(Heartbreaker Bay novel #5)
When love drives you crazy . . .
When sexy Joe Malone never calls after their explosive kiss, Kylie shoves him out of her mind. Until she needs a favor, and it’s a doozy. Something precious to her has been stolen and there’s only one person with unique finder-and-fixer skills that can help—Joe. It means swallowing her pride and somehow trying to avoid the temptation to throttle him—or seduce him.
the best thing to do . . .
No, Joe didn’t call after the kiss. He’s the fun time guy, not the forever guy. And Kylie, after all she’s been through, deserves a good man who will stay. But everything about Kylie makes it damned hard to focus, and though his brain knows what he has to do, his heart isn’t getting the memo.
… is enjoy the ride.
As Kylie and Joe go on the scavenger hunt of their lives, they discover surprising things about each other. Now, the best way for them to get over “that kiss” might just be to replace it with a hundred more.
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Excerpt
Joe studied her. “I asked you once before, but now I’m going to ask you again. Is there something going
on between you
two?”
She tossed up
her hands. “Why do you both keep asking me that about each other?”
His eyes
narrowed. “I thought nothing was going on.”
“And before
today, I could’ve passed a lie detector test on that,” she said.
“What happened
today?”
She paused. Not
because she had anything to be ashamed of, but because she wasn’t quite sure
what
had happened.
“Kylie.”
She sighed.
“It’s nothing.”
“Try again,”
Joe said and gave her the very male universal go on gesture.
She rolled her
eyes. “Fine. He . . . finally made a move on me.”
Joe didn’t
budge. Not a blink, not a muscle twitch, nothing, but she could’ve popped corn
off the electric tension coming off him.
“Describe ‘made
a move,’ ” he finally said.
She crossed her
arms. “And again, how is this relevant to my case?”
He just gave
her that careful stare again and she thought wow, those
eyes of his should be registered as a lethal
weapon, because she found herself opening her
mouth and spilling her guts. “He kissed me.”
“He kissed
you.”
“Yeah,” she
said. “Do you know that you often repeat what I say?”
“What kind of a
kiss?” he asked.
She was
momentarily bewildered. “I don’t know. It was a kiss. A normal kiss. A nice
kiss.” She cocked her head at him. “How many kinds of kisses are there?”
He just looked
at her for a long moment before coming toward her. He backed her to the wall
and pressed his big hands on either side of her head.
“There are many
kinds of kisses,” he said.
Her breath had
backed up in her throat, where her heart had lodged, pounding wildly. “S-s-such
as?”
“Such as this
one.” And then he leaned in and covered her mouth with his.
At
the touch of Joe’s mouth, Kylie’s brain stopped being capable of rational
thought. His tongue gave a knee-weakening stroke against hers and she let out a
shockingly needy moan as she clutched at him, fisting her hands in the material
of his shirt at his chest. Only when he’d thoroughly plundered and pillaged and
left her boneless did he lift his head and
look into her
eyes.
“Wow,” she
whispered, fully aware she was still holding on to him like he was a lifeline,
but the bones in her legs had liquefied. “I mean . . .” She shook her head.
“Wow.”
He nodded.
“Yeah. So to be clear, that wasn’t ‘a normal kiss’ or even ‘a nice kiss.’ It
was a ‘wow’ kiss. Any questions?”
“Just one,” she
said softly. “Can I have another?”
Joe didn’t have
to be asked twice. His mouth immediately descended again, his fingers sliding
into her hair to change the angle of the kiss to suit him. It was a controlled,
alpha thing to do, but she had only one thought—nothing about the usually
carefully, purposely leashed Joe was in control at the moment.
And she liked
it.
She had no idea
how long they went at it because she was in absolute heaven. Who knew that the
man could use his preferred silent mode to
communicate in a way that she finally approved of?
Only when she
was completely breathless and about to strip him down to his birthday suit did
she manage to pull back.
“Any more
questions?” he asked, also a little bit breathless, which was more than
slightly gratifying. Dumbly, she shook her head. His eyes softened and he
gently he stroked his thumb over her bottom lip. “And FYI? Gib’s an idiot.”
Whew! This book was HOT!! While this book is part of a series, it can be read as a standalone. Jill Shalvis is one of my favorite Avon authors and I love her books. The Heartbreaker Bay series is a favorite. Why? All of the female characters are ladies I'd like to have drinks with and all of the male characters I want to sigh over. This time around, we focus on Kylie Masters and Joe Malone. For those of you who read the previous book, you know that K & J shared a steamy kiss in an alley (not the best location, but it happened). And then.....he doesn't call. It's not because they don't know where they can find each other. Their list of mutual friends overlap so much it would give John Venn heart palpitations. Back to the story, Kylie has had a rough go at life. Her parents had her when they were in the late teens/early twenties; obvious not equipped to raise a baby. "Dad" abandoned them without a second glance and "mom" was selfish to think of anyone else's well-being except for hers. Luckily, Kylie's grandpa took her in and raised her. Fast forward, Kylie is working as a woodcarver and her carved penguin keychain goes missing. She's adamant that it was stolen from her. She enlists Joe to help her find her carved penguin. Why is a little keychain so important? It was the last item her grandpa carved before he passed. Did that tug your heartstrings? It did? Good. Spending time with Joe was the last thing Kylie wanted to do, but she desparately wants her keychain back; especially when someone sends her Polaroids of her keychain in scenes of peril. As tension between J & K grow, the hunt for the keychain and the sociopath goes on.
I was definitely picking up some sexual tension from another pair of characters. I usually take it as confirmation that they are a future pairing (and I can't wait!). Overall, I liked this book. The book progressed nicely and had a nice thriller vibe going on for some parts of the book.
4.5 STARS
ABOUT JILL SHALVIS
New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis lives in a small town in the Sierras full of quirky characters. Any resemblance to the quirky characters in her books is, um, mostly coincidental. Look for Jill’s bestselling, award-winning books wherever romances are sold and visit her website, www.jillshalvis.com, for a complete book list and daily blog detailing her city-girl-living-in-the-mountains adventures.
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