Author: Serena James Chase

Today’s Snippet Sunday comes from my contribution to Tease Me: A Limited-Edition Romance Collection available now for preorder and releasing across all retailers on February 14, 2023!

My story is called Thank Me. It’s a slightly dark, second chance romance between PR guru Willa Ryerson and an exiled, former mob boss, Graham Tate.

He’s dangerous, and we’ve found each other again. I can’t resist him, especially when he tells me he’s here to help.

I slip my sunglasses over my eyes and retrieve my phone. Stepping away from the concierge desk, I try Lucky’s number again. 

He should be done with his—

“Uff!”

I don’t know what I turned into, but I bumped into it hard. A wall maybe? No. Walls don’t have arms. And walls don’t catch you from falling.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” a man’s voice says.

Wait. I know that voice. I know that man.

Steadying myself, I look up. I’m grateful he can’t see my eyes growing wide behind my sunglasses—although my jaw dropping open is a sure giveaway of my surprise.

Not everything is exactly like they were five years ago in Chicago when I put this man in my rearview mirror. His hair color is different, but all the places on my body where he once pressed kisses into my skin remembers him with perfect recall. 

The darker shade of his hair deepens the appealing lines of his face. My God, he’s even more handsome this way. His eyes gaze down at me, and send my mind racing back to moments when he’d hide those brown orbs with those insanely long eyelashes, keeping their secrets from me. 

Painful as that memory is, I wish I could cling to it rather than the corners of our history were my mind now drifts.

I lose my breath, but manage to stutter his name. “Graham?”

“I knew it was you.” A smile parts those devastating lips as he continues, “As soon as I saw you, I had to say hi.”

I must still be suffering from the sensation of falling because the dizzy feeling provokes my hands. I reach out and dig my fingers into Graham’s biceps. Responding to the desperate grope, his muscles flex. Visions of our bodies intertwining flood my mind. The recollections so intense, it feels like we could’ve had sex last night.  

“It’s been a long time, Willa Ryerson.”

I swallow. “Yeah. Yeah, it has.”

 Heat smothers my chest as my body, moving a heartbeat slower than my brain, reacquaints itself with his gentle caress. The same urgency I felt last week when Lucky held me by the hips resurges. Except, this time its impact is unrelenting—and completely alarming. 

Pure, electric desire spirals from my chest to my belly to the apex of my thighs when Graham pulls me into his arms and hugs me. 

It’s clear five years was not enough distance. It was not enough time for either my mind or body to forget him. After what I’ve been through the past couple of years, I should know better. Still, I close my eyes and allow every inch of my body to indulge in the close contact. 

Graham smells like sweet earth, sultry spices, and a hint of the Mediterranean sun. He’s a brew I want to drink in every night, wake up to and get drunk off of every morning.

Oh God. Drown me in this man.

Thanks for reading this snippet from my next novel, Thank Me. It will be appearing in the Tease Me: A Limited-Edition Romance Collection available to read next Valentine’s Day!