Spotlight on Feeding the Fire by Andrea Laurence
Thanks for stopping by Vikki's Musings. Today, award winning author Andrea Laurence releases a saucy Southern romance featuring a hot firefighting hero! To celebrate FEEDING THE FIRE's release with publisher Simon & Schuster, the author is giving away the Rosewood series as well as a $100 American Express gift card. You will find the link to the Rafflecopter drawing below.
Blurb:
Pepper has no interest in Grant
Chamberlain…until she accidentally wins him at a school auction and finds the
mega-hot firefighter impossible to ignore. Find out what happens next in the
second playful and sexy ebook romance in the Rosewood series!
Living in the small town of Rosewood, Alabama,
hairdresser Pepper Anthony has one rule—never date a Chamberlain. She’s always
said, “the only thing worse than being ignored by a Chamberlain is being dumped
by one.” But Grant Chamberlain, town fireman, isn’t used to rejection, and
Pepper has consistently turned him down since high school. She isn’t
intimidated by his family; she’s one of the few who refuses to take their crap.
When Grant volunteers at the charity bachelor
auction, to his surprise, Pepper buys him. She hadn’t meant to, but Adelia
Chamberlain dropped a cold drink in her lap, sending her leaping into the air
at precisely the wrong moment. Suddenly she had a massive bill to the town and
Grant at her disposal. Since the money has to come from her “restore the house”
fund, she decides to use Grant for manual labor instead of romantic dinners.
Grant is happy to help, sweaty and shirtless, because one way or another, he’s
going to get Pepper to admit she’s attracted to him. All it takes is a small spark,
and soon they’ll be fanning the flames.
Excerpt:
Grant stepped out from
behind the curtain to a roar of applause. The minute the lights hit him, Pepper
felt her heart skip a beat in her chest like she’d been hit with paddles of a
defibrillator. He was wearing a black, slim-fit suit with a black shirt and
tie. Even though he was indoors and it was nighttime, he was wearing his
trademark Ray-Ban sunglasses. The glasses always seemed to accent the square
line of his jaw and the sharp angle of his nose.
His full lips curled
into his charming smile, with the slightest hint of a dimple visible on his
cheek. It reminded her of him looking at her, just like that, from between her
trembling thighs.
Damn him for being so
sexy. His confidence made him that much more attractive. And frustrating. And
irritating. Her fingers itched to reach for her paddle, but she resisted. She
wasn’t going to pay for his time, even when he smiled at her that way.
“The lucky lady with the
winning bid will go with Grant to a romantic dinner at Brio’s in Birmingham and
if she likes, he’ll take her on an exhilarating ride down a windy country road
on the back of his motorcycle.”
Pepper could almost see
all the wild fantasies rushing through the heads of every woman in the room. It
was a nice thought—hair blowing in the wind, thighs clamped around Grant’s
narrow hips, arms wrapped around his waist. Even she could imagine the hard
feel of his abs beneath the thin cotton of his T-shirt and the vibration of the
engine against her most sensitive parts. There was a rumble of approval as they
readied their paddles and sized up their competition.
Good luck to them,
Pepper thought.
Like a beach ball
bouncing around the room, the bids flew fast and furious. Before long, they’d
topped three thousand.
Suddenly Pepper felt
awkward. Even though she and Grant weren’t dating, she didn’t exactly want to
sit around and watch other women battle for him. Looking around the room, she
spied Adelia Chamberlain coming back to her table with a glass of ice water.
Maybe another drink would help. Or perhaps it was the right time for a restroom
break. She could beat all the other women that would rush the ladies’ room when
the auction ended.
Pepper slipped her purse
onto her shoulder and picked up her paddle so she could dump it in the bathroom
trash can. “I’m going to get some air,” she whispered to Ivy, then started to
get up.
The ambush was sudden
and unexpected. When they first came in Pepper had noticed the cable that the
A/V people had taped to the floor, but the room was much darker now. Adelia
didn’t see it and caught the toe of her shoe on it. She didn’t fall, thank
goodness, but she did stumble, slinging her full glass of ice water into
Pepper’s lap.
With a cry of surprise
and alarm, Pepper leapt out of her chair, holding her arms high to avoid the
water that practically covered her from neck to knees.
“Four thousand!” Allison
Price announced from the stage.
The MC’s words were an
even larger shock to Pepper than the water. She turned her head toward Grant
and the action onstage. He was looking straight at her with a wide smile of
confidence across his face. He winked at her, and Pepper felt her stomach sink
into her boot. Allison was pointing in Pepper’s direction, trying to coax a
higher bid out of the audience.
Yes, please, she
screamed in her head. Make it forty-five hundred. Hell, make it four thousand
and one penny. Just outbid her. She was answered with deafening silence. The
only one in the room making a sound was Allison up on stage. It seemed that
suddenly, all the battling women seemed to give up. Even Grant wasn’t worth
that much, it seemed, and she agreed.
“No!” Pepper shouted,
but there was no stopping it.
“Going once . . . going
twice . . .”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“Sold! To the lady in
the blue sweaterdress, paddle twenty-two!”
Pepper looked down at
her dark blue sweater, suddenly made even darker by the spreading water mark.
Her damned paddle, the one she never wanted to begin with, was still in her
hand. She watched as it slipped from her fingers, clattering to the ground in
slow motion as the gravity of the situation caught up with her. Four thousand
dollars. She’d just bid four thousand dollars. Because of well-aimed ice water.
“Oh, Pepper,” Miss
Adelia fussed, dabbing her with an inadequate cocktail napkin and shaking off
the well-meaning hands of the folks that were more concerned about the older
woman nearly falling. “I am so sorry. I didn’t even see that silly cord,” she
said. “Is your dress okay?”
She couldn’t respond.
All Pepper could do was close her eyes and try to keep the tears of frustration
and aggravation from rushing down her cheeks.
She had just paid four
thousand dollars for a date with Grant Chamberlain.
Author Biography
Andrea Laurence has
been a lover of reading and writing stories since she learned to read at
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