Machlan Gibson is winning hearts all over the place this week in Crave, a standalone romance that’s guaranteed to make your emotions fun the gamut.
Check out the snippet below to get a taste of this broody, delicious man. Also, don’t forget to enter the following giveaways:
- Hello Lovely Fall Edition Box (exclusive cover inside!)
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The look she gives me stops me from saying anything more.
“Well, I explicitly told him not to tell you,” she says.
It’s not the way her breasts fill out the tight little T-shirt she’s wearing or how the pants fit the curves of her hips that has me all worked up. It’s not even the way her lips form a little bud, still swollen from sleeping on her stomach like she always does.
It’s the fire in her eyes. The challenge she’s tossing my way. The fierce way she doesn’t give two shits about what I say or do. She’s going to do what she wants either way, and that pricks at something deep inside my soul that I’ve never been able to pinpoint. Or stop.
Damn her.
“You know what?” I say, narrowing my eyes. “It’s time we get something straight.”
“I agree.”
Much to my surprise, a reaction I try desperately to hide, she leaps off the bed. Tugging her shirt down over the top of her pants, she props a hand on her hip. Her eyes narrow, still puffy from sleep.
“You got something you want to say?” I ask.
“Oh. Are we going to pretend like you’re suddenly going to start listening to me?”
“I was going to, but you’re running out of time. Better talk quick.”
“You’re such an asshole, Machlan.”
I scratch my chin. “I know. That’s why I find it so interesting that you keep coming around.”
She rolls her eyes and goes back to trying to tame her gorgeous, wild hair again. “It’s a coincidence.”
I yank a chair away from the table and twirl it around. Sitting in it backward with arms draped over the back, I look at her. “There are no coincidences, sweetheart.”
The last word gets her. Her eyes light up. If I were closer, I’d guarantee you can see the jade flecks.
“Especially if you consider you walked into Crave knowing there was an excellent chance I’d be there since it’s my bar, then broke into my apartment.”
“You own the only bar in town, and I’ve stayed in this apartment more times than I can count—”
“What’s that have to do with anything?” I fire back.
Her chest rises and falls with the force of her breathing. “The fact of the matter is that you weren’t supposed to be here.” Her arms cross over her chest, her nose tipped up in some hoity-toity gesture.
Fuck that.
I go out of my way to stay out of her life. I kill myself every morning and night when I walk by her robe that hangs on the hook on the back of my bathroom door. It’s the worst kind of torture to know I could drive to Vigo and see her and probably hold her if I tried hard enough.
But I don’t do that. I don’t do any of it. Even though I think about it every day, I let her live her life without me. That’s how it’s supposed to be. That’s the result of the choices we made, and I have to step aside. I might be an asshole, but I’m not evil.
