This was love.
He breathed me in. Minutes passed, perhaps hours. I don’t know. All I knew was him and the way he made me feel. Exquisite and precious. Like I was the queen of his world. As the constellations watched from above, as the night sounds of the city buzzed in the background, as people went about their normal lives, we combusted. Like the most delicious white-hot fire.
We lunged for each other, both of us falling to the ground in a tangle of legs and arms.
He stripped me in seconds, his hands shaking with emotion.
I tore his tank off and traced every part of his tat with my tongue. I kissed his face, his neck, his shoulders, his chest.
“Forever,” he whispered against my bare skin, the devotion in his voice making my heart fly.
“Forever,” I promised.
And it was.
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Nora’s List of Good Things
Be true to myself. No more lies. No more Mother. No more hate.
Love Leo. My tiger. My soulmate.
Take Sebastian shopping for boots. He must lose the loafers.
Go to college and pay for it with my own money. Be independent. Maybe major in fashion design. Yes, yes, and yes.
Be happy.
Bonus Scene (snapshot of Leo and Nora’s future) available at http://www.ilsamaddenmills.com/
Coming in May 2014
Briarcrest Academy Book Number Two Very Wicked Things
Add it to your Goodreads To Be Read Pile https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18709986-very-wicked-things
Also read Very Wicked Beginnings, a prequel novella to Very Wicked Things.
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For more information about the next book, please visit my social media sites: http://www.ilsamaddenmills.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Author-Ilsa-MaddenMills/164946810330135?ref=hl
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7059622.Ilsa_Madden_Mills
About the Author –––––––– Ilsa Madden-Mills is a loving wife and mother, a loyal friend, and a teacher. When all that is done, she writes. Obsessively.
She spends her days with two small kids, a neurotic cat, and her Viking husband. She collects magnets and rarely cooks except to bake her own pretzels.
When she’s not typing away at a story, you can find her drinking too much Diet Coke, jamming out to Pink, or checking on her carefully maintained chocolate stash.
Acknowledgements
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There are so many fantastic people in the indie world that made this journey possible. Please know that my gratitude in no way lessens as the list continues.
For my author friend Lisa N. Paul (Lisa Spivak-Paul)—she kept me laughing at myself through our daily phone conversations and emails. I can’t imagine how Very Bad Things would have turned out if she hadn’t run her eagle eyes over it, blurb included. I adore her, and she is my touchstone in the indie world. I can’t wait to see you, Lisa! I’ll be more than just a picture on a stick.
For my author friend Jennifer La Rocca—as my writing partner and sweet friend, she was always there to let me vent. Our sprints together have kept me focused on writing.
For all the bloggers who were on my street team and took a chance on me—I bow down to you and all the time and hard work you do to get the word out about good books. Stephanie Locke of Rude Girl Blog; Sandy Roman Borrero, Lesley Hoffman, Jennifer Noe of The Book Blog; Maria Barquero of Maria’s Book Blog; Kim Harris of Crazies R US Book Blog; Diana Surgent of Confessions of a Book Heaux; Kimberly Kimball of Two Crazy Girls With a Passion for Books; Ann Moore, Kellie Montgomery, and Carrie Richardson-Horton of Eye Candy Store; Stephanie DeLamater Phillips of Stephanie’s Book Reports (who also was my fantastic blog tour organizer); Jennifer Wolfel and Toski Covey of Wolfel’s World of Books; Stacy Nickelson of It Started with Book Blog; Jess Danowski of Inside the Pages of a Book; and many other great blogs who participated in my release event and blog tour. I couldn’t have done it without any of you!
For all the people who sacrificed time to make my cover one of a kind—Toski Covey of Toski Covey Photography, a sweet girl I stumbled across when I admired her work on another novel. She took my ideas and ran with it, making my vision a reality. She blew my mind with her energy and willingness to pay it forward to someone she had never met. She took a chance on me, and I’ll never forget it; Sommer Stein of Perfect Pear Creative who designed my incredible graphics and always answered my one million and one emails; and Mariah Jane, the gorgeous redhead who graces the cover of Very Bad Things. You all rock!