Information:
Title: No Flowers Required (Love Required,
#2)
Author: Cari Quinn
Genre: Category – Contemporary
Length: 281 pages
ISBN: 978-1-62266-967-7
Release Date: August 2012
Imprint: Brazen
Blurb:
Love Required - Book Two - by Cari
QuinnHe’ll give her everything she desires…except his identity.
Flower shop owner Alexa Conroy had it all before the recession hit and her customers fled to cheaper shopping grounds. Desperate to make ends meet, she sells her dream home and moves into the rundown apartments above her shop. When she spots six feet of sexy distraction—complete with muscles, piercings, and tattoos—ripping up flooring, Alexa knows the karmic windfall she’s due just landed on her doorstep.
And the attraction’s definitely not one-sided.
Dillon James, reluctant heir to the corporation about to foreclose on Alexa’s shop, is not about to jeopardize their scorching chemistry by admitting he’s not the building’s handyman. But with only weeks until her business goes under and his identity is revealed, Dillon must find a way to convince Alexa cooperation isn’t a dirty word, help her save the shop from his brother’s greed, and persuade her that he’s not the enemy…or risk losing the only woman who’s seen the real him.
Excerpt:
Alexa
moved whip-fast, slamming her hands on Dillon’s chest and him against the door
before his brain caught up. The watering can clattered onto the ground. She spared
it a brief, puzzled glance, then fisted her hands in his T-shirt and arched up,
her mouth coming closer—
Fuck
it.
He
fused his mouth to hers, and dammit, it was even better than he’d expected. She
didn’t yield to him but struggled a bit, as if she was shocked he’d taken over.
That made it even hotter. He slanted his lips over hers when her startled
squeak granted him access to the warm sweetness inside. Perfect. He took full
advantage of her surprise to explore her with long, slow licks of his tongue.
Maybe
his head couldn’t compute what was happening, but his body sure could. He
cupped her ass and rocked his hips against hers, all too aware of his violent
reaction to her nearness. His dick still hadn’t recovered from their
bump-and-grind in her bathroom and apparently had no trouble asserting its
readiness to play. Recovered now, she didn’t shy away, and instead rubbed
against him, her curves sliding against him in a way that had him groaning and
pulling back so hard he thunked his head on the closed door.
He
couldn’t do this. Oh, God, he had to. She was going wild against him, and he
didn’t have any defenses against his hunger for her. Not when he wanted nothing
more than this. Just this.
“What
are we doing?” he managed as she dragged her lips down his Adam’s apple. Stars
danced in his vision and hell if he knew if they were from the head jolt or
from their kiss.
She
didn’t answer him, just skated her hands down his torso and under his shirt.
And what hands they were. She seemed to be touching him everywhere. He clung to
her ass as if she was his only port in the storm, and sure enough, a bolt of
lightning sizzled overhead followed by a crack of thunder. But Alexa never paused.
He’d become her canvas and her fingers were her paintbrush. She sketched every
ridge of muscle, every line of bone. And then the column of his cock, wedged
tight into his jeans. She touched him with confidence and skill, the kind that
would soon have him driving his hands into her hair and pushing her to her
knees if she didn’t stop.
But
a woman like her wasn’t meant for a quick fuck against a door, even if that was
what she acted like she wanted. Even if he longed for her so much that he
didn’t care about anything but stealing this moment and making it theirs. He
must be misreading her signals, though he was pretty adept at picking up sexual
cues. Or else he’d sent some crazy ones of his own.
“Alexa.”
Though it took all his faculties just to get out that one word, she ignored
him. Completely.
She
cupped him and nipped his jaw, her teeth offering a sharp counterpoint to her
palm’s soft touch. His shaft lurched in her hold and she let out a delighted purr.
“Lex,”
he tried again, her name ending in a moan.
“You
don’t know who I am.” He expected her to stiffen, to look up at him with those
huge bluebell eyes he’d gone a little nuts for the first time he’d looked at
her. She didn’t.
“Alexa, listen to me.” He wrapped her braid
around his hand and tugged up her head, something sharp dislodging inside him
the instant their gazes clashed. In the waning light, he could just make out
the lust on her finely boned face. It transformed her somehow, changed her from
someone he should protect—from him—into a woman he needed at all costs. “You
don’t understand.”
She
didn’t. Hell, at the moment, he didn’t either. Because he didn’t feel like he
was lying or hiding anything. He wanted to strip away the barriers between them,
and this was the best way he knew how. Words were unnecessary, the language of miscommunication.
Kisses and long looks and sultry touches—that was the truth, and she was the
only one he could share it with.
Right
now who he really was didn’t matter. She knew the important stuff. He was a
guy. She was a woman. Certain areas were meant to fit together.Who even cared
who his family was? Maybe she really didn’t even hate the hardware store. Maybe
she had a secret girl-crush on it and went in there every day to fondle all the
trusty hammers and saws…
Yep,
he needed help. The kind he’d find alone by himself, far, far from distractions
with anklets and eyes as big as moons.
“You
don’t understand,” she whispered, gripping the back of his neck. She was tall
for a woman, and even in flats she could reach all the important parts with
only a modicum of stretching. “I don’t want to know who you are. I don’t care.
All I want is for you to make me come.”
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Melissa,
ReplyDeleteFirst time at your blog. I love your header of the open journal book! Thanks for featuring an excerpt of Cari's newest.
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