Check out this short excerpt from one of my latest works in progress! Enjoy.

No date set on this yet. lol Don’t want to over promise, so I’ll just say…stay tuned. 😉

LOVE HURTS  |  SABRENA
(An excerpt from Book 3  of the Temptation Series)

“So, you’re good?” Quincy asked.

“Uhh, yeah.” I saved the unedited document again and shut down my laptop. “I’m on it. If you need anything else or if something comes up, call me. And I’ll call Tashi tomorrow…let her know that I’ll be back in town on the fifteenth.”

“She’ll be glad to hear that. We were just talking about you last weekend. How you haven’t been home in a few months.”

I frowned. “I was home two weeks ago.”

“Landing on a Saturday afternoon and staying long enough to wash clothes and pack again for a flight out the next morning is really what you want to call being home?” Quincy paused, almost like he was considering whether or not he should say more. “She’s just worried about you, Bree,” he finally admitted. “We both are.”

“I appreciate that, Q, but I’m good.”

“All right.”

I noticed that Quincy matched my tone and I relaxed, satisfied that he was choosing not to press me on the issue. He was smart enough to recognize that trying me now would be a total waste of his time and energy because, apparently, Tashi must have schooled him on what she and my sisters have always termed as my “obstinate nature.”

The call ended, and I placed my phone on the nightstand.

It was what it was.

I suppose I got my resolve honestly. Maybe a willful disposition is a given when you are the third girl born to a father desperate for a boy. Since there were no more siblings after me, I accepted the charge and fulfilled his dream as best I could. Far from the son he’d prayed for, I did my best impression and wholeheartedly adopted the practical principles he instilled in me. Even when puberty hit, I maintained my grit and reason while still making room for mini-skirts, nail art and inappropriate boys.

My transition into womanhood was just as pragmatic with matters of my heart carefully laid out much like every other challenge I confronted on my way to college. I knew love. I chose several boyfriends along the way, resulting in good relationships, great times and amicable goodbyes. Never bitter, I remained open to the next rendezvous, never expecting to one day be knocked on my ass in the same manner that my sisters and girlfriends had experienced so many times during our teen years…all while I sashayed along with not one care in the world, essentially unscathed.

But then it finally happened. To me.

Knocked. Flat. On. My. Ass.

I didn’t choose him, but Rowe Washington changed me. His appearance was like magic, our relationship a subtle permeation of my heart and mind, a glorious invasion so addictive that I rose above reason into an oblivious euphoria…then he left me. Cold and confused and completely unable to recover from my graceless free fall to heartbreak.

And I never saw it coming.

How could I?

Up until that point, I’d been totally clueless to that dimension where the heart and mind warred — no one had ever described to me how it would actually feel. Sure, my sisters whined and my girlfriends wailed…but no one ever fully explained the palpable, physical pain of it or how that pain would spark a dozen other crippling emotions and throw a big ass party in my mind, robbing me of any natural ability to think, to eat, to laugh.

And the torturous nights…

Sleep regularly escaped me. All those endless, empty hours to fully absorb the extent of my brokenness until the weight of it stole my breath somewhere around 2:37AM and forced hot, silent tears from my eyes, triggering sobs and snot and subsequent congestion as I plummeted even deeper into complete and utter misery…

Nobody ever told me that love actually hurt.

But I refused to admit that pain to anyone.

Not even to myself.