Ripped apart by guilt and grief, nineteen-year-old Whit Conrad grabs her stuff and runs from her super-conservative home and family in Pennsylvania and hauls ass for sunny California. All she wants is escape. Now she has a craptastic apartment, a job at a tattoo parlour, and even a friend-who's-mostly-benefits. Then she meets a sexy, inked, surfer-dude who has the potential of capsizing everything...
Published: July 7th, 2015
*previously released under Lengths in 2012
Sometimes it's easier to run...
Ripped apart by guilt and grief, nineteen-year-old Whit Conrad grabs her stuff and runs from her super-conservative home and family in Pennsylvania and hauls ass for sunny California. All she wants is escape. Now she has a craptastic apartment, a job at a tattoo parlour, and even a friend-who's-mostly-benefits. Then she meets a sexy, inked, surfer-dude who has the potential of capsizing everything...
Deo Beckett is adrift. Underemployed and over-boozing, Deo knows he should be doing something more with his life. Being something more. All it takes is a pin-up hottie with a smart mouth—and a bruised soul—to force Deo to start looking below the surface. To wonder if there's more to life than being a beach bum. Now he's falling for Whit...and hard.
But Whit ran from home for a reason, and she'll go to any lengths to keep Deo from learning the truth...
EXCERPT
When the photos arrived, my plan started to form. I refused to let him be forgotten. So I took those photos and mapped out the places I’d go. I planned how I’d fall into his footsteps and how good it would feel to walk the same streets he did in this city that he loved so much.
I thought being here would provide some closure, some way to move on. That was probably my dumbest idea yet.
Because Wakefield is everywhere.
And nowhere at all.
He’s nothing more than the name my parents whisper.
The ink behind my ear.
A memory crammed in a box or a drawer.
I lean into the desk and suck in a deep breath, just as the bell above the door jingles. I sit up a little straighter and work to curve my lips into a small smile.
“Hello?” I say, tapping my pen on the counter top to get the attention of the tall, dark-haired guy who just waltzed in. “Over here, appointment?”
He likely doesn’t have one. No one ever does. They’re mostly tourists who think they need something a little more permanent than a jar of sea shells or a bag of salt water taffy to remember their trip to Silver Strand. So they come to see Rocko, who never turns anyone away. Which means that this guy, or any other douche that comes in without an appointment, will be here all night deciding which tattoo to get to complement their Affliction or Ed Hardy shirts and Rocko will do it. I’ll be stuck here, too, because, though Rocko may be skilled with the tattoo gun, reconciling the register at night is not his specialty. That’s what I’m here for.
“Oh,hey,sorry‘bout that,”gorgeous surfer-boy finally says. When he fixes his light eyes on me, a swirling inferno spreads under my skin despite the ocean breeze wafting through the door. “I don’t have an official appointment, but I called and talked to Rocko earlier. He said it was cool if I came by.”
Sigh.
“Of course he did,” I mumble, trying to look annoyed, but I can’t help returning the lopsided smile that hasn’t budged from his face. I ignore the way my stomach knots and attempt to be professional. Or as professional as the counter girl at a tat shop needs to be.
“So, is it alright if I flip through the books?” He means the collection of heavy leather portfolios, but his eyes stay fixed on me, sexy, friendly, and sparked with that tiny kernel of hungry appreciation I now know as lust. One look from him and a thousand hormonal dominoes tip over and click to every part of my body that can get hot or wet or racing.
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About the author:
Lexi Scott is the combined forces of authors and best friends, Liz Reinhardt and Steph Campbell. Together, they write new adult and contemporary romance featuring strong, smart, feisty women and the swoon worthy, good guys who love them. The grew up on opposite coasts‐ one on the east, one of them on the west, but somehow, both ended up married and raising their families in the Southern U.S. They love traveling, good food, wine and hoarding books.
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