THE MOMENT OF LETTING GO by J.A. Redmerski
(August 11, 2015; Forever Trade Paperback)
You can follow the rules or you can follow your heart...Sienna Murphy never does anything without a plan. And so far her plans have been working. Right after college, she got a prestigious job and gained the stability she'd always craved-until work takes her to the sun-drenched shores of Oahu and places her in the path of sexy surfer Luke Everett. For the first time, she lets her heart take control. Drawn to his carefree charm, she makes a spontaneous and very un-Sienna-like decision to drop everything and stay in Hawaii for two more weeks.
Luke lives fast and wild. When he meets Sienna, he's convinced that some no-strings-attached fun is just what she needs. As their nights quickly turn from playful to passionate, Luke can't deny the deep connection he feels. But there's a reason Luke doesn't do long-term. He can't promise Sienna forever, when theenormity of his past has shown him just how fragile the future can be . . .
Luke lives fast and wild. When he meets Sienna, he's convinced that some no-strings-attached fun is just what she needs. As their nights quickly turn from playful to passionate, Luke can't deny the deep connection he feels. But there's a reason Luke doesn't do long-term. He can't promise Sienna forever, when theenormity of his past has shown him just how fragile the future can be . . .
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About the author:
J. A. Redmerski, New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, lives in North Little Rock, Arkansas with her three children, two cats and a Maltese. She is a lover of television and books that push boundaries.
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Excerpt 1:
“Damn, my back is killing me,” I say, grimacing and reaching behind me for my muscles again. “Sleeping on this sofa is brutal.”
Sienna’s face falls under a little veil of guilt and pity.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says. “Is it bad?”
No.
“Yeah, it’s pretty bad.” I groan deeply for added affect. “I should’ve crashed in Seth’s room—would have if I’d known he wasn’t coming home last night.” Truthfully, I’m not sure of that; Seth might be in his room and I just slept so well through the night that I didn’t hear him when he came in, like I usually do.
“Now I feel bad,” she says and stands up from the coffee table, her long, lightly tanned legs stretching for miles underneath the thin fabric of her cotton shorts— damn,
she is sexy; the things I want to do to her right now. “I’m not really hungry anyway, so don’t worry about breakfast. I was just messing with you.”
“Nah, don’t feel bad.” I wave it away like it’s nothing, while at the same time still kneading my back with the other hand. “I’m going to make you something . . . but you could help me out by walking on my back.”
“Huh?” Her face scrunches into a cute, confused expression. “You want me to walk on your back?”
“Well, yeah,” I say with a nod, suddenly realizing myself how just the thought of her touching me—with her feet, her hands, her lips; I don’t even care which—makes my heart ache and my palms sweaty. “It’ll work out the kinks.”
She smiles ridiculously and shakes her head—I fight the urge to reach out and pull her down on my lap; the image of her bare thighs around my waist, my hands hugging the curvature of her ass…breathe Luke…just breathe.
“I’m not walking on your back,” she sort of laughs the words out.
“Why not?” I tilt my head to one side.
“Well I think I’m a little too heavy to be walking on your back,” she says as if I should already know this. “And because it’s weird?” It was more a statement than a question, but something else she thinks I should already know, apparently.
God, she’s so fucking cute.
I roll my eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those girls who wears a size zero and thinks she’s fat.”
“No! I’m not one of those,” she defends. “I just don’t want to hurt you!”
I laugh without restraint.
“OK, well you’re not going to hurt me, I can promise you that.” I get up from the couch—with pretend difficulty—and step around Sienna and the coffee table and then lay on my bare chest on the floor. “Come on. It’ll really help me out a lot.” One side of my face is pressed against the rug as I look up at her at an angle. She stands over me with her flimsy arms crossed—I grow even harder beneath my shorts.
“No, Luke,” she laughs, “I’m not going to do it.”
“Yeah you are,” I say casually and wave my hand at her as if there’s nothing to it. “The only way you can hurt me is if you jump up and down really, really hard. Now get on.”
“No.”
“Please?”
She shakes her head repeatedly, her smile growing.
I break out the big guns.
“It’s the least you can do for me letting you stay here for free and have my bed.” I grin subtly, which I imagine looks strange with my cheek smashed against the floor.
“No!” She laughs out loud. “I’ll sleep on the couch from now on if that’s the case.”
With me? I want to say—and almost do—but restrain myself.
“No you won’t,” I tell her sharply. “What kind of guy would I be if I made you sleep on the couch while I was all sprawled out on the comfy bed? Now step on and start walkin’.”
“You’re crazy.”
Absolutely, one hundred percent, no-going-back crazy for you—I admit it.
Excerpt 2:
Then he gets up and grabs my hands from the tops of my bare knees, pulling me to my feet.
“We’re going swimming,” he says. “And we’ll talk more about this later…like on the day your vacation is over and you’re standing at the gate in the airport about to kiss me goodbye.”
“Wow, you really think highly of yourself, don’t you?” I can’t keep the laughter from my voice.
“Damn straight!” he says and pulls me along beside him. “Before these two weeks are over, I can guarantee you three things.” He holds up three fingers as we continue onward toward the water. “One”—he holds up one finger—“you’ll never want to go back to San Diego once Hawaii is done with you.” He holds up two fingers. “Two—that photography love of yours will start to take the place of everything else in your life. And three”—he wiggles three fingers and we stop on the beach where the water can pool around our feet—“you’ll kiss me at least once before you go home.”
I blush hard and it feels like my eyes are bugging out of my head. “I might peck you on the cheek or something, but—”
“No,” he says, smiling and quite serious, “it’ll be a full-on, tongue-dancing kind of kiss.”
I smack him playfully on the arm—something is fluttering around inside my belly.
“Geez!”
Luke grabs my hand and pulls me out to the water with him, where we swim and hang out on the cliffs until late in the afternoon. People come and go throughout the hours, sometimes leaving us with Alicia, Braedon, and a few of their close friends to have the area to ourselves for a while before more people show up in intervals.
“Backflip!” someone says just before Luke jumps into the water for probably the twentieth time.
And every time he does it, it ties my stomach up in knots. But there’s something about him that I can’t quite figure out when I watch him leap off the edge of that cliff; it’s not overconfidence or showing off or recklessness, but something deeper, more profound. Maybe it’s a sense of freedom, or a natural high that consumes him while he’s in the air, as if he had been born with a pair of wings that only he can see. But the more time I spend with him, the more intrigued I become. Sure, he’s gorgeous and funny and polite and all the kinds of things—so far—that would make my mom love him to death. But what intrigues and excites me more is how he
kind of makes me want to jump off that stupid cliff regardless of how scared I am of it.
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