All of This , Here and Now, by Lexi Ryan‏ |Sneak Peek , Excerpt + Teasers|

Releasing August 4, 2014

New Adult Contemporary Romance

Pre-order NOW

**ALL FOR THIS is book three in the Here and Now series.

It is not a stand-alone and it’s intended to be read after LOST IN ME and FALL TO YOU.**

 

What if you would never remember the day you made the most important decision of your life?

That’s what they’re telling me about the day of my accident—the day I put on Max’s ring and chose him over Nate. I’m counting on the wisdom behind a decision I don’t remember making.

Max is amazing—sexy, sweet, and kind. I was starting to believe happily-ever-after might be in my future after all. Then the unthinkable happened and my world imploded. If I’m going to make this work with Max, I need my missing memories, or at least answers from about those five days before my accident.

But what does my future hold if those answers aren’t anything like I imagined?

 

 ***

***

The following excerpt from ALL FOR THIS by its very nature contains spoilers for the first two books in the Here and Now series, LOST IN ME and FALL TO YOU. If you hate spoilers and haven’t read the first two books, I recommend you don’t read any further.

 

EXCERPT

 

Max

 

“How are you holding up? Did it go okay with Nate last night?”

She stiffens at his name. “He asked me to move to LA.”

Of course he did. “And what did you say?”

She blinks at me. “I’m not leaving New Hope. This is my home.”

“He wanted more than for you to move to LA.” I take a step closer. I need to touch her. I wonder if she knows she’s pulling away from me, if she can feel it like I can. It’s as if we’re connected by a thousand little threads like those in a woven rug and they’ve been breaking one at a time since the moment Nate came back into town. With every breath, I feel another thread snap. “He wanted you.”

She shrugs. “I’m already taken.”

I draw in a deep breath. She lifts her hand to my face and skims her fingers along my jaw.

I groan softly and slide my hand into her hair as I lower my mouth to hers. She’s soft and sweet, and I need more of her.

Taking a fistful of her skirt, I yank her dress up around her waist and find the cotton of her panties. She gasps, and I rub her through the fabric as her fingers curl into my back. My lips find her neck and the skin in the sensitive juncture of neck and shoulder.

“Max,” she says. But it’s not the normal breathy, needy whispering of my name. The word is a warning. A yield sign. “Max.”

My hand stills and I pull back to look into her eyes. I’m blindsided by the apology I see there. “Let’s move in together.”

“What?” She blinks at me. If she’s thinking I have the world’s worst timing with important proposals, she’s not wrong.

“We could rent out our apartments and use the money to rent a little place together. Someplace without those stairs that scare the living shit out of me every time I think of you climbing them. Someplace we can make our own.” I take her hand and squeeze. “You didn’t want to move in together last spring because you knew your mom would flip if you lived with a guy before marriage, but we’re not trying to maintain appearances anymore, are we?” She looks at the floor, and I tilt her chin back up so her eyes meet mine. “I could give two shits about appearances. I want to wake up with you in my arms, Hanna. I want to know I’m going to be right there when you need me, every time you need me. You and Claire are all that matter in my world. I want everything that matters to be what I come home to every night.”

“I’m sorry.” She steps back. “I just can’t. I’m too confused right now.”

My lungs burn as I fill them—it hurts to breathe in a world where Hanna isn’t mine.

“I know it’s not fair. And I want a future with you, but…”

“But you can’t stop thinking about him.”

“I can’t move in with you right now,” she says softly. “That wouldn’t be fair to either of us. It’s not that simple.”

“You keep saying that.”

I swallow back the rest of what I want to say right along with my anger, frustration, and the betrayal I’ve never allowed myself to feel. While I was waiting for her to take my ring, she was with another man, and I was never allowed to be angry because that man died and she needed to grieve.

I drag a hand through my hair and look at the ceiling. “Was it that simple when you made love to him?”

“Can we not do this?”

Torment is etched across her face, and I can’t stand to know I’m the one who put it there. I pull her against my chest.

“I won’t rush you, but remember something for me,” I whisper into her hair. “You put on my ring.”

***

 The Author

Once a college English professor, I now write full time. I live in rural Indiana, where, when I’m not writing, I get to hang out with my husband and two kids–a six-year-old boy and a two-year-old hellion, er, girl. Not surprisingly, reading and writing remain my favorite activities, though both come in bits and pieces these days, not the big hunks of time I enjoyed before I had children. When I’m feeling virtuous, I like to go running (I use that word liberally. I’m really, really slow) or do yoga. Don’t worry, I’m always careful to balance out such activities with a hearty serving of ice cream or a chocolate martini.

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Fall to You by Lexi Ryan |Sneak Peek Here and Now #2|

SNEAK PEEK

New Adult Contemporary Romance

Available June 2, 2014

About This Book

Fall to You is the second book in the Here and Now series. It is not a stand-alone and is intended to be read following Lost in Me. Hanna’s story concludes in book three, All for This.

Torn between two men…

When I woke up after the accident, I couldn’t remember anything from the last year—including my relationship with Max Hallowell or anything about Nate Crane. Now my memories are returning, but instead of answering my questions, they’re leaving me with more.

The man who broke my heart and wants to be my future…

Max is all I ever wanted, and now he wants to marry me. He’ll do everything he can to fill my life with love, family, and security. I need those things now more than ever. But can I trust him?

The man who stole my heart and wants to let me go…

Nate never made me promises, and I never asked him to. I’d been on the rebound, looking for a distraction, and he made me feel beautiful and wanted when I needed to feel those things most. He says he has to let me go, but what if I can’t let go of him?

With every revelation and every passing day, I feel more like Alice down the rabbit hole. I’m falling. Who will catch me?

Three Months

Before Hanna’s Accident

Nate

 

I haven’t slept all night with a woman next to me since before my son was born, yet here I am, holding her like I’m some closet romantic who doesn’t plan to send her on her way in a couple of hours. I loved every fucking minute of sleeping with her in my arms. I love how she reached for me in her sleep, how she rubbed her ass against my cock as if trying to wiggle a puzzle piece into place. And maybe a puzzle is the right analogy, because her body fits so damn perfectly against mine that I feel like something’s missing when she rolls away.

She’s on her back now, a hand reaching out, fingers resting on my bicep as if she’s afraid I might escape. The women I take to my bed tend to react that way, but I know it has little to do with my mad bedroom skills. For them, it’s about status, a notch in their bedpost of celebrities. What’s it about for Hanna?

The air conditioner cycles on, parting the curtains and bathing her in morning light that reminds me I should be urging her out of my bed. Only I don’t want her to go anywhere. I’m too enthralled by the dark smudge of her lashes against her cheeks and the soft parting of her full lips. She has these faint freckles across the bridge of her nose, another detail in this study in contrasts—the sweet, insecure virgin who doesn’t understand her own appeal and the wanton goddess who sucked me so hard and pulled my dick so deep she’s no doubt ruined me for all other blowjobs. And the way she responds when I touch her…

Hanna’s a virgin, but she was made for sex. Damn, how I envy the man who will get to introduce her to that pleasure. Will it be the ex? Max?

Something flames in my gut at the thought, but I ignore the flare of jealousy. She still loves him. I’m nothing more than the rebound guy, and I should be glad for that because I can’t offer her more than this.

“Mmm,” she moans, her eyes fluttering open and closed again as if she can’t quite convince them to greet the day. “What are you looking at?”

“You.”

She pats her hair before tugging the sheet up to cover her bare breasts. “Not much to look at before coffee. I’m probably a mess.”

“A beautiful mess,” I growl, tugging the sheet back down. “Don’t interrupt me. I was trying to play connect-the-dots with your freckles.”

She raises a brow but doesn’t try to re-cover herself. “How’s that work?”

“Well, they obviously start here,” I murmur, touching the bridge of her nose. “Then they pick up again here…” I drag my finger down her nose, over her soft lips, and to her collarbone, where a few more freckles are sprinkled.

“Not much of a treasure hunt.”

“Oh, you see, the amateur might think that’s the end of the trail, but I am an expert at connect-the-dots, and I don’t give up so easily.”

“Oh. Good. I was worried.”

I shake my head and press a quick kiss to her lips. “I won’t let you down. But are you ready for the next part?”

“I don’t know? Is it hangman? I’m not sure I want you playing hangman with my freckles.” Her smile damn near bowls me over.

“Still connecting the dots, but you see, it’s about intuition when the going gets tough like this, and for my intuition to work at its best, I need to stop searching with my fingers and take over with my tongue.”

She giggles. “Oh really?”

I climb on top of her, resting on my elbows, and she instinctively draws up her knees so my torso rests between her thighs. My cock aches, demanding that I slide up her body and get closer. Fuck. It wants more than to be close. It wants inside her. Tight and hot and deep. But I ignore it and lower my mouth to the freckles on her collarbone.

The taste of her skin on my tongue makes me hungry for more. I want to lick her clit again, to slide my tongue inside her until she loses control and rocks her hips in that sweet rhythm of fucking.

Instead, I trail my tongue down between her breasts and to the lone freckle beneath her sternum. “Found it,” I murmur before gently nipping her skin.

She arches toward my mouth. “Your tongue has a rather impressive intuition.”

“Oh, and it’s not even done yet.”

***

 The Author

Once a college English professor, I now write full time. I live in rural Indiana, where, when I'm not writing, I get to hang out with my husband and two kids--a six-year-old boy and a two-year-old hellion, er, girl. Not surprisingly, reading and writing remain my favorite activities, though both come in bits and pieces these days, not the big hunks of time I enjoyed before I had children. When I'm feeling virtuous, I like to go running (I use that word liberally. I'm really, really slow) or do yoga. Don't worry, I'm always careful to balance out such activities with a hearty serving of ice cream or a chocolate martini.

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Lost in Me by Lexi Ryan‏ |Sneak Peek|

 SNEAK PEEK

Lost in Me is the first book in the Here and Now series, a spin-off of

the New York Times and USA Today bestselling New Hope series.

This sexy amnesia love triangle is intended for mature readers.

Releasing April 7, 2014

If you pre-order on iBooks or purchase the first week of release, you receive a fan appreciation price of only .99 cents!

The last thing I remember is having drinks at Brady’s and trying to avoid eye-contact with my life-long crush—the gorgeous, unattainable Maximilian Hallowell. They tell me that was a year ago, but I have no memories of anything since then. What I do have is this ring on my finger that Max says he gave me, and this much-thinner body I’ve dreamed of most of my life. Aside from a case of retrograde amnesia, everything seems almost...perfect.

But the deeper I immerse myself into this new world of mine—planning a wedding to a man I don't remember dating, attempting to run a business I don't remember starting—the clearer it becomes that nothing is as it seems. Do I have the life I’ve always wanted or is it a facade propped up by secrets I don't even know I have?

I need answers before I marry Max, and the only person who seems to have them is the angry, tatted, sexy-as-sin rocker Nate Crane. And Nate wants me for himself.

Lost in Me is not a standalone novel, as the story continues in Here and Now book two, FALL TO YOU, releasing in June.

 



 

Excerpt from LOST IN ME

“You don’t understand what this is like. Not remembering? I’m planning a wedding to this man I’ve wanted most of my life. Don’t I owe it to him—don’t I owe it to myself—to have the truth out there before we promise until death do us part?”

Even in the moonlight, I can see the pain in his eyes.

“I just need answers.” I lift my chin and move toward the back wall of the house, toward him. Immediately, I regret the decision because his lips curve into a wicked smile and he closes what distance is left between us. “I need the truth,” I whisper weakly.

“The truth? Is that what you really want, angel?” His deep voice dances over my skin like a caress. A little tender. A lot wicked.

I can’t reply. I’m too busy holding my breath. Too deep of an inhale might brush my breasts against his chest, and I’m afraid to touch him. Afraid of what it might make me feel.

As if he can read my mind, he takes another step closer, and when I step to the side to turn away, I’m against the wall and his body is against mine, his hot breath at my ear.

“Do you want to know what it was like between us?” he whispers.

“Yes.”

I realize my mistake when a groan rumbles from his chest. “Should I start with how wet you were every time I touched you? Or maybe how you begged me that first night?”

“I didn’t.”

“Have you been telling yourself some wicked rocker seduced you? That I tricked you into my bed? Sorry. You asked for the truth. You begged. Right there outside the club, you begged me until I ripped your panties off and you were too busy biting my neck to talk anymore. Is that what you’re hoping to remember? How you wanted me so badly you let me finger you out in the open, against that building where anyone could have seen?”

My breathing is uneven, my cheeks hot. When I press into his chest to put some distance between us, my traitorous hands curl into his shirt instead.

He makes a low growling sound at the back of his throat. His teeth nip at my earlobe. Lightning cracks in the sky behind him. “You might have forgotten me, but you still like dirty talk, don’t you? And maybe if I made you come now, you’d still scream my name. Because you always screamed my name, Hanna. Never his.”

I gasp. “You are horrible.”

“What are you really upset about? That you wanted me? Or that even as you stand here wearing his ring, you’re secretly hoping I’ll tell you about it. Secretly wishing you could remember all the details.”

LOST IN ME © Lexi Ryan, 2014

The Author

Once a college English professor, I now write full time. I live in rural Indiana, where, when I'm not writing, I get to hang out with my husband and two kids--a six-year-old boy and a two-year-old hellion, er, girl. Not surprisingly, reading and writing remain my favorite activities, though both come in bits and pieces these days, not the big hunks of time I enjoyed before I had children. When I'm feeling virtuous, I like to go running (I use that word liberally. I'm really, really slow) or do yoga. Don't worry, I'm always careful to balance out such activities with a hearty serving of ice cream or a chocolate martini.

Website | Facebook | Twitter