Author:
Sarah Grimm
Title:
Wrecked
Series:
Blind Man's Alibi Book #1
Genre:
Contemporary Romance
Synopsis
She was destined to show him the joy and
pain of living.
Joe Campbell has it all: money, success,
and fame. As lead singer of alternative rock band Blind Man’s Alibi, he holds the vague conviction that life on the
road, and nights filled with meaningless sexual encounters, is enough. Until
her – Emma Travers. She is a breath of fresh air. Sunshine to his darkness. The
one who changes him, pushes him, and teaches him to truly live. He never
imagines she is hiding a devastating secret. Or that the same emotion that
could steal his heart, would ultimately break it.
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Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
“Sorry, but sucking off a narcissistic asshole
who’s so damn drunk he can’t recall the words to his own song is not my idea of
a good time.”
His bark of laughter echoed in the empty hall.
“You really are a ray of sunshine, aren’t you?”
God, what a terrible idea this had been. Hoping
to put some distance between them, Emma Travers quickened her pace, only to
stumble over the uncustomary height of the heels her best friend Alison had
convinced her to wear. Her ankle screamed in protest, forcing her to skid to a
halt. Balancing precariously so she didn’t face plant on the concrete, she
struggled against the zippers, finally succeeding in pulling the rhinestone
studded stilettos from her swollen feet. She barely resisted the urge to turn
around and throw them at the head of the man who’d pissed her off faster than a
Bugatti Veyron went from zero to sixty, and instead tossed them aside and
continued her escape in bare feet.
“Come back and see me sometime, Emma,” Joe
Campbell, lead singer of the British alternative metal band Blind Man's Alibi,
called out to her.
Fat chance!
“I could use a bit of sunshine in my life.” The
murmur hit her ears like a shout, and stopped her in her tracks.
Well, shit.
Emma remained rooted in place, unable to decide
if he was for real or filling her with pretty words in order to get her to stay
and sleep with him. He sounded sincere enough, but the only way to know for certain
was to face him. Something she really didn’t want to do.
Not that he was painful to look at. Oh no, Joe
Campbell was extremely pleasing to the eye, a fact he knew too well. One, she
was certain, he used to his advantage whenever an occasion presented itself.
Like tonight, when she’d gone against character and accepted his invitation
backstage after the show.
One
glimpse of the man who stood alone in the room she’d been unceremoniously
delivered to and Emma went hot all over. Unable to speak, she’d allowed her
gaze to take a long, slow journey over his body. His torso was bare, giving her
an unobstructed view of hardened pecs, a flat washboard stomach and muscles
that rippled and shifted, making the Chinese dragon wrapped around his left
upper arm and onto his chest seem alive as he slipped his left hand into the
front pocket of his jeans. Dear God, those jeans! The way they hung on his lean
hips, the top button undone like he’d just pulled them on. They rode so low
there was no mistaking that underneath them he was commando. Her gaze had
locked on the obvious bulge behind his fly and, for a moment, she’d actually
considered dropping to her knees before him and taking a taste.
Then he’d opened his mouth. What was that saying?
Elvis has left the building. She was
outta there.
With a deep breath for courage, Emma turned
around and was greeted by the same image of the man as before. Except that the
whiskey bottle he’d held in his right hand and lifted to those delectable lips
too many times to count, was nowhere to be seen. Oh great, and the hulking
brute who’d brought her backstage stood leaning against the wall to Joe’s
right.
Gary, she was pretty certain he’d introduced
himself as Gary, held his arms crossed before him, head tipped toward the floor
in a pseudo relaxed pose designed to give the impression he hadn’t just heard
every damn word they’d said. He blew the image to shit when he lifted his head
and winked at her. Winked! Was everyone in the music industry completely
bonkers?
Emma did her best to ignore the brute and focused
on the singer. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”
“What did you expect?”
Good question.
“I guess I hoped the stage show was just that, a
show, and that there was a decent guy behind all of that. Maybe I wanted to
believe the ‘I’m too sexy for my own
good’ attitude was just publicity.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” His tone didn’t sound
regretful at all. He strode toward her, moved with such a fluid grace Emma’s
heart thumped in response. His long legs closed the distance in half the time
it had taken her to get this far. She made herself stand her ground as he
stepped in close, closer than she’d yet allowed him to get. Close enough she
caught the subtle hint of soap on his skin and whiskey on his breath. “You’re right about one thing, I’m an
asshole. But it wasn’t the alcohol that caused me to lose my words tonight,
Emma Travers. It was you.”
His chin-length brown hair was nearly dry now and
hung over his eyes as if windblown, though nary a wisp of air blew from the
vents above. Eyes she was surprised to learn were two different colors—one
brown, the other a mix of brown and green. “You excel at telling a girl what
she wants to hear, I’ll give you that.”
His gaze didn’t flinch. “How can you doubt the
truth? You were there, front row center. Close enough to touch me.” The soft
timbre of his voice warmed her even more than the heat radiating off his skin.
He fell silent, unmoving, as if he were waiting for something. What, she wasn’t
certain. Unable to meet his gaze, she lowered hers and found herself transfixed
by the movement of his Adam’s apple as he spoke. “All you had to do was reach
out.”
An image of hands pawing and clutching at him
whenever he’d trekked too close to the edge of the stage flashed through her
mind. She swallowed hard, her mouth going dry, and shook her head. “Is that
what you wanted me to do? Grope you like the other women in the audience? Do
you actually enjoy that?”
“Not particularly.”
“Yet you expect me to believe that, for some
unknown reason, you wanted me to touch you?”
“You stood out from the crowd. Not singing, not
screaming, just standing in the front row. It was impossible not to notice you.
I wondered why you were at the show, You didn’t seem to be having a good time.
Then you smiled at me…my mind blanked.”
What the hell was
she supposed to say to that? Thanks for noticing me?
“I was feeding you lines and you just stood
there, staring.” Much the same way as she was doing now. Christ, he was
beautiful. Her fingers itched with the need to trace his lips, his mustache, the
little hairless spots on the outside of his bottom lip and that sexy as hell
strip of facial hair that went from the center of his full lower lip down, to
blend into his short trimmed beard.
Her throat went dry as dust. “Why me? I’m not
actually supposed to believe you saw me and lost your place, am I?”
“That’s what happened.” His words were
matter-of-fact, meant to be believed. “You know it’s true, you were there.”
Emma shook her head.
“Contrary to what you think, I was not too drunk
to remember the lyrics. You see, I’m an accomplished drinker. I’ve been at it a
long time. Long enough to know that forgetting the words to one of my songs is
about as never-going-to-happen as forgetting how to please a woman.”
“Why?”
“Why what, Sunshine?”
“Why are you a practiced drunk? Is that all you
do, spend your free time partying?”
“Interesting. You don’t question my forgetting
how to please a woman?”
“Hah! You could probably pull that off if you were
comatose.”
Giveaway
All About the Author
The youngest of four, Sarah Grimm can't remember a time when she wasn't writing. In fact, her siblings believe she began writing in utero to pass the time. As a child, Sarah wrote constantly, littering the house with bulging spiral notebooks and ignoring the ribbing of her mother and sister who routinely said 'romances?' in a somewhat scornful tone. Sarah is a Romance Through the Ages award winner for Best Contemporary Romance, a RONE Awards finalist, and a Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence finalist.
Stalk Sarah
Website:
http://www.sarahgrimm.com
Amazon
Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/author/sarahgrimm
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Author Page: https://www.goodreads.com/SarahGrimm
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Street Team: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SarahGrimmStreetTeam/
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Phoenix Series Reader Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/blackphoenixseries/
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Man’s Alibi Reader Group:
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