USA Today Bestselling author Maisey Yates lives in rural Oregon with her three children and her husband, whose chiseled jaw and arresting features continue to make her swoon. She feels the epic trek she takes several times a day from her office to her coffee maker is a true example of her pioneer spirit.
In 2009, at the age of twenty-three Maisey sold her first book. Since then it’s been a whirlwind of sexy alpha males and happily ever afters, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Maisey divides her writing time between dark, passionate category romances set just about everywhere on earth and light sexy contemporary romances set practically in her back yard. She believes that she clearly has the best job in the world.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
OTHER BOOKS IN THE SERIES
PART TIME COWBOY – Book # 1
BAD NEWS COWBOY – Book # 3
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Excerpt
“What is your problem?”
“What isn’t my problem?” he asked, throwing his hands wide, the hammer still gripped tightly in one of his fists. His chest was bare, a golden beam from the work light throwing the muscles on his torso into sharp relief, highlighting the beads of sweat on his skin that were trailing down through the ridges of his abs.
It was difficult to have a fight with somebody when you were lightheaded from looking at them.
“Things are moving. They’re moving faster than I want. Moving on, and I’m not ready,” he said, dropping his arms to his sides. “This barn is getting built, whether I’m ready for it to be built or not. I’m starting to want sex again, even though I don’t really want it.”
Liss blinked, her heart stuttering as she absorbed his words. “Wait, what?”
“And you,” he said, taking a few steps toward her, “you are not helping.”
“What again?” she asked, blinking rapidly, her heart pounding so hard she was afraid she might pass out. Just faint dead away, onto the floor of the partially built barn.
“You,” he said, his voice rough, “and your lacy panties. I saw them in the laundry. And now I can’t stop picturing you in them.”
Her stomach twisted into a knot, her heart thundering against her breastbone. “You thought about me in my panties?”
“I can’t stop thinking about you in them.”
“Well, I saw you in…Your underwear. You didn’t see me in mine.”
“You seem fine. I am not fine.” He dropped the hammer with a dull thud and took another step toward her, wrapping his arm around her waist and drawing her up against his chest. “I’m not fine.” He raised his hand, brushing her cheekbone with his thumb. “I’m just not.”
She could hear the pain in his voice, the confusion, the plea. He wanted her to fix this, wanted her to make it better, to take away the anguish that was tearing at him from the inside out. But she couldn’t.
She didn’t want him to stop picturing her that way. Because she didn’t want him to let her go. As far as this was concerned, she didn’t want it to be okay. She wanted to be different. She wanted to be everything.
He needed her help, and she wanted something else entirely.
She hated herself for that weakness, but she couldn’t fight it. And she didn’t move away from him.
“I’m not fine, either,” she said, her voice small.
For a moment he just looked at her, his chest rising and falling with each breath, his eyes glittering. Then he moved.
“Fuck,” he said, just before his mouth covered hers.
Liss was glad that he was holding on to her, because if he hadn’t been, she would’ve crumpled straight to the ground. Years of fantasies could not have prepared her for the reality of Connor’s lips on hers. It was new, and it was familiar in the most beautiful way. Like Christmas. Different all the time and somehow the same. With surprises and tradition all wrapped into one. That was kissing Connor. His scent surrounding her, so familiar, but mingling together now with his flavor. She had never tasted him before, and it was the most wonderful thing. The most perfect thing.
He angled his head, sliding his tongue across the seam of her mouth as she opened to him, sighing as his tongue moved against hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed herself hard up against him and kissed him back with all of the repressed enthusiasm that had been building inside of her since she’d first imagined what it might be like to taste his lips.
He was everything. The sunset on the ocean, the salt breeze through the pine trees, a burst of the season’s first ripe blackberry on her tongue. He tasted like heartbreak and hope, and it made her ache down so deep it was physical pain.
He shifted their positions and cupped her face, the kiss intensifying. His mouth was firm, his beard rasping against her skin, his tongue slick against hers. The depth to the kiss, the intensity of it…it couldn’t be anyone but him.
She’d spent years studying his lips, and now she finally knew what it felt like to have them beneath hers. She’d talked to him, but she’d never heard him groan like he did as she swept her tongue across his bottom lip. She knew him, as well as a friend could ever know another friend, and yet, she hadn’t known what he had sounded like when he was aroused. But she did now. And it was better than anything. Better than ice cream.
When he pulled away from her, she was shaking, a strange, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Terror mingling with desire, excitement, adrenaline.
She didn’t know what to say; she didn’t know what to do. She wanted to lean in and kiss him again, and she wanted to run away. She couldn’t really do both at the same time. Unless she kissed him really quickly and then ran for the hills.
There was no question that she had just revealed a hell of a lot. Because you didn’t kiss a guy like that if you hadn’t thought about it before. If you hadn’t thought about it for years and years, over and over again.
But he had kissed her back. And even though he was looking at her now like she had sprouted a second head, the fact remained he had instigated this.
And he had thought about her in her panties.
She didn’t want to speak, because that would mean the moment was over. And it was a moment she had spent so many years waiting for, she didn’t think she could face the end of it.
But she did have to deal with the fact that this could very well be the end of the moment. Because he wasn’t moving toward her again. Didn’t look like he was leaning in for another kiss. Didn’t look like he would extend his hands to her, and lead her to his bedroom.
A shiver ran through her body. She wanted to go to his bedroom. She just let the thought sit there, fully formed, acknowledged. She wanted to go to Connor’s bedroom. She wanted more of what had just happened. She wanted him naked, wanted to touch him everywhere, taste him everywhere. Once would never be enough. One touch of his mouth against hers was nothing more than a glimpse at paradise.
How could she go back now that she’d experienced this? Connor was fantasy made flesh. And now that she knew desire like this was real and living, how could she ever go back to what she’d accepted before?
This was heat and fire, the kind that left scorched earth and devastation in its wake. The kind that reshaped everything it touched.
Too soon it was over.
“Sorry,” he said, taking a step away from her.
It was over. That step backward made it official. She hated it. Hated that she was only going to kiss Connor once. She had spent a very long time accepting the fact that she was never going to kiss him at all. But this was worse.
“Don’t apologize,” she said. “It sucks.”
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
GIVEAWAY
The publisher will be giving away paperbacks of Part Time Cowboy, the first book in the series to the 5 winners of the below Rafflecopter. The giveaway ends June 23rd.
'
