Reading Drinking and Relaxing : Character Blog Tour & Giveaway

Title: MILF: Wrong Kind of Love Author: Erin Noelle Genre: Erotic Romance

Photographer: FuriousFotog Model: Michael Federico Cover Design: Hang Le

Wrong Kind of Love A story of forbidden love with a side of revenge... When my husband of nearly twenty years abruptly left me for another woman, I thought my life was over. But I was wrong... Wrong for thinking I was weak, wrong for assuming I couldn't go on, wrong for believing I wouldn't love again. No matter what anyone else thinks, Wrong never felt so right.

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Mia Sullivan

Blue eyes & Brown hair

Newly divorced

Mother to Adam

Artist

Mia's POV

Ever since Mark left last year, sleep and I have broken up as well. I’ve tried damn near everything to keep her close—counting sheep, noise machines, sleeping pills, even hypnotherapy—but nothing works. She officially hates me.

If I’m lucky, I get four or five hours straight, but most of the time, it’s a couple of two to three hour stretches a night. So it’s no surprise to me now, as I lie awake in the dead of night, with the clock reading three-fifteen, I’m unable to fall back asleep.

Crawling out of bed, wearing only a tank top and a pair of tiny pajama shorts, I slide my feet into my fluffy slippers and pad down the stairs to make some coffee. If I’m up, I might as well be alert and functioning, as I often do my best brainstorming and creative work in the wee hours of the morning. I flip the power switch on the Jura Pro 10, the Rolex of coffeemakers and my most valued possession, prior to snagging the cream and sugar.

Once my caramel vanilla cream coffee is mixed just perfectly and everything is put away, I spin around on my heel to go and hole myself up in my art room for the rest of the morning, only to find a man—a very large, shirtless man—shuffling into the kitchen, rubbing his groggy eyes. Scaring the shit out of me, the mug slips from my hands and shatters on the floor, splashing the scalding hot liquid all over the travertine tile, as well as my legs and feet.

“Oh shit! Are you okay?!” As soon as I hear the deep voice, I immediately realize the stranger is Grayson, Adam’s longtime best friend. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Sullivan. I didn’t know you were down here. I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m so very sorry. Are you okay?”

Rushing around the kitchen island and over to me as he apologizes repeatedly, he squats down next to where I’m picking up the broken pieces of ceramic and begins to help.

“It’s okay, Gray. I know you didn’t mean to, sweetie. I just didn’t realize anyone else was home,” I assure him, lifting my focus from the floor up to smile at him.

Familiar chocolate brown eyes full of concern meet mine and then drop down to my legs. “Look,” he motions his hand towards my feet, “it’s all over you too. Sit down so I can help clean you up.”

“I said I’m fine. I’ll go wash myself off after I get the mess on the floor.”

“Ms. Sullivan, you most likely have burns on your legs, and possibly cuts too. Please, let me take a look; the floor can wait,” he urges, tapping on my knee.

I’m not really quite sure why, perhaps it’s the early morning hour or lack of caffeine in my blood stream, but I sit down, the floor cool on the backs of my legs, and extend my legs out in front of me, even as I say, “I really think I’m fine. It doesn’t hurt that bad.”

Standing up, he snags a dish towel off the counter and runs it under the cold water at the sink before kneeling back down next to me and swiping the terry cloth up and down the lower part of my legs and around my feet. As he double-checks it’s all been cleaned off of my exposed skin, I find myself studying him, noticing how different he looks since the last time I saw him.

Maybe it’s just that his currently disheveled, thick black hair has grown out considerably since he’s been in Spain. No, that can’t be it. Maybe it’s his chiseled jawline, which is covered in a couple days’ worth of dark stubble. As my gaze drops lower to his bare chest, I can’t help but notice he has broader shoulders than I remembered, and holy hell, look at those abs. I thought those only existed courtesy of photoshop and airbrushes. Barcelona must have some great gyms, and apparently Gray spent his fair share of time in them. But even that’s not it. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but he just looks so much…older.

Even though he was a year ahead of Adam in school, I never really thought of Gray as being older. He stayed home to go to UGA, so even while Adam was in his senior year at Clarke Central High School, Gray was still around quite a bit. Sure, I was aware Gray was a good-looking kid—he and Adam both have always been handsome and popular, and there has never been a shortage of giggling girls hanging around them—but now…now something has changed. I’m not sure if it’s because I haven’t seen him in nearly a year, or if being on his own in a foreign country forced him to mature quickly, but my kid’s best friend is now, most definitely, a man.

He clears his throat, ripping me from my borderline-impure thoughts, and my guilty eyes snap up to meet his. Smirking, almost as if he can read my mind, he lightly squeezes my calf, and a heated flush of embarrassment spreads rapidly across my chest, up my neck, and into my cheeks like a raging forest fire out of control.

“No cuts, and though the burns don’t look too bad, you may want to put a little cream on them,” he says with a light chuckle, glancing back down at my leg. “And I’m really digging the glittery blue toenail polish.”

Jerking my foot from his grasp, I scramble back to my feet. “I—uh, I let the girl talk me into something different. I’m not sure…uh, sure what I was thinking really,” I stammer, still ashamed over my earlier thoughts.

“I was just teasing you,” he replies as he stands up next to me, grinning widely. “You don’t need to get embarrassed. You’ve got cute toes.”

Did he just say I have cute toes? Oh Lord, I need to regain control of this conversation again. Fast.

“I’m glad you appreciate my Smurfette piggies, Gray,” I joke, trying to redirect my train of thought and lighten the conversation. Grabbing a plastic bag and the disinfecting wipes, I finish cleaning up the broken cup and coffee splattered about. “What are you doing down here anyway? Shouldn’t you be sleeping until noon, like most young people do in the summer?” That’s right, Mia. He may look like a man, but he’s a young person, and you aren’t.

He shrugs, grabs two fresh mugs from the wooden cabinet, and fills them both about three-quarters full as I throw away the mess. “Typically, yes, but I’m still not back on Georgia time yet. My body can’t figure out if it’s day or night, whether it should be awake or asleep.”

At the mention of his body, my eyes instinctively drop to his very bare, very muscular torso and arms, and I feel a tightening sensation in my belly.

“How do you take your coffee, Ms. Sullivan?” His gravelly voice rips me from my apparent gawking. Again.

I lift my eyes back up to his, which are dancing with amusement, and the embarrassment I felt a few minutes ago morphs into full-fledged mortification. My son’s friend just caught me checking him out like I’m a disgusting, desperate pervert. What in the hell is wrong with me?

“Your coffee?” he asks again, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Do you like cream and sugar in it?”

With a faint nod, I mumble a ‘yeah’, wishing I could escape back up to my room and hide in my bed until I’m sure he’s gone. However, I’m afraid that would make this entire situation even more awkward than it’s already become. I really need to get a hold of myself.

Inhaling a deep breath, I pull myself together and do what every dignified adult in my situation would do—I pretend the last ten minutes never happened.

I push my shoulders back and raise my chin as I walk over to the pantry and grab the sugar and powdered creamer, and then set it down next to the two freshly poured cups. “So how was your trip? Adam said you got in a couple of days ago.”

“It was incredible—the people, the food, the history…all of it. Immersing myself in another culture like that was so eye-opening.” He stirs the accompaniments into both before sliding one of the mugs across the marble countertop in front of me. “I can’t wait to go back.”

“Sounds like you had a blast. I’d love to travel to Europe someday.” I blow across the steam rising from my cup before taking a sip, unable to contain the tiny moan of delight as both the smell and taste of the sweet coffee engulfs my senses.

“You definitely should,” he says matter-of-factly. I can feel his heavy stare on me, and against my better judgment, I peer over at him, careful to keep my gaze above his neck. “Especially now that you’ve got nothing holding you back, Ms. Sullivan.”

Reality slams down around me with the reference to my recently single status along with the asshole’s last name. I’ve officially hit an all-time low as I stand in my kitchen thinking marginally indecent thoughts about a kid nearly half my age, imagining he’s actually flirting with me. It’s time to end this conversation. Now.

“Yeah, I guess I don’t.” Forcing a tight-lipped smile, I turn to leave the kitchen, still mentally berating myself for acting like a pathetic idiot. “I’m going to paint for a while. Make yourself at home, Gray,” I call out over my shoulder before disappearing into my safe haven.

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Erin Noelle is a Texas native, where she lives with her husband and two young daughters. While earning her degree in History at the University of Houston, she rediscovered her love for reading that was first instilled by her grandmother when she was a young child. A lover of happily-ever-afters, both historical and current, Erin is an avid reader of all romance novels. In 2013, she published the Book Boyfriend Series, which included books Metamorphosis, Ambrosia, Euphoria, and Timeless, and recently published When the Sun Goes Down, a contemporary romance novel. Her books have been a part of the USA Today Bestselling list and the Amazon and Barnes & Noble overall Top 100.