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Book info:
Author: Meghan Quinn
Series: Dating by Numbers #2
Genre: Adult contemporary romance
Release Date: March 11th, 2018
Source: E-galley from InkSlinger PR
My rating: 5 stars
Synopsis:
I don’t know what love is anymore.
Well, that’s not entirely true, but I’m going to tell you a little secret: I’ve lost the spark.
You know the kind of spark I’m talking about?
Where butterflies take flight in your stomach from two hands innocently colliding. Or catching your breath when you first meet someone attractive. Yeah, that spark.
Except I haven't felt that feeling in forever; there is nothing left inside of me.
Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem--but I’m a writer on a serious deadline, and my editor is breathing down my neck for a romantic, Nicholas Sparks type love story. No pressure, right?
That's how I find myself flying across the country to crash a wedding in the name of research, dress and heels stuffed into my small suitcase.
It should be the easiest book research ever. Drinking some free champagne, basking in the love of two strangers, and tapping into my romantic side. That will be a breeze. I'm a pro. I can handle this.
Until I mistakenly end up in the wrong hotel room, naked as the day I was born, with the sexiest human I have ever met staring me down, wondering what I'm doing taking a shower in his bathroom. I don't think calling it research will get me out of this pickle.
Excerpt:
Chills scream their way down my arms and legs, my nipples pucker, and just like that, with one word, all humor vanishes from our little conversation and awareness of this all-consuming man wrapped around me hits me hard.
Gathering myself, I say, “Tell me something Chris and Justine know about you.”
“Hmm.” His thumbs hook under the waistband of my shorts, playing with the lower part of my hipbones. His touch spurs on my pelvis, needing to rock, begging for him to go lower. My toes curl in my sandals and my back slightly arches, reaching for more. “Something they know about me.”
His mouth doesn’t stray from its position against my ear, and his hips start to slowly move underneath me, his legs tangling with mine. Involuntarily, one of my hands hooks the back of his neck as I hold on tightly to him, feeling like I need support from the onslaught of sensation I’m feeling.
I hear him say something, but it doesn’t register in my brain, which has turned to mush as his thumbs stray from my hipbones to right above my pubic bone.
There is no denying how turned on I am, how wet I am from his mere touch, how much—despite my reservations—I want this man.
With each stroke, my head turns farther and farther to the side until our noses are touching, Beck’s head bends forward to meet me halfway. My eyes flutter shut for a brief moment before I open them and am captured by those flecks of green and gold.
The air stills around us, our breath mixing, swirling between us, our lips so close.
One swipe of this thumb.
Another one.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t focus.
Another swipe, my head leans even closer, my tongue wetting my lips.
One more swipe . . .
My heart hammers in my chest, my skin prickling with awareness.
Beck brings his mouth even closer, only a whisper away now, and he waits.
Holding still.
His breathing feeling erratic beneath me.
One.
More.
Swipe.
And I’m gone.
I bring my mouth to his, slowly parting my lips ever so slightly, just enough to maneuver my mouth across his.
A low, provocative moan escapes Beck as one of his hands snags the back of my head and holds me in place, almost as if he lets go, I’ll disappear.
Needing more, I shift on his lap so I’m straddling him once again, my hands on his bare chest, feeling the powerful sinew that holds him together.
Our lips press and mold, mingling, taking, begging . . .
Desperate.
Beck’s tongue runs against my bottom lip, eliciting a moan from deep within me, lighting a fire so hot, so wild, my hands start to travel up his neck to his cheeks where I grip him, positioning his head so when I open my mouth, I can expertly dive my tongue onto his.
He groans, his lap shifting against mine now, his hard-on pressing against my wet and throbbing center. I match his rocking, using my position on his lap to take advantage of his length I can feel through his board shorts.
This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen, but God, am I happy it has. Maybe I really should live in the moment, maybe I should take advantage of the opportunity, maybe I should…
My Review:
I loved the first book in this series, Three Blind Dates, and so I jumped when the opportunity to review the second book came along. Just like the first one, this one was so good! In fact I liked it even better than the first one! We got to see our rebel from book one, I guess spoiler alert, that means Beck wasn't the one Noely chose in that first book. In this book he ends up crashing a wedding with his best friend and his best friend's wife. He figures he can use the weekend to have fun and find a hook-up with no strings kind of girl.
Rylee is crashing the wedding with her friend who is invited and her friend's husband, along with the third friend who is part of their little writing group. Rylee is a romance writer who has kind of lost her "mojo" She can't quite write about romance, she hasn't had any, nor sex, for awhile, and it is totally stifling her creativity. We hear that she's had a hard year, but it isn't until later in the book, in a very pivotal moment between Rylee and Beck, that we find out why her year has been such a rough one.
Of course as you may guess, Rylee and Beck do have fun, and while both set out to just have fun, Beck begins to think he wants more with her. There is something about Rylee that tells him maybe she is the one. But he has his own past, and his own issues, which we learn about pretty quickly in the story.
So many cute parts of this story. Go ahead, I dare you not to google baby red pandas when they do in the book. (Although I still say baby dachshunds are way cuter). There's a part when Beck is telling Rylee everything he's going to do to her when they get back to the room, and she doesn't hear a word because she's suddenly been struck with inspiration for a new story. When he realizes she didn't hear anything, he just lets her go on and tells her she'll just be surprised later. And then there were the tears at the end, when her situation hit really close to home with me and my own situation.
Only one complaint, she mentions her "inner goddess". No, just no. Don't go there. :-) Anyway, you need to read this series, you don't have to read them in order, although it was nice to know Beck a bit from the first one. And now I am looking forward to book three and who it will be about.
About the Author:
Born in New York and raised in Southern California, Meghan has grown into a sassy, peanut butter eating, blonde haired swearing, animal hoarding lady. She is known to bust out and dance if “It’s Raining Men” starts beating through the air and heaven forbid you get a margarita in her, protect your legs because they may be humped.
Once she started commuting for an hour and twenty minutes every day to work for three years, she began to have conversations play in her head, real life, deep male voices and dainty lady coos kind of conversations. Perturbed and confused, she decided to either see a therapist about the hot and steamy voices running through her head or start writing them down. She decided to go with the cheaper option and started writing… enter her first novel, Caught Looking.
Now you can find the spicy, most definitely on the border of lunacy, kind of crazy lady residing in Colorado with the love of her life and her five, furry four legged children, hiking a trail or hiding behind shelves at grocery stores, wondering what kind of lube the nervous stranger will bring home to his wife. Oh and she loves a good boob squeeze!
