You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology(35)
Copyright ? 2016, Karina Bliss
Thanks for reading PLAY, the second in my Rock Solid romance series. If you enjoyed it, sign up to my newsletter at www.karinabliss.com and receive a bonus scene with all the band members of Rage as they reunite to celebrate Christmas Eve rock-star style.
And if you’re curious to read how Jared and Kayla got here, you can read the beginning of their story in RISE, a redemption story of a rock star going straight(er) through the love of a good(ish) woman.
RISE
Acclaimed literary biographer Elizabeth Winston writes about long-dead heroes.
So bad-boy rock icon Zander Freedman couldn’t possibly tempt her to write his memoir.
Except the man is a mass of fascinating contradictions–manipulative, honest, gifted, charismatic and morally ambiguous. In short, everything she seeks in a biography subject. When in her life will she get another chance to work with a living legend?
But saying yes to one temptation soon leads to another. Suddenly she’s having heated fantasies about her subject, fantasies this blue-eyed devil is only too willing to stoke. She thought self-control was in her DNA; after all, she grew up a minister’s daughter.
She thought wrong.
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FALL, book three of the Rock Solid romance series, will be out November 1, 2016. Visit my website www.karinabliss.com to read an excerpt of Dimity and Seth’s story.
One Naughty Christmas Night
by
Stephanie Doyle
About the Book
Workaholic Kate never expected to find herself looking for love online on Christmas night. Then he happened and her whim to escape loneliness turned into the hottest sex of her life – even if it was via text.
John knew Kate was too classy for his ex-con ass. He was about to learn that Kate knew how to fight for what she wanted. And she wanted more of him.
About the Author
Stephanie Doyle is a RITA nominee and two time Romantic Times winner. She’s been addicted to romance novels from the age of thirteen and when she’s not reading them, she’s writing them. That is if her cat Hermione isn’t sitting on her keyboard.
Chapter One
Kate stared at the glass of wine in front of her. Deep red, a robust flavor. She’d paid too much money for it, but hey, it was Christmas.
She looked at her phone and wondered if she was really going to do this. Then she glanced over at the clock on the wall. Eight-oh-three. Hours until she could go to bed. Hours until it would be tomorrow. The harmless, meaningless twenty-sixth of December.
She took another sip of wine and reached for the phone.
The other day, her assistant had downloaded a dating app specifically for people over forty. A more serious, more mature group of single people looking to find each other.
“You’re hot, you own a company and you’re a total catch,” Sally had said. “You just need to get out there, and this is how you do it in 2016. Welcome to the new world of romance.”
It was the perfect distraction from her thoughts—and a way to kill the night without having to watch It’s a Wonderful Life for the thousandth time.
Tentatively, like it might bite her, Kate tapped the screen.
“Green for yes, you like his picture, red for you’re not worthy of me and I never want to see you again,” Sally had laughed as she showed Kate how to play.
So ridiculous, Kate thought. As if you could just look at a picture and know that you were interested in him without knowing anything about him. Of course, she imagined it wasn’t much different than going to a bar and making eye contact.
Attraction. It was the first step in the dance, really.
Keeping an open mind, Kate opened the app and waited a second before a picture popped up on her phone.
It was as simple as that. She was to look at the picture and make an instant judgment. Was she attracted to him or wasn’t she?
No.
Kate tapped the red button and tried not to feel guilty for rejecting someone for a completely superficial reason. The truth was, she thought he didn’t look very well-kept in his picture. She thought someone trying to make a first impression should have tried a little harder. The next man had a nice face, and she instantly went to green. The app told her that he had also seen her picture and liked it.
Awesome. Someone in the world found her attractive. See, Kate told herself, forty was the new thirty.
Now she had a choice. Keep playing or send him a message. Not really having any idea what to say, she chose to keep playing.
Five pictures later, two no’s and three yeses, and suddenly there was a blinking orb on her screen which, when she tapped, told her that someone had sent her a message.
“Geesh. That was fast,” Kate said to the empty room as she took another sip of wine. It was clearly best to play this game a little tipsy. She read the message.
Yum, me likee.
“Not exactly poetry,” Kate chuckled, and instantly swiped on the picture in order to delete it from her view.
While deleting someone over one sentence seemed harsh, Kate was very sure that if a man walked up to her in a bar and said such a ridiculous thing, she would have turned her back to him. The equivalent of delete.