Excerpt of Impossible

I want to begin this post by thanking A Dash of YA, and Erica and Michelle for their support during my launch week. I really appreciate all the promoting they have done and the hard work they have put into helping me out. Many thanks to the both of you! <3

Let me just say how overwhelmed I am by the response to Impossible. I never imagined that Impossible would reach the Top 10,000 on Amazon Kindle, let alone be ranked around #1,000 with some of my favourite authors! I am so very grateful to everyone who purchased a copy or spread the word, and especially grateful to the people who loved it. Thank you so, so, so much!

Today, I'm going to be posting an excerpt of Impossible for you. It's one of my favourite scenes between the two main characters, Ashton and Luca. Hope you enjoy it!

The noise from a lawnmower woke me from my sleep. Groaning, I rolled over and stared at my bedside clock with bleary eyes. 7:13 A.M? Who in their right mind would cut grass this early on a Saturday morning? Hadn’t they heard of something called sleeping in?

Somehow, I managed to get out of bed without tripping over my sheets. The sun shone into my room and, across from my window, Luca’s blinds were drawn. Trust him to be able to sleep through all this noise.

I headed along the corridor and peered out the window that overlooked our front yard, hoping to catch a glimpse of the annoying neighbor who’d disturbed my sleep. My mouth fell open when I saw our grass was being cut…by someone absolutely gorgeous. His back was turned to me, so all I could make out was dark brown hair and a tanned, muscular back, but holy hell was this a great way to wake up on a Saturday. Mom must’ve finally hired someone to mow the lawn, but did it really have to be at this ungodly hour?

“Mom!” I cried as I stomped downstairs, cursing the world.

Mom was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee. She peered at me over the top of her newspaper and ‘tsked’. “Ash, will you keep it down? I just got your brother to bed an hour ago. He was up all night with an ear ache.”

“I was trying to sleep too, but I got woken up by that racket.” I gesticulated wildly with my hands. “I mean, the guy’s pretty cute, but still!”

Mom raised an eyebrow. “Did you actually see him?”

“Only from the back, and what a nice back it was.”

A smile formed on Mom’s lips which confused me. What was she all happy about? Not that I was complaining. It was nice to get a genuine smile from her after the whole Elly debacle. I guess I’d made it a lot worse by fighting with her and blaming her for all my problems, but I really wanted to get past it.

“Why don’t you take a pitcher of lemonade out to him?” Mom suggested, “I’m sure he must be thirsty.”

“Why not?” I shrugged. “It’s not like I can get back to sleep.”

Grabbing the pitcher of lemonade from the fridge and a glass from the cupboard, I slipped on my flip-flops and opened up the front door. Sunlight streamed directly into my vision and I squinted, shading my eyes with a hand. Septembers in Statlen usually varied in temperature. Some days the weather was cool and other days, like today, it felt like we were in the middle of summer.

My eyes wandered around the yard and I saw that most of the grass had been cut and there was just the edges around the fence left to do The guy was bent over the lawn mower and hadn’t noticed me, but I noticed something about him. Something that unsettled me.

He had a sleeve of tattoos on his left arm.

No way. There was no way that could be him. “H-hello?” I called out tentatively, still not sure what I was seeing.

He stood up and my mouth dropped open. Oh, sweet baby Jesus. It was him.

Luca Byron was standing shirtless on my front lawn with beads of sweat dripping down his rock hard abs. I mean, they looked rock hard. It’s not like I’d touched them before but, boy, did I want to. What was even stranger was that he looked, well, normal.

For starters, his hair was brown, not black. He must have dyed it back to its actual color, and it wasn’t spiked up like a porcupine. His hair looked soft and just fell into his eyes—he’d also gotten a haircut. There was no black eyeliner around his eyes either. He looked…there were no words to describe how he looked. I was blown away.

Luca tilted his head to the side and walked towards me slowly. “Is that for me?”

“Huh?” My brain wasn’t working. I couldn’t recall what I’d come out here to do.

“The lemonade. Is it for me? I’m pretty thirsty.” He stopped right in front of me and folded his arms across his chest, making the muscles in his arms bulge.

Oh. My. God. I was going to have to take back everything I’d ever said about Luca Byron. He was gorgeous, he was hot, and he was sexy. How? How could such small changes to his appearance have such a big impact on the way he looked? I mean, yeah, he’d always been good looking, but the rocker look had kind of obscured that. And those muscles, that body, those abs…where had they come from?

“Ashton,” he said, a smirk on his lips. “If you keep looking at me like that then I’m gonna have to do something about it.”

My face flushed red hot, and I quickly handed him the glass. He watched me closely as I poured the lemonade into it, my hand shaking the entire time. Luca was having such a profound effect on me that I couldn’t even manage something as simple as pouring.

He quickly downed the glass and I refilled it, trying to get my shakes under control. At one point, Luca covered my hand with his to control the shaking, and I thought I was going to pass out from his proximity to me.

When he’d had a third glass, he handed it back to me and pulled his shirt from where he’d tucked it into the back of his jeans. His green eyes glinted as he wiped the sweat from his chest, his eyes never leaving mine. Not once did I look away—I don’t think I was capable of moving—and he seemed to be enjoying the attention I was giving him.

He stuck the shirt in the back of his jeans, a smile playing around his mouth.

“You haven’t said a word.” He leaned in closer until his lips were inches away from mine. “That’s not like you at all. Normally, you’d be calling me a freak by now. Are you sick?”

“Um…” Come on! I had to get a hold on myself. This was getting ridiculous. “I’m…just surprised, that’s all. What happened to the crazy hair and the ugly clothes?”

Luca shrugged. “It was time for a change. Why? Is it bothering you?” There was a playful hint to his voice, and I could tell he was teasing me. He was probably loving my reaction.

“No, why would it bother me?” I snapped.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you like what you see.”

“I do not!” I argued, but judging from his broadening grin, I could tell I didn’t sound too convincing. Time for a change of subject. “Why are you cutting our grass anyway?”

“Just being a good Samaritan.”

“Uh huh,” I said, not wanting to buy into this whole “good guy” act for a second. “And is this something that you devil worshippers do for fun?”

He seemed amused that I’d called him a devil worshipper. “Yeah, every full moon. Then we go and sacrifice lambs and use their blood to…”

“Ugh, you’re disgusting!” I cut him off, not wanting to hear anymore.

“You started it,” he said and jabbed me on the collarbone. His finger lingered there and I shivered. “Is that what gets you in the mood? Pretty kinky.”

He laughed as I shot him daggers and stormed back inside, splashing lemonade everywhere as I went. Did he have to be so damn annoying and hot at the same time? Ugh! And I’d just thought he was hot! Kill me now!

The door slammed shut behind me and I stomped into the kitchen where Mom was sitting with this smug expression on her face. She glanced up as I slammed the lemonade down on the counter.

“The cute guy mowing our lawn drank a lot of lemonade,” she remarked in a light tone as she folded up her newspaper and set it aside. I didn’t bother mentioning that I’d spilt half of it on my way back inside.

“Mom!” I raged. “You knew it was him and you sent me outside on purpose! I can’t stand him—he’s so full of himself!”