Book Blitz Excerpt: Kiss Me Twice by Lauren Hawkeye

Kiss Me Twice by Lauren Hawkeye 
(Three Little Words #3) 
Publication date: TBD
Genres: New Adult, Romance

The sequel to the New York Times bestselling Three Little Words… a steamy new adult rock star romance!
(love story, new adult romance, contemporary romance, alpha males, heroes, sexy romance, bad boys, falling in love, college)

Can three people have a happy ever after in a world that runs two by two?

After two years of hiding, Adele Cavanaugh has finally found happiness with her first love, serious law student Malachi Hunter… and with sexy Australian rocker Dorian Marshall, the lead singer of the band Three Little Words.

But the universe doesn’t seem to want Adele to be happy. Just when she thinks she can finally be free, the demons from her past make a devastating reappearance… and so does Malachi’s ex-girlfriend. Combined with an opportunity for the band that will take Dorian away from her, Adele wonders if she has been fooling herself all along.

Will Adele find the strength to let love win, even when it comes in a non-traditional form?

The third book in the Three Little Words series, Kiss Me Twice is a steamy New Adult romance that explores the love between two men who would rather share their woman than let her go. Two years ago Adele’s world fell to pieces… this books asks if she’s strong enough to put herself back together again.

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AUTHOR BIO

Lauren Hawkeye/ Lauren Jameson is a writer, yoga newbie, knitting aficionado and animal lover who lives in the shadows of the great Rocky Mountains of Alberta, Canada. She's older than she looks--really--and younger than she feels--most of the time--and she loves to explore the journeys that take women through life in her stories. Hawkeye's stories include erotic historical, steamy paranormal, and hot contemporary. Make sure to check out her work as Lauren Jameson, where her erotic romances take a walk on the wild side.

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Excerpt from Kiss Me Twice

Seeing Mal had unsettled me more than I cared to admit, even to myself. I found myself shaking as I walked, my muscles trembling like one of the orange leaves that danced in the wind around me.

I had never imagined that he had come for me, that he’d gotten over our stupid, stupid fight just as I had. It made what had happened to me at that horrific party all the more tragic.

If I’d know I still had Mal, I might have been able to get through the taunts, the humiliation that had been heaped on top of the pain of what had already been taken from me. I might have found the guts to stay.

No one had ever gotten under my skin like he had, and it was beyond annoying that time had failed to diminish his effect on me. When he’d wrapped me in a hug, it had felt like coming home. When he’d cupped my face in his hands…

The touch had startled me with its intensity, with the need that it pulled from my very core. Half of me had wanted to jump right back in, to pull him down to that ugly couch and lose myself in the bliss I knew he could provide.

The other half of me hurt. Malachi Hunter was a reminder of who I’d once been, back before that one night had changed my life.

And to top it all off, I was horny as hell, which blew my mind. I didn’t even think about sex anymore—I wanted nothing to do with it. But while Mal had been gorgeous two years ago, now…

Damn. He looked like sin, like a man any and every woman would kill for a chance to be with.

“Forget about him, Adele.” I lectured myself as I hurried around my condo, stripping off my jeans and hoodie and replacing them with the spandex shorts and snug pink T-shirt that I wore to roller derby practice. Though I would wear a jacket or hoodie with long sleeves on the way there, derby was the one place where I felt comfortable exposing the tattoos that colored my arms.

The ones that reminded me, as Mal had, of the wild, carefree girl who had once lived inside my body.

Once at the school gymnasium where we practiced, I threw myself into practice with even more vigor than usual. I’d always loved to roller skate, had been drawn to the solidity of four wheels beneath my feet even after my mom had decided that skating was no longer an appropriate activity—and when I say she had decided, really I meant her husband.

I’d gotten into derby just over a year ago after seeing a posting for tryouts on a flyer at Java the Hut.

Derby was wild and unpredictable, full of strong women who didn’t take any shit. When I skated with my team, I basked in that strength, pretending that some of it was mine. Rounding the corners of the track again and again was hypnotic, nearly sexual in its intensity. Feeling the burn in my muscles, the quivering in my thighs as I pushed my way around the track just one more time…

It was an outlet for so many things.

“Watch out for fresh meat!” One of my teammates called to me, and I feinted to the side just in time to avoid tripping over one of our newer teammates, who had clearly not yet learned to fall small. I smiled at her reassuringly as I whirled past.

I noticed that her attention was fixed on the bleachers of the high school gymnasium. Trying to focus as I continued to push past the burn in my thighs, I made out the good looking face and long, rangy build of some random hottie who was otherwise alone on the bleachers.

For the second time that day, I felt my libido perk up. Huh. Maybe I wasn’t dead down there, after all. Still, just noticing him made me feel guilty, like I was cheating on Mal or something.

And that made me panic. Finding out that Mal hadn’t abandoned me after all had thrown me for a loop, but I was no longer the kind of girl who could even contemplate a relationship... and I knew, deep down I knew, that Mal would settle for nothing less.

The look on his face had told me that while he’d once fucked things up between us, now that he’d found me again he’d do whatever it took to fix things.

It excited me as much as it terrified me, so I focused on the hottie.

Maybe... maybe I was ready to think about having sex again. Of touching, of being touched. After what I’d been through, surely no one could blame me for that. And so I found my gaze narrowing, zeroing in on the stranger in the stands.

He was sex on a stick. No wonder Marianne had tripped over her own feet. I could feel my own interest percolating as I skated, no doubt an overflow of the lust that Mal had stirred up in my gut that afternoon, but still.

I was feeling something other than the chill of the ice that had coated me for so long. I’d been cold for two years, and I didn’t think anyone could blame me for reaching towards the warmth.

Still... if he was here watching practice, then he was probably somebody’s boyfriend. And you didn’t mess with a teammate’s man—derby girls were fucking vicious.

Completing the last circuit of the drill, I skidded to a quick, neat stop beside the water cooler. Grabbing my bottle, I filled it and then chugged greedily, the icy liquid spilling down my cheeks as I drank.

When the bottle was empty I slammed it back on the table and wiped my mouth off with the back of my hand. It was then that I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned to find the hottie watching me intently.

He was better looking than any guy had the right to be.

Arching an eyebrow at his blatant stare, I bent to refill my water bottle. When I straightened back up, the blond god of sexiness was ambling over to me casually, a rakish smile curving his lips.

Despite my own better sense, despite the confusing sensations that Mal had churned up in me only a couple of hours ago, I felt interest stir, hot and tangled in the pit of my belly.

“You’re ace on those things.” He nodded to my feet, on which my skates were still tightly laced, edging into my personal space like he had every right to. “You look good.”

Usually if someone moved closer to me than I liked I would give them a ferocious glare while retreating post haste.

This guy, however… he wasn’t setting my nerves to screaming. And he smelled good. Like, really fucking sexy good. And he was eyeing me with undisguised interest.

You’ve got to get back out there sometime, Adele. And no matter that Mal was still able to peak my interest, there was too much history there. Heartbreaking history.

Swallowing deeply, I turned and offered a cautious smile. The satisfaction that crossed his face was panty-melting in its intensity.

“We don’t get many spectators at practice.” I tried to throw some flirtation into my tone, and the words felt heavy with rust. “Are you with someone?”

He shook his head, running his tongue over his lips.

“I like derby girls.” The stranger shrugged, unabashed, as heat shot straight to that space between my legs. “Actually I was walking by and saw the sign. Never heard of derby before and I was curious. Apparently I don’t get out enough... ‘cause now I know that I like really derby girls.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me lasciviously. Damn it, he had an accent. British or Australian, I never could tell, but combined with the thick, messy gold hair that looked like he’d just rolled out of bed, the densely lashed hazel eyes, the scruffy chin, the devil may care expression and look that said he got whatever he wanted, when he wanted it…

Something churned in my gut, a kind of need that I hadn’t experienced for a long time. The kind that had once led me to approach hot guys at parties and the bar for no reason other than hot sex.

“I’m Dorian.” He held out a hand for me to shake. I stared at it for a beat before offering my own, which he lifted to his lips for a hot, moist kiss.

“Smooth, aren’t you?” The rustiness was receding, and I felt a hint of my old tendency to flirt pushing through the layers with which I’d surrounded myself. “I’m Adele.”

“I try.” He grinned and kept hold of my hand, like he had every right to. The prolonged contact should have made me freak out, and instead I felt pleasant little frissons of heat radiating outward from the touch.

I’d spent two years avoiding the males of the species entirely, and now here in one afternoon were two who not only didn’t completely freak me out, but who made my body respond.

Maybe it was a sign. It was time for me to try to move on with my life.

“Nice tats,” Dorian massaged the tender spot between my thumb and forefinger. I shivered, partly from the touch, and partly because my instinct was to grab my sweatshirt and hide the ink, the symbol of who I used to be.

Fuck it. Let him look. I wanted to bring that old me back.

“Thanks.” Not sure what, exactly, had come over me, I leaned forward and lowered my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I have more.”

Oh my God. Where were those words coming from? Surely then weren’t mine.

My heart thudded in my chest when Dorian whistled, long and low. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, sweetheart.”

I couldn’t help it—I grinned. Something about this guy’s ridiculously overt style of flirtation was irresistible, though I sensed a core of steel underneath. Maybe it was the fact that I couldn’t have found someone more different from Mal if I tried.

Or maybe I was just ready to move past that awful night, to take control of my life again. This guy was a stranger, but he made me feel relaxed, like the girl I’d once been.

“What are you doing after practice?” The teasing was gone as Dorian looked down into my eyes, and I shivered at the intensity I read there.

The last guy I’d been this attracted to had been… well… Mal. And though I’d admired him from afar for a bit before finally deciding to approach him, the attraction had been a slow burn compared to what I felt right now.

Instant heat, the kind that might burn me but would be intense and amazing before it did.

Pulling my hand free, I considered, still not able to make a snap decision like I once would have done. On a normal day I would never have considered encouraging attention from any guy, not even one as hot and overtly sexual as this one. But seeing Mal had stirred me up, and I was feeling all kinds of reckless.

All kinds of needy.

“You tell me.” I smiled slowly before skating backwards, away from Dorian, giving him time to peruse my body with his eyes, which he did. Blatantly. A tremor of nerves made my knees shake when I realized what I’d just done, but I set my resolve and stayed the course.

I’d fought my way through some serious shit, and had triumphed. But I was an empty shell of what I’d once been.

Was it so bad to welcome a little bit of recklessness back into my life? Just a bit? I’d be careful of course, but the events of the day had teased out a need to do something a bit wild, something that would remind me that I was still alive.

Surely if anyone deserved just a moment of happiness, it was me.