I've enjoyed Samantha Young's romances for quite some time now, so I've been looking forward to the first in her Hart's Boardwalk series, The One Real Thing, which released Tuesday! I have a juicy excerpt as well as an INTERNATIONAL giveaway to share below!
Publication Date: September 6th 2016 by Berkley
About the book:
Welcome to Hartwell, a quiet seaside
escape where uncovering old secrets could lead one woman to discover the
meaning of a love that lasts…
While Doctor Jessica
Huntington engages with the inmates at the women’s correctional facility where
she works, she’s always careful to avoid emotional attachments in her personal
life. Loss and betrayal taught her that
lesson long ago. But when she comes across a set of old love letters in the
prison’s library and visits the picturesque town of Hartwell to deliver them to
their intended recipient, she finds herself unable to resist the town’s
charm—and her attraction to the sexy owner of a local bar proves equally hard
to deny.
Since his divorce from his
unfaithful ex-wife, Cooper Lawson has focused on what really matters: his
family and the boardwalk pub they’ve owned for generations. But the first time Jessica steps into his
bar, Cooper is beyond tempted to risk his heart on her.
Yet as their attraction grows
hotter and Jessica remains stubbornly closed off, he begins to realize it will
take more than just passion to convince her there’s only one real thing in life
worth fighting for…
Excerpt:
Why did it feel like having sex had complicated things so
much? Usually sex was complication-free for me.
But before that night I’d been completely sure that Cooper
was interested in exploring something more with me, and now I was freaking out
that his interest would wane now that he’d had me.
I shook my head slowly. “No. It was good.”
He scowled, his arms tightening around me so much there
wasn’t an inch of space between us. “It was better than fucking good, Jessica.”
I scowled back and pushed at his chest for some breathing
space. “Well, I’m sure you’d know all about that.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“You use the word ‘fuck’ a lot.”
“It’s a good fucking word.”
I was tempted to laugh at how disgruntled he sounded and he
seemed to catch my amusement because his hold on me eased.
“What’s going on in your head, Jess?”
I thought about evading this conversation. I’d never had to
have an adult, open conversation with a man about sex. However, I realized,
somewhat reluctantly, if I wanted something more with Cooper Lawson I was going
to have to give him more than I was used to giving.
I couldn’t change his past, but I could figure out what it
was he wanted in the future by just being honest and asking the question.
“You still want something with me, right? This”—I gestured
behind me to the table—“it wasn’t just about sex.”
“No,” he said. “It’s not just about sex.”
As I heaved a sigh of relief, he let go of my waist to cup
my face in his hands, dipping his head down to mine so our noses almost
touched. He stared deep into my eyes and I shivered. I felt like he was trying
to see right into my soul.
“I’m in this for the long haul, Doc. I was before you
walked into my bar tonight, but now, after the best fucking sex of my life,
after how wild that was, there’s no way I’m letting you walk out of here
without me.”
And there he went doing it again.
His words resonated deep within me along with giving me
that deep, sexual belly flip of arousal.
My fingers curled into the top of his biceps. “Best sex of
my life, too,” I murmured. “It stunned me a little. Confused
me . . . I thought maybe . . .
you . . . this was old hat for you . . .”
He gave me a crooked grin. “You think I make a habit of
fucking women in my bar.”
“You could,” I said. “You are definitely a man who could
pull that off.”
Cooper threw his head back in laughter and I pressed my
body deeper into his to feel his joy.
And then he wrapped his arms around me and hugged me.
Just as I’d suspected, he was a really good hugger.
When he pulled back he was smiling gently at me. “You’re
the only woman I’ve had in my bar.” He let me go only to take my hand in his.
“No one sits at that table anymore.” He gestured to the scene of the best sex
we’d both ever had. “It’s now a shrine.”
“You can’t do that!” I was mortified at the possibility of
people finding out why there was a table in Cooper Lawson’s bar that no one was
allowed to sit at.
“I can. It’s my bar. I think I’ll even carve ‘Coop and Doc
were here’ on it.”
Finally getting that he was joking, I made a face. “Funny.”
“You’re slow on the uptake tonight,” he teased.
“My brain was just frazzled by the orgasm to beat all
orgasms.”
He squeezed my hand. “You up for more brain frazzling?”
I shivered at the thought. “Definitely.”
His eyes darkened. “Let’s go back to my place.”
Exhilarated by the prospect, I followed him, and it wasn’t
until we’d stepped outside the bar into the cool night air that I said, “I
don’t suppose you know where my panties are?”
“I do, actually.” He led me to the back of his bar to the
parking lot. A dark-colored GMC was the only truck there.
“Um . . . could I have them, please?”
He stopped me at the passenger side of the truck, pressing
me up against the car. “Why?” he whispered against my lips before he kissed me
deeply. He came up for air a few seconds later. “You’re not going to need them
where we’re going.”
The nagging pressure between my legs increased. “You are so
very, very good at stringing the exact right words together.”
He kissed me again.
“You’re just good with your mouth in general,” I murmured.
Cooper grinned and brushed his lips over mine. “In the
truck, Doc.”
About the author: Samantha Young is
the New York Times and USA Today bestselling
author of the On Dublin Street series, including Moonlight on Nightingale
Way, Echoes of Scotland Street, and Fall from India
Place, as well as the standalone novel Hero. She resides in
Scotland.
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