Title: Mad Dog by Ophelia Bell
Second Skin Series Book One
Publisher: Animus Press
Genre: Contemporary, Adult, Romance
Length: 358 pages
Summary:
My military discharge was only a year ago and all I want is to do tattoos and live my life, put my old scars and previous sins behind me. But it turns out my oldest wound can still inflict fresh agony.
Her name is Celeste, she was my first everything, and those feelings haven’t died.
The problem is, I have feelings for someone else now too, and I don’t know if Celeste would understand…
Leo is his name, the inked-up gangbanger who visits my shop for new tattoos every Saturday like clockwork.
And just to complicate this clusterf*ck that is my life now, Leo is also in love with Celeste.
Both are off limits, and I know it. He’s straight. I’m not. And she’s the daughter of one of the most dangerous men in the western hemisphere. But fate seems to keep throwing them in my path, torturing me with the one thing I want but can’t have.
Until the night Leo comes to me with a proposal, and a request I never expected to hear spills from his lips. But even one night with them would be worth risking everything.
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Excerpt
My pulse speeds up at the mere mention of what we did back then. “I thought we knew each other well enough.”
He tilts his head back and stares at the ceiling. “Maybe conversations aren’t really our thing.” Then he spears me with a sharp look that makes my insides go molten.
“Maybe not.” My heart pounds so hard it’s difficult to breathe. My feet have a mind of their own when I start to walk again. I pass by him, feeling his gaze on me all the way as I head around the corner and through the door to the locker rooms.
The space smells musty and old, a mix of stale sweat and lemon cleaner. There are no showers—just two rows of lockers with benches in front and a restroom with a trio of toilet stalls and a row of sinks beyond another door. The boys’ side is a mirror to the girls’ side, though less used due to the majority of students being female. The gleaming chrome of brand-new locks on the lockers catches the sparse light from a high window.
I pause in front of the locker at the far end. This was where it happened. My eyebrows twitch at the etched lines engraved into the metal in the center of the locker: M + C. Reaching out, I trace the letters. They weren’t there before. Did he come back? Or did these initials belong to some other lovesick teenage girl?
His intense gray eyes are fixed on my fingertips. He closes the distance, takes my hand, and raises my fingers to his lips.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, finally able to say to him what I never had the chance to until now. Taking a deep breath, I brace myself for a more detailed apology, but all thought disappears when he hauls me close and slams his mouth onto mine.
Author Bio
Ophelia Bell loves a good bad-boy and especially strong women in her stories. Women who aren’t apologetic about enjoying sex and bad boys who don’t mind being with a woman who’s in charge, at least on the surface, because pretty much anything goes in the bedroom.
Ophelia grew up on a rural farm in North Carolina and now lives in Los Angeles with her own tattooed bad-boy husband and four attention-whoring cats.
If you’d like to receive regular updates on Ophelia’s publications, freebies, and discounts, please subscribe to her mailing list: http://opheliabell.com/subscribe/
Author Links: Website * Facebook * Twitter * Goodreads * Instagram
Giveaway
Enter for your chance to win a signed paperback of Mad Dog, ecopy of Mile High (Book 2), and a removable tattoo from Inkbox!
What an exciting book! Great excerpt. I’d love to read more.