Listed in the order of the book. FYI, #4 is one of the two shortest excerpts and possibly the one that packs the most emotion. 

 

EXCERPT #1
It’s dark inside the tent, and my eyes strain to adjust. A sweet and relaxing scent fills the atmosphere. Oriental-type carpets cover the ground, giving the space a sense of being elsewhere. There’s a chair next to the entrance and a massage table in the center.

To the back, there’s the silhouette of a woman busying herself at a small console with lotions. My heart ba-booms at the shape of her shoulders, the tilt of her head. Jesus fucking Christ, she’s thousands of miles away. Not here. And even if she was here, what does it matter? Shake it off, man.

But her dark, curly hair stirs something deep inside me, and I hold my breath.

Am I hallucinating? It can’t be her, dammit.

It’s a trick of my imagination. 

Shit. 

It’s been so long.

But then she turns around, and my heart hammers in my chest.

The last time I saw this woman, she didn’t even have one word for me. 

After everything we’d shared. After everything she’d told me.

She was walking down the aisle, holding some idiot’s arm, a stiff smile fooling only herself, her gaze glazing over me.

And she didn’t have one word for me.

Not one explanation.

Didn’t even bother trying to be my friend.

It was like I’d never existed.

I’d been on leave, decided four years without coming back to my hometown was enough. I had one week off, and god played a trick on me. It was the weekend she was marrying someone else.

She was supposed to be mine.

Always was.

She said so herself. So many times.

But after her wedding, didn’t she move to Texas? She’s not supposed to be here.

She does a double take. Her eyes round, her mouth gapes, her breath catches.

“Why are you here?” I ask right as she says, “What brings you here?”

I clear my throat. “I’m—I’m just visiting.” I should add something generic and half-assed polite, like It’s nice to see you, or How have you been, but the words stay stuck in my throat. 

She’s supposed to be in fucking Texas.

She blinks several times, takes a small breath, shows me a list of services calligraphed on an elegant paper and framed in gold. “I mean, what type of massage would you like?”

Oh, really? Not even Hey, Ethan. Not even Wow, it’s been a while.

Granted, I’m not good at small talk either. 

But really? “I dunno. My back is tight. It hurts down to my leg.” 

I can’t believe we’re talking like we’re two fucking strangers.

I glance at the tent opening. I never should have come here. I should just go. It’s only gonna get weirder and weirder.

Her voice is melodious with a touch of coldness. Professional. “Strip down to your underwear and get under the sheet. Face down.” She turns around. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

Yeah, that’s not gonna work out. “I-I… maybe I should just go.”

She whips around. Her eyes are shiny, her bottom lip trembles until she pulls herself together and snaps her mouth in a fine line. Her voice catches when she says, “Yeah, maybe you should.”

What the hell? I don’t think so. I pull my T-shirt off my back. Her eyes narrow on my torso, slide down to my abs, and even in the dimness of the tent I can see her cheeks turning a deep red. She catches herself and turns her back to me just as I unbuckle my jeans.

I fold my clothes neatly and place them on a stool. My hands don’t shake. My heartbeat doesn’t rattle the tent. Nothing betrays the anger boiling inside me. Then I slide under the cool sheet.

Face down. I turn on my belly. I wish I could look at her. Make her squirm under my gaze. Ask her to her face what the hell happened to her. 

To us.

“Ready,” I grunt.

 

EXCERPT #2
My mouth goes dry. “What are you doing here?” I pick up Damian. “Are you okay, kitty?”

“He’s fine,” Ethan says, “but we need to talk.” He drops my box on the kitchen counter. “Care to explain yourself?”

My heart beats hard, and I squeeze Damian for comfort. Protection. But the fiend jumps off me and runs away.

“How did you get in here, and how dare you snoop through my things?”

Ethan lifts his hands as if to plead innocent. He looks like nothing innocent right now. Tall and menacingly handsome, his eyes raking over my body like he could consume me right here and now, his breathing heavy with… desire?

Ohmygod, here I go again. Making stuff up. “Answer me,” I snap.

“I came to do a job. Fix your closet door.”

“I didn’t ask you to!” I shriek.

He shakes his head and lowers his hands. “I know you didn’t. Lucas did.”

“Lucas?” I did see Lucas’s truck outside. And it was Lucas who called me at the spa to tell me his “worker” had called about Damian. 

“Look, the point is, I didn’t snoop through your things. Your cat threw the box almost literally at my feet. I was picking it up and… well…” 

He’s at a loss for words and so am I. This is so embarrassing.

“You need to go,” I say.

He crosses his arms. “That seems to be your go-to phrase when it comes to me.”

What does that even mean? “Just leave,” I snap.

“Nope.” He reaches over, his heat and scent invading my space in a way that agrees way too much with my lady parts. “Not until we talk about this.” He snatches the box.

I try to grab it from him, but he lifts it over his head, holding it in just one hand. I jump to get it and only achieve bumping into his hard, wide, warm chest.

Screw this. “Give it to me,” I hiss, and from the look on his face, I’m pretty sure he feels the anger coming at him the way I feel it seeping from me.

“Fuck, but you were always even more beautiful when you were angry. You haven’t changed a bit where that’s concerned.”

My mouth gapes. What? What is he doing? “Give it to me!” I yell and punch his chest with a closed fist.

He backs up, the box still over his head. “Are you trying to turn me on? ’Cause it’s working.” He backs into the bedroom. 

I storm after him, speechless.

“Now that I think about it, I’m always turned on by you.”

“Ethan!” I seethe.

“But now, maybe more than usual.” He circles the bed until he’s on the other side of it.

“Give. Me. The. Box.”

“Come and get it.”

I jump on the bed to try and reach the box. Now two feet higher, I lunge at him. He grabs me by the waist and turns me around, pinning me against the wall. The feel of him against me is so good and so wrong at the same time. I want it to last forever, and I wish it had never happened. Closing my eyes, I lean my head against the wall. 

His hand leaves my waist and takes my wrist, pinning it above my head, lifting my breasts until they graze his chest. “Look at me, Grace.”

Flitting my eyes open, I trail my upward gaze to take in his corded neck, his stubble, the pulp of his bottom lip—

“Look me in the eye.”

I exaggerate the tilt of my head back to reach his gaze. Round my eyes on him. Pretend I’m choking because he’s so out of reach.

He nudges his knee between my legs, forcing my thighs apart. What is he doing? God it feels so good. I resist the urge to rub myself against him. Ohmygod, Grace, get a grip. 

His knee reaches my clit, and he makes a soft stroking motion. I’m losing it. I swear I’m going to lose it. Then he slowly lifts his knee higher…slowly…until my pubic bone is fully resting on it, the pressure making me throb, and then he continues lifting, slowly, slowly, my body straddling his thigh, my feet leaving the floor, lifting until my eyes are level with his. 

He doesn’t show sign of any effort. “Better?” he asks.

I swallow loudly. 

A small smile plays through his beautiful blue eyes. He throws the box behind him, and it lands with a soft thump on the bed. With his free hand he grabs my other wrist and places it next to my face. Both his thumbs stroke my palms. His smell of fresh sweat hits me right below the ribcage, making me pant. 

My mouth is dry, my breathing labored. The itch between my legs is unbearable.

“So tell me,” he says in a low rumble. “What’s with the jersey?”

“The—the what?” Why is talking about his jersey? Did he not see everything else that’s in the box? Did he forget what everything in the box means to us—to me? 

“Why do you have a jersey from when I was a kid when I gave you… at least three more.”

Now he’s upset not to find other stuff? I’m so confused right now. “What?” 

His eyes trail down to my neck, and he tilts his head slightly as if to kiss me right there. His breath tickles me to my core, making me squirm. “You know…” he starts, then interrupts himself, takes a deep breath that lifts me higher against him. “I got grounded a whole week for losing that jersey.”

I blink. I don’t know what to say about that. I’m sorry, I guess? I stole his jersey, okay? I was eleven. Can I get a pass? I remember that weekend vividly. There’d been a snowstorm, sudden, unpredicted. Lynn had called Mom and asked if her kids could crash at our place instead of making the uncertain trek back up the mountain to their farm. I’d had trouble falling asleep, my heart beating too hard at the thought of Ethan right on the other side of the wall. So when I’d found his jersey in the bathroom, I’d rolled it into my own clothes. “Do you want me to confess to your mom?” I say snarkily.

“Mmm…” he says, trailing his gaze down to my breasts, the rumbling of his voice almost making me come against his thigh. “No. What I’d like to know is where are the other jerseys. Those I actually gave you.”

I shut my eyes.

He tightens his grasp on my wrists and jerks his leg up, sliding me lower against him. “Answer me.” His mouth caresses my hair. “What did you do with the other jerseys?”

I shut my eyes and focus on my erratic heartbeats and his ragged breathing.

Like that’s going to calm me down.

“Lemme guess. There’s one under your pillow?”

I gasp. “You did not. You did not look under my pillow.”

He laughs softly. “Just a wild guess.” He rubs his chin over my temple. “And the others? Where are the others, Grace?”

I rotate them. There’s one in the wash and one with my lingerie. Jeez! We’re quite the pair of pervs. “Does it matter?” I whisper.

“No. We’ll get to that later.”

Now he’s sort of freaking me out. “What do you want?”

There’s a little fantasy playing in my head where he answers, you, Grace, I want you and then he kisses me passionately and we make savage love and we walk into the sunset together, happy forever.

Instead, he lowers his knee, his heat ceding place to cold solitude. “I want answers,” he says as he drops his hold on my wrists and steps away from me.

Now he’s going to drop me? “You had no business snooping through my stuff!” I yell as he turns his back on me, leaving the bedroom.

“And you had no business pretending I mean nothing to you,” he answers over his shoulder.

 

EXCERPT #2 SHORTENED
“You need to go,” I say.

He crosses his arms. “That seems to be your go-to phrase when it comes to me.”

What does that even mean? “Just leave,” I snap.

“Nope.” He reaches over, his heat and scent invading my space in a way that agrees way too much with my lady parts. “Not until we talk about this.” He snatches the box.

I try to grab it from him, but he lifts it over his head, holding it in just one hand. I jump to get it and only achieve bumping into his hard, wide, warm chest.

Screw this. “Give it to me,” I hiss, and from the look on his face, I’m pretty sure he feels the anger coming at him the way I feel it seeping from me.

“Fuck, but you were always even more beautiful when you were angry. You haven’t changed a bit where that’s concerned.”

My mouth gapes. What? What is he doing? “Give it to me!” I yell and punch his chest with a closed fist.

He backs up, the box still over his head. “Are you trying to turn me on? ’Cause it’s working.” He backs into the bedroom. 

I storm after him, speechless.

“Now that I think about it, I’m always turned on by you.”

“Ethan!” I seethe.

“But now, maybe more than usual.” He circles the bed until he’s on the other side of it.

“Give. Me. The. Box.”

“Come and get it.”

I jump on the bed to try and reach the box. Now two feet higher, I lunge at him. He grabs me by the waist and turns me around, pinning me against the wall. The feel of him against me is so good and so wrong at the same time. I want it to last forever, and I wish it had never happened. Closing my eyes, I lean my head against the wall. 

His hand leaves my waist and takes my wrist, pinning it above my head, lifting my breasts until they graze his chest. “Look at me, Grace.”

Flitting my eyes open, I trail my upward gaze to take in his corded neck, his stubble, the pulp of his bottom lip—

“Look me in the eye.”

I exaggerate the tilt of my head back to reach his gaze. Round my eyes on him. Pretend I’m choking because he’s so out of reach.

He nudges his knee between my legs, forcing my thighs apart. What is he doing? God it feels so good. I resist the urge to rub myself against him. Ohmygod, Grace, get a grip. 

His knee reaches my clit, and he makes a soft stroking motion. I’m losing it. I swear I’m going to lose it. Then he slowly lifts his knee higher…slowly…until my pubic bone is fully resting on it, the pressure making me throb, and then he continues lifting, slowly, slowly, my body straddling his thigh, my feet leaving the floor, lifting until my eyes are level with his. 

He doesn’t show sign of any effort. “Better?” he asks.

I swallow loudly. 

A small smile plays through his beautiful blue eyes. He throws the box behind him, and it lands with a soft thump on the bed. With his free hand he grabs my other wrist and places it next to my face. Both his thumbs stroke my palms. His smell of fresh sweat hits me right below the ribcage, making me pant. 

My mouth is dry, my breathing labored. The itch between my legs is unbearable.

“So tell me,” he says in a low rumble. “What’s with the jersey?”

“The—the what?” Why is talking about his jersey? Did he not see everything else that’s in the box? Did he forget what everything in the box means to us—to me? 

“Why do you have a jersey from when I was a kid when I gave you… at least three more.”

Now he’s upset not to find other stuff? I’m so confused right now. “What?” 

His eyes trail down to my neck, and he tilts his head slightly as if to kiss me right there. His breath tickles me to my core, making me squirm. “You know…” he starts, then interrupts himself, takes a deep breath that lifts me higher against him. “I got grounded a whole week for losing that jersey.”

I blink. I don’t know what to say about that. I’m sorry, I guess? I stole his jersey, okay? “Do you want me to confess to your mom?” I say snarkily.

“Mmm…” he says, trailing his gaze down to my breasts, the rumbling of his voice almost making me come against his thigh. “No. What I’d like to know is where are the other jerseys. Those I actually gave you.”

I shut my eyes.

He tightens his grasp on my wrists and jerks his leg up, sliding me lower against him. “Answer me.” His mouth caresses my hair. “What did you do with the other jerseys?”

I shut my eyes and focus on my erratic heartbeats and his ragged breathing.

Like that’s going to calm me down.

“Lemme guess. There’s one under your pillow?”

I gasp. “You did not. You did not look under my pillow.”

He laughs softly. “Just a wild guess.” He rubs his chin over my temple. “And the others? Where are the others, Grace?”

I rotate them. There’s one in the wash and one with my lingerie. Jeez! We’re quite the pair of pervs. “Does it matter?” I whisper.

“No. We’ll get to that later.”

 

EXCERPT #3
“Grace? You okay?” Ethan’s hand on my shoulder blades jolts me and warms me at the same time. I want him to leave his hand here, and I want him to go away at the same time. “You’re shaking,” he says.

I hasten my steps, but he merely takes longer strides. As we reach the covered bridge, I trip on an uneven plank. He catches me, one hand under my folded arms. “Hey-hey-hey.”

“It’s this stupid bridge.” I pretend to laugh. “I’m okay.” I try to walk away from him, but his hand trails down my forearm, catches my fingers, and doesn’t let go as he stops abruptly. 

“I’m not okay.” He tugs on my hand, forcing me to face him. “I’ve been struggling all day trying to figure out what to tell you, and I’m at a loss. You said we were over, we were nearly nothing, and I was going to respect that, even if that’s not how I feel, and then this morning… this morning I find out I’m not nothing to you. I’ve never been nothin’ to you. Just like you’ve never been nothin’ to me, Grace. You’ve always been everythin’ to me, and I need you to know that.”

What is he saying? My heart seems to try to escape through my throat. What he’s saying doesn’t make sense. “Why did you stay away for so long?” I ask.

He contemplates our fingers still loosely joined. The corner of his mouth dips, and he briefly shuts his eyes. “It was stupid. I was stupid. I… I didn’t feel wanted here anymore.” He drops my hand and takes a few steps to the edge of the bridge, leaning over the thick wood railing, his gaze lost somewhere on the dark river below us. “I know it wasn’t true, at least as far as my family was concerned. But then …”

He takes a deep breath and turns his face to me. “Then there was you.” He squints at me, like he’s expecting me to say something.

“Me?”

Straightening, he faces me, the moon lighting his side. He reaches for my face and caresses my cheek with his knuckles. “Why did you end it between us?”

 

#4 (379 words)

 

What was I thinking, asking him to kiss me? I ruined both our lives with my stupid impulsiveness back then, and now I’m about to do the same. Because I know the moment he kisses me, I’ll be lost to him. I can tell already. 

Just his voice, rumbling down to my insides. His hands, cupping my face. God… god! His hands on my face? The best feeling. Always been.

The desire behind his hooded eyelids. 

And when he murmured, “I’m falling for you all over again.”

Oh god, and now his lips are trailing mine, not quite a kiss yet, just the whisper of one, his exhale a caress. My whole body vibrates, my center is a hot mess, my knees barely support me.

But what happens next? How do we pick ourselves up, when our daily adult lives, now set without each other in them, take over? When this kiss on the bridge lives on as a memory, will it carry me through my life? 

Or will it destroy me slowly.

“What happens after we kiss?” A kiss with Ethan will never be just a kiss. It will be more than that. It always was. We should talk about that first. Even if we end up just kissing, shouldn’t we set reasonable expectations? Limitations? I mean, if the past has taught us anything—

His lips claim mine, shutting my brain off. I whimper under the onslaught of emotions, under the warmth and weight of his body engulfing mine, under the erotic strokes of his tongue, slow and questioning first, now downright domineering, claiming, taking.

I thought I remembered everything about him. 

I was right, and I was wrong. 

No matter how much I tried, his taste, the feel of him was always elusive. But now that he’s taking me, greedy, possessive, oh god—I remember all of it. The slow sweeps of his tongue, asking for a permission it doesn’t need, accessing my mouth tentatively first, then with the intense devotion Ethan always had for me. His hands press my back tighter against him, the fierceness of his rapid heartbeat confirming this is not, will never be, just a kiss. 

This is ten years of yearning finally coming to an end.

 

#5 (518 words)

 

I unwrap her gift clumsily, letting it fall on my lap. It’s a mumble jumble of little things hooked together. 

The outline of the state of Vermont. 

A heart. 

The name Grace.

A key.

And a ring to hold it all together.

Her key.

She gave me her key.

“Grace,” I start, speechless. It’s the most thoughtful gift she could have gotten me.

“It’s kinda girlish, I’m sorry. But it’s not like you’re going to be using it when you’re in Brussels. Matter of fact, you should just tuck it in your travel bag and leave it there, so you have it when you come back. So you don’t lose it.”

“I’m not gonna lose it.” My eyes water. “You gave me your key.”

She sets her coffee on the floor and turns to face me. “I didn’t give you my key. I gave you your key.”

I wrap her in my arms and kiss her softly, then deeper. 

She straddles me, then breaks the kiss, her puffy lips and hooded eyelids making me re-consider my plans for the day. “Aren’t we going to the farm in a few minutes?”

“Yeah…” I drawl as she wiggles off me and snatches her coffee from the floor.

I look at the key nestled in the palm of my hand. “No one ever got me a keychain. It’ll be in my pocket all the time.”

“But it’s… goofy.”

“No it’s not. It’s sweet. And caring. And loving. It’s everything you.” I turn the name Grace in my fingers, running my thumb over each block letter in a soft pink. Sweet like her lips, her kiss, her love. 

Then the heart. It’s black. Like death and mourning. Surely they had red hearts. Why did she choose black? Reading my thoughts, she says, “I thought that’d be less girly, but you know what…” She huffs. “You can just… You don’t have to… I’m sorry.”

The outline of the state is a predictable green, but it’s also the color of our town, and it means something to me, now.

“What are you sorry about?”

“It seemed like a good idea. It seemed funny. It’s really nothing. I don’t know why you keep looking at it like that. It’s really nothing.”

“It’s everything to me.”

“Ugh!” she pretends to mock moan. “I should have gotten you something nicer.”

“Come here,” I say, pulling her back into me. “It’s the nicest thing you could have gotten me. Seriously. You gave me the key to your house.” 

“I didn’t give you the key to my house, Ethan.”

“Oh.” Now I’m embarrassed. “Sorry,” I chuckle awkwardly. “I just—I assumed…” It does look like her front door key, though. “So…?”

“I gave you the key to your home.”

My heart stops beating as I crush her against me. I’m so overwhelmed, words refuse to form in my brain. I’m just a mess of feelings right now. This is all I ever wanted. Just because it didn’t happen the way I planned or wanted or hoped for, doesn’t mean it’s not happening. 

We’re happening, and that’s all that counts.