Title
Grace for Drowning
Release Date
June 29th
Genre
Contemporary Fighter Romance
Goodreads Link:
Giveaway:
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/d0190e8/
Blurb
Hope is a dangerous thing. I know that more
than most. Everything good I've ever had has been stolen from me — my friends,
my fiancé, my innocence, some would say even my sanity. All I have left is the
cage. Fighting is the only thing that eases the ache inside me even a little.
It’s the only thing that keeps the bottle at bay.
I was content to ride out my life alone. I
was done dreaming that things could be better. But then I met Grace, and
suddenly, all I could do was dream.
She's battling those same demons, only she's
losing. I don’t want to care, but something about her calls to me. That pain in
her eyes is so sharp, so familiar. I know it’s only a matter of time before it
pulls her below the surface.
I can help her, and maybe, just maybe, she
can help me too. For the first time in what feels like forever, I’ve got hope,
and that scares the hell out of me.
This is a full
length novel with no cliffhanger. There will be a sequel, but this book
resolves all the story elements by the end. It is written with dual
perspectives, so both Logan and Grace get their say.
Sexy Excerpt
(Grace POV):
I gave a tiny shake of my
head. It felt like a big gesture, one that should have set the earth shaking
and the sky falling, but it was strangely liberating at the same time. A moment
of clarity in an ocean of confusion. I wanted him. I couldn’t deny that
anymore. I wanted everything those absent words implied. His hands on my body,
his lips on mine. I knew that given a few days, a few hours, maybe even a few
minutes, my pain and self-loathing would resurface and start sabotaging this
again, but right now, in that moment, I was free of that.
Before I could talk myself
out of it, I lunged towards him. He was so tall that I had to stretch up onto
my toes, wrapping my hands around his neck to pull his mouth down to mine. It
sent a powerful longing through me, that height, that sheer bulk. I normally
hate to be reminded how diminutive I am, but I liked how small he made me feel.
There was something strangely comforting about it.
His body stiffened and he
mumbled a curse against my lips. For a moment, he barely moved. I could feel
the war playing out behind his eyes. But then the fight drained out of him, and
his arms enveloped me as he began kissing me back with an urgency strong enough
to be almost frightening. Part of me expected it to feel wrong, a betrayal of
everything I’d had with Tom, but instead my body simply melted against his like
it had always been there, and all other thoughts disappeared.
All my other first kisses
had been timid affairs, but this was something else entirely, fierce and
hungry; an explosion of everything that was simmering inside us. Though I’d
initiated it, Logan quickly seized control. This wasn’t a man who simply stood
by and had things happen to him. Leather-rough palms ran amok across my back
and shoulders, pulling me against him as though he was afraid I’d be snatched
away at any moment. I moaned involuntarily into his mouth as his tongue darted
and teased. In some distant part of me I felt ashamed, but it was dwarfed by
the fire that was coursing through my veins. I’d never been kissed like that
before. Not by Tom. Not by anybody. It felt like a matter of need rather than want.
Life or death.
I’d seen him shirtless
plenty of times of course, but the sight was different now. Erotic, sensual,
and above all, mine. I could barely breathe for how magnificent he looked.
Sculpted and tanned and lit with moonlight; a living breathing Greek statue.
I wanted to touch all of him, to feel each inch between my fingers, in my
mouth, in every part of me. I’d never been so intoxicated by another human
being.
My hands took on a mind of
their own, dancing hungrily across his bare chest. His muscles were so hard,
like his entire body was just skin stretched over stone sculpture. Everything
inside me seemed to clench as my fingers took it all in, the perfectly defined
grooves between his pecs and his abs, the mountainous curl of his biceps. He was
still slick with sweat and hot from the night’s exertion, but that only excited
me more. Images played through my head of him in the arena, his body a perfect
primal machine leveling all of that power at his opposition.
My lack of control seemed
to trigger something in Logan. He reached for my shirt, tugging it over my
head, and then his hands turned ravenous, squeezing my breasts, my ass, the
curve of my hips. It felt like his fingers were everywhere at once, and my body
tingled and burned in response. It was so good to be touched again. I hadn’t
realized how long it had been or how much I missed it, but there was something
exquisite about it — a tactile euphoria that kept me centered in that perfect
moment and scattered all my problems to the wind.
He broke away, breathing
heavily, his face twisted into some bizarre combination of pain and desire.
Pressing his forehead against mine he locked eyes with me. “Are you sure?” His
voice was low, the primordial growl of a man who was just below the cusp where
words were no longer relevant.
“I’m sure.”
Tamer Excerpt (Logan
POV):
She stared up at me with
wide, glistening eyes. The fear in that look wrenched at my heart like nothing
I’d ever experienced before. You know the saying ‘a deer caught in the headlights’?
Well that’s how she looked, only magnified a thousand times. I could almost see
the last dominoes of her life tumbling over in her mind. It took every ounce of
my willpower not to reach out and pull her against me.
“I know it’s
embarrassing,” I continued, “and I know it hurts like hell and all you want to
do is get through the day so you can knock yourself out and forget, but this
right here, this is your chance to take a step forward. That’s the way to beat
this thing. One step at a time. I can’t promise miracles. You’re not going to
wake up in a week and feel like a million bucks. But doing something is better
than doing nothing.”
She didn’t speak for a
long time. “You keep saying you know what I’m going through,” she said
eventually, her voice barely more than a whisper. “What do you mean?”
I closed my eyes
momentarily. It was easy enough to tell someone else what they needed,
but opening up myself was a whole different kettle of fish. I had my own
triggers to worry about, and this was diving right into the center of them. But
she had to hear it. She had to understand that we were on the same page.
“A lot of us veterans wind
up with substance abuse problems once we’re back on home soil,” I said. “You
know how if you go on vacation for a while, then come back home and try to do
something like drive a car, it takes time to adjust?” She nodded. “Well,
imagine that sensation, except you haven’t been in The Hamptons for three
weeks. You’ve been in a combat zone for years, with bullets and IEDs and death
all around you.”
I leaned back against the
wall as images flashed unbidden across my mind. I hated that sensation, not
being in control of my thoughts, like someone was playing a horror movie in the
back of my head that I couldn’t pause or stop. “That shit leaves scars. And
then you come back here to a place with supermarkets and traffic jams and
street performers, and none of it makes any fucking sense. I felt like a god
damn alien. Some days I still do. You try to explain it to someone, and they nod
like they get it, but they don’t. How could they?”
I drew a deep breath,
feeling myself getting choked up. I hadn’t talked about this in detail with
anyone, not even Charlie. He was a vet too, so words weren’t necessary. He
understood. Saying it out loud was painful. It made me feel weak, like I
couldn’t handle my shit.
“I drank like an Irishman
for the better part of a year, just trying to wash all that away. Looking back
now, it’s pretty obvious I was in self destruct mode. A bomb with the timer ticking
steadily down to zero.”
Her face was pulled tight,
although I couldn’t tell if it was with grief for me or fear for herself. “And
Charlie really helped you get that under control?” she asked.
“Yep. I have no doubt I’d
be six feet under now if not for him. He’s a family friend. Served twenty years
before mustering out to open the bar. He’s one of the reasons I enlisted in the
first place. He saw I was circling the drain, and for some reason he decided he
wasn’t going to let that happen.”
Her eyes fell to the floor
and she leaned back against the wall, her body deflating like a balloon. “You
make it sound so easy.”
I shook my head. “It
wasn’t easy. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Still is. It never goes
away, not completely. I’m probably going to be fighting it for the rest of my
life, but at least now I know how to fight it.”
There was a long pause, and when she
spoke, her voice was trembling. “I don’t know if I have the strength to fight
this.”
Author Bio:
Maya Cross is a writer who enjoys making people blush. Growing up
with a mother who worked in a book store, she read a lot from a very young age,
and soon enough picked up a pen of her own. She’s tried her hands at a whole
variety of genres including horror, science fiction, and fantasy, but funnily
enough, it was the sexy stuff that stuck. She has now started this pen name as
an outlet for her spicier thoughts (they were starting to overflow). She likes
her heroes strong but mysterious, her encounters sizzling, and her characters
true to life.
She believes in writing familiar narratives told with a twist, so
most of her stories will feel comfortable, but hopefully a little unique.
Whatever genre she's writing, finding a fascinating concept is the first, and
most important step.
The Alpha Group is her first attempt at erotic romance.
When she's not writing, she's playing tennis, trawling her home
town of Sydney for new inspiration, and drinking too much coffee.
Social Media:
Website: http://www.mayacross.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/mayacrossbooks
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Maya_cross
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6217503.Maya_Cross
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