Tempt Me
A First Class Romance Collection
Jessica Hawkins
A.L. Jackson
Tia Louise
Lauren Rowe
Harloe Rae
Contents
Yours to Bare by Jessica Hawkins
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Show Me the Way by A.L. Jackson
Prologue
1. Rynna
2. Rex
3. Rynna
4. Rex
5. Rynna
6. Rex
7. Rynna
8. Rex
9. Rynna
10. Rex
11. Rynna
12. Rex
13. Rynna
14. Rex
15. Rex
16. Rynna
17. Rex
18. Rynna
19. Rynna
20. Rex
21. Rynna
22. Rex
23. Rynna
24. Rex
25. Rynna
26. Rex
27. Rynna
28. Rex
29. Rynna
30. Rynna
31. Rynna
32. Rex
33. Rynna
34. Rex
35. Rynna
36. Rex
37. Rynna
38. Rex
39. Rynna
40. Corinne Dayne – Three years ago
41. Rynna
42. Rex
43. Rynna
The Epilogues
Make Me Yours by Tia Louise
Prologue
1. Ruby
2. Remington
3. Ruby
4. Remi
5. Ruby
6. Remi
7. Ruby
8. Remi
9. Ruby
10. Remi
11. Ruby
12. Remi
13. Ruby
14. Remi
15. Ruby
16. Remi
17. Ruby
18. Remi
19. Ruby
20. Remi
21. Ruby
22. Remi
23. Ruby
24. Remi
25. Ruby
26. Remi
27. Ruby
28. Remi
29. Ruby
30. Remi
31. Ruby
32. Ruby
33. Remi
34. Ruby
Epilogue
Breaker by Harloe Rae
Playlist for Breaker
Foreword
Prologue
1. Sutton
2. Grady
3. Sutton
4. Grady
5. Sutton
6. Grady
7. Sutton
8. Grady
9. Sutton
10. Sutton
11. Grady
12. Grady
13. Grady
14. Sutton
15. Grady
16. Sutton
17. Grady
18. Sutton
19. Grady
20. Sutton
21. Grady
22. Grady
23. Grady
24. Sutton
25. Sutton
26. Grady
27. Sutton
28. Grady
29. Sutton
30. Grady
31. Sutton
32. Grady
33. Grady
34. Sutton
Epilogue
Captain by Lauren Rowe
Prologue
1. Ryan
2. Tessa
3. Ryan
4. Ryan
5. Tessa
6. Ryan
7. Ryan
8. Ryan
9. Ryan
10. Ryan
11. Ryan
12. Ryan
13. Tessa
14. Ryan
15. Ryan
16. Ryan
17. Ryan
18. Tessa
19. Ryan
20. Tessa
21. Ryan
22. Ryan
23. Ryan
24. Ryan
25. Tessa
26. Tessa
27. Ryan
28. Tessa
29. Ryan
30. Ryan
31. Ryan
32. Ryan
33. Tessa
34. Tessa
35. Tessa
36. Tessa
37. Ryan
38. Tessa
39. Ryan
40. Ryan
41. Ryan
42. Ryan
43. Tessa
44. Tessa
45. Tessa
46. Ryan
47. Tessa
48. Tessa
49. Ryan
50. Tessa
51. Tessa
52. Ryan
53. Ryan
54. Ryan
55. Tessa
56. Tessa
57. Tessa
58. Ryan
59. Tessa
60. Tessa
61. Tessa
62. Ryan
63. Ryan
64. Ryan
65. Ryan
66. Tessa
67. Tessa
68. Ryan
69. Ryan
Epilogue
Also by Our First Class Authors
Copyright © 2020 First Class Romance
First Edition
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the publisher.
First Class Romance
Cover Design by Tempting Illustrations
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Names, characters, places, and plots are a product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
eBook ISBN: 978-1-946420-47-3
Yours to Bare by Jessica Hawkins
© 2016 Jessica Hawkins
www.jessicahawkins.net
Yours to Bare extras.
All Jessica Hawkins titles on Amazon.
Editing by Elizabeth London Editing
Proofreading/2nd edit by Underline This Editing
Cover Design © Michele Catalano Creative
Cover Photo © Jade Gabrielle Photography
1
If this isn’t fate, I don’t know what is.
The only coffee shop on Manhattan’s East Side that serves neither pistachio nor chocolate pastries is two blocks from my apartment. Pistachio’s not hard to avoid, but chocolate? Just proves
you can find, or not find, anything in this city when you’ve got fate on your side. Maybe, finally, my luck is changing.
I pay for a coffee and sit at my table by the window. Another reason I was meant to find Lait Noir—my table is almost always available or opening up as I get my drink. That’s a certain kind of magic in a café as small as this one. The white walls and floor-to-ceiling windows help to hide how crowded it is, but some tables are crammed with two or more people, and nobody seems to know the person next to them. Every other coffee drinker has a laptop, tablet, or newspaper. Me? I must be old-fashioned. I get out a spiral-bound notebook I’ve kept in my camera bag since last October.
I blow on my drink. The heater’s on, but outside, people bundle under scarves, gloves, and coats. It’s the time of year when Macy’s bags make it all the way down here, even though the department store is a thirty-minute walk away.
Whenever gigs start to run dry, I go back to page one—a running list of ideas:
Travel the world with a camera, sending award-worthy shots to National Geographic.
Become the go-to photographer for New York’s most notable events.
Since neither of those have panned out, I scan to the bottom of the list.
Private Events
Teach a course
Weddings
Back to Wall Street
Returning to finance isn’t something I’d even considered a possibility after quitting my job last year. That’s how I know I’ve exhausted every option worth listing. I can’t go lower than slinking back to a career that almost suffocated me to death. And I won’t. Maybe a year of vainly trying to make a name for myself has been discouraging, but it hasn’t killed my hope completely.
I cross it off the list, and weddings too. They remind me of things better left forgotten.
Teaching?
I’ve taught my daughter a few things throughout her short, eight-year existence. The proper ratio of cereal to milk. How to swap out dopey white shoelaces for neon ones. The most efficient way to locate Waldo. Those are the easy things. I’ve got my work cut out for me in the more important departments. Can I make her understand that marriage is forever, even though she’s just lived through my divorce? That loving someone can never be a mistake, even though I’ve fucked it up twice?
No, I’m not meant to stand in front of a classroom. I’m not sure I can teach adults how to take pictures anyway. I have a degree in photography, so I’ve got the technical stuff covered. But art is more than a skill to be acquired—it’s communicating emotion, and I’m not equipped to teach anyone how to feel, especially since I’ve been the opposite of inspired lately. Every time something stirs in me, I’m reminded of how much I risked for inspiration last year. And how wrong I was about Sadie, the woman I thought was my soul mate.
I skip that option but leave it on the list. Some things have to be last resorts.
My phone vibrates.
We’re ready for you. Meet me at the listing on 28th & 10th Ave. 15 minutes.
I flip the notebook closed so quickly, my pen rolls off the side of the table. They call, I come. It’s my second time working with a realtor. I was referred to her, Liz, by another agent. Getting in the real estate circuit could mean steady work, so I don’t delay.
I feel around for the pen, but my hand hits something bigger. Something smooth. Sturdy. I pick up a well-worn, dark-tan leather book secured by long straps tied into a bow. It’s a journal, the kind that’s twice the size it used to be, pages swollen with life experiences. My ex has a few of these from high school. Boys, summer vacations, unfair-parent rants, and more boys. She’d wanted me to read them, but I’d only managed one flowery, overwritten description of the Trevi Fountain. I never went near them again.
This journal’s more substantial, though. The cover has paled and creased where the spine’s been bent. These pages have been visited over and over. It almost looks important, as if it doesn’t hold mindless streams of consciousness.
I inhale the musky leather before I realize it probably belongs to the girl next to me, and she might not appreciate a stranger smelling her things. Not that she’d notice. She’s buried under headphones, her eyes trained on her laptop, her table covered in loose papers. I tap her on the shoulder, and she glares at me. I hold up the book. “Yours?”
She shakes her head and returns to the screen. A few people look over at me. When nobody claims it, I untie the bow. A journal this worn and loved is bound to have a return address printed on the inside. I peel back the cover. The first page makes no introduction, no apology. There’s no “dear diary” printed across the top, no “this journal belongs to.” Just neat, girlish cursive.
Give me your fuck.
Split me down the middle with it.
My face warms. Without thinking, I read it again. This isn’t some banal musing on Italian art. This is intimate. Too intimate for a stranger’s eyes. I continue down the page. The beautiful penmanship breaks down quickly, bleeding into barely legible scrawl. Trying to make it out feels even more intrusive, but I can’t stop. The leather becomes less pleasant in my hands. Sticky. Hot. I turn the page.
Own me with your fingers. Trace the aches on my chest, touch the words it hurts me to say, press the exposed nerves around my heart until you hear my begging in your dreams.
My throat is thick, as if I’ve swallowed something I shouldn’t have. Beneath the text is a simple sketch of a man’s hands holding up a nude, ragdoll-like girl by her waist. Wide-eyed, her lips are parted, her cheeks pink—the only color in the photo.
I was happily yours until you fucked off.
The poetry in her words is gone, but the rawness strikes me in the gut. Just one sentence describes what Sadie left me with a year ago—a loving hate. Sweet, searing memories. The ache of desire mixed with the gut-churn of brutal rejection.
When I slam the book shut, I’m breathing hard. I’m going to be late to meet a client I can’t afford to piss off. I stick the journal in my bag and leave the coffee shop. I should turn it in to a barista, but my heart’s pounding, palms are sweating—things I haven’t felt since Sadie. Fucking her, wanting to fuck her, watching her return to her husband—my reaction was always the same, physical.
I don’t exactly enjoy ripping open old wounds, but I need this journal in my possession. Right now, the words inside it belong to me.
I meet my new client at a building between Tenth and Eleventh Avenue. Commercial gigs weren’t exactly what I had in mind when I left Wall Street. I’d opted to shoot now and aim later, so to speak. But between child support, alimony, and renting a two-bedroom apartment in the city, I can’t be picky.
Liz looks about my age, with dyed red hair and frown lines that give the impression she’s permanently stressed. She lets me into the freshly-staged apartment. “You look just like the photo on your website,” she says. “Most people don’t, as if I’d hire or not hire someone just based on their face.” She looks at my hair. It gets a lot of female attention, always has. There’s a ton of it. “I’ve got girlfriends who’d kill for that golden color,” she says. “What’s the name of it?”