Release Blitz: 24 Roses by Elena M. Reyes
Title: 24 Roses
Author: Elena M. Reyes
Genre: Contemporary/Erotic Romance
Release Date: March 27, 2017
24 roses.
24 days filled with declarations of
love.
24 moments where life will mark her as
mine.
I’ve loved Anahi Pratt since she
moved in next door at the age of twelve. With her knobby knees and a
mouthful of braces, she made my heart thump harshly inside my
prepubescent chest. One look into the greenest eyes I’d ever seen,
and I was hooked for life. Owned.
However, I was tongue-tied and confused
and did the only thing I could: offer my friendship.
Over the years, those feelings never
changed. Instead, they grew—morphed into something deep and
profound. But never once did she see me as more than a friend. Never
did she see the man that worshipped the ground she walked on. The man
that needed to be what she wanted. Needed.
I stayed on the sidelines until that
day:
A crash.
Her life on the line and my world came
to a screeching halt.
Life is short and changes in the blink
of an eye, a lesson I suddenly understood. There wasn’t a second to
wait. No more hiding behind the guise of friendship.
She was mine, and it was time I claimed
her.
“How can you say that with this
hideous scar on my thigh?” Fuck, she could be as stubborn as a
mule.
“That scar…” I hissed out, my
eyes searching the floor around her feet for the broken glass I’d
heard fall through the door. It was nothing big. A small figurine
broken in two pieces. Taking the remaining steps between us, I paused
in front of her. “This is proof that what could have been
tragic…wasn’t.” Taking her face in my hands, I tipped it up and
lowered my forehead to hers. “It means that you are okay and here
with me. That a drunken asshole crying over his divorce didn’t take
the most important thing in my life away.”
“Stop.” Prying my hands from her
face, she brought them between us and squeezed. “It isn’t your
job to fix this. I was the one that left the jerk I’d agreed to
have dinner with mid-meal and drove off in a rush. I was the one that
didn’t notice the car not stopping as his light turned red. I was
the one that put herself in this position time and time again.”
“Fuck are you talking about, Anahi?”
Every muscle within me tensed as I waited for her to explain herself.
“That I should’ve listened to you
when it came to the men I dated.”
Staring into her sad green eyes, my
heart clenched. Her pain was mine. “Shit happens, and it was not
your fault.”
“Had I been paying attention and not
thinking about the ‘what ifs I…” Anahi’s face bloomed with a
sudden rush of embarrassment.
“Tell me.” She shook her head.
“Please.”
“You want to know? Because trust me,
I remember everything about that night.” Letting out a bitter
chuckle, she stepped back and released my hands. I missed her warmth
immediately. “Fuck!” Ani yelled out while turning around. Placing
her hands on the top of her dresser, she hung her head. A sob was
caught in her throat, and I rushed forward to wrap her in my arms.
The pain medication she’d been on
tended to make her emotions fluctuate a bit.
“Talk to me, babe.” With my arms
secured around her waist, I pulled her in closer. Ignored what the
feel of her warm skin against my own created. “Let me in.”
“I’m sorry.” Wiping at her eyes,
Anahi took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Didn’t mean
to pull the crazy chick card on you.” This was said with a laugh,
but there was real hurt behind the action. “There’s too much
going on upstairs, and I don’t know how to handle it. Between
nightmares and anger, it’s a constant roller coaster.”
“Start from the beginning,” I
hummed against the top of her head. “You’ve never wanted to give
me details about that night. Always vague and avoiding—something
about what happened is hurting you. Let me in, dollface.”
“Why do you always call me pet
names?” Diversion tactic if I ever heard one; that, and she needed
her ego stroked. Not that I minded in the least. For some unknown
reason, Ani felt as if the small scar over her sculpted brow was this
heinous thing that offended the world.
“Because I can.”
A huff, and then a smack to my arm.
“That’s not an answer.”
“And neither is yours. Tell me what’s
eating you up inside, Ani.”
“Every time I close my eyes, I see
those high-beam lights coming at me followed close by the sound of
screeching tires.” A shiver so hard ran through her that it rocked
me to my core. All I could do was hold her tighter, with my presence
show her that I was here for her. “Next came the sound of metal
bending—caving in on itself—as a searing pain shot up the side of
my body. It burned. The intense jolt caused me to almost black out,
but even as everything intensified around me, I had only one thought
in my head.”
“Say it,” I whispered low into the
crown on her head.
Running her fingers over my hand, she
shook her head. “Doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things,
Bryson, but it’s those what ifs that eat me alive. I’ve lost time
I don’t know if I could ever get back.”
“You want to know what tortures me
about that night?” Turning her around so my blue eyes could meet
her green ones, I placed my hands at her hips and squeezed them
lightly before holding her in place. No more hiding. Anahi wasn’t
running away from the damn truth that was currently smacking us in
the face.
Bringing a shaking hand up, she cupped
my jaw. “What?”
“The fact that I almost lost you when
I’d just realized that I’ve always owned you.”
Elena M. Reyes was born and raised in
Miami Florida. She is the epitome of a Floridian and if she could
live in her beloved flip-flops, she would.
As a small child, she was always
intrigued with all forms of art—whether it was dancing to island
rhythms, or painting with any medium she could get her hands on. Her
first taste of writing came to her during her fifth grade year when
her class was prompted to participate in the D. A. R. E. Program and
write an essay on what they’d learned.
Her passion for reading over the years
has amassed her with hours of pleasure. It wasn't until she stumbled
upon fanfiction that her thirst to write overtook her world. She now
resides in Central Florida with her husband and son, spending all her
down time letting her creativity flow and letting her characters
grow.
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