Harder Blog Tour: Excerpt + Giveaway

Hey Everyone! Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Robin York's newest release, HARDER! Today I have a fantastic excerpt from the book to share with you - and don't forget to enter the giveaway!

Harder (Caroline & West #2)

Author: Robin York

Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance

Release Date: July 1, 2014

Publisher: Bantam (Random House Imprint)

Description:

In Robin York’s provocative new novel, two young ex-lovers find themselves together again in the shadow of tragedy—and an intense, undeniable attraction. 

Caroline still dreams about West. His warm skin, his taut muscles, his hand sliding down her stomach. Then she wakes up and she’s back to reality: West is gone. And before he left, he broke her heart.

Then, out of the blue, West calls in crisis. A tragedy has hit his family—a family that’s already a fractured mess. Caroline knows what she has to do. Without discussion, without stopping to think, she’s on a plane, flying to his side to support him in any way he needs.

They’re together again, but things are totally different. West looks edgy, angry at the world. Caroline doesn’t fit in. She should be back in Iowa, finalizing her civil suit against the ex-boyfriend who posted their explicit pictures on a revenge porn website. But here she is. Deeply into West, wrapped up in him, in love with him. Still.

They fought the odds once. Losing each other was hard. But finding their way back to each other couldn’t be harder. 

Advance praise for HARDER:

“Bursting with chemistry, emotion, and heart, Caroline and West’s story will take your breath away!”—Katy Evans, New York Times bestselling author of the REAL series

“Robin York writes exceptionally real characters in achingly real situations. Harder had a hold on my heart and didn’t let go until the very end.”—New York Times bestselling author Cora Carmack

And don’t miss the first book in the Caroline & West Series….DEEPER!

Advance praise for DEEPER:

“The perfect new adult story . . . West will make you swoon!”—New York Times bestselling author Monica Murphy

“Beautifully written and full of swoony tender moments, toe-curling chemistry, and delicious, twisty angst . . . Stop whatever you’re doing and read this book.”—Christina Lauren, author of the Beautiful Bastard series

I start to notice music. Not like I’m hearing music in my head, but like I’m just now tuning in to the music that’s already everywhere, all the time.

The last week of classes before fall break—the week after I destroyed West’s cigarettes, the week I pick Frankie up from school three times, the week I ace two midterms and set the curve on my Latin exam—I hear sad ballads at the coffee shop.

I hear pop songs on the radio.

I hear a low drone of sound that floats down the hall to my room from Krishna’s.

It draws me to his doorway, where I find Bridget sitting crossways on his bed, feet propped up on the backs of his thighs, book in her lap. Krishna lying on his stomach, a book open by his head, a chunky calculator resting by his left hand, his pencil scrawling over a notebook page making notations I can’t understand.

He tunes in to those numbers and symbols, but it’s the music that catches me.

Krishna plays this album a lot. I never noticed before that all the songs are love songs.

I go out for a run with Bridget, long sleeves and long tights on a cold morning as we jog in a rectangle around Putnam’s campus, turning left, left, always to the left. She runs slow for me, because I’m not as good a runner as she is, and because my pace falters every time I hear some new lyric, a fresh tilt to a tune I’ve never paid attention to.

I find myself waving her ahead, Go on, I’ll see you at home, because I need to listen hard, cupping my hands over my earbuds. I’ve just discovered—yes. This one, too. Another love song.

Angry love songs. Plaintive ones. Complaining ones, ecstatic ones, sexy moaning ones, cute ones, smug ones, turbulent bleeding aching disastrous ones.

Everywhere I go.

I stand by the side of the road on a cold morning, frost on the stalks in the ditch beside me, a crow on the telephone pole, a cloudless sky, listening to a woman pleading over a line of throbbing drums, Take me back, take me back, take me back, baby, take me back.

At home, Krishna’s music pulls me down the hall another time.

No Bridget today. They argued about something after dinner, and I haven’t seen her since.

“You okay?” he asks me.

I’m not sure what to tell him.

I’m in love.

Sometimes it feels like a terminal condition. Killing stupidity. Dangerous to my well-being. It makes me do dumb shit like fly to Oregon on a moment’s notice, and shred a hundred cigarettes to nothing.

Krish and Bridget are in love. It makes them do dumb shit like lie to each other about how they feel, pretend not to feel it, fuck and touch and kiss and then run, run, run.

Am I okay?

Is love like this okay?

It doesn’t feel okay. It feels necessary.

In the daytime I hear music, and I start to think that whatever is wrong with me might actually be what’s wrong with everybody.

I start to think it might be normal, because if it’s not, then what does it mean that all the songs are love songs?

What does it mean that I hear them now, everywhere I go?

Robin York grew up at a college, went to college, signed on for some more college, and then married a university professor. She still isn’t sure why it didn’t occur to her to write New Adult sooner. Writing as Ruthie Knox, she is a USA TODAY bestselling author of contemporary romance, including RITA-finalists About Last Night and Room at the Inn. She moonlights as a mother, makes killer salted caramels, and sorts out thorny plot problems while running, hiking, or riding her bike.

Website ** Twitter ** Facebook ** Goodreads ** HARDER Goodreads ** Author Amazon Page

Buy Links:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

iBooks

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Release Day Launch + Giveaway: Harder by Robin York

I am thrilled to bring you the Release Day Launch for Robin York's HARDER!! HARDER is a New Adult contemporary romance being published by Random House’s Bantam imprint and is the 2^nd novel in Robin York’s Caroline & West Series. This book, y'all.

   

HARDER Synopsis:  

In Robin York’s provocative new novel, two young ex-lovers find themselves together again in the shadow of tragedy—and an intense, undeniable attraction.  

Caroline still dreams about West. His warm skin, his taut muscles, his hand sliding down her stomach. Then she wakes up and she’s back to reality: West is gone. And before he left, he broke her heart. 

Then, out of the blue, West calls in crisis. A tragedy has hit his family—a family that’s already a fractured mess. Caroline knows what she has to do. Without discussion, without stopping to think, she’s on a plane, flying to his side to support him in any way he needs. 

They’re together again, but things are totally different. West looks edgy, angry at the world. Caroline doesn’t fit in. She should be back in Iowa, finalizing her civil suit against the ex-boyfriend who posted their explicit pictures on a revenge porn website. But here she is. Deeply into West, wrapped up in him, in love with him. Still. 

They fought the odds once. Losing each other was hard. But finding their way back to each other couldn’t be harder.

.  

Amazon *** Barnes and Noble *** iBooks

Advance praise for HARDER: 

“Bursting with chemistry, emotion, and heart, Caroline and West’s story will take your breath away!”—Katy Evans, New York Times bestselling author of the REAL series  

“Robin York writes exceptionally real characters in achingly real situations. Harder had a hold on my heart and didn’t let go until the very end.”—New York Times bestselling author Cora Carmack 

 And don’t miss the first book in the Caroline & West Series….DEEPER!

   

Advance praise for DEEPER: 

“The perfect new adult story . . . West will make you swoon!”—New York Times bestselling author Monica Murphy 

“Beautifully written and full of swoony tender moments, toe-curling chemistry, and delicious, twisty angst . . . Stop whatever you’re doing and read this book.”—Christina Lauren, author of the Beautiful Bastard series
 

   

 

When West’s ringtone starts playing in my darkened bedroom, it slips into my subconscious, and I have one of those last-second-before-you-wake-up dreams that’s pure sensation—his skin warm against me everywhere, his weight and smell, the muscles in his thighs against the backs of mine, his hand sliding down my stomach. All of that, slow and melting and West, until the song finally manages to pierce through the haze of my sleep and pinch me awake. 

I fight my way from under the sheet, turned on and pissed off because I know how this goes. The rock in my stomach, the day ahead during which I’ll try and fail to shake that flood of sense-memory. 

I’m going to have to live through it, and then I’m going to lose it, every good memory I have of West, again, when what I want is to drop back into that dream and live there instead. 

It sucks. It sucks, and I’m so distracted by the suckage that I’m picking up the phone and swiping at the screen with my thumb before I completely register what’s going on. 

West’s ringtone. West is calling me. 

West is calling me at one a.m. when I haven’t heard from him in two and a half months. 

If he’s drunk-dialing me, I’m going to fly to Oregon and kick him in the nuts. 

That’s what I’m thinking when I put the phone to my ear—but it’s not how I feel. I wish it were. I wish I could say Hello? and hear West say Hey, and not feel . . . I don’t even know. Plugged in. Lit up. Juiced. 

I stand in my dark bedroom, aware in every centimeter of my skin that he’s breathing on the other end of the phone, somewhere on the far side of the country. 

I have too many memories that start this way. Too many conversations where I told myself I wouldn’t and then I did. 

I have this enormous burden of longing and pain, so heavy I can hear it in my voice when I snap, “What do you want?” 

“My dad’s dead.” 

My head clears in an instant, my attention sharpening to a point. 

“He got shot,” West says, “and it’s . . . it’s a fucking mess, Caro. I know this is—I shouldn’t ask you. I can’t ask you, but I just need to tell you because I can’t fucking—” A crackling whooshing noise interrupts him, the kind of interference that fills your whole head with white sound. I just stand there, waiting for his voice to come back. 

I’m pushing the phone so hard against my ear, my breath coming shallow and fast, aware with the kind of clarity I’ve only found in moments of crisis that it doesn’t even matter. Whatever he says next. It doesn’t matter. 

The thing I never understood before West was that there are some people who, when it comes to them, reason and logic are never going to be in charge. 

He left me. He hurt me. 

But I stand there in the dark, holding the phone, and I know that in a few hours I’ll be on a plane.

     

Robin York grew up at a college, went to college, signed on for some more college, and then married a university professor. She still isn’t sure why it didn’t occur to her to write New Adult sooner. Writing as Ruthie Knox, she is a USA TODAY bestselling author of contemporary romance, including RITA-finalistsAbout Last Night and Room at the Inn. She moonlights as a mother, makes killer salted caramels, and sorts out thorny plot problems while running, hiking, or riding her bike.         

Website ** Twitter ** Facebook ** Goodreads ** HARDER Goodreads ** Author Amazon Page

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Release Day Launch + Giveaway: Deeper by Robin York

I am extremely excited to tell you that Robin York's DEEPER has finally been released! DEEPER is a New Adult contemporary romance being published by Random House’s Bantam imprint and is the 1^st novel in Robin York’s Caroline and West Series. This book is an absolute must read! 


DEEPER Synopsis: 

In this New Adult debut by Robin York, a college student is attacked online and must restore her name—and stay clear of a guy who’s wrong for her, but feels so right.

When Caroline Piasecki’s ex-boyfriend posts their sex pictures on the Internet, it destroys her reputation as a nice college girl. Suddenly her once-promising future doesn’t look so bright. Caroline tries to make the pictures disappear, hoping time will bury her shame. Then a guy she barely knows rises to her defense and punches her ex to the ground.

West Leavitt is the last person Caroline needs in her life. Everyone knows he’s shady. Still, Caroline is drawn to his confidence and swagger—even after promising her dad she’ll keep her distance. On late, sleepless nights, Caroline starts wandering into the bakery where West works.

They hang out, they talk, they listen. Though Caroline and West tell each other they’re “just friends,” their feelings intensify until it becomes impossible to pretend. The more complicated her relationship with West gets, the harder Caroline has to struggle to discover what she wants for herself—and the easier it becomes to find the courage she needs to fight back against the people who would judge her.

When all seems lost, sometimes the only place to go is deeper.

Advance praise for DEEPER:

“The perfect new adult story . . . West will make you swoon!”—New York Times bestselling author Monica Murphy

"Beautifully written and full of swoony tender moments, toe-curling chemistry, and delicious, twisty angst . . . Stop whatever you’re doing and read this book.”—Christina Lauren, author of the Beautiful Bastard series 

Meet West (from Caroline’s POV) 

West’s eyes go wide. “Jesus, Caroline, did I hit you?”

He stands, stepping close, reaching for me. It’s as if he completely forgets he’s beating the shit out of Nate, and he just comes for me. The look in his eyes, the outstretched hand—it’s so much like the first time West reached for me, more than a year ago, that I have a moment of déjà vu. My knees buckle, which annoys me. My body is the enemy right now—my incompetent knees, that noise my throat decided to make, my leaking nose, and the pounding pain in my face.

Not to mention my heart, which is trying to escape my chest by flinging itself violently against my ribs.

West’s hand lands on my waist, steady and firm, and it’s stupid. My body is stupid. Because his hand feels kind of awesome.

Obviously I’m concussed. West is the one who hit me, probably, and he’s definitely the one who hit Nate, who—

Fuck.

Nate is sprawled out on the floor, bleeding from the mouth.

Worse, I can’t really bring myself to focus on Nate, because West’s other hand landed on my shoulder briefly, and now he’s lifting my chin. The blood makes his fingers slippery. I’m bleeding on him. And I like it.

This happens with West. He’s only touched me once before, but it isn’t the kind of thing a girl forgets.

God, there are so many, many reasons this is not good, though. Most of them aren’t even health-related. For starters, I’m not into guys who punch people. I’m not into guys at the moment, period. And if I were, I wouldn’t be into West, because West is trouble, and I’m allergic.

“You’re bleeding,” he says.

“You hit me.”

“Let me see.”

He tugs at my wrist, and I let him drag my hand away from my nose, because basically I will let West Leavitt do anything. It’s possible that he’s some kind of magical creature. I mean, he’s not. I know he’s not. He’s a twenty-year-old sophomore at Putnam College, majoring in biology. He shelves books at the library, waits tables on weekends at the Gilded Pear—which is the only fancy restaurant in Putnam—and works the overnight shift at the bakery in town. All that on top of at least a couple of shady, unofficial sources of income, plus classes, makes him a busy guy.

He’s tall—around six feet, maybe a little taller—with messy brown hair, light blue-green eyes, and a great tan.

He’s a guy who goes to my college. That’s all.

But that is not all.

His face is . . . You know how they say human beings are more attracted to symmetrical faces? Well, West’s face is slightly off in every conceivable way. One of his eyebrows tilts up a little bit, and the other one is bisected by a thin white scar. His eyes are a color that isn’t actually a color, with these tiny little flecks that sometimes look shiny, and I don’t understand how that’s possible. His mouth is wider than it ought to be, which makes him look like a smart-ass every time he smiles or almost smiles or thinks, vaguely, about smiling. His nose must have been broken once—or maybe more than once—because it’s not quite where it’s supposed to be. It’s shifted a titch to the left. And honestly? I think his ears are too small. 

When he looks right at me, I can barely make words.

That’s why I’m standing here, bleeding, letting him inspect my nose.  

Robin York grew up at a college, went to college, signed on for some more college, and then married a university professor. She still isn’t sure why it didn’t occur to her to write New Adult sooner. Writing as Ruthie Knox, she is a USA TODAY bestselling author of contemporary romance, including RITA-finalistsAbout Last Night and Room at the Inn. She moonlights as a mother, makes killer salted caramels, and sorts out thorny plot problems while running, hiking, or riding her bike.   

Links: 
Website: http://www.ruthieknox.com 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobinYorkNA 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/writerrobinyork 
Author Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7279470.Robin_York 
DEEPERGoodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18525821-deeper?ac=1 
Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/Robin-York/e/B00G194QRC/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1   

Order Links: Amazon / Barnes and Noble 

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Deeper Blog Tour: Playlist + Giveaway

Welcome to my stop on the DEEPER blog tour! Today I have the author's playlist for the book and don't forget to enter the tour wide giveaway at the bottom of the post!

Deeper (Caroline & West #1)

Author: Robin York

Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance

Release Date: January 28, 2014

Publisher: Bantam (Random House)

Description:

In this New Adult debut by Robin York, a college student is attacked online and must restore her name—and stay clear of a guy who’s wrong for her, but feels so right.

When Caroline Piasecki’s ex-boyfriend posts their sex pictures on the Internet, it destroys her reputation as a nice college girl. Suddenly her once-promising future doesn’t look so bright. Caroline tries to make the pictures disappear, hoping time will bury her shame. Then a guy she barely knows rises to her defense and punches her ex to the ground.

West Leavitt is the last person Caroline needs in her life. Everyone knows he’s shady. Still, Caroline is drawn to his confidence and swagger—even after promising her dad she’ll keep her distance. On late, sleepless nights, Caroline starts wandering into the bakery where West works.

They hang out, they talk, they listen. Though Caroline and West tell each other they’re “just friends,” their feelings intensify until it becomes impossible to pretend. The more complicated her relationship with West gets, the harder Caroline has to struggle to discover what she wants for herself—and the easier it becomes to find the courage she needs to fight back against the people who would judge her.

When all seems lost, sometimes the only place to go is deeper.

Advance praise for Deeper:

“The perfect new adult story . . . West will make you swoon!”—New York Times bestselling author Monica Murphy

“Beautifully written and full of swoony tender moments, toe-curling chemistry, and delicious, twisty angst . . . Stop whatever you’re doing and read this book.”—Christina Lauren, author of the Beautiful Bastard series 

A Deeper Playlist by Robin York

Hi everybody! I’m excited to be sharing this playlist from Deeper with you guys today, but I have to make a confession. I didn’t make it.

I know! But the thing is, I don’t listen to music when I write, and when I do listen to music, it’s generally folk music and old and so desperately uncool that West and Caroline from Deeper would not listen to it in a million, trillion years.

Luckily, my good friend and writing critique partner Mary Ann Rivers is much more diverse and up-to-date in her musical talents than I am. She’s also more familiar with Deeper than anyone else alive except me, having read the scenes as I wrote them, day by day, and offered me countless suggestions for making the book better. Mary Ann knows Deeper. Which is why I feel totally comfortable stealing the playlist she made for the book and passing it off as my own. Plus, I can vouch for the awesomeness of this playlist, because I listened to it when I wasn’t trying to write.

Spotify playlist: DEEPER

1. “Prove It” by Television
2. “I Don’t Mind” by The Buzzcocks
3. “The Sinking Feeling” by The The
4. “Just Like a Woman” by Charlotte Gainsbourg & Calexico
5. “Jenny” by The Mountain Goats
6. “These Days” by The Rentals
7. “Come As You Are - Live Version” by Nirvana
8. “Books Written for Girls” by Camera Obscura
9. “The Size of Our Love” by Sleater-Kinney
10. “Life in a Northern Town” by The Dream Academy
11. “First Day of My Life” by Bright Eyes
12. “Two Weeks” by Grizzly Bear
13. “Angel of the Morning” by Juice Newton
14. “Call Me Margaret” by Agent Ribbons
15. “Listen the Snow Is Falling” by Galaxie 500
16. “Your Ghost” by Kristin Hersh

The songs that resonate most with Deeper for me are, first, the live version of “Come As You Are” by Nirvana, from MTV Unplugged. I love the raw quality of Cobain’s voice here. He sounds like he spent last night screaming, or possibly weeping uncontrollably, strung-out, shaking in a corner, and now he’s got to perform this song, which he does. He performs the hell out of it. There are scenes early in Deeper where West and Caroline are meeting in the middle of the night at the bakery that feel like this song to me—gritty and hoarse, a little bit painful, a whole lot come-as-you-are.

The next standout song for me is “Books Written for Girls” by Camera Obscura, which, first, I just love the sound of this song. It’s like a five-year-old girl in an eyelet dress, rocking back and forth from toes to heels, singing a song about Satan. It sounds young and poignant, but if you listen closely it’s about things beneath the surface—people who aren’t as they seem. “People get shattered in many ways,” she sings. “They can disappoint you if you see through their perfect smiles.” This is a Caroline-and-Nate song: it’s about a relationship where the woman is judged and feels it. But it’s also a song about moving on, about change. “I think separation is okay,” she says. “You’re no star to guide me anyway.” Damn straight.

But my very favorite song here, my West-and-Caroline-happy-ending song, is “First Day of My Life” by Bright Eyes. Because of this:

Yours is the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
Now I don't know where I am
I don't know where I've been
But I know where I want to go

And so I thought I'd let you know
That these things take forever
I especially am slow
But I realize that I need you
And I wondered if I could come home

I would kind of like to put all the lyrics in here, but I know you probably wouldn’t read them, and anyway you should listen to the song, because it’s beautiful. It’s a song about rebirth. It’s about finding the right person, connecting, starting over, and even though you’re not sure quite where you’re headed, knowing you’re going to be okay together.

Which is West and Caroline, to an absolute T.

Robin York grew up at a college, went to college, signed on for some more college, and then married a university professor. She still isn’t sure why it didn’t occur to her to write New Adult sooner. Writing as Ruthie Knox, she is a USA TODAY bestselling author of contemporary romance, including RITA-finalists About Last Night and Room at the Inn. She moonlights as a mother, makes killer salted caramels, and sorts out thorny plot problems while running, hiking, or riding her bike.

Author Links:

Website:  http://www.ruthieknox.com

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/RobinYorkNA

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/writerrobinyork

Author Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7279470.Robin_York

DEEPER Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18525821-deeper?ac=1

Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/Robin-York/e/B00G194QRC/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

Pre-Order Links:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

a Rafflecopter giveaway


 

Excerpt Blast + Giveaway: Deeper by Robin York

Deeper (Caroline & West #1)
Author: Robin York

Genre: New Adult Contemporary
Release Date: January 28, 2014
Publisher: Bantam

Description:

In this New Adult debut by Robin York, a college student is attacked online and must restore her name—and stay clear of a guy who’s wrong for her, but feels so right.

When Caroline Piasecki’s ex-boyfriend posts their sex pictures on the Internet, it destroys her reputation as a nice college girl. Suddenly her once-promising future doesn’t look so bright. Caroline tries to make the pictures disappear, hoping time will bury her shame. Then a guy she barely knows rises to her defense and punches her ex to the ground.

West Leavitt is the last person Caroline needs in her life. Everyone knows he’s shady. Still, Caroline is drawn to his confidence and swagger—even after promising her dad she’ll keep her distance. On late, sleepless nights, Caroline starts wandering into the bakery where West works.

They hang out, they talk, they listen. Though Caroline and West tell each other they’re “just friends,” their feelings intensify until it becomes impossible to pretend. The more complicated her relationship with West gets, the harder Caroline has to struggle to discover what she wants for herself—and the easier it becomes to find the courage she needs to fight back against the people who would judge her.

When all seems lost, sometimes the only place to go is deeper. 

Advance praise for DEEPER:

“The perfect new adult story . . . West will make you swoon!”—New York Times bestselling author Monica Murphy

“Beautifully written and full of swoony tender moments, toe-curling chemistry, and delicious, twisty angst . . . Stop whatever you’re doing and read this book.”—Christina Lauren, author of the Beautiful Bastard series

Library Scene - Caroline’s POV

I back up.

He’s supposed to stop stepping toward me when I back up, but he doesn’t. He keeps coming. He moves right into my zone of personal space, and I get pinned up against the stacks, my butt pressing against a low shelf, West’s hands braced on either side of my head.

“I’m working,” he says. As though I’m a book, and he’s shelving me.

I try to say, I’ll come back later, but instead I make this sort of clicking, gargling noise that makes me sound like a bullfrog. I can feel my throat flushing—always a dead giveaway that I’m embarrassed. I clear it and manage to say, “That’s fine. I can . . . come back. Or I’ll c-call you.”

I don’t have his phone number. Or any intention of calling him.

I don’t know why I’m imagining I can feel the heat off his skin, because that’s impossible. He isn’t that close, surely. I cast my eyes up, trying to visually measure the number of inches between our faces.

It’s not very many inches at all.

West doesn’t touch me, but he is much closer than he needs to be, and the way he’s looking down at me, his chest rising and falling rapidly, color high in his cheeks—I can’t help but think about his fist connecting with Nate’s mouth. The way Nate fell to the floor, heavy and limp.

He did that for you, I think.

I came here to ask him, but I already know.

He did it for me, and this is how he looked afterward. Dilated everywhere, his skin warm and his breathing rapid and shallow.

This is how he would look in bed.

I close my eyes, because I need to get my bearings. I had imagined a businesslike talk with West. Please don’t do that again, I would say. Okay, if that’s the way you feel about it, he’d reply. Yes, that’s the way I feel, I would tell him. Then maybe I’d give him a lecture about the importance of settling conflict without violence, followed by a brisk handshake.

I didn’t imagine the ruddy skin of his neck right by the collar of his shirt. The stubble on his jaw where it curves into his ear. I didn’t anticipate his smell, like spearmint and library books, detergent and warm skin.

God, he smells fantastic, but he’s also kind of scary, and I have no idea what the rules are right now. No idea at all.

I need rules to get through this kind of stuff. I’m a rules kind of girl.

“West,” I whisper.

It’s supposed to sound calm and businesslike, but instead it sounds like I’m begging him for something, and I guess he takes that as a cue. He drops his head toward my shoulder. His lips . . . I can’t be sure, but I think his lips are really close to my skin. I feel his breath near my ear, and my nipples harden.

“West, what the hell?”

“Why’d you come here, huh?” he murmurs.

And then—this is the worst-best part, by far—he turns his head and kisses my jaw, openmouthed.

It’s like satin. Like lightning.

I don’t know what it’s like.

I do know that it’s not what’s supposed to be happening at all.

Except that the atmosphere West is creating makes me feel like this is what’s supposed to be happening. Exactly this. The West menace is, like, sex in aerosol form. He’s making it with his body, and then he’s putting it all over me.

My body is into it, too. My body is on board.

My body is such a traitor. 

Robin York grew up at a college, went to college, signed on for some more college, and then married a university professor. She still isn’t sure why it didn’t occur to her to write New Adult sooner. Writing as Ruthie Knox, she is a USA TODAY bestselling author of contemporary romance, including RITA-finalistsAbout Last Night and Room at the Inn. She moonlights as a mother, makes killer salted caramels, and sorts out thorny plot problems while running, hiking, or riding her bike.

Links:

Website:  http://www.ruthieknox.com

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/RobinYorkNA

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/writerrobinyork

Author Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7279470.Robin_York

DEEPER Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18525821-deeper?ac=1

Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/Robin-York/e/B00G194QRC/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

Pre-Order Links:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Three lucky winners will receive an advance paperback copy of DEEPER signed by the author, and one grand prize winner will also receive a $25 gift certificate to the online retailer of their choice! International entrants are welcomed, but the grand prize gift certificate will only be available to US entrants.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway