Aftershock by Sylvia Day – Cosmo Red-Hot Reads (Blitz)

FROM AMERICA’S PREMIER AUTHOR OF PROVOCATIVE FICTION #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR SYLVIA DAY COMES THE GRIPPING ROMANTIC CONCLUSION TO THE MINISERIES THAT LAUNCHED COSMO RED HOT READS FROM HARLEQUIN. IT STARTED WITH AFTERBURN (AVAILABLE AUGUST 15, 2013) AND ENDS WITH AN AFTERSHOCK (AVAILABLE MARCH 11, 2014).

Never mix business with pleasure. Never bring politics into the bedroom. In a way I did both when I took Jackson Rutledge as a lover. I can’t say I wasn’t warned.

Two years later, he was back. Walking into a deal I’d worked hard to close. Under the tutelage of Lei Yeung, one of the sharpest businesswomen in New York, I had picked up a thing or two since Jax walked away. I wasn’t the girl he once knew, but he hadn’t changed. Unlike the last time we’d drifted into each other’s lives, I knew exactly what I was dealing with… and how addictive his touch could be.

The inner circle of glamour, sex, and privilege was Jax’s playground-but this time, I knew the rules of the game. In the cutthroat business world, one adage rules all: keep your enemies close and your ex-lovers closer…

SYLVIA DAY is the #1 New York Times and #1 international bestselling author of more than a dozen award-winning novels sold in thirty-nine countries. A reader favorite across several genres, there are millions of copies of her books in print worldwide. She has been nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Author and her work has been honored as Amazon’s Best of the Year in Romance. She has won the RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award and been nominated for Romance Writers of America‘s prestigious RITA award twice. Visit her at sylviaday.com

Purchase Afterburn & Aftershock

on Amazon!

ISBN-13: 9781459245990
Publisher: Harlequin
Publication date: 3/11/2014
Series: Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Harlequin
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook

Sylvia delivers the dramatic finale to the provocative duo — set within the inner circle of glamour, sex, and privilege — that began with Afterburn.

READ AN EXCERPT:

I’d just hung my makeup bag on the towel rack when the room phone started ringing. Knowing I probably took a lot more time than Chad did to unpack, I expected he was ready to head down to see the construction site of his restaurant in the very same hotel we were staying in. The Atlanta Mondego was being turned into a destination with a capital D, and I would soon have the dust on the soles of my Jimmy Choos to prove it.

Grabbing the receiver off the bathroom wall, I tucked it into the crook of my neck and said, “Hey. You settled in already?”

“Gia, damn it. Turn on your cell phone!”

Jax’s deep, sexy voice slid across my senses, bringing with it a rush of heated and beloved memories.

Something inside me tingled with pleasure that he’d gone to the trouble of tracking me down. Jackson Rutledge was a busy guy with his pick of women. Following me around the country was entirely unnecessary. And really flattering.

I leaned against the bathroom counter. “Newsflash–I’m avoiding you.”

“Good luck with that.”

My jaw tightened. So what if he was an animal in bed? So what if I was happy to hear from him? I was still mad at him. “I’m hanging up now.”

“You can’t run from me,” he said tightly. “And you can’t pull that shit you pulled yesterday. We need to talk.”

“I agree, but that usually means you tell me I’m only ever going to be a fuck buddy to you and you don’t give me any reasons why. I don’t have the patience to run around in circles. Unless you’ve got real answers for me, I’m not giving you any more of my time.”

“You’re going to give me a hell of a lot more than time, Gia.”

A shiver of awareness moved through me. I knew that tone of his. It was his I’m-going-to-bang-the-hell-out-of-you tone. “You wish.”

“I’m about to land, Gia. I’ll be at the hotel within the hour and you’re going to see me.”

“What?” My pulse gave a traitorous leap of excitement. My sex drive had been revved since I’d left him the night before. It was all too eager to cross the finish line. “I can’t believe you followed me to Atlanta! How the hell did you know where I was?”

“Your sister-in-law.”

Denise was going to be hearing from me. She knew better, which meant she’d done it on purpose. “Well, turn around and fly home again. I’m working, Jax. I don’t trust you to be around my work.”

His sharply indrawn breath told me I’d scored a hit.

“Fine,” he snapped. “I’ll send a car for you. We’ll meet at my hotel.”

“I’ve got stuff to do today. I’ll let you know when I have a moment, and I’ll find a neutral place for us to meet.” A bar, maybe, or even a shopping mall. Someplace where intimacy wouldn’t be a problem. Sadly, I couldn’t trust myself around him now that I knew how he felt about me.

“My hotel, Gia,” he reiterated. “A public place won’t save you. We’re going to fuck, long and hard, wherever we end up. Better we don’t end up in jail and splashed all over the tabloids while doing it, don’t you think?”

“You’ve really got to do something about that ego.”

“Baby, I’ll crawl on my hands and knees if that’s what it takes.”

It was my turn to suck in a deep breath. He knew how to get to me, how to open me up and leave me defenseless. I tried to do the same thing to him. “Tell me you love me, Jax.”

There was a moment of silence. “Loving each other isn’t our problem.”

He hung up, leaving me holding on to an empty connection. As usual.

THE JAX & GIA SERIES

The Jax & Gia Series consists of the two novellas Afterburn and Aftershock, which tell the story of Gianna Rossi as she navigates the inner circle of glamour, sex, and privilege in the cutthroat business world.