Too Hot to Handle
(Romancing the Clarksons #1)
by Tessa Bailey
On
Sale: November 29, 2016
Publisher:
Forever
Mass
Market: $5.99 USD
eBook:
$2.99 USD
Previously
released as an eBook in May 2016, the first book in Tessa Bailey’s Romancing
the Clarksons series is now available in print for the first time!
When rescue looks like a whole lot of
trouble . . .
The
road trip was definitely a bad idea. Having already flambéed her culinary
career beyond recognition, Rita Clarkson is now stranded in God-Knows-Where,
New Mexico, with a busted-ass car and her three temperamental siblings, who she
hasn't seen in years. When rescue shows up---six-feet-plus of hot, charming sex
on a motorcycle---Rita's pretty certain she's gone from the frying pan right
into the fire . . .
Jasper
Ellis has a bad boy reputation in this town, and he loathes it. The moment he
sees Rita, though, Jasper knows he's about to be sorely tempted. There's
something real between them. Something raw. And Jasper has only a few days to
show Rita that he isn't just for tonight---he's forever.
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“So.” He plunked his beer down on the
bar. “Where were you four headed in that big, rusty Suburban before Hurley
reeled you in?”
She looked pensive as her shit-stomping
boots started to sway back and forth, bumping the wooden rungs of the stool.
“We need to be in Coney Island by New Year’s Day. So we can jump into the
Atlantic Ocean.”
“Why—what?” He dropped onto the stool
beside her, his drink forgotten on the bar. “That’s pretty high on the list of
things I didn’t expect.”
“Oh, I know the feeling.” A beat
passed. “It was our mother’s last wish.”
“I’m sorry.”
She nodded, brushing her hair back in a
jerky motion, as if she were uncomfortable having someone’s undivided
attention. He’d never had cause to use the word preposterous before, but
that was the only way he could describe her lack of confidence. Despite the
inappropriate name, the Liquor Hole was his life’s work, and, at the moment, it
was nothing more than an unworthy backdrop for Rita. And, God, he was staring
at her hands like an aggressive palm reader. “Most mothers want to avoid having
their children turn into floating ice sculptures. What was her reason?”
“Good question.” A hint of sadness
winked in her eyes, and Jasper wished he’d let the subject drop. This was what
happened when he avoided talking about sex. He stumbled right into deceased
parents. And yet he wasn’t sorry. Not even a little bit. He wanted to know
everything. “I think…she meant it as some sort of symbolic bonding experiment.
But I don’t know. We’re kind of unbondable.”
“Got the feeling I interrupted a
near-melee this afternoon.”
“Aaron called my soufflé decent.” A
strand of dark hair caught on her lips when she shook her head. It took one
hundred percent of his impulse control not to tug it away, but she beat him to
it, anyhow. “It sounds silly now.”
“Nah.” Jasper couldn’t help leaning in
to get a whiff of cooking spices. “He would have had it coming just for
dressing like a preacher on a weekday.”
Another one of those quiet, smoky
laughs. “I guess there’s a fine line between politician and preacher.”
“Politician?” Jasper shivered, then
recalled the threat Rita’s brother had leveled at his head back on the highway.
“Still, I can’t help but like him for wanting you safe from a stranger. He
can’t be all that bad if he worries about you.”
“Worried might be an exaggeration,”
Rita said.
When her golden-brown gaze lit on his
mouth, Jasper realized he’d moved into her personal space without any conscious
thought. One of her knees brushed the denim covering his hip and, God help him,
if the bar were empty he would’ve been between her split thighs before she
could call for Jesus. For someone who hadn’t felt more than a passing
appreciation for the opposite sex in years, his libido was sure trying to play
catch-up tonight.
“What are you thinking about?”
Lie.
He had to lie. I want to strip you down and fuck you on this seat, but I’m
trying my hand at being a gentleman, was not an acceptable line. It was too
aggressive when she seemed spooked merely from his close proximity. But she was
leaving, leaving his town tomorrow, and the slow-game option had been ambitious
for Jasper when he knew nothing about it. So he’d tell the truth while leaving
out the oh-so-dirty reality in his pants. “I was thinking it would have been a
goddamn shame if you’d broken down one town over.” His voice was gravel, so he
cleared it. “More than a shame. I’m kind of finding it hard to think about, if
you want to know the truth.”
For long moments, he couldn’t hear a
single sound in the loud bar. No music, no crunching ice or raucous laughter.
And, somehow, he knew she couldn’t hear the noise, either. It was there in the
perplexity of her expression. He expected her to call bullshit or make a joke,
but she didn’t. She shocked him instead.
“I’ll think I’ll take that kiss now.”
Amazon * Barnes
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THE ROMANCING THE CLARKSONS SERIES
Too
Hot To Handle, #1
Too
Wild To Tame, #2
Too
Hard To Forget, #3
Tessa
Bailey is originally from Carlsbad, California. The day after high school
graduation, she packed her yearbook, ripped jeans, and laptop, and drove
cross-country to New York City in under four days. Her most valuable life
experiences were learned thereafter while waitressing at K-Dees, a Manhattan
pub owned by her uncle. Inside those four walls, she met her husband, best
friend, and discovered the magic of classic rock, managing to put herself
through Kingsborough Community College and the English program at Pace
University at the same time. Several stunted attempts to enter the work force
as a journalist followed, but romance writing continued to demand her
attention.
She
now lives in Long Island, New York with her husband and daughter. Although she
is severely sleep-deprived, she is incredibly happy to be living her dream of
writing about people falling in love.
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