Heartbeat Girl
Michelle Gross
Publication date: December 5th 2021
Genres: Adult, Paranormal, Romance
Desperate times call for daring measures.
At least that’s what I tell myself for packing up and hitting the road with America’s newest and most popular rock band, The Oppressors. The lanky tattooed men are suspicious. Before I stepped on the bus with them, they’ve always made me nervous.
Something’s not adding up, though. There are strange events I’m noticing around them.
- The hazy, vacant stare of the woman in their dressing room.
- And the blood on her shirt.
- The beat less sound of Liam’s heart when I lay my head on his chest.
I don’t think it’s safe to be close with the band, and most certainly not fall in love with one. So why do they make me feel like I’m a part of them? Their close-knitted trio.
What happens when I figure out what I’m dying to know?
This is a dual POV steamy vampire romance standalone that centers around bonds of love and friendship. 18+ dark, explicit sexual scenes, and lots of blood.
Paranormal romance-18+++
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EXCERPT:
“Why does Liam get a gift, and we don’t?” Pete questioned.
“Huh?” I dropped my luggage on the floor.
“We heard Liam ask about his present in the hallway,” Steve said.
I put my hands on my hips. “How did you hear that? You weren’t even in the halls.”
Pete mimicked my stance. “Don’t change the subject. Favoritism is wrong.”
“If you would have asked Liam, you would know I got you all something.” I bent down, unzipped the side zipper of my bag, and pulled out three tiny boxes.
“He never mentioned that.” Steve glared at Liam, who plucked his guitar strings.
Liam tried to act like he wasn’t paying attention, but I knew he was. Slouched over, his fingers halted the second I unzipped my bag. The crosses were the gifts.
“I got you each one,” I said, dropping the first box in front of Pete, then Steve. Lastly, I walked toward the middle of the bus and stopped in front of Liam. He lifted his head to meet my eyes. I set the box on the table beside him. He reached for it immediately. My stomach churned as I slipped into the booth across from him. Too late to back out. “Open them.” I tapped the tabletop and bounced my legs.
Pete opened his first. I turned in the booth slightly to get a better watch, but his back faced me, so I studied Steve instead. He cocked his head to the side, then they exchanged a glance. My skin prickled with unease as they looked over at Liam. I joined them in doing so. Liam’s attentive gaze found me briefly, smirking in a way that threw me off.
What the fuck, Liam? I placed a deadly cross in front of you. Be frightened like the vampire you are!
I held my breath and leaned closer as he opened the box.
“Ow!” Steve winced, and I jumped, eyes searching for the box.
Did he touch the cross?
He must have touched it! Oh, my God! I was right.
My thoughts were getting ahead of me.
When Steve caught me staring, he smiled sheepishly, shrugged, and gripped his leg. “Those muscle spasms are a real bitch.” He frowned. “What’s wrong? You seem disappointed?”
“Do you not like them?” I asked, my shoulders drooping.
“Why crosses?” Liam studied his opened box.
“You don’t like them?” I croaked again, feeling my skin dampen as my nerves became jittery. Safe to say I didn’t make a good detective. I wasn’t good at pretending either.
“You got me something.” Liam flashed me with an intense smolder, heating my skin with those hooded eyes. “You could give me a stick, and I’d love it.”
My heart rate quickened. That wasn’t what I expected. I gasped when he plucked the cross up and hooked it around his neck. Steve and Pete did the same thing with ease. No pain. No screaming. I bit my bottom lip as the necklace dangled over Liam’s black T-shirt. It even suited him.
“This is a good look on us,” Steve said. “Why didn’t I think of wearing one before?”
Cross equals epic failure.
It wasn’t over yet. I still had my mirrors.
Liam watched me stand and disappear to the bedroom. It took thirty minutes of waiting around in the bedroom before I was brave enough to come out with the handheld mirror. Hair still twisted atop my head, I’d changed into some comfy sleeping clothes. I wanted to appear comfortable and at ease around them so they wouldn’t question why I came out here to pluck my eyebrows when I always did my lady business in private.
“What are you doing?” Steve asked as I plopped down on the tiny couch beside him.
I held up my tweezers. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Your eyebrows are fine,” he replied.
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
With a sigh, Steve resumed scrolling through his phone. I didn’t know what made me look over the mirror the second I held it up to peek at Liam. He rested his head on the back of the booth with his eyes closed. Gripping the handle tightly, I leaned into it and pretended to study my eyebrows. I even clipped at nothing so that it appeared I was doing something. When I was confident that no one paid attention to me, I started tilting the mirror.
Here it goes…
I jumped when Steve’s arms wrapped around my neck, and he leaned in close. I saw his reflection smirking as he rubbed his chin. “Holy fuck, I’m beautiful.”
What the fuck!
With a huff, I tossed the mirror down beside him and went to my bedroom. Unraveling the mystery wasn’t happening. Maybe I imagined the absence in Liam’s chest. With a frustrated whine, I fell headfirst onto the bed. Was this what Ruth knew about them? All the cryptic words and hushed whispers? I thought of the bold way Liam always grabbed my hands and linked us together. If he could do that, why wouldn’t he tell me who he really was?
Author Bio:
Michelle is from a small town in Eastern Kentucky where possums try to blend in with the cats on the porch and bears are likely to chase your pets—this is very true, it happened with her sister’s dog. Despite the extra needed protection for your pets, she loves the mountains she calls home. She has a man and twin girls who are the light of her life and the reason she’s slightly crazy.
As a kid, she was that cousin, that friend, that sister and daughter, the talker who could spin a tale and make-believe into any little thing so it was no surprise when she found love in reading, and figured all these characters inside her head needed an outlet. They wanted to be heard, so she wrote.
The voices keep growing faster than she gets the time to write.
The stories are never going to end. That’s perfectly okay, though. We never want to stop an adventure.
She writes and loves many different genres so sign up to her mailing list to keep updated on her releases!
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5 comments:
Congratulations on your new release Michelle the book sounds really good.
I enjoyed the excerpt, Michelle your book sounds like a great read for me and I like the cover! Congratulations on your release of Heartbeat Girl and good luck with your book and the tour! Thanks for sharing it with me and have a magical holiday season!
I love the cover, synopsis and excerpt, this is a must read for me. Thank you for posting about this book
Thanks for hosting today! Thanks for sharing! :)
nice excerpt
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