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“Oh, good.” He reaches in and takes my head in his hands. We nestle against each other, nose to nose, breath to breath. “I love you, too.”
“Unfortunately,” I say, “for the next handful of years or so, we’re going to be long-distance.”
He doesn’t even flinch. “I like New York. Are you going to take temporary custody of my plant?”
“Not that long-distance,” I say. “This is going to sound strange, but—while you’re in Australia, I’m taking the GRE. And finishing an application to graduate school. I had a long talk with a professor at Stanford about cybersecurity. It’s a long story.”
“Good,” he says. “I like long stories. I have time.” Then he kisses me again—this time, harder.
“It’s scary,” I tell him. “It’s scary to expect things. It’s going to take me time to get used to it.”
He pulls me toward him. “We have time.”
“We do.” I find myself looking into his eyes. Leaning my forehead against his. “I don’t think I could ever have told you that you were enough until I believed I was, too. But maybe it’s that simple. We’re enough.”
He doesn’t respond. Not at first. Then he smiles, and his smile seems to envelop me in warmth. “Tell me all about it in an hour. For now, I have some other ideas as to how we should spend our time.”
“I like other ideas,” I say. “I like them a lot.”
Then he kisses me again, and again, and again, until we’re nothing but other ideas.
Thank you!
Thank you for reading Hold Me. I hope you enjoyed it.
Would you like to know when my next book is available? You can sign up for my new release e-mail list at www.courtneymilan.com, follow me on twitter at @courtneymilan, or like my Facebook page at http://facebook.com/courtneymilanauthor.
Reviews help other readers find books. I appreciate all reviews, whether positive or negative.
Hold Me is the second book in the Cyclone series. It’s preceded by Trade Me, and followed by Find Me, What Lies Between Me and You, Keep Me, and Show Me.
Is there anything else I can read about Jay and Maria?
A lot of times, when I delete scenes, there’s really nothing to do with them—I delete them because they’re stupid or they don’t belong in the story. I don’t want you to see them, now or ever.
When I wrote the first draft of Hold Me, I originally had flashbacks to Jay and Maria’s first discussions on Maria’s blog. I ended up deleting them because they interrupted the flow of the story, but you might still be interested. You can see the first time they exchanged comments, and why they call each other A. and Em. You can read them at: http://www.courtneymilan.com/jayandmaria.php
What is the Cyclone series?
The Cyclone series is a set of stories loosely (or not so loosely) connected to Cyclone Technologies, a fictional computer company located in the heart of Silicon Valley.
What other characters are getting stories?
Blake and Tina’s story started in Trade Me, and will be continued in Find Me. Kenji Miyahara, mentioned very briefly in this book, will be the star of Keep Me (alongside Ellie Wise—there’s an excerpt from Find Me that introduces her right after this section). Angela Choi is the star of Show Me. And Adam Reynolds will be the star of What Lies Between Me and You.
When will these books release?
I’m not the fastest writer and I don’t like making promises when I’m not sure I can keep them. I hope that Find Me and What Lies Between Me and You will be out sometime in 2017.
I don’t want to wait that long! What can I do in the meantime?
Luckily, I have written many other books. If you haven’t already done so, you can try my historical romances. I suggest starting with The Governess Affair— it’s free on most platforms right now. There’s humor, there’s angst…there are no smartwatches, but in the course of the Brothers Sinister series, you will get primers (they go from A-Z), pretty gowns (and some intentionally hideous ones), pink snapdragons (except there is no such thing as a pink snapdragon), and exclamation points (necessary for proper pronunciation). Give them a try. If you’ve already read all my books, I have a list of recommendations for other authors on my website.
And if you’re looking for more in the Cyclone universe, there are three shorts you can read. The first is from a few years before Trade Me starts, and it’s a snippet of life at Cyclone from Adam Reynolds’s point of view. You can find it here: http://bit.ly/afr-at-cyclone The second is a cross-over story between the Brothers Sinister series and the Cyclone universe, set initially in the year 2020...until Adam accidentally time-travels back to Victorian England. You can find that here: http://bit.ly/afr-meets-free.
Finally, The Year of the Crocodile is a short story that takes place between Trade Me and Find Me, right in the middle of Hold Me. You can find it for sale on any vendor where you purchased this book, or you can get a free copy by signing up for my newsletter through this link: https://www.instafreebie.com/free/xTLPC
Find Me: Excerpt
Blake Reynolds finally has everything under control. He and his father have ironed out the wrinkles in their relationship. He’s in love with his girlfriend. And with the turmoil of the last year firmly in the past, he’s ready to move on to the next phase of his life. Then the sister he didn’t know he had walks into his life. The mother he’s never met is in need of a liver transplant—and he’s the only possible match. Suddenly, everything he thought he knew turns inside out.
* * *
Tina Chen wants to believe in a future with Blake. But when she tries to make his life easier by bringing his father into the confusing tangle, the conflict escalates from a difficult family matter into a worldwide scandal. Loving Blake is easy, but the temporary happiness they’ve found together just means she’s all the more aware when “ever after” begins to slip out of her grasp…
* * *
an unedited excerpt from Chapter One
* * *
TINA
* * *
My boyfriend’s sleek, fully electric vehicle stands out in the parking lot in my parents’ apartment complex, brand-new gleaming black paint juxtaposed against a collection of dried weeds and cracked asphalt. I stretch surreptitiously in the driver’s seat, feeling muscles that have been too still for too long protest.
In the seat next to mine, Blake glances in the side-view mirror. “Are you going to straighten…”
He trails off at my baleful glare. I should not have driven straight through from Coalinga. My butt hurts, my eyes feel too dry, and I have to pee. I’m annoyed with everything—probably because I’m thirsty and hungry and sore. This may not be the best time to argue with Blake. And yet here we are.
Wisely, he doesn’t finish his sentence. I’m not going to clean up my parking job, dammit. I’m in the lines. I’m maybe five degrees from parallel, and I’m done.
“You still haven’t decided what you’re doing this month,” he says.
I exhale and stare at the steering wheel. “Sky diving. And that’s my final offer.”
Blake Reynolds is my boyfriend. Some days—like right now—it still doesn’t feel real. We’ve been dating for a little over a year, and sometimes I feel like the weeds next to his perfectly-engineered Tesla. Over the last year, we’ve started a game of sorts. I used to play things far too safe, so now I’m trying to push myself. Every month, I’ve been doing something risky. It doesn’t have to be something big, but it has to be something that scares me. Something that stretches my boundaries. Over the last twelve months, I’ve taken a surprise road trip, gone bungee jumping, invested a thousand dollars in a startup, and bought a pair of heels that cost more than my monthly rent used to.
Blake glances briefly at me, then looks away. I know him well enough now to know that he’s holding something back. I can tell by the slight crinkle in his forehead, the dancing light in his steel-blue eyes. He rubs his eyes.
“Here’s another possibility.” He licks his lips. “We could go
to Vegas this week. It’s not that far.”
“Ugh.” My lip curls of its own accord. “No, sorry. No gambling. That’s not risky; it’s just stupid. A good risk has some possibility of danger, but a high potential return. Gambling is—”
“Not to gamble,” he says quietly.
I look over at him. He looks…slightly nervous, actually. I roll my shoulders, trying to ditch the lingering soreness. Maybe we can get this over with and I can go to the bathroom.
“Fine. Go to Vegas for what?” The air conditioning in the car feels a little stale. I can feel the heat of the sun coming through the windows. Any moment, my mom will notice that we’ve arrived, and…
“You’re still planning to go to medical school?” Now he doesn’t just glance in my direction. He looks at me. I can’t look away.
I’m not sure what that has to do with Vegas. I didn’t apply to school in Vegas, and it’s too late to do more. I have my first two acceptances thanks to rolling admissions, and the last few responses should be in soon. I’ve accomplished everything I’ve sacrificed for over the past years. And the truth is, every time I think about going to medical school…
