Sometimes love is only a heartbeat away. When best friends and diving partners, Savannah and Bill, are trapped in an underground river during an earthquake, feelings erupt that cross the lines of friendship. But the question becomes...what's more dangerous? The earthquake that trapped them in a cave crumbling with aftershocks or love that could jeopardize a once in a lifetime friendship?
It's new release time! The much anticipated romance adventure, Proximity, is here! Did you love the secondary characters Savannah and Bill from Anonymity? Most of you did and told me you'd love their story. This is it.
Here's an excerpt...
She'd had a bad feeling about this
trip before agreeing to go and should have gone with her gut. Instead, here she
sat thousands of miles from home with friends who normally elevated her mood
rather than sunk it.
She had just opened the door to her
private balcony facing the canopy of the jungle when a hammering of knocks fell
against the front door. Sighing, she ignored them, needing time to regroup.
Focus
on the dive. That's why you're here. Look at that monkey staring at you. She
squinted at the howler monkey perched in an adjacent tree. Gee, I hope he doesn't throw shit at me.
"You didn't lock the door.
That's probably not safe." Bill stood behind her.
"You're certainly brining the
drama on this trip." She sipped her Mai Tai and waited while he adjusted
his long frame into the chair next to hers. "Emily told me that Lexi had
an issue with our lunches and talks. I know you said that you didn't care what
people said—and you know I don't—but it must be eating you up to leave the
group. I'll quit, if that's what this is. You stay with them. Pretty soon the
other guys will have similar issues with me, I'm sure. You're all too damn
polite to say anything."
"Savannah—"
"Don't lie to me."
"Don't be a martyr."
She twisted in her chair to look
him in the face. "We've been through snake bites, hurricanes, wicked
currents, and years of shared secrets. Do. Not. Lie. To. Me."
He gritted his jaw but didn't look
away. "Fine. I won't. Yes, I'm leaving the group because of you."
Well,
damn, that hurts.
She felt like he'd slapped her.
She'd been holding out hope that her insecurities were getting the best of her.
She ripped her gaze from his and stared into her drink, absently poking the
pineapple stalk into the alcohol before taking a big bite from it.
"I can't do this anymore. It's
killing me," he said.
"What is?" She couldn't
look at him. Sudden tears had blurred her vision.
"Choosing and never being
chosen in return."
"What are you choosing? We're
not playing a game of pick-up basketball. That's what you sound like—a child
who isn't being picked for the right team." She rubbed a stray tear with
the back of her hand. "What does that mean—choosing and not being chosen?"
"Nothing, Savannah. It doesn't
mean anything."
"Now you're patronizing
me." Goddamn it, he was pushing her buttons like never before.
"I'd watch that monkey if I
were you...he's eyeballing your drink."
"I can handle the
monkey." She slid him a gaze that she hoped melted him in place.
"You're overreacting to my
announcement."
"Announcement? Stewart was
right when he said you're treating us like your employees. What happened
between my house and here? What aren't you telling me? Be straight, don't give
me some bullshit story you've obviously made up on the fly. What is killing
you? Your word...killing. Me? How?
We're—"
"Stop it, Savannah. You're
making everything worse." He stood and squeezed her shoulder. "Come
back out with the guys. They're all pissed at me for driving you away. Let's
hit restart on this adventure of ours and have a good night."
She'd rally because that's what she
did—what she was known for, rallying and never breaking. Even after her fiancé
had killed himself, she'd gone on with life and succeeded. She rallied. But
right now she didn't want to laugh this off and be one of the guys. She wanted
to drink her Mai Tai, order room service, and spend the rest of her night
staring at the jungle surrounding them. Alone.
"Go do that then. I'm not
coming."
"Savannah...this isn't about
hurting you. You and I—"
"—Are such good buddies that
you can't confide in me?" She met his gaze then, eyes devoid of tears, a
skill she'd mastered over the years. "We talk every night. I thought we
told each other everything, and here you have this resentment toward me—"
"—I don't resent you at all,
couldn't, that's not—"
"Then tell me the truth
because I know you're lying."
He shoved his hands into the back
pockets of his jeans and stared at her as if weighing the pros and cons of
confession.
"So it's true? You're still
lying?" She stood then and poked him in the chest with the remainder of
the pineapple stalk. "We are dive partners! I trust you with my life and
you trust me with yours every damn time we go down. What could you possibly
want to hide from me?"
"If I tell you, I'll lose
you." He clenched his jaw but didn't break eye contact. "That's what
you do, Savannah. Yes, we know each other really well, which means I know what
I can and can't tell you."
"What do you mean that's what
I do? Do what? You showed up at my
house with Chinese take-out, all smiles and wanting to make plans to go to
Denver for Alyssa and Luke's wedding—then wham you're suddenly moving to
California." She gestured wide with her hands, more confused than she'd
ever been about anything in her life. "Did you get bit by some Costa Rican
bug and it's causing you to lose your fucking mind?"
Without hesitating, he grabbed the
back of her head and ground his mouth against hers until they stumbled back
against the chair and onto the railing of the balcony. The ferocity of his kiss
weakened her knees and shocked her to the core.
She clenched at his shoulders for
balance, conscious of leaning precariously against a bamboo railing thirty feet
above the ground. Every inch of her trembled at the unexpected passion rolling
from his lips and against hers.
But she liked the way he felt
against her, enjoyed the way his fists pulled as he wrapped them tightly into
her hair, liked the way he ground his mouth against hers until she kissed him
back, thrilled at being thrown off balance and needing to cling to his strong
shoulders to remain upright.
When she opened her mouth to deepen
the kiss, he moaned his appreciation. The sound electrified her blood with a
million tiny pinpricks of awareness that pulsated beneath her skin.
As suddenly as he'd kissed her, he
let her go.
She sagged against the railing,
hands searching for something to hold onto as she watched him walk away. Anger
replaced desire in the blink of an eye.
She strode after him and caught him
as he was stepping out the front door. "What the hell was that?"
He looked at her, his slow grin
adding fuel to the fire burning in her gut. "If I need to tell you, then I
guess I didn't do it right."
"Bill, I swear to God you've
lost all sense," she whispered.
"Maybe it's the
opposite."
She frowned. "I don't know
what that means."
"There's the problem. Right
there." He grabbed her by the shoulders, kicked the door closed and ground
his mouth against hers again. Reckless desire communicated itself through the
ferocity of his kiss.
She pressed against him, overcome
with need and confusion. She matched his passion with her own, no longer
thinking about what was right or wrong. Every inch of her skin quivered with
awareness.
They fell against the wall, tripped
over a low table, and collapsed against the floor in a tangle of limbs. Body
heat ignited from the inside out, making the short dress she wore feel
constricting even as it rode up her thighs. She writhed against him, peeled his
shirt up his back and sunk her fingernails into his skin.
He moved his mouth from hers and
trailed kisses down her neck. The weight of him pressing her against the wooden
floor combined with the heat of their bodies and the feel of his mouth on her
skin while surrounded by wild sounds of the jungle overloaded her senses.
"Savannah, I've wanted this
for so long," he muttered against her shoulder.
His voice snapped her back to
reality. She dropped her head back against the wood and closed her eyes. The
pleasure of the moment conflicting with common sense.
"We can't do this," she
said with a catch in her voice. "You're Bill."
"Glad you know who I am."
He rose up on the palm of his hands and stared into her eyes. "Why not?
You're the only woman I've ever thought of as a soul mate—look at how we are together.
Friends, confidantes...why not lovers? Why not have it all?"
"Stop it. Soul mate? Where is this coming from?" She wiggled from
beneath him and straightened her dress. Breaths came like tortured streaks of
air ripping through up her throat. "This is because of your fight with
Lexi, isn't it? She said something about me, about us, and it has you all
stirred up. I am not going to risk our friendship for a good fuck."
"You want me as badly as I
want you." He jumped to his feet.
She couldn't look at him with his
hair a mess from her hands, handsome face dark with desire, and shirt half-up
his hard chest without thinking of how good it had felt to have his body on top
of hers. Her mind raced for an excuse that wouldn't damage their relationship.
She needed his friendship more than
she needed a lover.
"You're Bill."
"We've got that covered! Why
the hell do you keep saying that? What does my name signify to you? Is it that
I'm your lap dog and nothing more? Have I been segregated into some weird place
in your life where I am permanently in the friend-zone?"
Words failed her. She faced him and
shrugged. The hurt in his eyes stabbed her in her heart.
"Bill, wait," she said
when he opened the door again. She grabbed his arm, not knowing what to say but
terrified that a crack had formed in their relationship that would never heal.
"I need to understand."
"If I need to spell it out to
you at this point, then maybe I've been wrong about us for a very long
time." He met her gaze. "That's why I need to go. You confuse me. I
want a life with a wife and kids and big family barbecues and all of that and
I'm starting to think this...friendship we have...is standing in the way of the
rest of my life. It's you, always you in my head when I'm with anyone
else."
"You're my best friend,"
she whispered, fear making her voice quake. "That's always been
enough."
"That's what I thought,
too."
"Then what changed? We're
Savannah and Bill, we have fun, we're each other's go-to person...Why
complicate it? Why can't you have a wife and kids and everything you want with
me as your best friend?"
"Is that what you want?
Really?" He leaned close enough where the gold flecks in his hazel eyes
were only an eyelash away. "Do you want to watch me marry someone else one
day? Because I can honestly stand here and say that the idea of you being some
other man's bride tears my heart out."
She cringed at the idea of being
anyone's bride. "Why are you doing this? Now? Here? Before a dangerous
dive?"
"It came up, that's all."
"Like hell it did. You're my
partner and now you threw this—"
"Let it go, Savannah. Pretend
I never came to your room." He
twisted free of her grip and walked onto the suspended bridge.
Talk
about a serious mind fuck.
Deciding to let him have his
nervous breakdown on his own, she slammed the door closed and stomped toward
the bed. Her dive buddies were her safe haven from the nutty men in the
world—or at least they had been before Bill decided to go bonkers. She fell
back onto the bed and blinked at the thatched ceiling. Absently, she touched
her lips that still throbbed from his kiss.
Okay, so maybe she'd fantasized
about him now and then. Perhaps she'd been guilty of comparing other men to
Bill and finding them lacking. But crossing that line had never been an option
for her. Couldn't be.
Mae West had once said that a man's
kiss was his signature.
Savannah grinned against her
fingertips. Now she knew what Ms. West had meant by that and had to agree. Damn,
no man's kiss had ever curled her toes and boiled her blood like that.
Too bad it could never happen again.
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