I’ve met boys like him before. Rich. Bored. Always wearing a silver-spooned smile. But there is something different about him that piques my curiosity. The way he looks at me, like he is staring through the bars of a gilded cage he’s never left. Like he is one breath away from suffocating beneath a mound of responsibilities. He is different from the rest because he doesn’t wear his money… his money wears him. I just don’t think he knows it yet.
She’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. She’s everything I’ve never been able to be. Carefree. Whimsical. A dreamer. Her laugh is infectious. She is irresistible. I can’t help but be drawn to her with an intensity that steals my breath and muddles my senses. I want to know her, need to know her, but how can I allow myself that liberty when I don’t have the freedom to make my own choices?
Phillip and Maggie think they have it all. Even though they come from opposite backgrounds, they each have bright futures paved out, with no distractions holding them back.
Until the fateful day they meet each other.
After a brief, adventurous time together in The Hamptons, Maggie and Phillip find themselves saying goodbye just as the spark of love flashes intensely between them. Can their budding connection be enough to survive the pulling tides of change, or will they drift apart before they even have a chance to explore what could have been?
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Charlie tossed back the rest of his fourth beer and asked for two more. He was going for a record tonight.
“Why don’t you just keep the cooler by you?” I asked, digging my hands through the ice again. My fingers felt like frozen popsicles by the time my hand wrapped around a can since we’d blown through the bottles he’d brought.
“Because the beer tastes better when you’re handing them to me.”
“Is that so?” I replied. A mischievous smirk crossed my lips. When he wasn’t looking, I shook his beers up and walked them over to him.
He leaned back to look up at me, a grin eating up the whole of his face. “Finally decided to succumb to me?” he jokingly asked.
“How can I resist?” I said, smiling as I cracked open the first beer, tilting it down at him, showering him in sudsy foam. He rolled out of his chair, curse words peppering the air as I cracked the second can and pointed it toward Hannah and Caleb.
“Maggie!” Hannah shrieked as she jumped out of her seat, beer covering the front of her shirt.
“Get up, you bunch of boring yuppies!” I shouted. “The night is young and the water’s warm!”
Without words, they were up on their feet, laughing and shucking out of their clothes as they headed down toward the water. I turned back to the fire, tossing the beer cans back into the cooler, when Phillip caught my eye.
He was standing up. Standing so still and so close to me that it made me draw in a sharp breath.
“Is this the part where you tell me you have some kind of superpower that allows you to move from one spot to the next without notice?” I joked, wiping my sticky hands down the front of my jeans.
There was a new look in his relaxed gaze. A look that made my heart somersault. A look of attraction and curiosity.
“Are you going with them?” he asked, his heavy eyes drifting over my face, down to my lips where they stayed.
I reflexively licked them, feeling the sun awaken beneath my skin. “Usually I do,” I replied, wondering why I suddenly felt like I had laid out in the sun all day. “How about you? Do you like to skinny dip?”
“Can’t say that I’ve tried it yet,” he said, still watching me so intensely that it made my feet want to squirm.
And my feet never squirmed.
I pushed at his shoulder, trying to dispel the heat growing between us. “Well, there’s a first time for everything, right?” I didn’t wait for his response. I just grabbed the hem of my shirt and pulled it over my head, dropping it to the sand below.
Modesty was a seven-letter word I had yet to comprehend.
I was thoroughly surprised when he didn’t look away. His gaze wasn’t even bashful like I’d assumed it would be when he roamed the length of my body, and it stirred something inside of me that had no business being stirred.
“Come on,” I said, putting my best laugh forward. “You can’t skinny dip with your clothes on.”
It was like my laugh woke him back up, because he smiled lazily, unbuttoned his shirt, and shrugged it from his shoulders, dropping it on top of mine.
“That’s better,” I said, fiddling with the button on my jeans. It took me more time than it should have, because I couldn’t keep my eyes from his perfectly tanned, perfectly chiseled abs.
I shimmied out of my jeans as quickly as I could, and then laughed when he nearly toppled over from his foot getting stuck in one of his pant legs. He grabbed onto my arms, using me to steady himself, and then we both laughed.
“My apologies,” he said, his smile reaching from ear to ear as he clung to me.
Why did I have to notice how good he smelled? Like sandalwood.
“No worries,” I said, setting him straight on his feet. Dropping down, I held his pants while he stepped out of them, trying not to think too much about how close we were. “I’ve fallen way more than I’d care to admit to anyone.”
“Come on, Maggie!” Hannah called. She was splashing and laughing as Charlie and the guys took turns shoving each other under the water.
“Are we taking off our underwear now?” Phillip asked as soon as I stood back up. I had to admit, I was momentarily shocked by his question. But he quickly recovered by adding, “Or do we do it right before we get in the water?”
I stared at him for a moment, enjoying the new sensation of shock that he brought out in me. It wasn’t often that someone thoroughly surprised me. It was fun. Enlightening.
Without answering him, I just smiled and then reached behind me, unclasping my bra and letting it fall onto the pile of clothes at my feet. A second later, I was out of my underwear, enjoying the feel of the breeze against my bare skin.
“Last person in has to clean up around the fire pit!” I shouted, turning from his wide-eyed stare and racing for the water.
Sonya Loveday, first and foremost is a reader, an avid one. It is of that love that brought her to purchasing her first laptop in 2009, and publishing her first novel, Casted, in 2013.
In early 2014, Sonya expanded Casted and then went on to publish Spelled, the sequel to Casted in March, wrapping up the series, and her stint with Paranormal Romance. For now.
Not long after the completion to the Casted Series, Sonya tried her hand at New Adult/Coming of Age, a sub-genre of Contemporary Romance. Thusly, the Six were born with The Summer I Fell, which released at the end of July 2014. The demand from readers was instantaneously, which brought about End Note, the second book of the series in December 2014, and book three, If Ever I Fall, in June 2015.
To date, Sonya lives in Central Florida with her husband, and two kids, and is currently working on the fourth book of the Six Series. Be sure to keep an eye out for upcoming news on Sonya's website!
Books By Sonya Loveday
The Six Series:
The Casted Series:
Candace Knoebel is the award-winning author of Born in Flames—book one in a young adult fantasy trilogy. She discovered in 2009 through lunch breaks and late nights after putting her kids to bed, a world where she could escape the ever-pressing days of an eight to five Purgatory. And an outlet for all the voices residing in her head.
Published by 48fourteen in 2012, Born in Flames went on to win Turning the Pages Book of the Year award in February of 2013. In January of 2014, the last book in the trilogy, From the Embers, was released, thusly completing the trilogy. She now works on the Night Watchmen Series, while guzzling Red Bulls and pretending to be a ninja on Heelys.
Books By Candace Knoebel
The Night Watchmen Series:
Everdeep (Night Watchmen, #4) Coming Winter 2015
The Born in Flames Trilogy:
