Blurb:
She’s about to make a deal with the college bad boy…
Hannah Wells has finally found someone who turns her on. But while she might be confident in every other area of her life, she’s carting around a full set of baggage when it comes to sex and seduction. If she wants to get her crush’s attention, she’ll have to step out of her comfort zone and make him take notice… even if it means tutoring the annoying, childish, cocky captain of the hockey team in exchange for a pretend date.
…and it’s going to be oh so good.
All Garrett Graham has ever wanted is to play professional hockey after graduation, but his plummeting GPA is threatening everything he’s worked so hard for. If helping a sarcastic brunette make another guy jealous will help him secure his position on the team, he’s all for it. But when one unexpected kiss leads to the wildest sex of both their lives, it doesn’t take long for Garrett to realize that pretend isn’t going to cut it. Now he just has to convince Hannah that the man she wants looks a lot like him.
Rating: 5/5 stars
Side Notes:
- Genres: Contemporary Romance, New Adult Fiction
- Highly recommend for 16 years and above
- TW: Explicit language, Sexually graphic scenes, Rape, Alcohol (featured throughout), Emotional abuse (vivid), Self-harm, Physical abuse
- 1st book in the Off Campus Series
Book Quotes:
- “She tries to take a step down the hall, but I tug on her hand and kiss her again, and this time it’s not a peck. I kiss her hard, losing myself in her taste and her heat and every damn thing about her. I never expected her. Sometimes people sneak up on you and suddenly you don’t know you ever lived without them.”
- “I want to murder him in his sleep, A. No, I want to murder him when he’s awake so he can see the joy on my face when I do it.”
- “Hey, come on, don’t cry,” he begs. “It breaks my fucking heart to hear you cry.”
- “The second I encounter his erection, my jaw drops. “Oh my God, are you kidding me?” He looks startled. “What’s wrong?” “Are you taking human growth hormones or something? I snatch my hand back, fighting another rush of nervousness. “There’s no way that huge man monster is fitting inside me!” Garrett’s head abruptly drops in the crook of his arm as a shudder racks his body. At first I think he’s pissed off. Or maybe even crying. It takes several seconds before I realize what’s happening. He’s laughing. Scratch that – he’s in hysterics.”
- “How did I go so long without noticing you, damn it? Why did it take seeing a stupid A on your midterm to make me notice?” He sounds so genuinely upset that I scoot closer and kiss him. “It doesn’t matter. You know me now.” “I do,” he says fiercely.”
- “Baby, I could watch you watching paint dry, and I still wouldn’t be bored.” Garrett Graham, my own personal sweet-talker.”
- “He shakes his head in amazement. “Your voice is…fuck, Wellsy, it’s beautiful.” My cheeks heat up. “You think so?” His impassioned expression tells me he’s dead serious. “Play something else,” he orders. “Um. What do you want to hear?” “Anything. I don’t care.” I’m startled by the intensity in his voice, the emotion now glittering in his gray eyes. “I just need to hear you sing again.”
- “And the most important lesson I learned is that I’m not a victim—I’m a survivor.”
- “Unbelievable. Every girl at this college would cut her frickin’ arm off to help me out. But this one? Runs away like I just asked her to murder a cat so we could sacrifice it to Satan.”
- “Living well and being happy is how we get over the shit in our past.”
- “So why do they call it the crease?” Dex asks in fascination after the second period commences. “And why does it sound so dirty?” On my other side, Allie leans in to grin at Dexter. “Babe, everything about hockey sounds dirty. Five-hole? Poke check? Backdoor?” She sighs. “Come home with me one time and listen to my dad yell Jam it in! over and over again when he watches hockey, and then you can talk to me about dirty. Not to mention uncomfortable.”
- “It’s like that pond I skated on when I was a kid—from a distance, the ice looked so shiny and smooth, until you got close enough to it, and suddenly all the uneven edges and crisscrossed skate marks became visible. That’s me, I guess. Covered with skate marks that nobody ever seems to notice.”
- “You won’t let anything bad happen to me, will you, Garrett?” A lump the size of Massachusetts lodges in my throat. I swallow hard and try to speak past it. “Never.”
- “I clench my teeth. “I’m not a virgin, Garrett.” “You’re not a puck bunny either.” “So that means I’m not allowed to sleep with a guy I’m attracted to?” He rakes both hands over his scalp now, looking equally aggravated. Then he takes a breath, exhales slowly, and meets my eyes. “Okay, here’s the deal. I believe you’re attracted to me. I mean—one, who isn’t? And two, you moan like crazy whenever my tongue’s in your mouth.” I bristle. “I do not.” “Agree to disagree.”
- “Fuck, I want to kiss her again. I want to feel her lips on mine. I want to hear that throaty noise she made the first time I sucked on her tongue.”
- “Hannah hadn’t been moving suggestively when she’d belted out Lady Gaga earlier, but she sure as shit is moving suggestively now. She’s gone from Disney Channel Miley Cyrus to Full-on Twerk Mode Miley, and it’s officially time for me to put a stop to it before she moves straight to Let’s Make a Sex Tape Miley. Wait—has Miley ever made a sex tape? Fuck, who am I kidding? Of course she has.”
- “My place?” he murmurs. Those two words, low and husky, make my thighs clench so hard I’m surprised I don’t pull a muscle. Rather than answer—my throat has clogged with desire—I take the coffee from his hand and proceed to dump both our cups in the trashcan behind him. Garrett chuckles. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
- “Look, I’m the DD tonight, but I’m offering to be more than just your driver. I’ll be your bodyguard, and your bartender, and most importantly, your friend. I promise to look out for you tonight, Wellsy.”
- “Garrett tosses me the shirt. “Okay, get changed. We want to be fashionably late, not asshole late.”
- “Hannah’s trust, meet Garrett’s hands.”
- “When he wants to be? She says it like it’s the endorsement of the year, but the way I see it, people should be nice because they are, not because it’s a calculated move on their part.”
- “I try to be as quiet as possible as I get comfortable, but the rustling of the sheets causes Hannah to stir. A soft moan ripples through the darkness, and then she rolls over and a warm hand presses against my bare chest. I stiffen. Or rather, my chest does. Down below, I’m softer than pudding. That’s whiskey dick for you, which is damn sad considering I only had five shots. Man. Me and alcohol really don’t mix.”
- “And he smells fantastic, like soap and lemony aftershave. Would it be inappropriate if I pressed my face in his neck and inhaled him? Uh…yeah. It would.”
- “I can’t help it. Tolbert seems to respond to my brand of bullshit. It’s a gift.” “Well, I want your gift. Please, master, teach me how to bullshit.”
- “His expression is a mixture of shining wonder and endless sorrow.”
- “It means you’ve got a sexy tongue and you know how to use it.”
- “When you’ve already been disappointed by the one person you’re supposed to trust most in your life, you’re not exactly keen on giving people any kind of ammunition over you.”
- “I was starting to worry I might actually be your type, and that’s too terrifying to even contemplate.”
- “Garrett climbs on the bed and lies down, resting his head on a mountain of pillows. I’ve never met anyone who sleeps with so many pillows. Maybe he needs them to cradle his massive ego.”
- “There’s a reason I’m a history major, for chrissake—I deal in facts. Black and white. This happened at this time to this person and here’s the result.”
- “Hannah and I end in the same key instead of doing the harmony.”
- “I know you’re into me, Wellsy. And I’m definitely into you.”
- “She’s just uttered the words every guy wants to hear—I want you so bad—but damn it, she’s drunk and I can’t let her do this. Her”
- “Sex is all about trust,” he says. “Even if you don’t love the other person, even if it’s just a hookup, it still takes a serious amount of trust to open yourself up and let yourself go to that vulnerable place, you know? And there’s nothing more vulnerable than coming.”
- “I’m not other women.” No, she isn’t. Because other women don’t entertain me as much as she does. I suddenly wonder how I ever made it through life without Hannah Wells’ sarcastic barbs and annoyed grumbles.”
- “But right now, all I want is for this girl to smile at me again.”
- “His eyes are a hazy swirl of gray, like a thick mass of clouds gathering before an impending storm”
- “He’s sporting that rumpled, rolled-out-of-bed hair, and yet I don’t find it so adorable anymore. It just makes him look like a slob. Or maybe a phony, because I’m pretty sure I can see gel in his hair, which means he must’ve taken the time to create the I-don’t-care style. Which makes him a fucking liar.”
- “Yeah, but you still love me.” Her breath hitches. “Yeah. I do.” Her green eyes shine up at me. “I love you.”
- “Fear is a fact of life,” he says solemnly. “Don’t let it get you down, Wellsy. Everyone experiences it.”
- “See, this is why people shouldn’t lie. It always comes back to bite you in the ass.”
- “For someone who’s so damn strong, you really are a fucking coward.”
- “Your skin feels like silk,”
- “I don’t pity a lot of people. I mean, sympathy? I hand that out freely. Pity is reserved for someone I truly feel sorry for.”
- “my male friends insist that men don’t like being called beautiful. But holy hell, there’s no other way to describe his rugged features and soulful brown eyes.”
- “A man always knows when a woman wants him. Believe me, you don’t have to say it out loud for him to pick up on the vibes you’re sending out.” I grin. “Hell, it only took five seconds for me to figure it out.”
- “Hey, it’s Hannah,” I tell him. “I know. I have Caller ID, dumbass.”
- “There’s a female in my bedroom and neither of us is naked. It’s strange. But kinda nice.”
- “But now we’re tangled in each other’s arms. It’s nice. I’m growing more alert. Alert enough to register that last thought. It’s nice? What the fuck am I thinking? Cuddling is an act reserved solely for girlfriends.”
- “Years of therapy helped me see that the burden of blame lies solely on him. There was something wrong with him. Not me. Never me. And the most important lesson I learned is that I’m not a victim—I’m a survivor”
- “But you know what my therapist used to tell me? The best way to forget a bad memory is to replace it with a good one.”
- “I wonder if “sexy as fuck” is a requirement for living in this house.”