Blurb:
Jack isn’t a rock star.
He’s not the leader of a MC. He isn’t a billionaire. Lily’s not the daughter of
a mob boss, or a stripper, or a virgin with a BDSM fascination. They’re just
regular college kids, who somehow found each other in the middle of all the
crap and chaos of growing up.
“With
you, Jack, it was the first time I ever felt real. It was the first time anyone
looked at me and saw substance. It was the first time I wanted to make someone
see me.”
Jack and Lily have
navigated his past, her desire to move on from her family’s demands of her, his
depression, and her loneliness. Now, on New Year’s Eve, they have an entire
year laid out ahead of them. First, though, Jack needs to meet Lily’s family,
to be welcomed into her life. It’s intimidating, but with a sweater that is way
too hot and his grandmother’s ugly car, he arrives at Lily’s gleaming house on
a hill, ready to open himself up completely to her.
Inside the perfect,
sparkling house, Lily waits for the boy she has come to love. But Lily’s house
and family are a lot like her – shiny and pretty on the outside, with a sad
emptiness on the interior. Lily wants to give Jack the one thing he has always
dreamed of – family and love – but can she keep him from seeing how hollow a
lot of the picture perfect life he fantasizes about really is?
This is a novella
length work that follows Forget Me Not
and Lily of the Valley.
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About The Author:
Sarah Daltry writes erotica and romance that ranges from
sweet to steamy. She moves around a lot and has trouble committing to
things. Bitter Fruits is her first full length novel. Her
other two novels have already been released. Forget Me Not and Lily of the
Valley are simultaneous perspectives in the New Adult contemporary romance
series, Flowering. Sarah also has
three novellas (including Star of Bethlehem,
part of the Flowering series) and
several short stories available. She is currently working on Immortal Star and Daughter of Heaven in this series, and Orange Blossom, another novel in Flowering . When Sarah isn’t writing, she tends to waste a lot
of time checking Facebook for pictures of cats, shooting virtual zombies, and
simply staring out the window.
Author Social Media Links:
Excerpt:
I
take his hand and pull him down beside me on my bed. I feel so complete in his
arms, as if nothing can go wrong when he holds me. It’s all the other stuff.
The world, people, pressure. Maybe it’s a little fear that things just ended
with Derek. That one day, as quickly as I fell for Jack, I also fell out of
love with Derek. I don’t have enough experience to know if that’s normal. What
if it happens again?
“What?
Tell me,” Jack whispers.
“Have
you ever felt like your entire life is some surrealist’s joke? That you think
you’re in control of it, while really, you’re probably just…”
“A
melting clock?” he finishes and laughs. I look at him, disappointed that I
can’t explain it, but also relieved that he doesn’t care.
“All
the fucking time,” he says. “I know you’re scared. I know I’m scared. But I seem to remember you telling me that I should
remember what matters. I made you a promise, princess. Yes, your house
intimidates me. Your life intimidates
me. Hell, loving you intimidates me. But I’m in this. I’m here. Present.
Entirely. I’m looking only forward. And all I see is you.”
“Take
the damn book,” I tell him. “I just wanted to show you that I have faith in us.
It was a conscious decision to give you something that was a very special gift
to me, to tell you that I trust you with it, because I trust you to be there.
Long term.”
He
takes me in his arms and kisses me. I decide I won’t stop him if he goes
further, but he doesn’t. Our bodies crackle with the energy between us, but as
much as the sex thrills me, Jack does so much more for my mind than his body
could even do. I can’t believe how alive I feel when he’s near me. Perhaps it’s
selfish. Perhaps it’s desperate. But I want him here in my life; I want him
with me, because I love being this aware.
I
speak against his cheek, while his hands slowly explore my body. It’s sensual
but not sexual. He’s studying me like a work of art. “I don’t want to fall out
of love with you. I thought Derek was all I ever wanted. I don’t want to be in
the same place with you a year from now.”
“You
won’t be,” he tells me.
“How
do you know?”
He
kisses along my face, brushing his lips against my cheek, my forehead, my nose,
but never reaching my mouth. “I don’t know how. But I do.”
I
love that he can put aside his doubts to ease my own. I know Jack’s had so much
trouble in his life, and the fact that he can comfort me, when my problems are
so petty and stupid in the scheme of things, is one more thing I love so much.
“I know I’m shallow. But I don’t want to be, Jack.”
“You’re
not shallow. You’re not empty. Anything you think of yourself – it’s crazy. If
you want to talk about surreal, it’s the fact that you think you’re less than
something. Maybe you didn’t get shit on the same way I did in high school, but
clearly, people have underestimated you. They missed out on you. And you have
every right to be hurt. But, Lily? No one will ever hurt you again.”
I
smile. “Thanks. I’m sorry I’m being so moody. It’s probably hormones or
something. I think I’m just frustrated.”
“Yeah?”
He laughs. “Well… I mean… I can help you relieve some of that.”
He’s
on top of me and I don’t care that it wasn’t exactly what I meant. I don’t care
that someone could walk in. Someone probably will walk in, since eventually they’ll come looking, but I don’t
care at all. I want to belong to Jack, and I don’t know any other way to do so.
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