Olivia Warren used to
be a normal girl with a bright future. But on one fated night, everything
changed.
Hiding the scars of her past up her sleeves, Olivia
transfers her enrollment from Columbia University to The College of Charleston,
determined to pursue her own dreams for the first time in her life.
She intends to allow herself a bit of alone time to heal...
that is, until she meets Preston.
Preston is best friends with her roommate, completely hot,
and off-limits. But the chemistry
between them is instantaneous—and as the pair begins to spend more time with
one another, their feelings for each other build into something undeniable,
something powerful enough to heal Olivia’s deepest scars.
Olivia tries to put her own past behind her and trust
Preston, but she discovers that his past might be more present than she ever
bargained for…
TITLE: Pieces of
Olivia
AUTHOR: Melissa
West
PUBLISHER: Penguin/InterMix
RELEASE DATE: July
15, 2014
His eyes swept over my face, and I
knew what was about to happen. I could see the resolve in his face. Feel the
swift change in the air as the charge between us sparked. He leaned toward me,
his eyes never leaving mine.
“I’m not going to kiss you,” I whispered.
“I didn’t ask.”
“Preston, we…”
He tucked my hair behind my ear and
moved still closer. “I can’t promise anything. I have nothing in me to promise,
but that doesn’t mean I won’t try.”
I swallowed, feeling the walls
around me crumbling down.
“Let me be what you need.”
My breath caught, the fight in me
diminishing with each spoken word. What was I so afraid of? I reached out,
gliding my fingertips over his face and into his hair. Briefly, I thought of
how often I’d dreamt of touching his hair, and then his mouth was on mine, and
all thought was gone, except him and us and this moment. His lips took control,
first soft and careful, and then full of urgency and need. Every unspoken word,
every missed opportunity, was pushed into that single kiss.
Preston laid me back on the sofa,
his body warm and inviting. My fingers gripped his hair, pulling him closer,
and he left my lips, kissing a trail down my chin to my neck. A soft moan of
pleasure escaped my lips, and he thrust his hips against mine in answer to my
ache. Our bodies moved together, our clothes the only thing keeping us from
taking this further.
I tugged his chin up so his lips
were back on mine, the kiss growing to a frenzy of passion. His hand slid under
the edge of my shirt, gliding over my stomach, before finding my breast. He
groaned with pleasure, and I reached down to take his shirt off, eager to touch
his impeccably toned chest and stomach. Preston slipped his shirt off and
gripped mine, his intentions clear, when reality yanked me from pleasure and
threw me into a sea of painful thoughts. I remembered my scars, Preston’s
expression when he’d gotten a glimpse of them through my shirt at the pier. I
shook my head, feeling myself tumbling deeper into sadness and farther from the
moment.
Preston glanced down at me. “We can
stop.”
“No.”
“Olivia, you don’t have to—”
I bit my lip, forcing myself to
push away the fear and sadness and guilt that riddled my mind and peered back
at him. “I don’t want to take my shirt off.”
“Okay,” he whispered.
“And I don’t want you judging that
I don’t want to take my shirt off.”
“Okay,” he repeated. I felt his
heart beat against my chest, fast and sure and strong. A part of me wanted to
disappear, embarrassed and ashamed that I’d yet again shown Preston Riggs just how
crazy I was deep inside. But another part, a greater part, felt a surge of
happiness that he’d stayed. He knew that I was broken and scarred and more than
a little crazy, yet still, he didn’t run. He stayed.
Melissa West writes young adult and new adult novels for
Entangled Teen and Embrace and Penguin/InterMix. She lives outside of Atlanta,
GA with her husband and two daughters and spends most of her time writing,
reading, or fueling her coffee addiction.
She holds a B.A. in Communication Studies and a M.S. in Graphic Communication,
both from Clemson University. Yeah, her blood runs orange.
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