New Adult Romance Box Set

by Emme Rollins, Julia Kent, Anna Antonia, Helena Newbury, Aubrey Rose

  “Oh wow, Sara, he really likes you.” Wendy leaned in to whisper this fact and I was grateful for the reassurance, because I thought maybe I was seeing things, or I’d just gone a little crazy because of my Tyler Vincent obsession and his obvious resemblance. It was good to know I wasn’t the only one who saw the way his eyes lit up when they found me, how his energy and focus shifted from something casual to something that went far beyond interest. It was more like a hunger, and it made me hungry too.

  “Hey you.” His voice brought back our weekend phone conversations, whispering together in the middle of the night. He looked at me like there was no one else there, as if every girl, every other person, had simply disappeared the moment he set eyes on me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Holly Larson pass our table, felt the jealousy and hatred directed at me, but it was nothing like the heat of Dale’s gaze. I felt instantly combustible. If I’d been a popcorn kernel, I would have exploded the minute he looked at me.

  “You must be the infamous Dale Diamond,” Carrie announced, pulling a chair over from another table and sliding it between us. “Is that your real name? Have a seat.”

  “Hi.” Dale turned the chair around, sitting astride it beside me, his knee brushing mine. “Yeah, Dale Diamond’s my real name. Easy to make fun of. I got called Double-D in junior high. I’m just glad my mother didn’t name me Neil.”

  Aimee laughed. “My mother loves Neil Diamond.”

  “So do a lot of older women, I hear.” He smiled at her. “Aimee, right?”

  “Yeah. Nice to meet you.” She looked far too pleased he’d guessed right.

  “And you must be Carrie and Wendy.” He glanced between the two of them, speculative. “Carrie?” He pointed, guessing right again. “And Wendy?”

  Wendy raised her pierced eyebrow, squirting ketchup from a packet all over her fries. “Do our reputations precede us?”

  “Sara and I talked a lot. She told me about you.” Dale’s arm slipped behind my chair, pulling it closer to his, so our thighs were touching. It was a delicious sort of chafing.

  “Really?” Carrie perked up and I saw her nudge Wendy, giving her a mischievous smile. I tried to warn her with my eyes but she went ahead anyway. “So she told you all about her Tyler Vincent obsession?”

  “Obsession?” Dale raised his eyebrows, glancing at me. I smiled weakly. “Oh, speaking of Tyler Vincent—I’m going to pick up those tickets this weekend. I got us four front row seats.”

  “Four?” My eyes widened and I looked at Aimee.

  “Yeah—me and you.” He nudged me under the table with his knee again, sending a little thrill through me. “Aimee and…”

  “Oh God, I forgot to tell you!” Carrie interrupted, waving like a ref flagging an offsides. With five brothers, it was likely a familiar gesture at her house. “Aimee, my brother asked me for your number! I gave it to him. I hope that was okay?”

  “I know,” Aimee replied calmly, licking her spoon.

  We all stared at her, open-mouthed. Her cheeks turned a shade almost as red as her hair.

  “What?” I gasped. “You didn’t tell me!”

  Aimee shrugged, glancing at Dale. “You’ve been… busy.”

  He grinned. “Well good, sounds like we’ll be able to use four tickets.”

  “What about us?” Wendy pouted, nudging Carrie, who nearly spit out a mouthful of blueberry Hostess pie.

  Dale looked stunned. “You like Tyler Vincent?”

  “No.” Wendy laughed. “But if it was INXS, Aimee would have to arm-wrestle me for them.”

  “Aren’t you eating?” Carrie asked Dale. I’d forgotten how hungry I was the moment he came in—for food, anyway. Now my stomach rumbled and he looked at me, noticing.

  “I was gonna grab a slice. Want to come with me?” He’d already guessed my answer, sliding a hand casually along my thigh, finding my hand like it was the most natural thing in the world and squeezing it as he pulled me to standing. I wasn’t sure my knees were going to hold me up.

  He led me to the back of the line, and I breathed a little sigh as we wedged ourselves into the small space where students waited for fries and pizza and Hostess pies and little bags of Doritos.

  “Finally.” He squeezed my hand. He hadn’t let go. “A moment alone.”

  Funny, because we were in the middle of a crowd, but I knew what he meant. I found myself wishing we really were alone.

  “Sorry about that.” I nodded toward the lunch table. “You’d think you were an alien or something, the way they act.”

  “They seem nice enough. You’ll have to meet the guys in my band some time.”

  “I’d like that.” What I liked most of all was the implication. I lifted his hand, tracing where I’d written on it. “My number’s gone.”

  “I know it by heart.”

  I melted. I had to look down to make sure I wasn’t just a puddle on the floor.

  The line moved quickly and we got to the front. Dale ordered and then turned to me, expectant. “What do you want?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  “You aren’t one of those salad-eating girls, are you?” He frowned, glancing up and down at my thin frame. I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “No, I…” There was no way I could explain it, not here, not now. I felt my cheeks turning red. He cocked his head, looking at me and thinking, and then his expression cleared and he turned to the woman behind the counter, decisive.

  “Two slices, two Cokes.” He dug into his back pocket for his wallet and paid her, handing me one of the Cokes and a pizza slice.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” I said as we walked back toward the table. The smell of pizza was making me salivate. “I’ll pay you back.”

  He made a face, shaking his head, but not saying anything as we sat down again. Wendy was already asking him if he could get tickets to the INXS concert in March and they were off to the races, talking about punk bands while I wolfed down my slice of pizza. I devoured it like it was the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted, licking my greasy fingers and laughing when I discovered Dale watching me with interest. Aimee watched me too, looking half amused and half jealous. I offered her a bite, but she turned me down, scraping her Yoplait container with her spoon.

  “Here, you want mine?” Dale offered, sliding his pizza across the table toward me. He’d been so involved talking to Wendy and Carrie, he’d only taken a few bites.

  “Are you sure?” But I asked through a mouthful of his pizza.

  He laughed. “Eat it, little bird. It’s not good for you, but it’s better than Skittles.”

  By the time I’d cleaned both our plates, it was nearly time to head back to class, and my stomach was so full it hurt. But when Dale slipped his arm over the back of my chair and smiled at me, I did the best I could to ignore the amazed looks I was getting from my friends. I suddenly realized I felt far more full, in a totally different way, than I ever had before.

  I never thought I’d want to kill my best friend, but Aimee, hanging over the seat to talk to Dale, was really beginning to grate on my nerves.

  “I play sax,” she told him. “I’m a little rusty now. I played in marching band, but I’d love to play in a real band. Are you guys looking for a sax player?”

  “Well…” he said slowly. “Most of the stuff we play in clubs doesn’t require a sax player.”

  “Oh. Well, if you ever need one, you let me know. You have incredible hair,” she added, reaching over to touch it. I turned sharply into her driveway and she was thrown into the seat.

  “We’re here!” I announced loudly. Dale was trying not to laugh but I was seething.

  “See ya tomorrow.” Aimee put her hand up to her ear, mimicking a phone and the words, “Call me!”

  I sighed when she shut the car door.

  “She’s cute.”

  I glared at him, backing quickly out of the driveway and peeling off down the street.

  “Whoa!” Dale grabbed onto the dash board. “I meant
cute in a cute sort of way. Not in that way!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said through clenched teeth.

  “You’re jealous.” He was trying not to laugh and it made me even madder.

  “I am not jealous. There’s nothing to be jealous about.”

  “Okay.” He was really laughing now as I made another sharp turn into our apartment complex. “If you say so.”

  I pulled up in front of the building and threw the car into park. “Okay. See you later.”

  “Hey.” He turned to face me. I wouldn’t look at him. “Come on, don’t be mad. So she was flirting with me a little. Big deal. It’s not her I want to take to the movies this weekend.”

  I glanced at him, trying to see if he was serious. He was. “This weekend?”

  “Yeah. You do want to go to the latest Tyler Vincent movie, don’t you?”

  Aimee and I had been planning to make a day of it—camping out for concert tickets and then doing an all-day Tyler Vincent marathon at the theater, watching every showing of All Night Long, a new romantic comedy where he played, go figure, a rock star. Talk about typecasting. So I would have to ditch Aimee to go with Dale, but considering the look on her face when Carrie had mentioned her older brother asking for Aimee’s phone number, I had a funny feeling she wasn’t going to mind.

  Did I dare share this with him? Did I really want to do that? I was afraid to share my… thing… obsession… whatever you wanted to call it. Dale had gone out of his way, offering front row seats (Front row! That still hadn’t sunk in yet) and now he was asking me out to see Tyler Vincent’s new movie. He knew I was a fan, but there were lots of Tyler Vincent fans in the world. The problem was, I would bet most of them hadn’t wallpapered their walls with his image, or planned their lives, their entire futures, around him.

  Dale’s hand found mine, teasing my fingers open, turning his hand just slightly so he could twine our fingers together. His hands were cool, his fingers calloused—from playing guitar all day long, I knew—but his touch was electric. It made me ache in ways that were utterly foreign to me. Even Tyler Vincent hadn’t reached into the places Dale seemed to find.

  I squeezed his hand. “Okay.”

  “Awesome.” He leaned over and I froze, sure he was going to kiss me, anticipating it, breath held, leaning slightly toward him without even thinking about it. Instead of kissing me, he nuzzled my ear with his nose and I felt more than heard him take a long, deep breath. “God, you smell so good, Sara. You make me want to eat you all up.”

  Oh God.

  I wanted to be eaten all up.

  He sighed, tracing a slow, deliberate, straight line up my palm, over my wrist, up my inner arm toward my elbow, making me shiver like it was cold, only the opposite was true. I was so warm I could barely stand it.

  “Can I call you tonight?” he murmured, still rubbing his nose against my ear, making circles with his finger at the inner bend of my elbow, driving me mad.

  “I’ll call you,” I said, my voice shaking, thinking of my stepfather.

  “You promise?” He didn’t seem to notice my quivering, like a rabbit caught in a trap. Except I didn’t want to escape. “I don’t want to go to sleep tonight without hearing your voice.”

  “You’re sweet,” I whispered, turning my face toward his, knowing how close we would be, anticipating his kiss, every bit of me strung so tight I was ready to snap. My lips grazed his, not really a kiss, it was just barely the lightest of touches, the sensation so exciting it made me whimper for more. I felt his sharp intake of breath as he pulled back, looking into my eyes, both of us lost for a moment, unable to speak.

  Dale shook his dark head, touching a finger to my lips and I felt it like a brand.

  “Not yet. Not here. I don’t trust myself.”

  He got out of the car so quickly he was a blur and I watched him go into the main apartment door, my heart beating hard in my chest.

  What was happening?

  I sat there, letting my breath and heartbeat return to normal, which took a long damned time. The first thing I thought—the first real, coherent thought after our almost-kiss—was of Aimee and how I was going to tell her what had happened, what was happening, between me and Dale. Especially since I didn’t quite understand it myself.

  I couldn’t believe I’d overreacted that way to Aimee’s harmless flirting. I knew it was harmless—she would never do anything deliberately to hurt me. Yet even as I thought about it, I was angry. It was stupid, it was irrational, but it was true—I was jealous. Which meant I liked Dale... and I had to admit it. I liked him a lot. This was moving too fast, but I felt powerless to stop it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “You weren’t really mad at me were you?” Aimee asked.

  I rolled my eyes for the millionth time, sliding my back down the wall so I could sit on the floor and rest my aching feet. We’d spent all morning shopping for a new outfit for Aimee to wear on her date with Matt. He’d asked her to a movie and of course she’d chosen Tyler Vincent’s latest and we’d laughed when we both shamefully confessed we each had a date to see it. Aimee was stripped down to her bra and panties and I was holding my tongue because she looked thinner than I’d seen her in a long time. I could see her ribs when she put her arms up to pull a dress over her head.

  I’d been trying to tell her about how I’d felt when she was flirting with Dale, but she was completely missing the point.

  “I know you didn’t do it on purpose.” I tried again. “So there’s no reason for me to be mad, but the point is I was mad anyway. I was jealous. Which means Dale must mean more to me than I let myself believe he did. Get it?”

  “Yeah, I guess. You really like him huh?” She turned sideways in the mirror, frowning at her figure.

  “I guess I must.” I couldn’t stop thinking about him, no matter how hard I tried. I was glad my painting had been almost finished when we met, because I couldn’t even paint. I’d driven him to school every day this week, although we got precious little time alone before I picked up Aimee. Chemistry was a blur. Thank God Dale insisted we wear our safety goggles, I’d exploded a test tube mixing something because I’d been looking at his profile and hadn’t been paying attention. The ride home was my favorite part though, because Aimee had started riding home with Carrie and Wendy—and Carrie’s older brother, Matt.

  Dale and I had the entire ride home to ourselves.

  “Earth to Sara.” Aimee waved a hand in my face. “What do you think of this one?”

  “Uhh. I like it?” I looked her up and down, noticing for the first time she’d changed outfits.

  She cocked her hip, grinning down at me. “You are so far gone it’s not even funny.”

  “I guess I am.”

  Every day for a week, sitting in my idling car, saying goodbye without saying anything at all—the touch of his hand, his forehead pressed to mine, the way he brushed my hair out of my face, tucking it behind my ear. And still, he hadn’t kissed me. Not once. Nothing but that brief brush of his lips. I was beginning to go a little crazy.

  “But Aimee…” I looked up at her, shaking my head. “What if I win the scholarship and I go off to college in Maine? Then where will we be? Long-distance relationships never work. And what if I meet Tyler Vincent?”

  “So what if you do? What do you expect to happen?” It was her turn to roll her eyes at me. “Dale is here and he likes you. Tyler Vincent doesn’t even know you exist.”

  “Let’s go to Harmony House.” I changed the subject as fast as I could, not wanting to get into it with her. Aimee believed in destiny and ghosts and true-love, but she didn’t let her fantasies out of her head and into the world like I did. She was far more of a realist.

  Besides, there was no arguing with love. Love didn’t care. Love did whatever the hell it wanted, no matter who or what got in the way.

  We went up to the register to pay for Aimee’s outfit. I watched, envious, as she casually handed over a credit card. Aimee’s pare
nts were divorced and she had guilted her father into paying the bill every month, an arrangement that annoyed Aimee’s mother but secretly thrilled Aimee and her father.

  Harmony House was packed. It was always packed on weekends. Aimee stayed at the front of the store to look at the new releases, but I went straight to the alphabetized section—

  “V”—looking for Tyler Vincent. I didn’t expect to find anything new—I owned everything he’d ever recorded on vinyl and cassette anyway—I just liked to flip through and look at him.

  I saw two girls I recognized from our high school in the next aisle. They had graduated with everyone else in our class. I vaguely remembered their names—Lisa and Kathy, the latter short for Katherine or Kathleen, I wasn’t sure which.

  “Let’s go back,” Lisa said, tugging on her friend’s sleeve. “Please! He was so amazing! I have to go back!”

  “My sister’s picking us up in half an hour!” Kathy protested. “And I’ve already got homework in my stupid English class.”

  I knew both of them were going to Brookdale Community College, like a lot of our former classmates. As much as I wanted out of this state, I was still jealous of them moving on, not stuck like I was, in limbo, waiting to finish something that should have been done already.

  “Come on!” Lisa insisted. “Just until your sister comes. I have to go back! He is so damned fine!”

  Aimee joined me, overhearing their conversation. She waved at Lisa, who had been in marching band, I remembered, so Aimee was far more friendly with her than I had been.

  “Who’s fine?”

  Lisa’s eyes lit up from the inside, her round, moon-like face flushed pink as she gushed. “There’s a concert in the round, at the center of the mall. Some new band, I don’t know the name. But oh my God, the lead singer is to die for!”

  “He looks a lot like Tyler Vincent!” Kathy called over her shoulder as her friend dragged her toward the front of the store.

  Aimee met my eyes, hers wide with disbelief and recognition. Somehow I had known, the way Lisa fawned, it had been Dale all along.