Mari Carr is kicking off a brand new series this week, and I have an awesome excerpt for you from the first book in the series—a steamy, small town, age gap romance, featuring a possessive alpha hero and a damsel in distress.
Excerpt
“You can’t run this farm, Kasi.”
Those words stung. Because she had been running this farm.
And because she knew he was right.
Too much stuff was getting left undone. She’d had to let two of their hands go since she couldn’t afford to pay them, which meant nearly two-thirds of their farmland was sitting unplanted because there was no one to work it.
It was a vicious circle. No one to plant meant no crops, which meant no money. Short of doing exactly what Levi jokingly accused her of last night, and plowing the back forty on her own, she had no hope that they could dig themselves out of this. She was fucking kidding herself if she thought she could save them with just the money from the stand and the weekly produce and egg deliveries to local businesses.
Of course, she had too much pride to let Levi know how much his words hurt, so she swallowed it down. “Another compliment, Levi?”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “What I mean is, you can’t run it alone,” he said in a gentler voice, something that looked like regret in his expression. Like he knew he’d hurt her feelings.
But how? Before yesterday, she and Levi had been little more than acquaintances. She was Remi’s friend, and he was her crush. Two roles that meant they’d hardly exchanged more than a hundred words in the past decade.
“I’m doing the best I can.” She hated that her voice wavered.
Levi stepped in front of her, cupping her cheeks in his large, calloused palms. “I know that. But it’s too much to do on your own. Until your father gets back on his feet, your brother needs to do his part.”
Kasi’s temper had been banked, but barely. Levi’s obvious observation tweaked it again.
She threw her arms out. “No shit, Levi. You think I don’t know that? But as I’ve been told too many fucking times in the past eight months, I’m not his mother, and I can’t tell him what to do. He’s eighteen and grieving. He won’t listen to me.”
“Then he’ll have to listen to me,” Levi said, as if that was the simplest solution in the world.
“And what makes you think he’ll do that?”
“Because I’m the man of the house.”
Kasi laughed.
He didn’t.
She sobered up quickly. “Um…no, you’re not?”
Levi stepped closer, and Kasi hated herself for stepping away until her back was pressed against the counter. He caged her there, his hands resting on the counter on either side of her.
“Your father can’t do it, and your brother won’t do it, so it falls to me.”
Despite his attempts at intimidating her with his size, Kasi laughed, more than prepared to call him on his misogynistic bullshit because what the hell kind of game was he playing? “Actually, it’s fallen to me, Levi. Which means I’m the woman of the house. And I—”
“That’s right,” Levi cut her off. “You are, and you’re mine, so now it’s fallen to both of us.”
Kasi frowned, bewildered.
Because she was what now?
“Yours?” she asked. “Since when?”
“Since you passed out in my arms yesterday at the fruit stand.”
She couldn’t smell liquor on his breath, so she didn’t think he was drunk.
There was no noticeable lump on his skull, so she didn’t think he’d hit his head.
She’d known him her whole life, and she’d never seen any signs of insanity.
“That was a one-off. I’m not the kind of girl who passes out regularly, so you don’t have to worry about following me around, waiting to catch me.”
“Good to know,” Levi replied, amused.
His response annoyed her. “I’m not yours, Levi.”
He didn’t reply immediately. Instead, he just smirked as if he was the one acting perfectly sane here, while she was off her rocker. Which was definitely NOT the case.
“Levi,” she insisted. “If my passing out has triggered something inside that’s telling you I’m a damsel in distress and in need of saving, let me go ahead and reassure you that’s not the case. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
“I know you are.”
Kasi lifted her hands, placing her palms on his torso, intent on pushing him away. She couldn’t think when he was standing so damn close to her, and given the crazy shit he was saying, she needed her wits about her.
Unfortunately, her hands had a different opinion about their purpose when she felt his rock-hard abs through the thin cotton of his T-shirt.
Holy. Fuck.
What was this guy made of? Steel?
She reluctantly applied the tiniest bit of pressure, hoping it would be enough for Levi to take the hint and move away, but he only pushed back until his chest pressed against hers, brushing against her breasts.
She had to swallow down a whimper. “I…um…”
What the hell had they been talking about?
“I know you can take care of yourself, little bear,” he repeated.
Kasi was grateful for the reminder because she’d totally lost the plot. She just wished he hadn’t tacked on the “little bear” part because it made her melt a little more every time she heard it. “Good,” she said lamely. “So you get it. I’m not yours.”
Levi brushed her hair over her shoulder. She usually pinned it up in a ponytail, but she’d been too groggy when she first woke up to remember, and by the time she was downstairs, she was too tired to go back for a hairband.
“You want to bet on that?” he asked.
Kasi had started to look at her life as if it were broken down into two parts. There was the Kasi she was before her mother died, and the Kasi she became after.
The first Kasi had been playful, carefree, with more than a healthy dose of wildness mixed in for good measure. It was one of the reasons she and Remi had always been such good friends. Neither of them could resist an adventure or a dare.
This Kasi, the new one, was too serious and tied down with responsibilities so heavy that they threatened to break her back. Nowadays, the most adventure she enjoyed was finding a few minutes to watch a little more of Bridgerton.
For the first time in months, she felt a bit of her wild side emerging because she really—REALLY—wanted to take Levi’s bet.
But she couldn’t.
New Kasi existed for a reason, a good one, so she snuffed out the wildness and shook her head. “No. I don’t want to bet.”
“You sure about that?”
Once again, she got the sense Levi could tell what she was thinking, and it turned her on as much as it unnerved her.
“There’s no way you could prove something like that, so why bet?” Yeah. So much for shutting old Kasi away. Why didn’t she just wave a red flag in front of the man? Why didn’t she just scream the words, “I dare you!”
Levi grinned. God. She loved it when he did that. His eyes crinkled at the edges, his white teeth sparkled, and it drew attention to that thick beard of his that she was dying to run her fingers through.
Levi closed the distance between them even more, something she wouldn’t have thought possible.
“Little bear,” he said, his lips less than an inch from hers.
“Hmm?” she hummed, her eyes closing in anticipation.
“Here’s your proof.”
His lips touched hers softly at first, almost as if he were coaxing her out to play.
Kasi hadn’t kissed a lot of guys in her past. Hell, she hadn’t even had a real boyfriend. Sure, she’d gone on dates, but none of those guys had ever stuck around long enough for their status to upgrade to relationship.
Probably because she’d always measured every man who had ever asked her out with the Levi yardstick, and they’d all come up short.
Now, she was royally fucked. Future dead-end dates wouldn’t be measured by an unexplored crush. Because this kiss wasn’t fiction, wasn’t fantasy, wasn’t wishful thinking.
It was real and passionate and mind-blowing and overwhelming and…
She was screwed.
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