She is a piece of me that I will always fight to protect.
Epilogue
Katherine
~One year later~
The thing about love is that you don’t get to choose who you fall in love with or when you fall in love. Most of the time you never see it coming.
Then there are those times when you see it coming, and even though you try everything in your power to prevent it from happening it still smacks into you like a semi-truck. Just like the way I fell in love with Jason. He’s my best friend. My protector. My fiancé.
This last year I learned that sometimes the person you don’t want to love because it scares the crap out of you with just how right it feels, is the one you end up falling for the most.
And I fell hard.
I thank God every day that Jay never gave up on his love for me.
Always You
About the Book
Alice
Eric Knight. He was my best friend from that first day he threw sand in my hair when we were three. We were inseparable after that, there were no secrets between us, we never had to pretend with each other. Until the day in our sophomore year of high school, when he told me that he was leaving the next morning to go live with his dad on the other side of the country. He promised that once he was eighteen he would come back for me.
Three years.
For three years, I waited for him to come to back to me once he turned eighteen. He never did.
Now, fifteen years after he left, he’s standing on my doorstep. He doesn’t look anything like the boy who left all those years ago. He’s taller, bigger, tattooed.
Scarier.
Sexier.
His chocolate-brown eyes still do to me at thirty, what they did to me at fifteen.
Eric
Alice Johnson. I fell in love with her when we were kids. I hated turning my back on her and leaving her in our sophomore year of high school, but my mother was a stupid junkie and the court decided it would be in my best interest to live with a father I had never met. Turns out my father was the president of an MC.
I’ve been stuck in that life for the last fifteen years. I wanted out, and I wanted her back. But what I was about to do could get us both killed. Nobody went up against my dad and lived to tell about it.
Enough was enough. I had waited a long time to go get my girl and I am not waiting any longer. She is mine.
She has always been mine.
Prologue
Just as I’m about to take the first sip of my freshly brewed coffee, the doorbell to my small one-level house rings. My brows immediately furrow together as I double check the time on my phone. Kat and Dani were early. We had made plans to do a coffee tour of all the coffee shops in town for my birthday. In Oceanview, there are about nine coffee shops and they all gave you free coffee on the day of your birthday. We figured if I went in to all of them, I could get us each three free coffees today. The plan was to break up the insane amount of caffeine with a lunch trip to Mekong for free Chinese food, then hitting up one of the Irish pubs downtown for a free dinner. I was thirty and ready to get my caffeine on before getting my drink on.
But when I open my front door, there isn’t a five-foot-two, dark haired, emerald eyed female nor a five-foot-six brunette with amber eyes staring back at me. Instead, my gaze drifts up the six-foot-two frame of a very male body until it connects with his own chocolate-brown eyes. Jet black hair falls down his forehead and over one eye. His features have a ruggedness to them that wasn’t there before, and he is taller than I remember. He might not be model perfect, but he always made my knees go weak, and those eyes I would recognize anywhere, even though they are haunted now. It’s been fifteen years since I saw this man but the sight of him still does to me now what it did to me then. Only now, he is older and sexier. After all these years, my body remembers and still reacts to Eric Knight, maybe more so to this darker version.
His lips pull up in a small grin. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
“Eric?” My voice is barely above a whisper.
He straightens up, pushing the wall he was leaning on and takes a couple steps towards me. Eric leans down, cupping the back of my head in his hand and brushes his lips over mine. And just like that I’m transported back to where it all started…
Playlist
“You and Tequila” by Kenny Chesney
“Nothin’ Like You” by Dan and Shay
“Kiss Me” by Ed Sheeran
“Concrete Angel” by Martina McBride
“Red Dress” by Jojo Mason
“Little Toy Guns” by Carrie Underwood
“Just A Fool” by Christina Aguilera
“Starving” by Hailee Steinfeld
“My Way” by Calvin Harris
“Let Me Love You” by Mario
“Time” by Dean Brody
“We Are One” by 12 Stones
“One Call Away” by Charlie Puth
“Body Like a Back Road” by Sam Hunt
“All Of Me” by John Legend
“Like I’m Gonna Lose You” by Meghan Trainor ft. John Legend
“All The Way” by Jacob Bryant
Acknowledgements
To my husband, J, thank you for putting up with me during the writing process, and supporting me in this crazy dream.
To my brother, M, and my mom, words cannot describe how grateful I am for your encouragement and your support. I love you.
JM Walker at Just Write. Creations, you did an amazing job on this cover. Thank you.
Laura Hull, Red Pen Princess (Indies Ink), thank you for taking on this project on such short notice. You’re amazing!
Teolia Mitchell. There are no words to describe how thankful I am for you and your support. There were days when I didn’t think I would be able to continue on this journey, but your messages kept me going. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I hope I get to meet you at a future signing :)
My Alpha, Beta, and ARC readers. I’m thankful for each and every one of you. Your support and encouragement are what keeps me writing.
To the readers who stuck with me and read Piece of Me from beginning to end, thank you. I hope you enjoyed the ride, and I can’t wait for you to read Alice and Eric’s story in Always You.
About the Author
You can take the girl out of the ocean but you cannot take the ocean out of the girl. A.J believes that describes her to a T. She practically grew up on a beach in Cape Town, South Africa until her family immigrated to Canada. However, the ocean still has a way of relaxing her. If she can’t get to the water, then a long drive with the music blaring will work just fine.
She wears her heart on her sleeve and is a self-proclaimed hopeless romantic who believes that everyone deserves their happily ever after. A.J. lives in BC, Canada with her husband. When she’s not writing, she’s reading. She loves the NFL and drinks way too much coffee.
If you enjoyed reading Piece of Me, please leave a review on your favorite book retailer and/or Goodreads.
Other books by the author
Behind These Eyes series:
Skin Deep (January 2017)
Piece of Me (June 2017)
Always You (September 2017)
The Guardians series (Spinoff from Behind These Eyes series):
Cole (February 2018)
Standalones:
Unbreakable (2018)
CONTACT A.J:
EMAIL: [email protected]
FACEBOOK: A.J. Daniels Author
INSTAGRAM: A.J_Daniels_Author
TWITTER: @AJDanielsAuthor
00%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
Piece of Me (Behind These Eyes Book 2) Page 15
