NYT bestselling authors Lauren Hawkeye and Tawny Stokes are sharing an exclusive look at the first chapter of their upcoming novel, THE OTHER BROTHER, which will be told in three parts.
About Part 1: Forbidden
Simple. The consummate good girl, this is the word I used to describe my life... until my stepbrother Seth came to live with us. Until that point, I’d been a very good girl... but my older, emotionally blocked stepbrother made me want to do very bad things. With him. In the course of one night everything changed, and my simple world was torn to shreds. I wanted to hate him. I did hate him. Mostly. But now he’s back. And nothing will ever be simple again. The Other Brother is a novel told in three parts.
**Contains graphic sexual content and harsh language. It is only appropriate for adult readers age 18+*
* The Other Brother, Part 1: Forbidden is available for preorder!
Part 1 releases February 24th and will be available for just .99c through preorder and release day!
Find out more about Part 2: Taboo and Part 3: Illicit.
Chapter One:
The sun shines through my window blinding me as I blink open my eyes. I turn onto my side and pull the blanket up over my head. I do not want to get up. Thankfully it’s not a school day. So at least there is that mercy.
My head pounds and there is a horrid taste in my mouth. I was at a party last night. I don’t normally drink but ended up doing two shots of tequila because my horrible stepbrother Seth dared me to. He has an unnerving way of getting under my skin.
My cellphone buzzes alerting me to a text. I grab the phone from the side table and bring it under the blanket. It’s from my friend Camilla.
Camilla: Did you hear about Ashley?
Me: ??
Camilla: She hooked up with Seth at the party
I sit up ramrod straight. I’m completely awake now.
Me: Are you effing kidding me?
Camilla: Nope. She told me aaaaaaaaaaaaalllll about it
Me: Gross
Camilla: Mmmm, not so gross. Lol
I set my phone down back on the table. I don’t want to text about it anymore. I don’t even want to think about it. I’m angry and I’m not sure why. What should it matter who my stepbrother does? Ashley’s not really a friend of mine. Besides that she’s seventeen and I’m pretty sure it’s not her first ride at the rodeo. It’s no business of mine. He’s made that perfectly clear over the past few months he’s been living here.
My dad and his mom, Dinah, married a couple of years ago. He was not at the wedding so my brother Theo and I never got to meet him then. We did meet him when he showed up on our doorstep a few months ago, after he was kicked out of his dad’s house when he remarried. I guess his new wife had three little kids, and didn’t much like having a surly rough teenager around them. So he packed up one beaten-up bag and took the bus from Boston all the way down to Galveston. I can’t even imagine the culture shock he must go through.
Ever since then he’s been making my life miserable. It isn’t that he’s mean to me or anything although he can be a jerk. He ignores me most of the time. It’s just his presence alone unnerves me. It doesn’t help that he has that dark brooding alpha male thing going for him. Nor does it help that I notice his full lips and his strong hands more often than what is good for me. I know I shouldn’t think about him in terms of attractiveness because technically he’s my brother, but I can’t help it.
Well now that I’m awake, I might as well drag my ass out of bed. I walk to the window and look out. It’s a perfect day for chilling out in the back yard. It’s spring so it’s not too hot to sit out in the sun. With my coloring, I’m a red-head with freckles and all, I don’t like to expose myself to the sunburn inducing rays, but I do love the warmth of it on my skin. I will take a book, Pride and Prejudice, my favorite, and submerse myself in Austen land so I don’t have to think about Seth and his hot bod pressing up against Ashley’s hot bod.
After slipping on some shorts and a t-shirt, I go down to the kitchen. Dad and Dinah aren’t home. Theo isn’t either; I think he’s over at his buddy’s house. And I have no idea if Seth is around. I hope not. I would love to have one day all to myself where no one and nothing bothers me.
After grabbing a Coke from the refrigerator, I take it and my book out the back door and into the yard. Once I find the perfect spot on the soft green grass, I plunk my butt down. I slip on my shades, open my book and vanish inside the page. Mr. Darcy is calling my name.
By the time I look up from my book, the Coke bottle is empty and I’m sweating. I mark the page and set the book down. Yawning, I lean back on the grass. A little nap would be a perfect addition to this day. Except I don’t get a chance to fall asleep. A shadow looms over me destroying my little Shangri-La.
I open my eyes to see Seth standing over me. He’s shirtless and his jeans are slung way too low to be decent. And my gaze can’t help but fall on the faint line of hair along his rock hard abs that aims straight down into those jeans. I wonder if Ashley ran her fingers along that line.
He grins as if privy to my thoughts.
I sit up, feeling very vulnerable in his presence. “You’re in my sun.”
“You’re too pasty pale to be sitting out.” He pokes my shoulder. “No guy’s going to want to date a lobster.”
“Thanks for the observation. Not that I care.”
“Hey, Allie, I’m just trying to help you out.”
He’s the only one that calls me Allie. Everyone else, even my friends call me Allegra. I want to find the little peccadillo about him alluring but somehow it always sounds condescending when he says it.
“I don’t need your help.”
He smirks. “You looked like you needed help last night.”
I glare at him not wanting to be reminded of acting like a damn fool in front of Chris Harper, my high school crush. He had been one of the reasons I went to the party, as I usually didn’t go to them. Not my thing. My friend Camilla encouraged me to wear this little green sundress that barely covered my ass. She said it worked with my coloring since I have red hair and milky skin. She also made me wear these three-inch wedge-heeled sandals that she bought and hadn’t worn yet. I guess she wanted me to break them in for her or something.
Oh I broke them in all right.
I nearly broke my neck as well. When I came into the party, I crossed the living room where most everyone was gathered including Chris who was in the corner. He looked up at me and smiled, then I tripped on the coffee table and landed on all fours on the floor. Needless to say my dress didn’t cover my ass any longer.
The skirt ended up nearly over my head. The worst of it was, I was wearing my regular cotton panties. The ones with little hearts on them. The ones I wore when I was still twelve and playing with Barbies. Everyone laughed, including Chris.
Once Camilla helped me up and ushered me into the bathroom so I could cry it out for a few minutes, I realized how uncool I really was. Chris would never go out with me, let alone like me. When I came out of the bathroom, Seth popped up out of nowhere; I didn’t even know he was at the party. He handed me a shot glass, poured tequila into it and told me to suck it up. That high school was all shit anyway. I ended up having way too many shots and danced like a jack-ass in front of everyone. I wasn’t sure I would ever live my spectacle down.
“Thanks for reminding me.” Grabbing my book, I get to my feet and brush at the grass on my shorts.
He keeps looking at me. I don’t like it because his gaze makes my belly clench and my heart thump hard. I’m dangerously close to having an indecent reaction to him. My fourteen year old body is about to self-combust.
I go to step around him to go back into the house but he reaches out toward me. I freeze. His fingers brush lightly against my cheek. He pulls a long piece of grass from my hair. I watch transfixed as he lets it flutter to the ground, his eyes never leaving mine.
I gulp. How can someone be so intense? It seems almost impossible, but I can’t deny it. I can’t deny him. He affects me in ways I have yet to discover. My face goes warm. I know by the twitch of his lips that my cheeks are probably as red as my burnt shoulder.
I’m about to open my mouth and say something regrettable, but Theo shows up and saves my ass.
“What’s going on?” he’s frowning from his perch on the balcony. It’s obvious by the way his face is screwed up that he doesn’t like what is transpiring in the back yard.
I shake my head. “Nothing. Seth was just being his usual jerkface self.” I brush past Seth and go into the house. His gaze is on me the whole time. And I shiver.
Giveaway:
About Lauren Hawkeye:
Lauren Hawkeye/ Lauren Jameson never imagined that she’d wind up telling stories for a living… though when she looks back, it’s easy to see that she’s the only one who is surprised. Always “the kid who read all the time”, Lauren made up stories about her favorite characters once she’d finished a book… and once spent an entire year narrating her own life internally. No, really. But where she was just plain odd before publication, now she can at least claim to have an artistic temperament.
Lauren lives in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, Canada with her husband, toddler, pit bull and idiot cat, though they do not live in an igloo, nor do they drive a dogsled. In her nonexistent spare time Lauren can be found knitting (her husband claims that her snobby yarn collection is exorbitant), reading anything she can get her hands on, or sweating her way through spin class. She loves to hear from her readers!
About Tawny Stokes:
Tawny Stokes has always been a writer. From an early age, she’d spin tales of serial killers in love, vampires taking over the world, and sometimes about fluffy bunnies turned bunnicidal maniacs. An honour student in high school, with a penchant for math and English, you’d never know it by the foot high blue Mohawk and Doc Martens, which often got her into trouble. No longer a Mohawk wearer, Tawny still enjoys old school punk rock, trance, zombie movies, teen horror films, and fluffy bunnies. She lives in Canada with her fantastical daughter, two cats, and spends most of her time creating new stories for teens. Tawny also writes adult paranormal/urban fantasy fiction under the name Vivi Anna, and is an aspiring screenwriter.
