From New York Times bestselling author Penelope Ward, comes a new,
sexy standalone novel.
It seemed like a good idea at the time. Look
up Landon Roderick, that boy from childhood whom I’d never been able to
forget—even though he so easily forgot about me—and call him.
Then again, anything sounds like a good idea
when you’ve had a little too much wine before bed, right? It was supposed to be
just a quick, meaningless, prank call. Instead, I went off on him—unloading
thirteen years of pent-up emotions.
I didn’t think he’d call me back.
I certainly could never have anticipated the
weeks of sexually tense phone conversations that followed as I got to know the
man he’d become.
Turned out, Landon had never really forgotten
me, either. That special connection we had was still there. I opened up to him,
but there were also things about me he didn’t know. And he had his own
secrets.
Over the countless hours we talked on the
phone, I wondered what would happen if we actually saw each other. One night, I
did something impulsive again. Only this time, I went to the airport and booked
a ticket to California. We were about to find out if one phone call could bring
two lost souls together or if my drunk dial really was all just a big mistake.
A complete STANDALONE.
PRE-ORDER
(No Amazon e-book preorder. Will go live on/around release day.)
Copyright © 2017
By Penelope Ward
After that
evening, I hadn’t heard back from him for a few days.
Then, one night,
a text came in from the same phone number I recognized as Landon’s. It was the
first time he’d texted me.
I looked down to
find he’d sent a photo.
I gasped.
It was a heavily
tatted man set against the backdrop of the ocean at sunset. Oh, my. It was him—a selfie.
F*ck. Me. He was beautiful.
I wouldn’t have
even known it was Landon were it not for the blue eyes I recognized instantly.
The shaggy, caramel hair I remembered from the past was now a darker shade of
brown and shorter, cropped closer to his head. His arms and his chest were
inked, his body so perfect that if I squinted, it almost resembled carved
stone.
I couldn’t stop
looking at him. My eyes wanted nothing more than to explore the ridges and
valleys of his stunning body.
Was this a cruel joke?
This was not
Landon!
But, it was.
With my thumb
and middle finger, I kept zooming in and out, examining the details of the ink
across his chest and on his arms. There was really nothing sexier than a guy
with perfect arms and a full sleeve tattoo.
Even though his
lips seemed fuller than I recalled, they still curved into a familiar grin that
oozed confidence. The eyes and that smile were the only traces of the boy I
remembered. I wished I could’ve leapt through the screen to smell him, touch
him.
“Hi, Landon,” I
whispered, for a brief moment talking to the boy inside, not the man in front
of me.
This Landon was
the polar opposite of the Ivy League yuppie image previously in my head. The
only thing the man pictured might have majored in was badassery. He looked like
a rockstar, a rule breaker, displaying a sense of arousing danger—someone who
must have had women from all walks of life drooling over him for the sheer fact
that either they couldn’t have him or shouldn’t
have him. It suddenly became clear why, as he’d alluded to, a woman might have
been begging him for sex. That made me wonder if he had any secret tattoos in
spots I wasn’t allowed to see.
God.
A fire was
burning inside of me, and I knew it was my crush exploding into a full-blown
obsession.
A self-conscious
feeling came over me. If I was scared to show him a picture of myself before,
now I was really hesitant.
The message that
went along with the photo simply read:
Now show me you.
About the Author
Penelope Ward is a New York Times, USA Today, and #1 Wall Street Journal Bestselling author of thirteen novels. With over a million books sold, her titles have placed on the New York Times Bestseller list sixteen times. She is the proud mother of a beautiful 12-year-old girl with autism (the inspiration for the character Callie in Gemini) and a 10-year-old boy. Penelope, her husband, and kids reside in Rhode Island.
Connect with Penelope Ward
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