You know these. The
things where you dart furtive glances around, making sure no one can
see you indulging in your…
Guilty pleasure.
I’m pretty up
front about my likes and dislikes, but I’ve got a few that I’m
not all that keen on revealing for the teasing and/or lectures it
might get me.
Like movie theater
popcorn. This stuff is sooooo bad for you, with its fake
butter and double count of your daily ration of salt, but sometimes I
just have to have it.
Or Thirty Seconds to
Mars. The band has plenty of eager and vocal fans, but I’ve kept my
fandom under wraps (until now). Why? My friends are music snobs. I’m
kind of a music snob. And the BF is one of the biggest music snobs I
know, but at least for him, it makes sense (he’s a classically
trained musician). The sound of Thirty Seconds to Mars is too slick
and overproduced for me to really take them seriously, but I like
them anyway.
Reruns of The
Hills falls on the list, too. When it was still on MTV, I was
much, much better about going to the gym. I’d climb on the
elliptical machine and stay there until the episode was over, and I
got deeply invested in the pseudo-relationship between Lauren and
Brody. Like, I was really disappointed when they couldn’t work it
out and get back together.
This last one is
going to make me sound like a total snob, but I can’t help it. I am
a film snob. I have a membership to the Seattle International Film
Festival, and I go every year. Foreign films are my jam. And while
I’ll happily watch good action movies (you know, the ones
with an intricate plot, fast pace, and preferably starring Andy Lau),
I sometimes need to watch a particularly bad action movie.
Ones with unnecessary explosions, fight scenes that go on forever,
and ridiculous, over-the-top plots that are so far off the
plausibility scale it’s laughable.
Are you game to
admit your guilty pleasure?
Hidden Scars by Amanda K. Byrne
(Hidden Scars, #1)Publication date: September 22nd 2015
Genres: Adult, Contemporary
Sometimes the past won’t stay where it belongs.
Sara’s number one rule of dating: closed off, secretive men need not apply. Years of therapy helped her move past the damage done by her emotionally abusive boyfriend, and she’s ready to date again. Someone funny, laid back, and easy to talk to. All things her coworker Taylor isn’t.
Taylor’s quiet. Too quiet. He operates in permanent stealth mode, and he hides his secrets as well as Sara does. She doesn’t want to be attracted to him, but after a night spent in a hotel room together, trapped by a blizzard, she can’t deny there’s a fire-hot connection between them, waiting to ignite. Their working relationship inches closer and closer to friendship, until one day she gathers her courage and kisses him.
It’s the match Taylor was waiting for.
What starts as a sweet, fumbling friendship quickly becomes a passionate and intense affair. Just when Sara’s starting to feel safe in Taylor’s arms, his secrets come out, and she wonders if she’ll ever be able to stop looking over her shoulder.
Excerpt:
She
took in the living room as she shrugged out of her coat, then faced
him, her nerves still evident, but mixed with something else. A
couple of something elses. Desire. Determination. She stepped into
him and slid her hands up his chest, tipping her head back. “Taylor?”
He
splayed his hands across her back, the warm silk of her hair tickling
his skin. “Yeah?”
She
dropped her gaze to his mouth, flicked it back up to his eyes. “I
don’t want to go slow.”
Jesus.
He’d known it would happen. He honestly didn’t believe it would
be tonight, not even after the kisses they’d shared in her office.
He glided a hand up to cup the back of her head. “Sara—”
She
rose on her toes and cut off his protest with her mouth. “I want
this,” she whispered against his lips. “I don’t want to go
slow. Not anymore.”
It’d
be easy to take her at her word. But she’d been cautious for so
long, he had to be certain. “We can wait. Just dinner, remember?”
She
kissed him again, harder, hotter, her tongue darting out to probe at
the seam of his lips. Before he could respond, she broke the kiss on
a pant. “Now. I want you now. I’m not going to break, so don’t
you dare
hold back on me.”
The
way she was vibrating against him, her mouth teasing and seeking,
stretched his control to the limits. If she wanted this, he’d give
it to her. He crushed his mouth to hers, her taste ripping through
him as he plunged his tongue into her mouth. Hot and tart and
quintessentially Sara.
He traced her
curves with his hands as she met him kiss for kiss, the sinful heat
of them clouding his brain. Her body was fantastic. Full, high
breasts he wanted to see uncovered. A slightly rounded belly, the
curve of her waist flaring out. His hands continued their journey,
skimming down to her hips, cupping her ass. She needed to get out of
the skirt. He vaguely remembered it hampering her movements earlier,
sitting on the edge of her desk. Sliding his hands over the thin
material, he found the zipper and drew it down, groaning as her
tongue completed a particularly clever maneuver. He was going to take
his time. He was greedy, wanting to know what would make her sigh.
What would make her scream.
The
skirt slipped down her legs, and as soon as she’d stepped out of
it, he grabbed her hips and picked her up, bracing her against the
wall. She met heat with heat, need with a towering one of her own,
her mouth working over his jaw and up to his ear as her fingers
plucked at the buttons on his shirt. She lifted her head, lips
swollen from his, and smiled darkly. Her hands slid over his
shoulders and pushed the shirt down his arms.
He
had to touch her. Had to have her skin heating under his hands.
Capturing her mouth, feeding off her moans, he stumbled down the hall
and into the bedroom, lowering her to the bed. Then he yanked her up,
whipped her sweater off, and urged her down again, pinning her to the
bed.
She
felt so damn good under him. Soft and curvy and warm, the spicy scent
of her perfume surrounding him, her body fitting to his in all the
right places. Her arms and legs locked around him as her hips tilted
up. It shoved him onto the edge, his dick aching, and he had to drop
his head to her shoulder to keep from tearing the rest of his clothes
off and plunging into her right then.
Author Bio:
If she’s not writing, she’s reading, drinking hot chocolate, and trying not to destroy her house with her newest DIY project. She lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, and no, it really doesn’t rain that much.
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