FAKING IT and the Fourth and Final Garrick Bonus Scene
OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH MY LOVELIES!
Less than a day left until FAKING IT goes live. In fact, we can start counting HOURS now! How awesome is that? In case you’re out of the loop, and have no idea what I’m talking about. FAKING IT, book 2 in the Losing It Series, follows Cade, our lovable best friend from Book 1. First, check out this cover. *DIES* I’m obsessed with it. And it looks SO pretty in person.
Mackenzie “Max” Miller has a problem. Her parents have arrived in town for a surprise visit, and if they see her dyed hair, tattoos, and piercings, they just might disown her. Even worse, they’re expecting to meet a nice wholesome boyfriend, not a guy named Mace who has a neck tattoo and plays in a band. All her lies are about to come crashing down around her, but then she meets Cade.
Cade moved to Philadelphia to act and to leave his problems behind in Texas. So far though, he’s kept the problems and had very little opportunity to take the stage. When Max approaches him in a coffee shop with a crazy request to pretend to be her boyfriend, he agrees to play the part. But when Cade plays the role a little too well, they’re forced to keep the ruse going. And the more they fake the relationship, the more real it begins to feel.
The One Where Bliss Gets Her Way, and Well, Garrick, too.
Let’s Just Say Ways Are Had
My girl was made of joy.
It seeped from her every pore, shined from her eyes, and sang with the sway of her hips. I watched her jumping on her bed, screaming silently into her hands, and I knew then that I wanted to make sure she was this happy always.
With a smile, I asked, “What are you doing?”
She squealed and collapsed onto her mattress, and I couldn’t put into words what her adorable look of shock made me feel.
You think you know what an emotion feels like—grief, anger, jealousy—but then a moment will come along so fierce in it’s effect that it redefines the feeling and puts what you thought that emotion was to shame.
Bliss redefined happiness for me.
With her hands criss-crossed over her chest like her heart was about to leap out of its cage, she asked, “What are you doing here?”
“I saw your car outside, so I came over. I didn’t realize you’d already started the party without me.” I loved that she didn’t even try to hide her embarrassment with me anymore. She’s accepted it. “I take it you’re excited about how the show went tonight?”
She climbed off the bed, stumbling over nothing. My smile spread wider.
She said, “The show was great, but I’m glad to be home.”
She put a hand on my chest as she said the word home, and I wondered if she could feel my heart jump toward her touch. I grabbed her waist and pulled her forward into a hug. I closed my eyes, put at ease by the familiar smell of her hair and warmth of her body.
One month. One month, and she would be mine– no hiding, no lies, no worries. Just us.
“You were great tonight.” Great was an understatement. She got better every time I saw the performance, braver and bolder and more beautiful. “And now I get to have you all to myself.”
One month from now, I was going to steal her away from the world. Maybe we’d go somewhere. We could take a trip; find a place where no one knew us. Maybe drive down to Galveston and the coast. It was a long drive, but it would be worth it to see her in a bathing suit, to have her really all to myself.
“How was the celebration?” I asked. I was pretty damn proud of myself that I didn’t toss her over my shoulder as soon as the show was over, and kidnap her. I’d given her some time with her friends. Well, as much as I could bear.
“Good,” she said. “Really good. I’m going to miss everyone when we graduate. It’s a little crazy to think that’s only a month away.”
I grazed her pink cheek with my thumb, and said, “One month.”
She smiled, and I leaned down for a quick taste of the joy on her lips.
Her arms went around my neck, and her mouth pushed harder against mine.
“Mmm…” She was going to be the death of me.
I slid my hand up from her waist the to curve of her ribs. Her shoulders pulled back, pressing her chest closer to mine. I opened my mouth, and her tongue slid in, eager and impatient.
I needed to get this girl on stage more often if this was what it did to her.
Our mouths tangled, and our bodies followed, pulling closer, exploring. I had to concentrate to keep my grip on her body light. But her kisses were intoxicating, coaxing me closer and closer to losing control. Her arms slid down my chest, and my spine tightened with a shiver. She slid one hand beneath my shirt, and pressed her fingers into my lower back. I could feel the five little points pressing into my muscle, and I flexed my hands to keep from pulling her hips tight against mine.
But feeling her body, pliant and warm, beneath my hands did nothing to help me stay in control. And I had to stay in control. I didn’t want to spend the night with a foot between us on the couch because I couldn’t keep myself in check. I loved her. I should be able to kiss and hold her without needing more.
Her other hand slid over my abdomen and up to my chest, and I exhaled heavily from my nose.
Shakespeare. Maybe I should recite Shakespeare. Surely my abhorrence for the stuff could balance out my obsession with the little vixen in my arms. I was trying to decide on a play when her hand on my chest, pushed, and I fell back onto the bed that sat behind me. How did the bed get behind me?
I didn’t have time to pinpoint the moment our position had shifted before Bliss straddled me, and my whole body became painfully aware of how very not in control I was. Her hips tilted against mine, and I swallowed a slew of curse words.
“Bliss.” My voice was barely audible. Who could think about things like speech when it took all of my willpower not to toss her on the bed and introduce myself to all the parts of her I’d not had the privilege of meeting.
She pulled back, and I resisted the urge to say thank you. I took the reprieve and with it several deep breaths. When I was a little farther away from the edge, I opened my eyes.
She was biting her bottom lip, and I forced myself to look away and meet her eyes. Then I wished I hadn’t. There was a glint there that I didn’t see often. A few times on the night we first met and on the rare occasion since. It was a boldness in her gaze that told me in was in a hell of a lot of trouble.
She reached down, and then her sexy but tame dress was travelling between us, and over her head. A noise– one part barbaric and one part pain– escaped my throat, and it was like trying not to look down when you’re standing on the a tightrope wire. When her chest brushed not-so-innocently against mine, I couldn’t resist anymore. I looked down.
I sucked in a breath, and then it stuck in my throat.
She was stunning. The most gorgeous fucking thing I’d ever seen. Not touching her was torture.
Shakespeare. Shakespeare. Think about Shakespeare.
“Bliss. You’re overestimating my self-control.” With my jaw clenched and every muscle in my body pulled taut, Batman had better inflection than I did.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure I estimated your control… perfectly.”
Her hips beared down into mine, and I knew I wasn’t going to make it. I was ten seconds away from touching all of her or having to bolt to stop myself. Her breath fanned across my mouth. She shifted, and her hips rocked ever so slightly into mine.
I perched a hand on her back, and tangled another in her hair. Just to keep her balanced, of course. And to hold her back, if I needed a second. Her hips rolled into mine again, harder and on purpose, and I nearly lost it.
My hand dug into her back, and my other fisted in her hair.
“Bliss,” I warned.
She blinked up at me, sweet and innocent. Or playing at it anyway.
“Garrick.”
“This is the opposite of slow.”
I should take my hand off her back. Touching her made this harder.
She swayed toward me, and every place we touched—from the slight graze of her lips to her chest to those damn hips—felt like it had been set on fire. She grinded into me, and I was acutely aware of every article of clothing that stood between us. Namely, I was very away of how few there were.
She whispered, “I think we’ve gone slow enough.”
If that meant what I thought it meant… God, just thinking about the possibility made black dance around the edges of my vision. I wrapped my arm completely around her waist, stilling her hips, but also bringing her closer.
“What does that mean?”
“It means…” Her fingers fiddled with the hem of my shirt, “that I’m done going slow.”
She pulled my shirt, and I was too much in shock to do anything but follow. I raised my arms, and then her bare skin slid against mine, and I was gone. Adrift at sea. Lost in space. Catapulted into an oblivion where nothing mattered but the thin space between her body and mine.
“I’m going to need you to be very clear about what you’re saying right now, Bliss.”
Her eyes met mine, wide and a little afraid. She kissed me, and I wanted to crawl under her skin, to be surrounded by her.
She pulled back, and added another quick, sweet kiss. In a small voice that was completely at odds with fire she’d been playing with so far tonight she said, “Make love to me?”
Who knew a voice so small could send tremors through my heart? God knows I wanted her, had wanted her from the moment I met her. But we’d made a deal.
“Bliss, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do for me.”
One month. As difficult as it was to wait, I never wanted her to regret a single thing about our time together. There was something both empowering and terrifying about knowing I would be her first. It meant she was mine, totally and completely. And if I didn’t fuck anything up, she could stay only mine. But it was also an incredible amount of pressure.
She said, “What about tonight has felt like I was being forced to do anything? In fact, I feel a little like I’m forcing you.”
Her shoulders hunched, and she pulled away from me every so slightly. I could see the weight beginning to drag down the corners of her lips, so I kissed it away. I used the hand in her hair to angle her head, and I kissed her with zero restraint, with almost no softness. I made sure she knew exactly how much I wanted her. So much that I felt like I was going to spontaneously combust beneath her.
My heart was hammering when I pulled back. “You’re not forcing me to do anything. I just want you to be sure. You can say stop at anytime.” And I would want to shoot myself in the face, but I would stop. Something flashed in her eyes, and my heart twitched with a nervous electricity. This was happening. I pulled on an easy smile and added, “You don’t need to make up a new pet.”
Her hands settled on my shoulders, and she stood. My body felt incomplete without her wrapped around me.
“If you’re going to keep trying to talk me out of it…”
My hands shot out with possibly the fastest reflexes of my life. I curled my arms around her, pulled and spun, placing her on the mattress beneath me. I held myself above her with one arm. Just seeing her laid out beneath me raised something like hunger inside of me.
“I wasn’t trying to talk you out of anything. I was trying to be a gentleman.”
But now that I was above her, and I could see the way her body moved with each pant of breath. Gentleman was a foreign word. She tucked her fingers into my belt loops and pulled me down on top of her. Her body molded to mine, and I held myself up on one elbow, just enough that I could look her in the eye as the weight of my body pressed into hers. She bit her lip, making me desperate to kiss and bite across her pale, pink skin.
“Do me a favor? Be a gentleman tomorrow?”
I said something. It might have been words. Then I let down the walls of control, and I kissed her hard and fast and with every bit of fire that I’d spent weeks trying to tame.
I lost myself in her—in the beads of sweat across her collarbone, the valley between her breasts, the snare of her legs around my hips.
And I didn’t want to be found.
Maybe that is the point of love, losing yourself entirely to another person.
Only it doesn’t feel like you’ve lost anything at all.
EEEP! Hope you enjoyed getting to know Garrick a bit better! If you love our favorite British Professor, consider nominating him (and Cade) in the NA Alley NA Crush Tournament! Nominations go live tomorrow at this website!
And I’ll talk to you all when you’re done getting to know Cade! <3
In Awkward <3,
Cora
Johana Vera
June 4, 2013 at 4:09 AM
Okay, that was the sweetest Garrick scene yet. How can it be sweet and hot at the same time? It truly is a gift, what you write.
And PS, Happy Birthday and Happy Faking It Release Day! *flying kisses sent your way*
Johana 😉
Jen@Reading_Lark
June 4, 2013 at 6:29 AM
*puddle of goop on the floor here*
That was one hell of a birthday present you just gave to us Cora!!
Danyelle Pi
May 16, 2017 at 1:25 AM
Today, while I was at work, my sister stole my apple ipad and tested to see if it can survive a thirty foot drop, just so she can be a youtube sensation. My iPad is now destroyed and she has 83 views. I know this is completely off topic but I had to share it with someone!
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