Total pages in book: 16
Estimated words: 13969 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 70(@200wpm)___ 56(@250wpm)___ 47(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 13969 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 70(@200wpm)___ 56(@250wpm)___ 47(@300wpm)
Cat should be afraid of Brigan—the devastatingly gorgeous stranger at a Halloween party whose very presence makes everyone else fall at his feet. But while his supernatural allure drives others to mindless obsession, Cat somehow keeps her wits…even as she surrenders to temptation. When this cursed being realizes she alone can see his true nature, one night of searing passion could break a centuries-old spell—or doom them both.
Christina Lauren’s Falling is part of Scared Sexy, a deliciously dark collection of Halloween romance where things that go bump in the night might just steal your heart. These seductive stand-alone stories blend chills and heat in the perfect Halloween treat—each designed to be devoured in one sitting
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Chapter One
There was an infinite number of things Cat would rather be doing tonight, and the options scrolled through her mind as she trailed behind Jake down Lexington: Sitting on the couch in her apartment with a glass of wine and a movie. A dinner out with her best friend back home in Denver. A hot shower, a cold beer. A massage, a concert, the ballet.
She’d even take something as typically unappealing as a few hours in a dentist chair right now. Short of terrible illness or injury, Cat couldn’t think of anything much worse than attending a Halloween party hosted by the best friend of a guy she planned to break up with later.
Cat and Jake had been together for only three months, so there was no real devastation involved, just exasperation. He was cute and funny and always happy enough to spend time with her, but he was oblivious in the way that so many guys were: He was willing to put in the effort, but only if she told him precisely what that effort entailed. A quiet night at Jake’s apartment often found Cat squashed between a handful of guys on a shabby couch as they shouted at whatever basketball game was on the TV. If she suggested they do something, just the two of them, he’d take her out for sports trivia at a rowdy bar or a quick bite somewhere before heading back to his place for sex.
Basketball and trivia and bars and sex were fine for now, but Cat had realized earlier—when Jake appeared at her doorstep not in the agreed-upon shepherd’s robe to match her stupid lamb costume but dressed as his favorite Knicks player—that he mostly forgot about her the moment she left the room. The fact that they were still relative strangers wasn’t really a surprise, but given that Jake was either unknowable or not very deep, he and Cat were likely going to remain strangers even if they stayed together for the next fifty years.
So, no, she wasn’t upset about ending things. The sadness came whenever she considered that Jake—even barely knowing him—was still her closest friend here in New York. It was hard to make friends when most of your time was spent studying or in class, especially when the only free time you did have was monopolized by a beer-drinking, sports-watching, fine-for-now kind of guy like Jake. She only wished this realization would have occurred to her three months ago.
Already a little buzzed from pregaming with his friends, Jake pushed open the front door to Harry’s brownstone and walked in ahead of her. Tossing their coats on the couch, he clapped friends on the back and greeted a half dozen people before it occurred to him that Cat knew nobody here except for Harry—messy, loud Harry, always with a nauseating string of spit connecting his upper and lower lip—and turned around to take her hand, dragging her through the room.
“Ellie . . . Nova . . . Ashley! Nice costume, girl!” He dropped these names without offering hers in return. Everyone smiled, friendly but vague, and Cat did her best to connect faces to names, to give her bright, wide-open smile, but they were moving through the crowded room too fast for anything to stick. “That guy over there is the other Jake, we call him Ohio Jake . . .” Still walking, still a blur. “Ting, Ava . . . that’s Asher . . . Sophie! It’s been fucking forever!”
In the kitchen, he tugged on Cat’s hand again, leading her to a keg where he poured beer into a red plastic cup. Foam rose up and spilled over the lip as he distractedly handed it to her. Jake pressed a hard kiss to her cheek. “You good?” he asked.
She frowned at him, understanding immediately: He was going to pawn her off on someone. “I’m fine, but where are you—”