Title: Somewhere Between Us
Author: Holly Hall
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: February 7, 2019
Blurb
We were an unlikely couple: the cocky athlete and the preacherâs daughter. Once he finally won me over, he wasnât supposed to break my heart.
Ten years later, heâs back in our hometown. Only now, heâs different. A cunning businessman, a big-city resident.
...and the father of someone elseâs child.
When he left town, I stayed. Now Iâm a teacher by day and aspiring artist by night. Dating the one man he hates more than anyone else: his brother.
I have no business falling for him again; he traded this life for one he thought was better. One that didnât include me. But history has a way of repeating itself, and old flames? They donât always go out.
Purchase Links AMAZON US / UK / CA / AU Free in Kindle Unlimited Excerpt
âYou really want to know who I thought youâd be with when I came back?â Jeremy said, sobering. He goes on without my answer. âI didnât picture anyone, because I knew all along it was supposed to be me.â
I feel my pulse in my temples in the residual silence. Why? Why would he say something like that, knowing how much I yearned for him after he left? For what couldâve been?
âNot what you wanted to hear?â
My breath hisses against my teeth. âNot what I expected to hear.â
âThe truth hurts sometimes.â
No kidding. It feels like tiny crowbars are wrenching open my heart, allowing him to slide in through the cracks. âAnd when did you find that out? Before or after you made your laps around campus?â
âI always knew it.â
Ouch. Was that supposed to hurt more or less than any other answer?
Before I get the chance to ponder that further, his hand is on my neck, his fingers curled into my hair. His mouth is on mine in less than the span of a heartbeat, the time it takes a hummingbird to beat its wings. There is no chance for reason to invade my senses, because heâs already there, his lips filling me with nostalgia, his tongue caressing the ache of loneliness thatâs only expanded since the moment he left.
Time stops. Or maybe it moves backward. I can remember everything he made seventeen-year-old me feel when he singled me out in a classroom and wouldnât accept that I didnât want to let anyone in. That Iâd embraced the isolation my classmates made me feel.
He filled me with strength. He made me forget. But most of all, he made me feel.
And then he left.
I push my chair back from the table, breaking the connection between us. The look in his eyes is half dreamy, half dazed. Not at all confused as to why I cut that reminiscent moment short.
âYou canât just kiss me like that.â
âLike what?â
âLike you never left.â
He rubs his fingertips over his lips. âYou canât tell me you donât feel like nothingâs changed.â
âBut everythingâs changed.â I stand and push my hair back with both hands, clutching my head. âYou hurt me, Jeremy. I donât think youâre even aware of how much. It wasnât just puppy love.â
âThat was a different time. We were younger. We both had a lot of growing up to do.â
âYou were everything to me!â Iâm borderline yelling until I remember Asher upstairs in his room. I run a hand down my face and shake my head. âYouâre too important to be casual. I canât be indifferent with you.â And I canât act like every time he touches me, the scar tissue around my heart doesnât quake.
He stands and matches my gaze, his expression just as hard and intense as it was before. Canât he see he has the power to break me? Canât he see I canât afford to let that happen anymore?
Holly Hall drinks coffee on the daily, would love to travel for a living, thinks animals are often better than humans, can count on one hand the number of things she loves more than reading and Texas A&M football (okay, that might be an exaggeration), and couldnât handpick a better family than her enormous one. She is the author of four other standalone contemporary romances, Forever Grace, All the Pieces That You Left, Love in Smoke, and Smoke and Lyrics. She resides with her husband, daughter, and German shepherd in Houston, Texas.
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