Wicked Readings by Tawania: VBT: BOOK SPOTLIGHT & GIVEAWAY - SUSPICIOUSLY OBEDIENT BY. JULIA KENT

SUSPICIOUSLY OBEDIENT

JULIA KENT

Blurb:

From USA Today Bestselling Author Julia Kent comes the second book in her "Obedient" trilogy:

AFTER A BILLION PEOPLE WATCH YOU MAKE LOVE, WHERE DO YOU HIDE?
A fake persona with very real emotions...

As "Matt Jones," CEO playboy Michael Bournham has just stumbled into his wildest dream and worst nightmare while playing a middle-management employee role for a reality television stunt. Getting caught making love with his administrative assistant, Lydia Charles, on camera let unscrupulous Hollywood producers blackmail him before launching the video on YouTube. Fired from his job and ridiculed on social media, Mike needs to hit "reboot" on his life. Hiding Lydia away in Iceland with a made-up job, he sends his best friend Jeremy to watch over her. Meanwhile, he disguises himself once more and booked a cabin at Lydia's family's campground in Maine, to immerse himself in her world.

A best friend with deeper intentions...

After more than a decade of world travel and hedonistic fun, dot-com millionaire Jeremy wants more out of his friendship with Mike, but more than that - he wants Lydia. Struck by her beauty and essence, he follows Mike's order and obeys, courting her with a friendship that quickly becomes a deeper bond, charged by Lydia's fantasies about him - and Mike. Unable to resist, he becomes her confidante and bedmate, helping her to come to grips with her impulsive decisions and to find her way back home to Maine.

A woman torn by desire...

Lydia accepts the move to Iceland to become the Director of Communications for European Operations not realizing it's a sham position Michael Bournham created to help hide her from the firestorm of the viral sex tape. Living in a new country should be fun, but side glances and whispers from her new Icelandic employees dig at her. Ignored by her new boss at Bournham Industries, Lydia's disenchantment with her bold move is softened only by Jeremy's appearance. Wild and loose, he fills a void in her life - and soon fills her bed.

When she decides there's no place like home, the new couple embarks for her family's campground - and Jeremy's suspicious obedience will be revealed.

Excerpt:

Something was wrong. Deeply wrong. Matt had changed a few minutes after they'd made love. Not the cooling off most guys went through after a one-night stand, where the air seemed to go stale and sickly within seconds, making her feel cheap and used even if she'd been a willing participant in her own debauchery. Only a handful of nights like that in her life, though; she learned what felt good emotionally and what did not quite well.

Quick study, she was.

No, this was a nearly palpable grief, as if Matt were about to be sent to the gallows, or awaited bad news. If they’d been more familiar with each other, even a tiny bit, she’d have been blunt and just asked what was wrong. Instead, though, she found herself having to go at the truth from the side entrance. Putting on a good face, he kept smiling at her, reaching for her hand, pretending to listen. But something wasn't quite right, and finally she just decided to cut to the chase.

“What's wrong?” she asked. “You are acting like you just drowned a kitten by accident.” She leaned in and whispered mischievously, “I know the sex wasn't that bad.”

His eyes were unfocused and he seemed almost drunk as he shook his head, trying to rid himself of a fog. “Oh, no. Nothing.” Fake smile. She knew that one all too well; he was using the classic female maneuver, and she wasn't going to let him get away with it.

“So the sex was that bad!”

“What?” That brought him back to reality. At the table to their left was a couple who looked like they got married during WWII, wrinkled faces stretched in a look of surprise, the woman covering her face with one hand and giggling into it. The old man looked at Matt and just shrugged.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

The old man leaned over and stage whispered, “Bad sex is better than no sex, bud. Don’t ask me how I know that. And,” he said, rheumy blue eyes peering at Lydia, “get as much of it as you can while you can.”

“Marty!” his wife shouted.

Thump. “Ow! You kicked me,” he growled at her.

“You deserved it!” she snapped. The waitress looked at them nervously, standing in front of them with a heaping pile of soba noodles. Both dug into their food while Lydia and Matt tried not to laugh.

“Shall I kick you under the table?” she joked.

Matt just blinked, studying her. “You’re not my wife,” he said with a sigh.

“Then you have no excuse for having bad sex,” Marty quipped. Thump. “Ow.”

“Mind your manners,” his wife grumbled, her mouth full of wontons and noodles.

Too polite to laugh in their faces, Lydia and Matt just ignored them.

“So, where are you from?” Matt asked her. She chuckled at the “first-dateness” of the question and he seemed to recognize it too, laughing a bit as well.

“I’m from Maine,” she said.

He nodded. “Portland?” Nearly everyone from Maine she’d met in Boston had come from Portland, so she wasn’t surprised by the question.

“No, a little town farther north called Verily.”

“Verily? Sounds Mayberry-ish.”

She rolled her eyes with a smile. “Something like that. My parents own a campground up there.”

“Really? A campground? Did you grow up there?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“And you have brothers and sisters?”

“I have five brothers.”

His hand froze. This wasn’t an uncommon reaction and his eyes locked with hers, mouth going slack in a look of surprise and a bit of awe. “Five brothers?” His brow furrowed. He said, “Let me guess—they’re all older.”

“Not quite. I have one who is younger. I’m right in the middle, the fifth kid.”

“So you have…wow, I have all sisters,” he said.

“So, you know what it’s like,” Lydia replied. “Being the only one.”

“Yeah but…from the other end.” He paused and thought for a moment. “Five brothers. This is going to get grim.”

Her heart soared. That kind of comment meant that he was thinking about more, and until now, she had just been thinking about each moment, one by one, unfolding. The past few hours had been a heady rush of everything all at once, heart, mind, soul, and now here he was, talking about meeting her brothers. She wasn’t sure what to say.

“You ready to get out of here?” he asked, eyes darting back and forth across the room.

Full, and very much interested in spending more time with him in private, Lydia smiled and said, “Sure, want to…” She paused, then looked him right in the eye, with the most determined look of an invitation that she had ever given a man. “…Come back to my place for a drink?” Her middle finger traced circles around the top of her glass.

His eyes broke away from hers and stared at the motion, transfixed. His neck and shoulder muscles relaxed and he reached for his wallet, pulling out a credit card to pay the bill. When he motioned for the server to come and handle the transaction, he found her eyes again. “I would love a nightcap.”

“How about a morning coffee?” she said.

The grin that spread across his face was shaky at first, and then, with a deep, gravelly voice, he answered, “Even better.”

They left, the old man from the couple waving with a lecherous smile, as they departed, Matt’s arm around her waist, her stomach filled with butterflies. How could she still want more? she wondered. More, more, more, she thought. Of course, it was natural that she’d want more, precisely because this, what she had with Matt, was more. It was more intense, more respectful, more emotional, and more promising than any set of interactions, of touches, and sighs, and words than she’d ever had with another man. More.

Stepping out into the cool evening air, hoping to cool her thoughts, the walk back to the office was reasonably short, and then the question, She hadn’t driven in today, had he?

“Where’re you parked?” she asked.

“In your spot.”

Both laughed.

“Why would you take my spot?” she poked, as they walked to the very familiar location.

“You don’t drive in half the time, so why do you need to defend it?”

A tiny little piece of irritation mixed with the sheer joy of what she was experiencing. Memories of that first encounter in the parking lot, so long ago, and yet, so recent, fluttered through her mind. She shrugged. “It’s mine when I want it, and it’s yours when I don’t need it.”

“Isn’t that the toddler creed?” he asked, opening the passenger door to his Toyota.

She climbed in and had to concede that he had a point. “Fine, what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine.”

“That sounds like my last girlfriend’s mantra,” he poked back

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

USA Today Bestselling Author Julia Kent turned to writing romance novels after learning that she could not work as a fighter pilot because her fear of flying disqualified her. Turning to her second love, she became a dog groomer, but had to abandon that job after adopting too many strays. Writing about very real, very flawed people is a natural extension of her life and, well, her. She lives on the east coast with her partner, two small children, seventeen dogs that weigh less than fifteen pounds each, and a monthly consumption of Nutella, brie and french bread that makes cardiologists cringe.
She is originally from Ohio.

She loves to hear from her readers by email at jkentauthor@gmail.com, on Twitter @jkentauthor, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/julia.kent.100. Visit my blog at http://jkentauthor.blogspot.com