One night was never going to be enough.
Margo Ashby doesn't do reckless. She's the flyer everyone trusts to land it, the pre-law junior with a five-year plan and a smile that never slips. So the night she ends up in Theo Mercer's bed — the Ravens' scowling, tattooed, impossible-to-read defenseman — is supposed to be a onetime lapse in judgment.
A secret.
A mistake she can file away and never mention again.
It isn't.
Theo doesn't have room for anyone. He's got one goal: get drafted, get his mom out of the town that broke her, get out. He doesn't need a golden-girl cheerleader who smiles like she's never been let down — even though he knows better than most that the smile is a wall, not a window. He tells himself that once. Then he's back at her door.
One night becomes a standing arrangement neither of them will call by name. The arrangement becomes something they can't stop reaching for.
Now they're hiding a relationship neither of them can explain, bracing for a future neither of them planned, and falling — fast, hard, and completely against the rules — in the space between practices, playoffs, and the family Theo swore he'd never let himself trust again. And when a positive test blows their careful nothing-relationship wide open, there's no more pretending this was ever casual.
Margo's always had to earn love by being perfect. Theo's always known people leave. They're about to find out what happens when two people who don't believe in forever can't stay out of each other's way long enough to prove themselves wrong.
Genre: Romance
Margo Ashby doesn't do reckless. She's the flyer everyone trusts to land it, the pre-law junior with a five-year plan and a smile that never slips. So the night she ends up in Theo Mercer's bed — the Ravens' scowling, tattooed, impossible-to-read defenseman — is supposed to be a onetime lapse in judgment.
A secret.
A mistake she can file away and never mention again.
It isn't.
Theo doesn't have room for anyone. He's got one goal: get drafted, get his mom out of the town that broke her, get out. He doesn't need a golden-girl cheerleader who smiles like she's never been let down — even though he knows better than most that the smile is a wall, not a window. He tells himself that once. Then he's back at her door.
One night becomes a standing arrangement neither of them will call by name. The arrangement becomes something they can't stop reaching for.
Now they're hiding a relationship neither of them can explain, bracing for a future neither of them planned, and falling — fast, hard, and completely against the rules — in the space between practices, playoffs, and the family Theo swore he'd never let himself trust again. And when a positive test blows their careful nothing-relationship wide open, there's no more pretending this was ever casual.
Margo's always had to earn love by being perfect. Theo's always known people leave. They're about to find out what happens when two people who don't believe in forever can't stay out of each other's way long enough to prove themselves wrong.
Genre: Romance
Used availability for Tamsyn Bester's The Penalty