One blind date. One case of mistaken identity. One Navy SEAL faced with his high school crush.
What could go wrong? Find out in a sizzling excerpt from Earning It by Angela Quarles.
What could go wrong? Find out in a sizzling excerpt from Earning It by Angela Quarles.
At Rick’s apartment complex, a naked bulb illuminates a clean but bare stairwell painted a cool blue. All is hushed anticipation except for our breaths and the scrape of our shoes as we take one step, and then another. I’m acutely aware of my surroundings, especially of the man behind me. But I’m not scared.
No, instead I’m wound up for a completely different reason. Soon I’ll be feeling him against me. Feeling his strength. And I’m…eager. Eager to taste his skin, eager to learn what turns him on, eager to explore this sizzling chemistry flaring between us. Because it’s just so unusual for me. And it could be my one chance. Phil didn’t get me worked up like this. Guys have flirted with me in the past, but it just…never did anything for me. Deep down, I think the reason Phil’s text bothered me so much was because I feared it was true.
We reach the first landing, and he palms the small of my back again, the solid tips of his fingers settling into the dip along my spine, steady and sure. A shudder of anticipation and heat starts at the point of contact and fans outward. We’ve barely talked since leaving the coffee shop. In fact, all that was said was on his part.
His words, like velvet in my ear but dark with sensual promise, “My apartment’s a block away,” and I just nodded like that eager puppy.
God. This is really happening.
I’m having sex with someone I just met. Before lunchtime.
And I’m oddly fine with this.
I take the next step, and he follows more closely now, his hunky presence behind me like a heady, sensual pressure. His intoxicating scent already making my stomach flutter.
His warm breath brushes my ear, and I shiver.
“You sure about this, sweetheart?”
His voice is infused with a touch of worry, which totally checks another box in his pro column.
“Yes,” I whisper, still trying my damnedest to channel this new sex vixen in me. And since a sex vixen wouldn’t stop there, I reach down and stroke my hand down his muscular thigh. Which…might not be that sexy, but dammit, to me this is radical.
Through his suede-soft jeans, his taut muscles tense under my palm, and he growls in my ear. I clench. I friggin’ clench, which I’ve never done in my life. How pathetic. Obviously, this lack is something vital I need to fix.
At his door, he yanks me into the sheltering circle of his arm, my back flush against him, his body curled around me. For some reason, being so definitively in his personal space—his inner circle—feels more intimate than anything I’ve done in the past. My hand flexes on his thigh, itching to move up and squeeze the powerful biceps which fill my left-side vision. But I resist. Yeah, just call me Miss Self Control.
He fishes out his key from his jeans pocket, the action curving his hips into me and pressing his heavy erection against the top curve of my ass. I tremble, and heat pulses through my veins.
The door swings inward, and he edges us forward. I snatch a glimpse of bare white walls, sparse furniture, and a general lack of clutter, when I’m spun around and he sandwiches me against the now-closed door.
Our heightened breaths are all I can hear. His hard body is stretched against mine, tensed, and arousal spikes through me, a searing heat all along my skin. That was…fucking hot. Do I want to have sex against a door? Yes. Yes, I do.
He leans forward, his face mere inches from mine, his gaze searching, but his mouth doesn’t crash into mine like I expect. Instead, he says, “Listen.” His liquid voice steals over me, mixing with my desire and ratcheting it higher. “That door’s unlocked. You initiated, yes. But that doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind. Understand?”
I shiver again, because damn, the heat and control radiating from him envelops me in his protective zone. And his concern soothes any last minute anxiety that’s trying its damnedest to knock sense into me. I appreciate the check-in, don’t get me wrong, but I’m eager to explore this.
A strange noise—half growl, half groan—rumbles from his chest. “You asked, you’re in charge, but I also want. Fuck, do I want.”
He tracks his gaze down my body and back up, taking in the rise and fall of my breasts. Which are practically begging all on their own for his touch. His eyes lock with mine, and the want there sends another bolt of need through me, because—holy cow—this huge, hotter-than-sin man wants me. Wants me.
I nod. It’s all I’m capable of. That, and the hand I’d put on his thigh earlier. Yeah, I’m a regular sex vixen, all right.
I grab the neckline of his gray T-shirt and yank him the rest of the way across the sliver of charged space still between us. Somehow our foreheads or noses don’t crash together from the force of my tug, but our mouths do, and we both take, take, take, as if we’ve been waiting all our lives to do just this. He nudges me back into the door with his hips, and his strong hands cup my jaw and cheeks as if I’m a delicate creature.
But his kisses aren’t delicate. Not at all. His tongue strokes mine, and that taste punches my sensual fever higher. I brush my hands up to his muscled shoulders and do a half-grab of his neck, half-grab of his hair.
He hisses and breaks our kiss, his eyes closing.
“I’m sooo going to hell,” he mutters.
No, instead I’m wound up for a completely different reason. Soon I’ll be feeling him against me. Feeling his strength. And I’m…eager. Eager to taste his skin, eager to learn what turns him on, eager to explore this sizzling chemistry flaring between us. Because it’s just so unusual for me. And it could be my one chance. Phil didn’t get me worked up like this. Guys have flirted with me in the past, but it just…never did anything for me. Deep down, I think the reason Phil’s text bothered me so much was because I feared it was true.
We reach the first landing, and he palms the small of my back again, the solid tips of his fingers settling into the dip along my spine, steady and sure. A shudder of anticipation and heat starts at the point of contact and fans outward. We’ve barely talked since leaving the coffee shop. In fact, all that was said was on his part.
His words, like velvet in my ear but dark with sensual promise, “My apartment’s a block away,” and I just nodded like that eager puppy.
God. This is really happening.
I’m having sex with someone I just met. Before lunchtime.
And I’m oddly fine with this.
I take the next step, and he follows more closely now, his hunky presence behind me like a heady, sensual pressure. His intoxicating scent already making my stomach flutter.
His warm breath brushes my ear, and I shiver.
“You sure about this, sweetheart?”
His voice is infused with a touch of worry, which totally checks another box in his pro column.
“Yes,” I whisper, still trying my damnedest to channel this new sex vixen in me. And since a sex vixen wouldn’t stop there, I reach down and stroke my hand down his muscular thigh. Which…might not be that sexy, but dammit, to me this is radical.
Through his suede-soft jeans, his taut muscles tense under my palm, and he growls in my ear. I clench. I friggin’ clench, which I’ve never done in my life. How pathetic. Obviously, this lack is something vital I need to fix.
At his door, he yanks me into the sheltering circle of his arm, my back flush against him, his body curled around me. For some reason, being so definitively in his personal space—his inner circle—feels more intimate than anything I’ve done in the past. My hand flexes on his thigh, itching to move up and squeeze the powerful biceps which fill my left-side vision. But I resist. Yeah, just call me Miss Self Control.
He fishes out his key from his jeans pocket, the action curving his hips into me and pressing his heavy erection against the top curve of my ass. I tremble, and heat pulses through my veins.
The door swings inward, and he edges us forward. I snatch a glimpse of bare white walls, sparse furniture, and a general lack of clutter, when I’m spun around and he sandwiches me against the now-closed door.
Our heightened breaths are all I can hear. His hard body is stretched against mine, tensed, and arousal spikes through me, a searing heat all along my skin. That was…fucking hot. Do I want to have sex against a door? Yes. Yes, I do.
He leans forward, his face mere inches from mine, his gaze searching, but his mouth doesn’t crash into mine like I expect. Instead, he says, “Listen.” His liquid voice steals over me, mixing with my desire and ratcheting it higher. “That door’s unlocked. You initiated, yes. But that doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind. Understand?”
I shiver again, because damn, the heat and control radiating from him envelops me in his protective zone. And his concern soothes any last minute anxiety that’s trying its damnedest to knock sense into me. I appreciate the check-in, don’t get me wrong, but I’m eager to explore this.
A strange noise—half growl, half groan—rumbles from his chest. “You asked, you’re in charge, but I also want. Fuck, do I want.”
He tracks his gaze down my body and back up, taking in the rise and fall of my breasts. Which are practically begging all on their own for his touch. His eyes lock with mine, and the want there sends another bolt of need through me, because—holy cow—this huge, hotter-than-sin man wants me. Wants me.
I nod. It’s all I’m capable of. That, and the hand I’d put on his thigh earlier. Yeah, I’m a regular sex vixen, all right.
I grab the neckline of his gray T-shirt and yank him the rest of the way across the sliver of charged space still between us. Somehow our foreheads or noses don’t crash together from the force of my tug, but our mouths do, and we both take, take, take, as if we’ve been waiting all our lives to do just this. He nudges me back into the door with his hips, and his strong hands cup my jaw and cheeks as if I’m a delicate creature.
But his kisses aren’t delicate. Not at all. His tongue strokes mine, and that taste punches my sensual fever higher. I brush my hands up to his muscled shoulders and do a half-grab of his neck, half-grab of his hair.
He hisses and breaks our kiss, his eyes closing.
“I’m sooo going to hell,” he mutters.
☆☆☆☆☆☆
MORE ABOUT EARNING IT
From RITA Winning and USA Today bestselling author Angela Quarles comes this steamy romantic comedy--One blind date. One case of mistaken identity. One Navy SEAL faced with his high school crush. What could go wrong?
To Score...
Holy cow, my blind date is rawr-hot. Everything in me aches to explore more with this man, but I can't. I've got too much on the line professionally, with me starting at my new medical practice on shaky ground. But I can't deny that I want the sex. A fling is perfect. Bonus--I will prove my idiot ex-boyfriend wrong. I'm not cold.
Or Not to Score...
Once she mistakes me for her blind date, my plan is clear. Be this Rick the Lawyer she thinks I am. And for the space of this coffee date, talk to the only woman who's ever made me feel any spark outside of combat. Best case scenario, I get to be outside my skin--free to be whatever the hell I want. Worst case--she recognizes me as we chat. She'll be pissed, call me an asshole, but it won't be anything she hasn't called me in the past, so... Win/Win?
From RITA Winning and USA Today bestselling author Angela Quarles comes this steamy romantic comedy--One blind date. One case of mistaken identity. One Navy SEAL faced with his high school crush. What could go wrong?
To Score...
Holy cow, my blind date is rawr-hot. Everything in me aches to explore more with this man, but I can't. I've got too much on the line professionally, with me starting at my new medical practice on shaky ground. But I can't deny that I want the sex. A fling is perfect. Bonus--I will prove my idiot ex-boyfriend wrong. I'm not cold.
Or Not to Score...
Once she mistakes me for her blind date, my plan is clear. Be this Rick the Lawyer she thinks I am. And for the space of this coffee date, talk to the only woman who's ever made me feel any spark outside of combat. Best case scenario, I get to be outside my skin--free to be whatever the hell I want. Worst case--she recognizes me as we chat. She'll be pissed, call me an asshole, but it won't be anything she hasn't called me in the past, so... Win/Win?
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☆☆☆☆☆☆
Angela is a USA Today bestselling author. Her debut novel MUST LOVE BREECHES swept many unpublished romance contests, including the Grand Prize winner of Windy City's Four Seasons contest in 2012. Angela loves history, folklore, and family history, and has been a hobby historian for twenty+ years. She decided to take her love of history and her active imagination and write stories of love and adventure for others to enjoy. When writing, she's either at her desk in the finished attic of an historic home in beautiful and quirky Mobile, AL, or at her fave spot at the local Starbucks. When she isn't writing, she's either working at the local indie bookstore or enjoying the usual stuff like gardening, reading, hanging out, eating, drinking, chasing squirrels out of the walls, and creating the occasional knitted scarf.
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