sexta-feira, 29 de setembro de 2017

5 Days of Nicola Rendell - So Good Friday




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On the roof of a house outside Truelove, Maine, master carpenter Max Doyle looks down through a skylight and sees the most beautiful woman he’s ever laid eyes on. She’s naked, she’s gorgeous, and everything about her is perfect, down to the ball-busting tattoo of a rose that wraps around her hip. But it isn’t just any woman making his knees buckle. It’s his best friend, Rosie Madden. And as he stands there, mesmerized and precariously close to toppling off the roof, he knows he’ll never, ever be able to look at her the same way again.

Rosie can’t help but notice that Max is suddenly acting very strange—lots of long stares, totally tongue-tied, and not at all like the slightly cocky hunk she’s proud to call her best friend. She can’t figure it out, until later that night when Max rescues her from the world’s worst date, challenges her to a game of pool, and shows her just exactly what she’s got him thinking about. Repeatedly.

But life is complicated. Rosie’s cat, Julia Caesar, wants to eat Max’s dog Cupcake for an afternoon snack. A dream job threatens to pull them apart. And another glance through the skylight changes everything, one more time. Yet try as they might, they can’t go back to being just friends, because falling in love with the one you’ve always adored?

It feels so good.

I couldn’t do it. I wanted to do it because he kissed with such passion and such aggression that I felt like every single bone in my body was saying, Rosie, this is a table, just lie down and let him have you. But this was Max. My Max. I didn’t kiss Max; I needed Max. But now here I was, liquored up on way-more-than-two margaritas, and losing all my freaking common sense.
Idiot. Idiot.

Summoning up all my strength, and resisting the gravitational pull of the pool table too, I pushed him away. I turned away and slipped off the rail. I grabbed my purse from the hook underneath the corner pocket and hustled for the door. I could hear Max saying my name, I knew he was trying to make a grab for me, but I had to get out of there. The taste of him had been intoxicating, disorienting.

It had been heaven. And he could not be my heaven.

He was the gallon of Rocky Road I should not have. He was the box of chocolates I should not eat.

So without saying goodbye to Fletcher, without even paying my part of our tab, I beat a quick exit for the door, or I tried to anyway. The place was packed, and I had to squirm my way through a whole slew of enormous fishermen, all broad shoulders and barrel chests, like extras from some Viking documentary kicking back after a long day of Hollywood pillage and plunder. Each step was perilous, all their steel-toed boots mere inches from crunching my bare toes. Finally, I did get to the exit and hurled myself out of the door into the dark quiet of the gravel parking lot. Chirping crickets and the buzz of a slowly dying Summer Shandy sign filled the air. The hot air of the bar was swept away by the warm breeze off the water. I inhaled hard, trying to clear my head.

My mind spinning and my feathers decidedly ruffled, I grabbed my keys and tottered to my Bug. But no sooner had I put my key in the lock than the bar door squeaked open and there was Max, coming for me. “No fucking way,” he said, pulling my keys from my hand. “Don’t you dare, Rosie. Don’t you dare.”

It hadn’t even occurred to me what I was doing. I couldn’t drive, for God’s sake. I wasn’t tumble-down drunk, but I was far too tipsy to be going anywhere at all. So I went for Plan B and started to march down the street.

“What are you going to do? Walk?”

“It’s not that far!” I swatted a huge mosquito that had attached itself to my arm like a jungle dart. “What is it, three miles? Four?” I flapped my hand in the air to say, It’s nothing! But honestly, I don’t think I’d ever walked three miles in my life. I’d have to call a cab. I’d have to hitchhike. Still though, still!

Max grabbed my hand and spun me into him. Our bodies collided, and I became acutely aware of his brawn. “Seven miles. Jesus. Let me take you home at least,” he said, his voice all growly and sexy and…

Rosie!

“I don’t want you out here by yourself,” Max said. “It’s not safe.”

“It’s Maine, for God’s sake! What’s going to happen? A moose going to mug me?”

“I know what these mosquitos do to you.” He swept his big, rough hand over my bare arm, letting his fingers move lightly along the bend in my elbow.

My breath got caught up in my throat. It was like a hiccup interrupted a cough. For the first time, I understood what it meant to have someone’s touch light you on fire. And not just that either: the kiss was still lingering, the taste of him still on my lips. Sweet and salty. Delicious. He trailed his fingers down the inside of my forearm and back up again. As proof of the fact he’d made alphabet soup of my brain, all I could think to say was, “I don’t know why they never bite you.”
He laughed a little and smiled as he stepped into me. “Because you’re way fucking sweeter.”
He kept his hand there, on my arm, and his other cradled me at the small of my back. Even in the semidarkness, I could see him perfectly, because I knew everything about him. His rarely seen right dimple, his smile lines, the salt and pepper that was starting to show in his sideburns. The necklace with half my name on it. The curve of his delicious bum. Even in the dark, I knew him. Even in the dark, I wanted him. But even in the dark, I knew it was a terrible idea.

So I stepped back again.

He raised his hands up, like a surrender. “Get in my truck. I won’t touch you.” The gravel crunched under his feet as he moved even farther away. He ran his hand through his hair and reached for his keys. “I’ll be good.”




AP  new -about the author.jpg
Nicola Rendell writes dirty romantic comedy. She likes a stiff drink and a well-frosted cake. She loves to cook, sew, and play the piano. She realizes that her hobbies might make her sound like an old lady and she’s totally okay with that. She grew up in Taos, New Mexico; after receiving a handful of degrees from a handful of places, she now works as a professor in New England. An Amazon bestseller, her work has been featured in USA Today's Happy Ever After and the Huffington Post. She is represented by Emily Sylvan Kim at the Prospect Agency.


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quinta-feira, 28 de setembro de 2017

5 Days of Nicola Rendell - Just Like That Thursday










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"I bet I can untangle you."

At an airport baggage claim, Penny Darling looks up from her knotted mess of ear buds to find the sexiest hunk of man she's ever seen. He's got a military haircut, a scar through his eyebrow, and he's rocking a pastel pink dress shirt like only a real man can. But Penny is on a man-free diet so she leaves the airport without succumbing to his delicious double-entendres...or his dreamy dimples.

PI Russ Macklin can't take his eyes off Penny. As she sashays out of the airport with hips swaying and curls bouncing, he suspects they may share more than just sweltering chemistry. That suitcase she's rolling along behind her? It looks a lot like his.

Because it is.

When he tracks her down, he holds her bag hostage in exchange for a date. Their night begins with margaritas and ends in urgent care, and Russ proves that Cosmo's theory about a very particular type of orgasm was oh-so-wrong.

In Penny, Russ finds a small-town sweetheart with a very naughty side. For the first time ever, he’s thinking about picket fences. Penny finds in Russ a loving, caring man who understands the power of massaging showerheads.

But Russ is only in Port Flamingo for a week. They agree it'll be a fling and nothing more. Because really, they can't fall ass-over-teakettle in love just like that...

Can they?

Jesus,”I groan into her ear. “You always this wet?”

“For you, I think so.”

I hoist her up onto the countertop, making a nearby teakettle clatter and slosh. She loops her arms around my neck, and I kiss her again, pressing her head up against the cabinets. I add another finger, feeling just how fucking tight she really is. I compress her clit and she rolls her pelvis into my palm. That tiny movement, the shifting of her pussy, her body saying yes, it sets off something inside me, as powerful as a fucking starting pistol, and I smack the cabinet behind her head, making dishware rattle and ding.

Her hands make their way down to my belt. I pull back from the kiss and watch her, her delicate hands working the leather, unthreading the end from the loops. With my thumb I press into the edge of her clit, which makes her freeze, buckle clasped in her hand. Her eyes flutter shut, and she goes slack in my arms.

I take over and pull my belt off. “So, listen,”I say, keeping my tone serious and dark. “I want you to tell me exactly what you want. You get that?”

“This is what I want,”she gasps, feeling me through my shorts. “Oh my God, you’re huge.”

“Think you can handle me?”

“If you teach me.”

Shit, how sexy is that? I tip her chin up toward my face. “Yeah, I’ll teach you. But I want you to be fucking explicit.”

“About what…”She trails off as I lick a line up her throat.

“About what you like and how you like it. I don’t know how long I’m going to be here, and I don’t want to fuck around.”I drag my tongue along the clamshell edge of her ear. “Be dirty, be rude. Tell me what you want and don’t hold back.”

Her neck arches, and her pussy clamps down around my fingers. So I give her a third. She pauses with her hands inside my waistband, her fingers inches from my cock.

“What do you want? Tell me, right now.”

She stares hard at me, like she’s trying to call my bluff. Like she thinks it doesn’t matter what she wants, not really. But how fucking wrong she is. What she wants, that’s everything.

Still though, she doesn’t answer. She gets to work on the buttons of my shirt, her small fingers undoing one after another until she’s got her hands on my bare chest.

Time to be even clearer with her, so I pin her head back and get right up in her face. “I can fuck you all night, Penny. I can fuck you until you beg for mercy. Or I can go slow and be sweet.”I pull off her shorts, working them down her legs, and drop them on the kitchen floor.

She runs her fingertips down my abs. “Can’t we do everything?”

Goddamn it, yes. “Everything and more.”




AP  new -about the author.jpg
Nicola Rendell writes dirty romantic comedy. She likes a stiff drink and a well-frosted cake. She loves to cook, sew, and play the piano. She realizes that her hobbies might make her sound like an old lady and she’s totally okay with that. She grew up in Taos, New Mexico; after receiving a handful of degrees from a handful of places, she now works as a professor in New England. An Amazon bestseller, her work has been featured in USA Today's Happy Ever After and the Huffington Post. She is represented by Emily Sylvan Kim at the Prospect Agency.


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quarta-feira, 27 de setembro de 2017

5 Days of Nicola Rendell - Hail Mary Wednesday


 








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At a boxing gym in Chicago, Mary Monahan accidentally knocks out the most handsome man she’s ever met. After she wakes him up with a few slaps and some smelling salts, the very first thing he does is ask her out for ribs and beer. His name is Jimmy. He looks like a Gillette model. And he’s just too hunky to resist.

Jimmy “The Falcon” Falconi is mystified that Mary has absolutely no idea who he is. Mystified and refreshed. He is, after all, not your everyday NFL quarterback. He shops at Costco, has a soft spot for Pinterest, and is in the midst of an epic losing streak.

Jimmy falls for Mary fast and hard, the way he does everything—balls out and like it’s fourth and long. And he realizes he’s finally met his match. That stamina he’s so proud of? Doesn’t stand a chance against her Kegels.

But what they don’t know is she’s also his new physical therapist, recently hired by the Bears to work on his rotator cuff…and groin injury. If she can’t help him, he’ll be traded faster than they can say “offensive penetration.”

In spite of the thousands of internet memes featuring Jimmy’s face with captions like: “HEY GIRL, WANT TO TOUCH MY BALLS?” Mary finds herself falling for him and his unrelenting desire to make her his.

Until a toddler shows up at Jimmy’s door.

And throws their lives into total chaos.

Holy shit.”Jimmy reaches out and unpinches his fingers over Frankie’s face. “That looks like an ewok.”He leans in, putting his enormous elbows on the table so that everything on it sloshes and slides like we’re at sea. I clamp my hand to my side of the table and try to right the vessel with my shoe. Victory. Not even a drop of beer lost.

“Frankie Knuckles is his name.”

“Jesus,”he says with a snort, looking at the picture. “What a bruiser.”

Not exactly. He’s 13 pounds, allergic to wheat, afraid of aluminum foil, and carries a half-stuffed drool-crusted panda bear around with him everywhere he goes.

“Do you like dogs?”I ask, as casually as I can muster.

In my head, I swear to God, I hear the theme song from Jeopardy. This is a moment of truth. I’m not sure I’ll ever see this guy again, but I’d like to. I’m not sure I’ll ever know his lips on mine, but I want to. But this question, the dog question, this could be a deal-breaker. I find non-dog lovers to be very, very suspicious. I once heard Ted Bundy disliked dogs, and I thought, Of course he did. But this guy, Jimmy, he’s so perfect that we’ve got to be headed for a catastrophe. This might be it. Just my luck he’s going to say, I’m allergic, or I have twenty-nine cats, or I’m really into snakes.

Please, no.

“I fucking love dogs.”

And the crowd goes wild!

“Me too,”I say, smiling. It’s an understatement, but I don’t want to get pegged as crazy dog lady quite yet. With a non-greasy finger, I type in my passcode. “He’s a Brussels Griffon. And everybody says he looks like an ewok, but I’ve never actually seen Star Wars, so I can’t weigh in on that.

”He scratches his head and glances at the bar. “Never?”

“Never.”

He clears his throat. “I mean, I don’t want to be rude, but do you live under some kind of rock? Are you a hermit? Because I could totally be into that, but you know, full disclosure…”

Oh Lord. I could be into that. I swallow hard. Wait. What was the rest of that sentence? Right. Star Wars. “I just never saw it growing up, and now it’s sort of a thing. I’m not morally opposed to Darth Vader or anything. Just…never got around to it.”

Jimmy shrugs his massive sexy shoulders. He’s in a navy-blue thermal Henley and a gray Bears hoodie zipped halfway up. I’m pretty sure I can smell Bounce fabric softener tangled up with the Ivory soap smell. It’s hard to tell through the hickory smoke. It’ll require further up-close investigation. I’m definitely on board with that.

“Fair enough,”he says. “I guess it’s possible to not have seen Star Wars. Maybe? Did you grow up in Amish country?”

My giggle comes right from the depths of my stomach. “I grew up mostly in Vermont. My aunt was an apiarist.”

I feel like a jerk immediately. He probably thinks I’m quizzing him on his vocabulary…“

Holy shit. Bees?”

And the crowd goes wild again! “

So many bees. We didn’t have cable, but I can talk your ear off about honey.”He slides his lower jaw off to one side and looks me up and down. “Honey, huh?”

I snatch up my beer and take a gulp. He grins. “It’s okay. I see your lack of Star Wars and I’ll raise you. I’ve never seen The Princess Bride.
“Well, that’s ridiculous. Even we had that one on VHS. Auntie Cheryl said it was a feminist film. She feels like Buttercup was inspired by Gertrude Stein.”

He snickers into his beer. Did he just laugh at a second-wave feminist reference? I might love him already.




AP  new -about the author.jpg
Nicola Rendell writes dirty romantic comedy. She likes a stiff drink and a well-frosted cake. She loves to cook, sew, and play the piano. She realizes that her hobbies might make her sound like an old lady and she’s totally okay with that. She grew up in Taos, New Mexico; after receiving a handful of degrees from a handful of places, she now works as a professor in New England. An Amazon bestseller, her work has been featured in USA Today's Happy Ever After and the Huffington Post. She is represented by Emily Sylvan Kim at the Prospect Agency.


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terça-feira, 26 de setembro de 2017

5 Days of Nicola Rendell - Confessed Tuesday




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Free on Kindle Unlimited





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Lucy Burchett is the heiress to a notoriously disastrous family, and she's left home for good. But when she runs a big, black pickup off the road, totaling it, she finds herself stuck in the middle of nowhere with the driver. He's got a body to die for and a hair-trigger temper. Vince Russo looks like a felon, but he's also pretty funny. He’s on the lam from the cops… and a psychopathic, Russian mob boss who wants to put his balls on a barbeque. Literally.

After a night of ill-advised cocktails and bathroom-wrecking sex, Vince just can't get Lucy off his mind. But he's got plans to rob her. And Lucy’s life is about to get a little bit criminal too.

But can a bad boy and a good girl really escape from their troubles together? Can they trust each other at all?

In the steady march of disasters that follow them west, they fight and they laugh. They tease and they’re tender. They’re either oil and water, or chocolate and peanut butter.

Except, they can’t run from the real world forever. And there’s a hell of a surprise in store for both of them…

He runs his hand through his thick black hair. “When I was your age, music was sexy. Seriously fuck-worthy.”He brings his lips right close to my ear. “Not like this shit playing now.”And then he pulls away. He slides his stool back from the bar and gets up. I watch him walk over to the jukebox. Even the way he stands is incredibly aggressive, masculine, and sexy. Can a stance be dripping with testosterone? Apparently.

He turns and catches me staring. The jukebox goes silent, and there’s just that one second of anticipation in the air. He hitches up his belt and gives me this predatory stare. I resist the urge to place my forehead on the bar. Mercy.

But then it happens.
Bongo drums.
Electric guitar strum.
Synthesizer.
Phil Collins.

He walks back towards me and sits down, dead freaking serious, not a glimmer of fun in his eyes. Unfortunately, deep, deep down, I feel a laugh coming up. One of those incredibly painful church-and-funeral laughs. Phil Collins?

A little honking laugh does shoot out of my nose. I can’t help it. I’m only human.

He looks wounded. “This is classic music, Peaches.”

I move my hand to his forearm and grip it. I mean it to be apologetic, but the way he feels under my hand…it gets sexy in a hurry. “I thought you were going to go for something a little more…”I look him up and down, “broody.”

He’s dead serious. Phil Collins is obviously not a joke. “This is the sexiest song in the entire fucking world,”he says. Not for one second, not even to blink, does he look away from my eyes. And then he puts his hand to my waist, gripping me tight.

He nestles his chin in close to my ear and draws my body closer, between his parted legs. With his tongue just sweeping against my earlobe, he growls, “I can feel it…in the air tonight.”

My neck slides back for him. I feel the seam of his T-shirt under my fingers. Oh, Lord.

“I've waited for this moment…”He runs his finger up my arm. I breathe him in. “…all my life.”

Oh Lord.

Eye to eye now, he brings his fingers up my neck and knots them in my hair. I feel goose bumps down my spine. He draws my head to his. The feel of his stubble is harsh and gritty against my skin, almost scraping me. The hand on my waist slides me over my bar stool. I let my legs press hard and hot against his.

His tongue makes its way up the curve of my neck.

Oh. Lord.
Oh.
Lord.
His lips are almost touching mine now. “The hurt won’t show, but the pain, it grows…”

As the drums come in, his other hand comes up and takes my cheek in his palm. I feel my body heave slowly towards him, like a surrender. I can’t help myself, and groan, “Oh, Lord.” Out loud.

The pressure of his head changes against mine, and he leans in like I’m making him weak. He nudges me with his nose again, like he did on the ground earlier. So close I can almost taste him. But not close enough.

I press my cheek to his and whisper, “Kiss me.”

I feel the smile more than I see it.

Both hands come to my face, and he pulls me in. He decides the depth of the kiss and moves his tongue all the way into my mouth.

Oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord.

Phil Collins hits us with the drums, announcing the obvious: This is a guy who knows what he wants and is going to take it. Who knows what he’s doing and is going to show me what he wants too. He tips my face in his hands, kissing me deeper, sweeping my tongue aside with his. I feel my grip weaken, and one of my legs slides off the stool. He wraps his huge arm around me. But then he pulls my lips from his, and I open my eyes a second later. “Why do I want you so bad, huh? Helen?”He drags his tongue along the edge of my ear.

“I don’t know,”I moan. “But I can feel it.”

He nods. “In the fucking air tonight.”

I inch my hand toward his hard-on.

He kisses me again, starting out way more tenderly than he left off. He fits his fingers between my ribs and grips me hard. I am outrageously wet and can feel the slippery wave between my thighs as I move my legs to bring him closer. I feel my wetness outside my panties even, in a cold smear on my thighs.

My fingers find their way to the back of his head to the base of his neck. I feel the muscles rippling even there. Solid columns of tension.

“I want to hear you scream,”he whispers. Phil Collins starts to fade out.

“I want you to make me scream,”I say.

“Jesus Christ.”

I let my lips just brush his ear. “Should we get out of here?”

“Room’s not ready,”he says.

His jaw nudges mine aside and then he explores my neck through a kiss. I go limp in his hands, but he keeps me right where I am. How he can be so tender and so vulgar, I don’t even know. He makes me want to do things I’ve never done before. He makes me want to set fire to all the rules of polite society. This guy here? He makes me want to get in trouble. Big trouble. “I’ve never had sex in a bathroom.”

He groans again. “Fuck you,”he says. “Get out of my head.”

He presses his mouth to my ear. His voice, it’s dark and dangerous. “Meet me there in two minutes. Don’t you dare make me wait.”And then slowly his stool screeches on the floor as he steps back from the bar.

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AP  new -about the author.jpg
Nicola Rendell writes dirty romantic comedy. She likes a stiff drink and a well-frosted cake. She loves to cook, sew, and play the piano. She realizes that her hobbies might make her sound like an old lady and she’s totally okay with that. She grew up in Taos, New Mexico; after receiving a handful of degrees from a handful of places, she now works as a professor in New England. An Amazon bestseller, her work has been featured in USA Today's Happy Ever After and the Huffington Post. She is represented by Emily Sylvan Kim at the Prospect Agency.

Author Links





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