My newest addition to my catalog, When Luke Met Juliette, drops this week, Friday, April 7th and I have a Sample Sunday for you.
If you’d like to learn about When Luke Met Juliette, click here to read 4 Quick Facts about this new novel.
*This work is still unpublished. Text is still subject to change.
Juliette
“So.” I glanced over his shoulder at the bed. “We need to address the one bed situation.”
Luke quit brushing his hair this time to straighten his back in his seat on the bed. “I wasn’t aware there was a situation.”
“There’s only one bed and two of us.”
He turned to examine the bed like he hadn’t been sitting on it that whole time. “It’s a gigantic bed. You can sleep on one side and I’ll sleep on the other.”
“Oh, uh-uh.” I frowned. “I’m not sharing a bed with you.”
“Oh?” He looked me right in my eyes and said, “You don’t plan to sleep tonight?”
I folded my arms.
“Because I do.” He watched as I pressed my back to the popcorn wall behind me. “I already told you I was tired after the game tonight. I didn’t ride that bench, not once. But I didn’t want to leave you out in front of Langston all by yourself.”
I twisted my lips to one side.
“Now, I done drove you all the way out here and we’re still only sixteen miles away from your school. A school I really don’t like.” He held up his fingers to count on them. “So now I’m tired, annoyed, and my car got fucked up, which I must pay for. I ain’t hear you offer to help with that, or at the very least give me gas money. Not once.”
I parted my lips to defend myself.
“And I ain’t asking you for a dime,” he interjected. “Trust me, I got it. But what I don’t got is the patience to tolerate the new bullshit you coming at me with. Because what you’re not gonna do? Is tell me I can’t sleep in this old ass rickety bed for whatever reason you wanna give.”
Luke looked me up and down, taking in his crisp white tee I wore that hung over my varsity shorts. Shorts that hugged my full hips and round thighs. “You ain’t gotta worry about me. You are good. I already told you I got three big sisters, a mama and a pops. They’ve all taught me how to keep my hands to myself and my ass out of trouble. I know how to respect boundaries. So don’t even trip.”
I was really about to sleep in a bed with a guy I’ve only got close to hours prior.
“Well, good. Because you better not touch me,” I told him.
He laughed. “If you don’t want me to touch you, I won’t touch you, shorty.”
“Good.”
“Great.” He gestured with the tiny brush at my breasts. “But judging by how hard your headlights are beaming in my white tee…”
I scoffed, folding my arms over my chest.
“…I’m thinking you want me to do more than touch, but it’s your world, Juliette. Whatever you want, you got it.”
“My nipples are hard when it’s cold.”
“But it ain’t cold in here.” He smirked. “So why are they so hard right now?”
Luke always had an arrogant vibe to him, which made it easy not to like him. And while his annoying personality traits should’ve been a turnoff, it was doing quite the opposite to me that night.
“Even if I wanted to…”
Which I did.
“I’d break you, Luke,” I voiced confidently. “Snap you in two. I’m way too much for you.”
“I bet you wouldn’t.” His eyes glided up the curves on my frame. “‘Cause if your comment is about your weight, I’ve had way thicker, and they weren’t the ones doing the breaking.” He shrugged. “You’re just really bottom heavy, if anything. Pear-shaped. You’d be nothing but light work for me.”
“You called me fat.”
“I said with your fat ass.” He dropped his head back a little to view me through low lids. “‘Cause you got a lot of ass and it’s fat… suburban girl.”
Luke licked his lips slowly, visually digesting my body, and his attention was doing things to me.
“I bet you wouldn’t last over five minutes.”
He smirked. “Bet I’ll last the entire night.”
Sounds of cars whizzing down the interstate outside the motel room’s door filled the silence between us.
What the hell was I doing?
Finding some relief from my stressful ass night is what.
I rubbed my lips together and dropped my eyes to the crotch of his jeans. Noticing where my attention drifted, Luke grabbed himself in front of me and, for some sadistic reason, his doing so made me smile.
“I bet your dick is tiny.”
He swiped his tongue along his bottom lip. “Bet you can’t take it all.”
Was the shift in our night random? Maybe. It was definitely unplanned. But there was something about Luke Lockett that drew me to his brazenness, something that made me want to shut him up.
And to finally explore him, if I’m being honest.
It was my last year at Brookville and his last year at Langston. I reasoned the game we had against Langston the next month would be the last time I ever saw Luke in person again. Since my freshman year, I have been curious about this six-foot-something guy from Brooklyn. I’d be a fool to not at least leave our time together without something to remember it by. Plus, my day was hella shitty.
I deserved whatever it was I got tonight, and with hope, it was something good.
“I bet I won’t even come,” I protested low.
Luke left his seat at the edge of the bed, tossing the brush on the nearest side table. He closed the distance between us. Pressed his palms flat against the rough wall behind me and leaned in real close to whisper in my face. “I bet you’ll come first, Juliette.”
End of Sample.
When Luke Met Juliette will be available Friday, April 7th!