by Anna Katmore
I blink a couple of times and then just croak, “Good.” Heck, I don’t know what else to say right now. This is such a surreal moment. As if you’ve been dreaming of flying all your life, but once it happens, you just don’t know what to do with yourself up in the sky.
He must be feeling my insecurity, because a soft laugh rumbles his chest. Then he lifts one hand and crooks a finger, beckoning me closer.
With the bed between us, the room suddenly seems like an impossible distance to overcome. Why is it so intimidating to just move forward? I gulp.
Justin angles his head, studying me with his brows drawn into a mystified frown. “Are you afraid I’m going to bite?” A second later, he pushes away from the door and slowly strolls around the bed. “Because, you know…” His nonchalant gaze strays off to the side, but it returns to me with fire in his eyes. “I just might.”
My feet have grown roots, and my throat is bone-dry. Can somebody open the window, please? Because the temperature in this room must have risen to frying point. Justin stops a foot away from me, his eyes eating me up with one glance swooping down and up my body, then his gaze moves to the bed next to us for the briefest moment. He can’t be serious!
“Whatever you’re thinking now,” I warn him, taking a tiny step back, toward the bay windows, “is not a good idea.”
He notices my retreat with obvious amusement. “Why not?”
“May I remind you of the many people waiting in the other room?”
“Good point,” he grunts, shifting his mouth to one side with pretend disappointment. “Then can I just say how glad I am that you didn’t bring home a boyfriend from England?”
Oh, London definitely has some sweet guys, but none of them really interested me. And Justin certainly knows that, from the thousands of messages we sent back and forth the last year. Still, I can’t resist teasing him. “What makes you so sure about that? Perhaps I’m hiding one in my luggage.”
Darting a quick look at my open suitcase on the carpet, a smirk sneaks to his lips. “I don’t think so.” He takes one step closer.
Batting my lashes, I hold my ground this time. “I could be in a relationship, with my boyfriend still in London.”
“Your Facebook status says you’re still single.”
Now, that really makes me laugh. “Have you been stalking me, Justin Andrews?”
The mischief disappears from his eyes, replaced by determination, as he reaches out and hooks his forefinger around mine, gently pulling me closer. “Every day since you’ve been gone.”
After half an eternity, this first touch stuns me speechless. Shivers race through me as the tips of his fingers skim over the back of my hand, up my arm, over my shoulder, and to my neck. He strokes the ultrasensitive skin there.
Watching the trail of goosebumps his actions leave behind on my skin, Justin drawls, “Are you cold?”
Are you kidding me?
Just when I find my voice again, he cups my cheeks with both hands, leans in, and lays his lips on mine. “Welcome back,” he whispers into the tender kiss.
My heart knocks against the base of my throat and then excitedly zooms around in my chest. Blimey, it’s so good to be home again.
I exhale a breath through my nose and close my eyes. Slowly, my hands lift to his stomach, then slide around his body, moving us really close together. The tips of my fingers disappear in his jeans pockets, as I fully surrender to Justin and start moving my mouth in sync with his. Tiny electric bolts shock my body at the first leisurely touch of our tongues. He tastes so good… Better than white chocolate with strawberry bits.
The idea of being tossed onto the bed becomes increasingly tempting. The party can wait a little longer. “I’ve missed this an awful lot, you know,” I whisper against his lips.
He arches his brows in a taunting question. “Really? This?”
“You.” I roll my eyes, which earns me a gentle bite to my bottom lip. Then he deepens the kiss once again, pouring every unspoken word of the past into it. Passion swirls me onto cloud nine. I can’t get enough of him.
“Do you have everything you need?” Brinna’s cheerful voice shocks us apart as the door swings open. “Everyone’s wai— Oh! Oh my God, I’m sorry.” With an embarrassed grimace, she retreats backward, snickering, then makes a dash into the hallway.
I giggle, detaching myself from Justin, and run a hand through my hair. “Guess I should go see the others now.” With any luck, we can continue this welcome later.
“It’s your party,” he answers, swinging his arm around in a gentlemanly fashion, inviting me to lead the way. I brush past him, but he’s at my side again after I walk through the door, and together we head toward the celebration in the living room.
Happy beyond words, I look up at him and grin. “What are you doing later tonight?”
“No plans. Why?”
I bite my lip, briefly lowering my gaze but sending him a tentative grin the next moment. “I thought we could go for coffee?”
A warm tingle zips through my stomach as his fingers lace through mine. Squeezing my hand gently, his lips twitch into a smile. “Any time, tiger.”
– The End –
Playlist
Hayley Kiyoko – Girls Like Girls
(Meet my by the lake)
R. City – Locked Away ft. Adam Levine
(Spider-Boy’s hoodie)
Juntos Los Dos – Cumbia
(Dance club)
All Time Low – That Girl
(Tigers and Indians)
Major Lazer & DJ Snake – Lean On
(Paintball)
Sleeping At Last – All Through The Night
(The Band-Aid)
Taylor Swift – Wildest Dreams
(A scary ride)
Haley Reinhart – Can’t Help Falling in Love With You
(Awakening feelings)
Nicky Jam y Enrique Iglesias – El Perdón
(Bonfire)
Jessie J – Flashlight
(Hands off the suitcase)
Sia – Salted Wound
(Coming up for air)
Vaults – One Last Night
(Crossing the threshold)
Jessie Ware – Say You Love Me
(In the rain)
Boyce Avenue – One Life
(Running late)
Ella Henderson – Yours
(Let’s go for coffee…)
TAMING CHLOE SUMMERS is a spin-off of the original YA romance series Grover Beach Team. If you want to find out more about Chloe’s time in high school and also meet other unforgettable characters, start with Book One: PLAY WITH ME.
Thank you all for reading!
Hunter grinned but he didn’t seem as happy as the guy next to me. More like he knew crap was about to fall.
“He can’t play when someone’s watching him,” Justin almost sang into my ear. “Totally screws up then.”
“But you all are watching him,” I pointed out.
At the back of the room, someone laughed. “Yeah, but we’re not girls.”
Ryan Hunter’s parties are legend. And tonight she’s going to be there.
Lisa Matthews has been in love with her best friend since kindergarten. They’re close as can be. They’ve even slept in each other’s bed. But they’ve never kissed. Weeks away from her seventeenth birthday, Lisa hopes that soon things will change between them. But when Tony comes home after summer soccer camp, his mind is focused on someone else. And worse, that new girl is a soccer player.
Fighting for her love, Lisa gets carried away and makes a stupid decision: Without the least bit of talent or any passion for the sport whatsoever, she goes for the co-ed soccer team.
The tryouts are hell, the first match ends bloody, and the morning after the selection party she wakes up in the worst place possible—in the arms of the captain of the soccer team. The hottest guy in school. Ryan Hunter.
Available books in the GROVER BEACH TEAM series:
Play With Me
Ryan
Hunter
T Is For…
Dating Trouble
The Trouble With Dating Sue
Taming Chloe Summers (a spin-off)
Other books by Anna Katmore:
Neverland
Pan’s Revenge
*
Summer of my Secret Angel
Hiya!
In this spot, you usually find me shouting out thanks to the people who helped me write my books and encouraged me to never give up. I’ve done that many times, and I’m sure all of them know how much I love them. But there’s one person who really means the world to me.
Because I know how much you all crave love stories, I’m going to share my very own with you today. :-)
We had a song…
2 Young - Crimson & Clover (cover)
I was seventeen when the ultimate romance happened to me. I lived in Vienna, where I went to school, but every summer, I spent two months at my grandparents’ house in Upper Austria, a beautiful place, very green and far away from any city bustle.
It was before my final year of high school that I went there once again, and my best friend and I spent our days outside—from early morning until late at night. I had to suck in as much nature as I could in order to live off of it later when I had to go back to the city, which I hated.
One afternoon, we were playing tennis in the street in front of my grandparents’ house, when a super sexy, dark red, low-slung car drove by. It’s head-lights were modified to present a really mean-looking front and it had those attention-catching tires on specially designed aluminum-rims. The guy had to slow down, because we were blocking the street, and the tennis ball rolled toward his front tire. I went to get it, and that was when I looked at his face…and immediately fell in love.
I know some of you don’t like insta love in romance books, because you think it’s cliché. But if I ever use it, it’s because I know how fast it can happen in real life. He looked every bit like Ryan Hunter, except his hair was blond.
So, when he was gone, I turned to my friend, and with only one look she knew: I was a goner. The lucky part was that she knew this guy. Not personally, but she’d heard her older sister talk about him and his car before. Apparently, he was nineteen, lived only half a mile from my grandparents’ house…and he was a playboy.
Really? I thought. How could that ever work with someone like me? Me, who had just turned seventeen, had never been kissed, and was the shyest girl in all of Austria.
Are you thinking now that we would have made a stunning match fit for a long, twisting romance book?
I thought so, too. ;-)
The only problem was I had no idea how to make sure our paths crossed again. I didn’t know any of his friends. I didn’t go out a lot, so there was no chance of running into him at a bar, club, café, whatever. And I didn’t have a sexy car that would catch his attention like his caught mine. Heck, I didn’t even have a driving license! (Because in Austria, the driving age is eighteen.)
So, I did what any lovesick girl would do. My friend and I started hanging out at this one shop right underneath his apartment. It had a huge ledge that you could sit on like on a bench. So we did just that. We sat there for hours, and I soon learned he wasn’t home during the week because he had to do his military service. (At age 18, every boy in Austria has to do such service for eight months.) And so I sat there on the weekends, trying to catch a glimpse of him as he came home or left to randomly drive around town, which he loved to do.
The good thing was that I saw him quite often. The bad thing was that I saw him with girls. Several of them. It was enough to make me turn tail and give up hope. I would never be brave enough to walk over and flirt with him, which all those other girls seemed adept at doing. I envied them for being so confident, so comfortable around him.
But then one day—it was August 15, a Friday—my friend and I were hanging out in front of my house, just lying in the sun, when something happened that I will never forget for the rest of my life.
The boy with the red car drove past my house again, quite slowly, the windows rolled down. He tilted his head toward me, and one corner of his mouth twitched up.
My heart did a somersault.
I was completely stunned, unable to believe he’d really done that. It was such a personal thing between just him and me that I knew, after all my days lingering at the shop near his apartment, I must have caught his attention. And it felt like an invitation. To do what? I didn’t yet know.
But with all the excitement boiling in my chest, I just had to see him again. So my friend and I went to that shop and slumped down on the windowsill like we used to do so often. It was only a few minutes before he showed up and parked across the street. I tried not to, but I couldn’t stop looking at him as he talked to a friend for some minutes. Suddenly, that friend came toward us. I’d seen him before, because he dated a girl I knew. His name was Jay, but I’d never talked to him before. He asked us if we’d be up for some cruising around with the two of them.
I cast an offended look at the blond across the street and thought, Seriously? You—the playboy—send your friend to do the asking? It somehow hurt my pride, so I told Jay no. That is, not unless the blond asked us personally.
Jay went back across the street and passed along the message. What happened next was so sexy that it still makes me smile when I think about it. The blond boy laughed, cut a glance to the sky, and shook his head in disbelief, probably rolling his eyes, too. Then he smiled, looked my way, and called, “All right… Come on! Pleeease?”
My friend was totally up for it, because while I was in love with him, she was in love with his car. Okay, I was in love with his car, too, but he came first.
So with this lovely invitation, I couldn’t resist any longer. My knees wobbled as we walked across the street toward him, and I could only hope that he wouldn’t notice. He was leaning against the hood of his car, with his arms folded over his chest and his legs crossed at the ankles. He cocked is head just slightly. “Up for a ride?”
“Only if I can sit in the front,” I answered.
That sexy half-smile played on his lips again. “Fine with me.”
I was just about to get in the passenger seat when my friend protested, “Hey, why do you get to sit in front?”
Of course it would have meant a lot to her to sit in the front in the car of her dreams. But it meant more to me to sit next to the guy of my dreams. Of course, I couldn’t say that out loud, so I replied playfully, “Because I’m older than you.”
And then the blond stepped up behind me, really close, and told my friend, from a spot very close to my ear, “And because I don’t want her sitting in the back.”
OMG, butterflies!!! So many butterflies in my stomach!!
Are you listening to the song above right now? Because that was the one playing in his car at that moment.
We cruised around for about an hour, getting to know each other just a little. I loved listening to his voice. It was the sexiest sound I’d ever heard.
When we stopped, right where he’d picked us up, we got out and talked for a while, until it was close to five, the time my gran expected me home for dinner. My grandparents were lenient, and I didn’t have to be home often, just for mealtimes, so my friend and I reluctantly told the guys we had to go.
“Will you come back later?” the blond asked me.
I smiled because he sounded every bit like he wanted me to. “Mmmaybe?”
“You better.”
“Really? Why?”
He leaned in a little closer and purred in my ear, “Because I know where you live.”
That’s the stuff that still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end with giddy excitement.
Sorry, guys, I didn’t intend to drag this story out so much. So, in closing, I’ll just let you know that I met up with him again that same evening, and it was very nice. But he was a playboy—don’t you forget that—and I decided I didn’t want to be just someone on the list of his bad
reputation. So I made him wait a year and a half before I let him kiss me for the first time.
And just yesterday, he told me, at home in our bedroom, that I was totally worth the wait… <3
About the author
ANNA KATMORE prefers blue to green, spring to winter, and writing to almost everything else. It helps her escape from a boring world to something with actual adventure and romance, she says. Even when she’s not crafting a new story, you’ll see her lounging with a book in some quiet spot. She was 17 when she left Vienna to live in the tranquil countryside of Austria, and from there she loves to plan trips with her family to anywhere in the world. Two of her favorite places? Disneyland and the deep dungeons of her creative mind.
For more information, please visit her website at: www.annakatmore.com
Find her on Facebook: facebook.com/katromance
