Playing With Her Heart (35 page)

Finally, thank you to
my friends and family. My friends in real life put up with my
madness, and my awesome family lets me spend all this time with
imaginary people who feel so real.

While Jill wasn’t
able to help Aaron, if you see someone struggling with depression,
there are resources to help the people you care for. The American
Foundation for Suicide Prevention at AFSP.org offers a range of
information on risk factors and warning signs, as well as strategies
if you are worried about a friend. You can also find insight on
grieving if you’ve lost someone to suicide, survivor support
programs, and ways you can help friends or loved ones who may have
lost someone. If you are feeling in crisis yourself, here is the
hotline number: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Please know you are not alone.
Thank you to the Keith Milano Memorial Fund at KeithMilano.Org for
raising awareness about mental health and suicide prevention.

Sneak Peek at
The
Breakup Album
(October
2013)

Dear Readers:
Remember the gala event Jill and Davis attended at the Plaza? Jane
Black, the singer who performed Falling Slowly, is the rock star
heroine of my next novel, The Breakup Album, releasing in October.
Here’s a sneak peek of her first kiss with Matthew.

Xoxo

Lauren

About
the book…

Jane Black has
written the break-up album of the century earning her a Grammy, a
huge legion of new fans, and the pressure to repeat her success.
Sure, the heartbreak from her husband’s unconventional abandonment
might have been her inspiration, but it hasn’t done her any favors
in the dating department. So when Matthew Harrigan, the toughest
music journalist out there, asks for an interview, Jane agrees—as
long as her personal life is completely off-limits.

British, gorgeous,
and way too tempting, Matthew’s the first guy Jane’s been
attracted to since her husband. As she spends more time with him and
their relationship heats up, though, so does her writer’s block.
How can the queen of the break-up pen the perfect follow-up when
she’s seriously in love?

* * *

“Yes, I would,” he
says in a soft voice that borders on a whisper.

My body is racing, and
the moment is full of so much anticipation, so much possibility that
I could bottle it. But still, I feel like the sidewalk under my feet
is swaying, and I need to know which way is up.

“You would what?”

“I would want to take
you out. Much like how I want to kiss you.”

I can barely process
his words. They’re so heady, so woozy, so utterly foreign to me. No
one has wanted to kiss me in the last seven years.

“May I?” he asks,
and I am in a blissful bubble of his accent, his blue eyes, and his
total classiness in asking me, like a proper gentleman, which turns
me on even more. I want this sliver of time to be suspended so it
lasts, but I desperately want to be kissed. I want to be kissed by
someone who wants me, by someone who knows what he’s doing, and by
someone I am immeasurably attracted to.

By Matthew.

Who’s holding me
tight with those dark blue eyes, the color of a lake in my perfect
Maine, and I can’t let go. I can’t look away. I can barely speak.
This feels so unreal, but yet here he is—wanting to kiss me. I
would go into shock if I weren’t completely tingling all over.

“Yes,” I say,
grinning, but then my smile is erased by his lips as he presses
gently against mine with such softness, such sexiness that my knees
go weak, and I loop my arms around his neck so I don’t fall.

He wraps a hand around
my waist, tugging me closer as he kisses me, and I’ve lost all
awareness of my surroundings, of the city, of the last several days
of my life because the second Matthew’s lips touch mine, I know it
is one of those kisses.

The kind you could
write a song about.

I hear the word
amazing
press into my brain.
Amazing lips, amazing kiss, feels amazing,
you’re amazing.
At one point, I actually murmur the word in his
mouth. Kissing him is like a Chris Isaak song. It’s not frenzied or
frantic or a mad dash to the end. It’s slow and unhurried, dreamily
unfolding over and over. It’s desire stretching out.

His lips exploring
mine, his tongue tangling with mine, his hands lacing through my
hair. His sexy sighs that tell me he’s savoring this kiss as much
as I am. He brings me closer, his long, lean frame terribly close to
mine. For a brief second, I can feel him pressed hard against my
thigh, and it’s thrilling to elicit this kind of reaction from a
man.

Arousal.

Then he breaks the
kiss, and I stumble. He catches me. “You okay?” he asks, and he’s
back to that playful voice I know from the Grammys.

“Yeah,” I answer, as if I’m
waking up.

Available for pre-order now.

Sneak Peek of
Nice
Girl to Love

Dear Readers: I am
thrilled to share a brief excerpt from Violet Duke’s Nice Girl to
Love (The Complete Collection) that’s now available. Her books are
sexy, romantic and heartfelt.

Xoxo

Lauren

Nice
Girl to Love (The Complete Collection)

©
Violet Duke

Abby went mute as she
felt Brian’s tongue lash across her skin, sensitizing the nerves to
levels beyond pleasure.

If he didn’t stop,
there was a good chance she’d pull the towel he was wearing right
off.

“Do you want me to
take it off?” he asked, his words tickling her skin.

Yes.
“No,”
she stammered, unable to take her eyes off the portion of the towel
that was tucked at his hipbone. Just one good tug—

“I was talking about
the ice, sweetheart. But if you have other things in mind…”

Ice? What ice? “Oh!
Ow
.” The burning of the ice at her ankle finally filtered
through to her brain. “Yes, actually, can you take it off? I’m a
wuss when it comes to icing my injuries.”

Brian quickly pulled
off the ice and rewrapped her ankle before resuming his massage. “So
back to the other things you wanted me to take off,” he teased.

Okay, seriously? It was
a really good thing the man had never flirted with her before because
she was certain she’d never have survived it, especially not when
his hands were kneading her muscles into butter.

“You’re
impossible,” she complained thickly, though it came out more like a
purr. His massages should be illegal for how good they felt.

She blinked slowly at
him and started wondering idly what was so wrong with him losing the
towel. A fuzzy smile drifted across her face.

“Damn, you’re going
to fall asleep on me aren’t you?” Brian’s voice floated over
her hair softly as he pressed a smiling kiss to her forehead. “Go
ahead and rest, sweetheart. You had a pretty eventful afternoon.”

With that, he stood and
walked over to the linen closet for some clothes.

Shame.

He was heartbreakingly
handsome. Always had been. But ever since he’d gone back to
coaching afterschool to supplement his teaching income, he’d gotten
even burlier from the added lifting sessions before practice. It was
almost unfair. Superhuman, really. His build was now more impressive
than the average underwear model’s physique—a standard issue
Sullivan trait it seemed—though every other aspect of him remained
far gentler and way more mellow than Connor.

She’d never thought
of mellow as being the new sexy. But it so was.

And nice was the new
hot. With two T’s.

Hearing Brian’s soft
chuckles echoing in the room, she realized she must have said the
last couple of sentences out loud.

“I think you’re
‘nice with two T’s’ too, Abby,” he whispered before kissing
her on the cheek. “Sweet dreams, honey.”

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