by T. A. Foster
I crept to the door, knowing he eyed every step of my naked body.
“I don’t hear anything. I think she left for the mixer or either we scared her out of the apartment.” I giggled, and then jumped back on the bed. I would have to apologize later to Taylor for my lack of sanity.
“Ok, but I’ll take this just in case. I would hate to meet her in the dark hallway in my birthday suit.” He pulled the sheet out from underneath me and wrapped it around his waist. “Be right back.”
Within thirty seconds, he closed the bedroom door behind him and revealed a brown shopping bag that was shielded by his back.
“For you, darlin.” He handed me the bag.
I pulled out white tissue paper and retrieved a long rectangular box. I gave Grey a quizzical look. He was having fun watching me with the gift. I slid the lid to the side.
“Boots!” I pulled the pair of chocolate brown western boots from the box.
“Like ‘em?”
“They’re beautiful. These are my first official cowgirl boots.” I loved the intricate embroidery on the side.
“Yep. Why don’t you try them on?”
I looked around for my clothes. “Like this?” He wasn’t serious, was he?
“Oh yeah, you are going to be the hottest cowgirl I’ve ever seen.” Grey kissed my neck and I giggled as he held the boots up to my feet. “I’ve got three weeks of making up to do that starts right now.”
He slid one boot on my pointed foot and kissed the top of my calf, before performing the same ritual with the second foot. I admired my latest footwear and the man who was willing to drive thousands of miles to put them on my feet. As Grey gently pushed me back on the bed with a deep, mind-blowing kiss that stole my breath, I whispered his name.
I knew then that I was going to love him like crazy, as if every day was spring break.
Read more about T.A. Foster, catch a sneak peek of Hazards of a One Night Stand by Alyssa Rose Ivy, and enjoy an exclusive excerpt of London Falling.
About the Author
T.A. Foster once spent a monthlong spring break on South Padre Island, where she soaked in the Texas sun, beach, and learned what real Texas country music is. Sometimes fiction does spring from reality.
She grew up catching rays and chasing waves along the North Carolina Outer Banks and now resides in the state with her adventurous pilot husband, two children, and two canine kiddos.
T.A. has an undergraduate degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a graduate degree in Educational Psychology from Texas A&M University. When she’s not chasing her two-legged and four-legged children or trying to escape for date night, you can find her reading, writing, or planning her next beach trip.
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London Falling
T.A. Foster
Description
It’s London’s senior year and she only needs one class to graduate. She just didn’t expect her final assignment: fall in love.
Communication 224 has a reputation for giving out the most unique projects of the semester. When London James and Beau Anderson signed up for the class they had no idea they would be paired up together, much less spend an entire semester working on their final grade.
Professor Garcia tasks them to produce a study on the hit reality show, Love Match, a show about strangers falling in love on over the top dates. London and Beau decide to debunk the popular show’s fantasy portrayal of romance. Determined they can date the entire semester and not fall for each other, the classmates share blogs about their dates and start a website where everyone can follow their dating experiment.
Is staying out of love as easy as it seems? Headstrong and success-driven London discovers there might be more important things in life than an A.
London Falling Excerpt
Beau had planned our first four dates. It was only fair that I start contributing to the execution of this project. Spoiled Hearts ended its one-week run last night, and other than sitting next to him in class, I hadn’t spent any time with Beau since we watched Love Match together on Monday. My entire Saturday was devoted to preparing for the date. It was time I tried to surprise the campus expert on all things Carolina with something I knew he hadn’t done yet.
“No peeking.” I had wrapped the blindfold around his eyes as tightly as I could without hurting him.
“You’re not going to give me some kind of clue?” Beau was outwardly amused by the date I created.
“No way. I’m in charge today. You just have to trust me.”
“Does it involve body paint, bagpipes, or a floating hot tub?”
I laughed. The floating hot tub would have been fun, but I couldn’t find one of those in Chapel Hill on such short notice. “None of the above. You’ll see.”
I pulled the car onto the gravel path and turned into a dirt parking lot. It was almost sunset. We would have to hurry if I was going to pull this off. I threw my car in park and ran over to the passenger side to help Beau.
“I’m kind of at a disadvantage here with the blindfold.” I steered him toward the opening in the brush and led him down the path twenty yards before I stopped him.
I placed his hand on the trunk of the tree next to us so he could steady himself.
“Ready?” I couldn’t wait for him to get started.
“Yes, please take this off.”
I walked behind him to untie the knot, but as my hands traced over his neck, I changed my mind.
“There’s one thing you have to do first.”
I could see his eyebrow arch under the silk scarf and a smile crept across his face. I took a step back and my body met the bark of the tree. Beau turned in my direction, anchoring his hands on either side of me. I wasn’t entirely sure he couldn’t see right through the blindfold.
I reached forward, taking his face in my palms, and brought his lips crushing down onto mine. With the force of his body, he pinned me harder against the tree and hitched both my legs around his waist. We were completely derailing from the plan. I fisted my hands in his hair until I had loosened the knot on the scarf and freed his eyes from the cover. I watched as he took in our surroundings.
“Where are we?” It was getting darker. We were deep in the middle of the woods and I didn’t account for the light changing so quickly with the towering trees. Maybe we didn’t have time for a woodsy make out.
“You are on a Love Match scavenger hunt.” I smiled.
“Sweet. What am I hunting?” He pressed himself harder against me.
“Me.”
His right eyebrow shifted high. “What?”
“You better get going if you’re going to get your prize.” I wiggled out of his tight hold and landed next to him. “Here’s your first clue.” I handed him a folded piece of paper and tried to refrain from laughing. Mr. Adventurous looked worried all of a sudden.
“You’re not going to tell me anything else? I don’t even know where we are, London.”
“You have your phone so you won’t get lost, lost. You just might not find me. Good luck.” I winked at him. “Go that way.” I pointed ahead on the path where the light was dimming and watched until he was out of sight.
I had walked the route of my scavenger hunt three times, and it took me an average of twenty minutes to complete the course I had created. Beau could probably beat my time, so I estimated I had about fifteen minutes before he found me.
I ran back to the car and grabbed my bag. Everything I needed was packed inside. I had sent Beau on a loop so I could safely walk in the other direction without running into him. We would eventually meet in the middle.
There was an open patch of ground near the stone wall overlooking the grounds. I pulled out a thin tarp before spreading a blanket over top. I ha
d two camping lanterns, which I anchored just off the corner of the blanket.
I pulled out my phone to check the time. He should be here any second. I looked down the path. It was empty. I had hiked past this place twenty times since I was a freshman, but I had never really stopped to look at the building that made the area such a famous landmark.
The round turret and the climbing ivy gave it a gothic feel that was starting to creep me out. Maybe I hadn’t concocted the best date. Beau was missing, the sun was almost down, and the legends about ghost stories in these woods all of a sudden haunted me.
One of the stories from the 1830s was about a student who had died on this land in a duel. Legend had it that in a panic to cover up his death, the students at the duel buried his body under a rock. When the girl he had been courting found out her beloved had died, she supposedly waited at the rock for him to return. The eerie part of the story was that the rock also happened to be the rendezvous point where the couple used to meet secretly for dates. There were legendary stories that circulated about people who had seen the ghosts of the torn apart couple walking the woods together.
After I watched last week’s Love Match episode, I thought this was the closest thing we had to medieval tales and a castle. I nervously scanned the woods again. Finally, I swiped the screen on my phone to call Beau. I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“London. Found you. Man, this is awesome!” Beau was smiling as he jogged through the trail.
I hid my phone in the bag.
“Gimghoul Castle at sunset? Great idea. Did you know this was on my bucket list?” He seemed ecstatic.
“Maybe.” Of course, I had started studying the list more intently. “I’m glad you like it.” Now that Beau was here, I wasn’t as nervous about the ghost stories. The castle did look like it was glowing from the dropping golden rays of the sun. It was beautiful.
He knelt at the edge of the blanket. “Now do I get my prize?” He started crawling toward me like a tiger on the hunt. It gave me chills thinking what he would do when he caught me. Although, that was the whole point: kiss at Gimghoul Castle at sunset.
I sat up on my knees, anxious for him to make his way to the edge of the blanket. His body collided with mine, and in one swift motion, he pulled me directly under him.
“Gotcha.”
My giggles quickly turned to something else. Beau was staring directly in my eyes, and it was impossible to hide how much I wanted him. My mouth parted as his lips descended on mine. I tried to steady my breathing, but the way he touched me only made me want more. I already loved kissing him. It felt hot, sexy, and just a little dangerous every time he made me moan. And he could make me moan.
“Hey! Hey!” I heard someone yelling at us. This was not happening.
“You kids shouldn’t be out here. Go on!” A guard from the castle walked on the other side of the wall and motioned to us to leave, throwing his hands in the air.
Mortified, I scrambled out from under my frustrated partner. My romantic gothic date was a complete catastrophe.
Beau reached for my hand and pulled me up. He shrugged his shoulders. We started stuffing my scavenger hunt items back into my bag. Back to the drawing board.
You can read the rest of Beau and London’s dates.
London Falling is available now!
Keep reading for a preview of Alyssa Rose Ivy’s New Adult Romance, The Hazards of a One Night Stand.
The Hazards of a One Night Stand
Alyssa Rose Ivy
One small town boy, one girl who wants more, one roll in the hay...
Hooking up with your high school crush is a bad idea, a really bad idea. It was only supposed to be one night, one brief departure from my real life, but nothing ever works out exactly the way you plan.
Colton Waters was everything from my past that didn't fit into my present, so why did he have to show up at my college and pledge the one frat I couldn't avoid?
Because nothing is ever meant to happen just once. At least not the life changing things that mean the difference between falling apart and falling in love.
Chapter One
Field parties are about as much fun as they sound. It’s just a bunch of kids getting wasted in the middle of nowhere as a way to pass the time. They were lame in high school and even lamer after a year spent away at college. Yet there I was, drinking my third Smirnoff (it was that or crappy beer) waiting for my friend to finish messing around with her boyfriend so she could drive me home.
I sighed, turning my back on the line of cars illuminating the pasture that was, thankfully, devoid of cows at the moment. Someone was blaring really bad music that I knew would be stuck in my head for a week.
“Hey, sorry!” Annie, my best friend since childhood, grabbed my arm. “I didn’t mean to run off on you like that.” Her face was flushed, and I knew my earlier assumption about her whereabouts was spot on. She and her boyfriend still lived with their parents, so they used whatever alone time they could find.
Annie had made plenty of time for me while I was home, but I sensed that I was getting in the way of the new life she’d created since I’d left the previous fall. I never planned to go back to Gasden that summer. I wanted to find something to do in Charleston, but it didn’t happen. I needed a paycheck and a roof over my head, so I took my old job lifeguarding at the town pool for the fourth summer in a row.
“It’s fine. Where’s Greg?” I searched around the dense crowd for her boyfriend. Generally, he stayed pretty close to Annie when there were other men around. If Greg had a major fault, it was his over protectiveness.
“He ran into Jason.” She brushed some of her long light brown hair behind her ear. My hair was about three shades darker, the darkest brown you could get before you called it black.
I groaned. “He’s not going to bring him over here, is he?”
“I don’t think so. But he’s really not so bad. Didn’t you guys have fun at the movies?” Her tone was light but excited. She was still on a high from her stolen time with Greg.
“No. I already told you he spent the whole time bragging about how cool his frat was.” And going on about how many girls he’d been with. Why would that have made him seem more appealing to me?
“Maybe he’s just intimidated by you. Guys sometimes brag like that when they feel insecure. ” Annie smiled sweetly. That was the problem. It was impossible to be angry with a girl who smiled that way. Her whole personality was sweet as sugar. I tried to come off that way, but generally my true colors shone through. They weren’t as sparkly as hers. “And you’re in a sorority. Maybe he thought talking about his frat would impress you.”
“It didn’t work.” All his talk did was make me miss college more. I’d almost survived the summer, only one week remained before I got to go back to campus for rush. I was dying to move into my sorority house.
“He’s Greg’s friend, and I got to know him much better this—” She stopped suddenly.
I sighed, taking another huge swig of my drink.
“Hey, girls!” The president of our graduating class, Becky, hugged us like she hadn’t just seen us a few days before. She was just one of many people present at the party that I’d had no desire to see again after graduation. “How are you?”
“We’re doing well.” Annie smiled. Once again, she was the polite one.
“Have you heard from Jack at all?” Becky turned her attention to me, bringing up my ex-boyfriend like she was discussing the weather. Her low cut top left little to the imagination, and I wasn’t sure why she felt the need to annoy us.
I fought down the real answer I wanted to give and put on the biggest smile I could muster. I’d found that the more enthusiastic you were, the less likely a mean person was to strike against you again. You took away their fun that way. “No. Not recently.”
“Oh that’s too bad. He was always such a cutie.” She fluttered her eyelashes. I’m not kidding, she actually did that. “Ta ta, ladies. See you later.”
Annie put a
hand on my arm as soon as Becky walked away. “Don’t let her get to you.”
“I’m trying not to.” I ignored the tightness in my chest that always developed when someone mentioned Jack’s name. Despite all the good times we had, those memories were overshadowed by the way he dumped me. Being told you aren’t good enough is the kind of experience you never forget.
Annie smiled sympathetically. “She’s just jealous, and you know it.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.” I said the words Annie wanted to hear. After a year and a half, she was probably getting tired of me reacting so infantile every time Jack’s name came up in conversation. Too bad time didn’t seem to make the hurt and humiliation go away.
“Okay, and keep that positive thinking right now.”
“Why?” I followed her gaze. Greg and Jason were on their way over. Thankfully, at the last moment, Becky grabbed Jason’s arm and Greg continued on without him. The triumphant smile Becky shot us made me grin. She thought she was stealing a guy I liked. Too bad she was actually doing me a favor.
“Some of the guys are setting up a bonfire down on the other side of the property. We should probably make sure it doesn’t get out of hand, babe.” Greg put his arm around Annie.
“Yeah, sounds like a good idea.” She kissed him on the cheek.
“I think I’ll stay here.” I assumed the bonfire wasn’t just cover to go hook up again, but either way, I was tired of being a third wheel.
“Really?” Annie asked me skeptically.
“Yeah. I might try to find a ride home.”
“No. You can’t leave yet! I can’t have a party without you here.” Annie’s uncle owned the farm we were on, so in theory she was throwing the party. In reality, Greg was doing it all.
“All right. I’ll hang out for a while.”
