Againby Lisa Burstein
Publisher: Smashwords Edition
Release Date: September 22nd 2014
Synopsis:
How far would you go for a second chance?
Eleven years after flunking out of college, Kate has finally hit rock-bottom. Losing her job and boyfriend in one drunken night, she’s determined to fix her life by going back to the moment when she let partying and sex take over. And do things right this time. At twenty-nine, she heads back to freshman year of college, with a catch.
Pretending she's nineteen with a new roommate and full class schedule is easy. When she meets her shy, sexy and seven-years-younger RA, Carter, following her self-imposed sobriety and celibacy rules is proving to be anything but.
A senior enduring years of regret, Carter is more than ready to graduate. He’s anxious to move on from the party his freshman year where he witnessed his frat brothers about to commit a sexual assault. Instead of doing the right thing and stepping in, he looked the other way and left. His guilt has made for a lonely four years.
When he meets the new freshman on his floor, spunky and confident Kate, he wonders if his time as an outcast has finally come to an end.
Kate and Carter’s growing friendship and undeniable attraction make it harder to hide the demons from their respective pasts. But when their secrets are finally revealed, will their chance at starting over together still be there?
Again
by Lisa Burstein
Carter
Kate turned to me and her crazy drunk smile
suddenly clamped down.
“Carter?” she asked, a surge of confusion
settling over her. She covered herself with her arms. Apparently, she was fine
with a room of strangers seeing her in her bra, but not me. She looked insanely
awesome in her bra. It was translucent white lace, tracing the skin underneath.
I wished she’d move her arms so I could see her perfect tits again, but I was
glad she had finally covered up around everyone else.
“Hey, Kate,” I replied, unsure what to say.
It was one thing to want to make sure she was okay. It was another to be
standing in front of her trying to explain it.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
I hadn’t thought about my answer to this
question, I just needed to stop whatever was about to happen as soon as the guy
in the wife-beater targeted in on her.
I didn’t believe every situation in a frat
house would turn out the way Jeanie’s did, but when Kate was about to put her
arms around his neck there was a fire, a wrath coming from my core that hadn’t
been there in years.
Jealousy.
I wanted her to put her arms around me, but
I couldn’t explain that any better than why I was there.
“Hanging out,” I said. Who was I kidding? I
hadn’t hung out anywhere in three years.
Honestly, I had been on my way home from
the library when I saw Kate standing on the front porch of Delta Tau. She was
so drunk she was swaying like seaweed under water. I was only planning on
stopping in and checking on her.
Making sure she was okay.
When she was about to dance with that
sleazy asshole, I had to do more than watch. I had to do something.
She tried to focus on me. Her legs were
like empty skin blowing in the breeze beneath her. She was even drunker than
I’d thought and I’d thought she was pretty drunk.
Poor Kate, I guess some of the emptiness in
her eyes was actually a cry for numbness. A need to make all the pain she’d
ever been through float away.
“You’re hanging out in your winter coat?”
she asked, clearly not believing me. Her words came slow and slurred.
I leaned back on my heels and put my hands
in my pockets like I was trying to prove it. Even when I was in a frat I was
uncomfortable at parties. I was thankful for alcohol then because at least it
gave my hands and my mouth something to do.
Without it I appeared as out of place as I
felt.
“You’re hanging out in your bra,” I
replied, the word elusive like a secret on my tongue. I loved Kate in her bra.
I just didn’t like sharing the moment with fifty other horny guys.
I just didn’t like that her being drunk was
the reason.
As I continued to watch her, the blood
rushing to my cheeks, to my dick, it was hard to deny I was a horny guy too. It
was dizzying, especially considering she was the first live girl in front of me
in years.
“I was hot,” she said, her arms tight
against her chest, making her cleavage more evident.
“Are,” I said, glancing down without even
meaning to.
“I thought you were at the library.”
“It closes at eleven,” I said. I needed to
get her off of why I was there and try to figure out how I could get her to
leave. There was no way I was walking out of here without her. That was the
only sure part of my plan. I needed to get her back to the dorm safely. “Here,”
I said, trying to give her my jacket.
She shook her head. “You’re the only one in
your coat,” she said. “I’m not the only one in my bra.”
It was true, a lot of the girls were. “None
of them look as good as you, though,” I said before I could stop myself, my
dick clearly doing the talking. Not caring about my plan.
She smiled—the kind that could blow
someone’s hair back.
“Maybe you should take off your jacket and
stay a while,” she said, reaching for it.
I considered her invitation. It would be
nice to be normal for once. I deliberated getting wasted and then doing
everything my brain had kept me from trying to do to Kate all week long, until
I saw Alex and Steph.
Something about the way they were dancing,
the way they had themselves on display, like cheap jewelry spinning in a case,
made me want more for Kate.
She was valuable.
I also had to get her out of there before
they had a chance to say anything about my past. My at-the-moment, considering
where we were standing, very relevant past. It was clear they hadn’t told Kate
yet, if so, she would not still be talking to me.
“We should go,” I said.
“Make me,” she said, her lip curled up on
one side.
She might have been flirting, but I decided
to take that as an offer, as a cry for help she couldn’t admit.
This was why she’d come into my life—so I
could take care of her. Everything changed the minute I realized she needed
someone—the second I’d decided that someone would be me.
Lisa Burstein is a tea seller by day and a writer by night. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the Inland Northwest Center for Writers at Eastern Washington University. She is the author of the YA Novels: Pretty Amy and Dear Cassie and the NA Novella: The Next Forever. Sneaking Candy is her first full-length new adult novel.
