We reached 1,800 adds on Goodreads! Here’s the first 5 pages of OUT OF TIME!

PLEASE SHARE THIS LINK SO WE CAN GET TO OUR GOAL OF 2500 adds! IF WE GET THERE, YOU GET A BONUS FINN SCENE NOT IN THE BOOK AND TWENTY PAGES TOTAL!

SPECIAL CONTEST:

I’m offering up a special contest. For every 200 adds we get on Goodreads for OUT OF LINE before the release (December 3rd), I will reveal 5 pages of the book early (total of twenty)!

If the book hits the goal of 2500 adds before the release, not only will you get twenty pages of the book early–but I will release a bonus scene from Finn’s POV!

Please let people know to add the book to goodreads in order to get these excerpts released.

Add it to your Goodreads shelf here!

And now, pages 1-5–since we reached 1800 adds in the first day–let’s hit our goal of 2500 adds! If we reach the goal, you not only get twenty pages of OUT OF LINE early, but you’ll get a bonus Finn scene, too!

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Chapter One

Finn

 

I pulled Carrie tighter to my chest, closing my eyes even though I was fully awake and alert. I just needed a second to hold her. To breathe her in. I wanted to ignore life for a second longer, because today was the day I had to tell Carrie I have bad news, and I was not looking forward to it. But hell, I didn’t even necessarily know what the message was about yet. Maybe I was jumping to conclusions.

Maybe I was full of shit. Or…maybe it was bad news.

The sun came through the curtains, and I opened my eyes again, sighing. When I had woken up earlier, my first conscious thought had been: Please don’t let this all be a dream again. Please don’t make me wake up alone.

But then I’d breathed in her familiar scent that instantly calmed my racing heart, and I had relaxed again. It hadn’t been a dream. Thank fucking God. The real world was just as happy as my dreams—which made sense since she starred in both anyway. The woman I loved had forgiven me for secretly working for her father, and all was right in the world. Her bright blue eyes were shut tight, her long red hair lay splayed all across her white pillow, and her soft lips seemed to be begging to be kissed.

Her ginger eyelashes were swept low, shadowing her pale cheeks. If someone would have told me last week that Carrie would be back in my bed, in my arms, and in love with me, I would have laughed and asked them what the fuck they were smoking.

Yet here she was. This was real.

And she was late for class.

“Ginger…?”

I kissed her lips, savoring the unique flavor that was my Carrie. I made sure not to press too close to her, though, and give her the wrong idea. Or maybe it was myself I was trying to remind. But either way, there wasn’t any time for a quick morning fuck.

I pulled back, and her lids fluttered open, showing me those baby blues I loved so much. “Hey,” she said, her voice soft with sleep.

“It’s time to wake up.”

She smiled up at me, stretching like a cat. “Why are you all the way over there?”

I trailed my finger down the little strip of skin on her stomach, right above her green panties. Would I ever get sick of seeing little pieces of her skin, bared for me and only me? “Because you’re—”

Without warning, she snaked her arms around my neck, hauling me closer until I lay on top of her. So much for keeping my distance. Her hands played with the back of my hair. I loved it when she did that, and I had a feeling she knew it. She could ask me to walk along hot coals for her, and as long as she was playing with my hair like that, I’d do it happily.

Without hesitation, she kissed me, her tongue slipping inside my mouth and entwining with mine. Damn it, I loved it when she took the initiative, too. But I had to stop this before it went too far. I pulled back and unwound her arms from my neck. Then I scooted out of her reach. “You’re late for class.”

She sat upright, blinking rapidly. “I am?”

“Yep.” I rolled out of bed, and away from the woman who held my heart in her hands. “You get in the shower, and I’ll make you breakfast to go.”

“Thank you,” she called over her shoulder, bolting toward the bathroom in her tank top and satin underwear. I had to pause to appreciate the back view, but then I hightailed it into the kitchen to make her an egg sandwich.

I passed my phone as I went, snatching it up, and quickly called her a cab before setting it down on the counter. As I made her a breakfast, I eyed the fucking thing as if it was going to jump up and bite me in the ass. Sometimes, I felt like it could. It had been the root of all things bad that happened to me lately.

First it had shown Carrie I was a liar. Then the call last night…

Nothing was definite yet. Nothing at all. But when you got a mysterious phone call from your commanding officer on a Sunday night…well, you could put two and two together pretty easily. In this fucked up world, someone was always a finger push away from starting a war with someone. And who were the first ones sent in?

Marines. Always the Marines.

But some small, stupid part of me couldn’t help but hope the call was nothing more than a red herring. God had a twisted sense of humor like that…didn’t He? It seemed like something He would do. Give me the sun and the moon, and then pretend like he was going to snatch away the sun. Then, at the last second, he’d laugh and be all, “Ha! I got you, didn’t I?”

I shook my head at myself. Was I seriously having a fake fucking conversation with God in my head? I was losing it. Losing my mind. I needed to look at this rationally.

Maybe the military thought there would be another attack in fucking Egypt or something, and were readying troops just in case. There was a hell of a lot of just in cases situation in the military. It didn’t have to mean something.

The possible threat could fail to come to fruition. Then I’d get to stay with Carrie.

It’s not that I was scared to go fight for my country. I wasn’t. But I was scared of how Carrie would handle the news of me going. That’s not to say I didn’t think she was strong enough to handle it, because she was. But she worried about me.

I flipped the egg and popped some bread into the toaster. As I waited, I eyed my phone and replayed the message in my head. Screw this. I needed to hear it again. I picked it up and hit play.

“Sergeant Coram, this is C.O. Gunnerson. Report for duty at Pendleton Saturday morning at oh-eight-hundred, and be advised there will be news regarding a possible deployment for you in the near future.”

The commanding officer’s gravelly voice rang in my head, making me want to throw the phone across the room. But, instead, I slammed it down on the countertop, my heart thumping loudly. Yeah. That didn’t sound good at all.

I shouldn’t be surprised. This was a pattern in my life. The second things started to look up for me, shit always blew up in my face. Like the time I’d gotten the job of my dreams, only to learn it would require me to travel out of the country for ten months of the year. Or the time I’d gotten my Harley, and then an asshole in a pickup truck smashed it into pieces.

This certainly wasn’t the first time I’d gone through this type of thing, and it wouldn’t be the last, either.

The toast popped and I set it down on the Saran wrap. After putting the rest of her sandwich together, I poured her a to-go mug of coffee and waited at the door. She came charging out of the bathroom, her hair in a sloppy ponytail and my t-shirt on with a pair of jeans. Hot damn, I didn’t want to let her walk out the door.

But I knew I had to.

She grabbed her bag, slung it over her shoulder, then came my way. “You giving me a ride?”

I raised a brow. “Can you eat and drink coffee on a bike?”

“No.”

“Then no.” I kissed her quickly, not wanting to hold her up even more, and handed her the coffee. Her fingers brushed against mine, and I wanted to capture them and hold them close to my chest. Right above my heart. “But I called you a cab and it’s out there waiting for you.”

She grinned up at me, her warm eyes shining up at me. “Thanks, love.”

“Love?” I scratched my head. “That’s new.”

She shrugged and took the sandwich from me. “I’m trying it on for size. You have so many nicknames for me, it’s only fair I think of one for you.”

“Hm.” I patted her on the ass, the universal signal to get going. “Well, Ginger, I’ll pick you up after class. Five, right?”

“Yes.” Her cheeks flushed, and her gaze dipped to my mouth. “I have to study afterward with a friend, though, so make it six?”

“Which friend?”

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Want another five pages? Help get Out Of Line to 2000 adds! Add it here. 

BOOK SUMMARY:

Desperate to keep him…

I’ve finally gotten everything I ever wanted: love, freedom, happiness, and, most importantly, Finn. Our love is everything I expected it to be and more. We’ve finally found each other, but the world seems determined to tear us apart. We thought my father was the only obstacle between us, but now it’s the military. With Finn’s departure looming, we’re squeezing in every moment together before we run out of time.

Trying to make every moment count…

Being Carrie’s bodyguard was one thing. Being her boyfriend is another. Every day she’s mine is a day the sun shines in my life. Yet our time together is running out. Her father will never think a tattooed Marine will be good enough so I’ll do with whatever it takes to be worthy of her love. But the road will take me away from the girl who makes me feel alive–the girl I can’t live without.

Time only gets us so far…

 SPECIAL CONTEST:

I’m also offering up a special contest. For every 200 adds Out of Time gets on Goodreads before the release (December 3rd), I will reveal 5 pages of the book early (tops out at 20 pages)! Add it here.

If the book hits 2500 adds before the release, I will release a bonus scene from Finn’s POV! We’re already zooming in on 1,700, so the first goal is 1,800! Let’s do this!

Please let people know to add the book to goodreads in order to get these excerpts released.

A SPECIAL SALE:

LAST BUT NOT LEAST, A GIVEAWAY (because there’s always a giveaway):

a Rafflecopter giveaway