College reporter Jax North hates working with arrogant rich boy Lucas Hargrove, but there’s an arsonist on the loose and the sparks are already flying.
Journalism major Jax North has her eye on a scoop that could launch her career, but getting stuck working with arrogant rich boy Lucas Hargrove wasn’t part of the plan. Lucas is stubborn, sarcastic, privileged…all the things Jax can’t stand. Unfortunately, he’s also the hottest guy on campus. He drives Jax crazy in more ways than she could ever have imagined—despite her better judgment—and, when the unlikely duo’s investigation wanders off the beaten track, Jax finds herself in serious trouble.
A series of blazes have broken out across the small college town of Dalesburg, and Jax is trapped with Lucas in a burning building, with more than one fire to put out.
As the heady mix of lust and danger rises higher, the prickling tension between Jax and Lucas reaches fever pitch, and the flames aren’t going to be easy to extinguish.
General Release Date: 9th June 2020
It was such a great dream. Jax was stretched out on a sandy beach, feeling the sun warm her skin and smelling the salt on the air—just like home. She could taste mango on her lips, and there was no sound but the waves and the distant chirping of birds. Sure, their calls were a little weird, but then she hadn’t been back to the island in a long time. Maybe she’d forgotten some of the details.
Slowly, Jax opened her eyes, watched her bedroom ceiling swim into focus, and realized where the noise was coming from.
“Oh, shit!”
She kicked off the covers and grabbed her phone, struggling to shut off the chirruping bleep that should have woken her thirty-five minutes ago. What in the hell had possessed her to use a new alarm app on a morning like this?
Heart pounding, Jax leaped out of bed in a flurry of swearing and panic, and almost tripped over her laundry hamper.
“God damn it!” she yelped, giving the wicker a solid kick.
Of course she’d oversleep today. Her interview with Paula Cox—design mogul, legendary entrepreneur and one of the biggest donors Stockard College had—was a coup for a humble student journalist, the kind of byline Jax had been working toward for her whole three years on the school’s prestigious media program. Of course she’d find a way to screw things up, or make it harder for herself, because when didn’t she?
A knock at the door sounded as Jax was halfway through stripping off her sleep cami and panties, and grabbing the day’s clothes from the hanger on the front of her wardrobe.
“Um… Jax? You up?” Ava’s voice came through the white-painted wood. “It’s gone seven thirty and I didn’t see you yet, so—”
Jax, still shimmying into her bra and trying to find a spare pair of hands to fasten her skirt, paused to wrench open the door.
“Late!” she squeaked. “So late! Oh, god…”
Her roommate, as put together as always, raised one perfect brow and pursed her lips. “You don’t say. Oh, hon. You slept with wet hair again, didn’t you?”
Jax, buttoning her shirt and shoving her feet into a polished pair of black pumps, looked up in horror.
“Why?”
Ava shook her head. “All right, all right…don’t worry. We’ll fix it. I’ve got time. I brought your papers, too, though I have no idea why you guys don’t just read the apps. Like, there’s old school and old school, you know?”
She tossed a handful of folded newspapers onto the bed before moving across the room to grab Jax’s hot air brush from the dresser. Jax glanced at the headlines out of habit—something about a city council funding inquiry, and another fire in the industrial district, the sixth in five months—and gave a bitter grin.
“Right? They tell us it’s so we get used to being on top of the news…learning what leads and what gets buried, since not every story shows up on a paper’s app. Either that, or the media department’s getting a cut of all newspaper sales on campus. Which I could believe,” she added, hastily stuffing her cream cotton shirt into her skirt in an uneven tuck that made Ava wince.
“Here. Lemme get that.”
Jax huffed a sigh and held her arms out to the side, letting Ava tweak her look.
They’d been rooming since freshman year, having bonded despite a bumpy start. At first, Jax had thought the design major was stuck-up and bitchy, and Ava had—she’d confessed one night, after some ill-advised peach schnapps—thought Jax was a neurotic, prissy mess who just wanted attention. Somewhere along the way, though, they’d realized how well they worked together. Like the exact opposite of that damn schnapps and cola.
“I owe you,” Jax said, patting a few quick dabs of primer across her cheeks and scrambling for her lipstick as Ava positioned her in front of the mirror and addressed the frizzy tangle of her strawberry blonde waves.
“I know.”
“This never happens! I mean—”
“I know. You’ve been late, like, what? Twice this semester? Or was it three times? Or maybe—”
“Stop it!” Jax groaned. “It would be today. Because of course it would. Oh, man… Ask me questions about Paula Cox, would you? I have to make sure I know the material.”
Ava looked doubtful. “It’s not exactly going to be a hard-hitting exposé, Jax. She’s a big donor, and it’s a college paper, so—”
“I know, I know…but it’s part of my final grade. So just work with me. Please?”
Ava sighed. “All right. Hit me with some of that sweet, sweet bio, Miss Wiki. Birth, background… Go!”
Jax closed her eyes. Facts were good. She could do facts. “Okay. Born in seventy-three, grew up in northern California but relocated to Oregon in twenty-thirteen, after the multi-million-dollar sale of her design company, Cohan. She studied at Caltech, but there’s a family connection to the Stockards who founded the college here in Dalesburg, so she established the Cox Scholarship to reconnect with—”
“Some sense of legitimacy beyond just throwing money at life?” Ava supplemented.
Jax, trying to apply her mascara without laughing, stifled a snort. “Ava! You’re terrible.”
“I’m just saying! You’ve got this, sis. It’s going to be fine. This lady gets rich off of people buying her proto-hipster crap and donates a bunch of money here because there’s nothing like having your name on a library to make you feel legitimized. That’s all. Say nice things about her, throw out some of your sparkling prose…y’know. You got it.”
“You think so?”
“Think?” Ava smoothed out Jax’s hair, now falling in soft curves around her shoulders, and reached for the pump bottle of finishing oil on the dresser. “I know it. You may feel like a hot mess, hon, but you’re stronger than you think, and you’re good at this. You’re going to be just fine. And you’re going to pick up pizza on your way home. I’ve got the afternoon free, and I feel like movies and junk food. You’ll probably be able to use that yourself after your audience with Queen Consumerism.”
Jax rolled her eyes, though it did sound like a tempting plan. “What, like you never got a Cohan tote bag for your birthday, and actually used it?”
Ava grinned. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Like I’d buy into those bougie mass-market aesthetics…! Here,” she added, holding up a granola bar and waggling it at Jax’s reflection. “You can cram that in your face as you’re running across campus and trying to make it look like a power jog.”
Jax shook her head. “How is it that you’re the mom friend and the sarcastic bitch friend at the same time?”
“Talent.” Ava gave a saccharine smile and patted her shoulders. “You look great. You’re going to kill it.”
“Veggie Supreme, right?”
“Yes, please. No olives.”
“Gotcha. All right, gotta run. See you later!”
Kori Blue writes adult romance with an edge. In her stories, you'll find sharp, sassy women who know what they want... and strong, sexy men who've got just what they need.
Kori's stories often involve some kinky fun, and explorations of fantasies from the sinfully sweet to the downright dark and dirty. From the intimate stories of couples in Kori's Between Lovers series to the daring exploits of a call girl-turned-madam in the Midnight Candy books, and the dark, twisted tales of passion and obsession in Juniper Lake, a Kori Blue book is guaranteed to pull you into a world of intrigue and intensity, with characters you'll love, and heat you'll never forget!
You can find Kori at her website.
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