing away on the computer twisting and turning the lives of my characters while driving my readers crazy with anticipation.
I currently reside in beautiful Colorado Springs where the sun is always shining and there is a trail waiting to be hiked on every corner. I share a lovely and warm home with the love of my life and my five, four-legged children.
Stalk Meghan: Website | Facebook | Goodreads
You can either find my head buried in my Kindle, listening to inspiring heart ripping music or typing away on the computer twisting and turning the lives of my characters while driving my readers crazy with anticipation.
I currently reside in beautiful Colorado Springs where the sun is always shining and there is a trail waiting to be hiked on every corner. I share a lovely and warm home with the love of my life and my five, four-legged children.
Stalk Meghan: Website | Facebook | Goodreads
