Excerpt Reveal: Defiant Attraction by V.K. Torston

Defiant Attraction releases November 16th!

A Contemporary, new adult, erotic romance

Pre-order: Amazon

About the Book

Dan might be the enemy of my enemy, but I’m not sure that makes him my friend. He’s definitely not my ‘step brother’, no matter what everyone at school says. Honestly, I don’t know what he’s supposed to be to me. Or what he’s becoming…

Fact: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

In the yearbook, I’ll be Sophia Ramos: Valedictorian. Years of honor roll certificates, AP classes, and lugging around an obnoxiously large cello case are about to finally pay off. If everything goes according to plan, I’ll escape these decaying suburbs for a top university across the country.

The problem? A few years ago, my mom met someone just as broke, just as drunk, and just as impulsive as she is. Approximately five seconds into their relationship, they decided it would be an excellent idea for him—and his son, Dan—to move in with us. (Spoiler alert: it wasn’t).

Now I share a house with none other than Daniel Cole. Even though Dan dropped out two years ago, he’s still the tattooed, bad boy, heartthrob, legend of St. Anthony’s Academy. He and I aren’t supposed to have anything in common.

Living together means war. First, Dan and I were at war with each other. Now, our rivalry is giving way to an unlikely alliance—two opposing sides teaming up against a common enemy: our respective parents.

Which is to say, we’ve been hanging out.

Question: What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

Here’s the thing: My brain is a complex organ. One hundred billion neurons, each with an average of seven thousand synaptic connections to other neurons. My brain is my ticket out of here.

My heart, by contrast, is a pump. It moves blood around.

I know Dan is off-limits. I know I shouldn’t do something I’ll regret. And I know how much is at stake (my family, my future).

So why can’t I stop thinking about him? Those inscrutable jade eyes. The smile that can say a thousand different things at once. That tattoo curving across his abs…

Even though I know better, I feel that pounding in my chest. And it’s getting harder to ignore.

But if I follow my heart, I can never go back.

Answer: There is no such thing as an immovable object.

Excerpt

Twisting the tray from side to side breaks the ice with a satisfying crack. I’ve almost
gone so far as to pour water into my glass before I stop. Memories from last night
surface and I recall sitting up in bed picking popcorn out of my bra.
Dan is wearing elastic-waist pajamas. I can see the edge of his boxer-briefs peeking
out of the top but their waistline is much the same scenario. Everything has been so
relaxed today. He’s perfectly content—humming to himself!—while he finishes
scrubbing the sink. He would never see it coming.
I pad softly across the linoleum, careful not to make a sound. The glass of ice waits
poised in my hand. Dan finishes rinsing the sponge. In one fell swoop I wrench back a
handful of pajama-and- boxer and let loose a frozen torrent.
Dan jumps, surprised, but he’s still reacting more to the grabbing than anything. While
he knows something has happened, he doesn’t yet know what.
I can’t contain my devious grin while he searches my face. Then—there it is. A yelp, a
jump, a shake. Cube after freezing cube tumbles from his pant legs. More yet are
trapped inside his underwear. He hops from foot to foot and tries to push them out.
Then he changes strategy.
“You little—”
“No!” I squeal, giggling wildly, and tear out of the kitchen.
I circle the table and he pauses just across its diameter. I try to feint left. He jerks then
corrects his course and lunges. I backtrack.
We’re stuck in a dead heat. A draw. One of us will have to make a break for it.
Throwing caution into the wind, I take off away from the table and leap over the
couch. He struggles to follow my maneuver. Probably something to do with the
glassful of ice melting in his underwear. I can’t stop shrieking like a child and waving
my hands like an idiot. If I don’t make it to my room, he’s going to tickle the fuck out of
me.
My heart leaps as I crash through my door and tug it closed behind me. It stops short
of snapping shut. One tattooed arm pries it open.
I jump back and seize a pillow from my bed like a shield. “No!”
Then the tickle-fingers. Just the sight of them breaks something inside me and I start
laughing so hard I can’t breathe. Once, twice, three times I whack him with my pillow.
He yanks it away and I trip backward onto my bed.
We land hard and he quickly takes both the figurative and literal upper hand. One
knee wedges between my legs to keep me from kicking. His hands snatch my wrists in
turn, pinning them above my head.
Dead heat. Stalemate. My armpits are terribly exposed but he can’t tickle me as long as
he’s holding me down. My chest rises and falls as fast as my heartbeat. Desperate
laughs push through my tight-pressed lips.
This close, his face a spare few inches from mine, I notice a field of freckles for the
very first time. Light, almost invisible, they dust his nose and cheeks. Freckles don't
seem like something Dan should have.
The lunatic laughter dies in my throat but my chest still rises and falls. A muscle in his
jaw works. Green eyes dart rapidly between mine, thinking. About what, I’m not sure.
When we landed, his chest pressed down against mine. Now I feel his thin, worn
sleeping t-shirt against my thin, worn sleeping t-shirt. No bra in between. On either
side, only skin.
His hands, coiled around my wrists. My breasts, curving against his chest. Our lips,
inches apart. This is starting to look like…something.
Our eyes stay locked. The longer we remain like this, the more the next movement
matters. The stakes are shooting up. Maybe, if I could move, I could just tickle him
back…
His knee shifts a fraction, hardly anything at all. Or maybe I imagined it. A rush of heat
flows between my legs—so strong and so sudden I’m sure he could feel it. The fabric is
so thin it might as well be bare skin. Goosebumps erupt down my arms. My nipples
pull to points against him. He must feel them too.
I’ve been staring into his eyes so long…however long this has been—an infinity— and I
mark their swift change. Something has happened there. Some choice, some
determination…
Some noise rises from my throat. I’m not even sure if it was a sound or just a feeling,
but I sense how it changed me. The space between us starts to close.

About the Author

V.K. Torston is a millennial and ‘cool aunt’ to a brood of nieces and nephews. She was born and raised in San Francisco, attended university in New York City, and aspires to one day live in London. A veteran of the independent music scene, she began writing nonfiction in her late teens. Then she realized that making up stories was way more fun than coming up with endless synonyms for ‘frenetic’ and ‘danceable.’ Her hobbies include drinking too much coffee, making up stupid songs, and ranting about current events. Defiant Attraction is her first novel.