A Little Too Much by Lisa Desrochers
November 12, 2013
William Morrow Impulse
New Adult Contemporary Romance
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In the follow-up to Lisa Desrochers’ explosive New Adult novel A Little too Far, Alessandro Moretti must face the life he escaped and the girl he loved and left behind.
Twenty-two year old Hilary McIntyre would like nothing more than to forget her past. As a teenager abandoned to the system, she faced some pretty dark times. But now that’s all behind her. Hilary has her life on track, and there’s no way she’ll head back down that road again.
Until Alessandro Moretti—the one person who can make her remember—shows up on her doorstep. He’s even more devastatingly gorgeous than before, and he’s much too close for comfort. Worse, he sees right through the walls she’s built over these last eight years, right into her heart and the secrets she’s guarding.
As Hilary finds herself falling back into love with the man who, as a boy both saved and destroyed her, she must decide. Past or future? Truth or lies?
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I drop his cockroach down the front of his button-down as we’re sitting on the train back to Manhattan, and catch a glimpse of his abs when he opens his jacket and shakes his shirt to let it drop out.
And … wow.
Brett has a great body, which he works at constantly. When he’s not at rehearsal or a performance, he’s at the gym. I wonder if Alessandro is a gym rat too.
We ride the L to Eighth Avenue and climb the stairs to the street. But we’re not halfway up the stairs when I feel something fall into my cleavage from my shoulder. I press my hand between my boobs to keep it from falling farther down my shirt and fish his cockroach out of my bra.
He stops and watches with a grin plastered to his face. “Well, that worked out better than I could have hoped.”
“Very mature.” I pinch the bug between my thumb and finger and shake it in his face. “When you least expect it …” I shove it in my pocket and run up the last few stairs. But then I don’t know where I’m going, so I have to wait.
Alessandro knows this, of course, and emerges from the pit a few seconds later with a smirk. “By all means, after you,” he says, sweeping his hand toward Eighth.
I glare and turn back for the subway. “You know what? I changed my mind.”
He has a handful of my jacket sleeve before I reach the stairs and spins me to face him, grasping both my upper arms.
My heart thumps hard as he catches me in his smoldering gaze. I can feel the heat of his body, even through all our layers of winter wear, and I shudder with the sudden mind-flash of how it would feel to be this close without all those layers. His lips part, as if he’s feeling the same rush I am, and I decide right in this heartbeat that if he kisses me, I’m going to kiss him back. I picture our lips meeting—imagine how his would feel as they moved on mine, how they would taste. His eyes flare as he dips his head, his lips pausing just inches from mine. I stop breathing again, caught between wanting to close those last few inches, and wanting to bolt.
But I can’t bolt.
I tip my face up and gaze into his eyes, bright in the dark night. But just as a tiny moan escapes my throat, he steps back, breaking the spell.
“Tell me about your boyfriend,” he says. “How long have you been together?”
It takes me longer than it should to get my head together. “Boyfriend,” I say a little breathlessly. “Um … a year.”
Alessandro’s expression clears and he lets go of my arms. “Do you love him?”
A laugh explodes out of my chest.
His eyebrows arch. “I didn’t know I was making a joke.”
I shake my head. “I don’t do love.”
He tips his head in a way I’m starting to recognize as him questioning me.
“You think I’m lying?”
He stares down at me for a long minute, his eyes storming as he wages some internal war. “I didn’t say that,” he finally says.
“Then what are you saying?”
He stuffs his hands in his pockets and starts up the sidewalk. “Nothing.”
We walk along Eighth until it ends on Hudson, then make the turn onto Perry, the whole time never coming within three feet of each other. Alessandro fishes in his pocket as we take the corner and comes out with a key, which he sticks in the first door past the restaurant on the corner. “Home sweet home,” he says, moving aside for me to pass.
I slide by him, careful not to brush against him, and move to the elevator. He presses the call button and just as the door opens, an old woman with curly white hair steps through the front door.
We load in and Alessandro holds the elevator for her. “Mrs. Burke. How are you this evening?”
She punches three. “Wonderful, Alessandro. And who is this lovely young lady?” she asks turning to me.
Alessandro smiles at her as he hits five. “This is Hilary McIntyre. Hilary, Mrs. Burke.”
Mrs. Burke leans toward me and whispers, “He’s a good boy.” The door opens on three and she winks at me and steps out.
I stare at her with wide eyes as the elevator door closes. There’s no way Alessandro didn’t hear that. Does she think we’re on a date? Does he? Do I?
A minute later, the door opens on five. We spill out into a four-by-four landing with three doors. I’m too mortified to look at Alessandro as he sticks his key into the door toward the front of the building, marked 51, but the second I walk in, I’m totally coveting his apartment.
It’s small, but they didn’t wreck its character with a big remodel like so many other old apartments. It’s still got old-school radiators and the pipes are exposed in places. There are gouges in the hardwood floor and nicks in the white wooden door and window frames. There are even a few places where the crown moldings on the high ceilings are missing.
I love it.
In the middle of the room, next to a big blue chair, is a black leather sofa, and off to the right is the kitchen, with a black granite countertop separating it from the living room. On the left is the only door in the place, probably to the bathroom, since his double bed and a clunky antique dresser are in an alcove just past it, next to the window.
“This place is—”
“—so cool,” he finishes for me with a smile. “I do rather like it.”
“Just for that, I take it back.” But really I don’t. I start around the room, inspecting his prints. Most of them look an awful lot like some of the stuff we saw at the Met last week, so I guess he really likes that stuff.
“Can I offer you something to drink? Water? Wine?”
“What are you opening?” I turn back and look at him, where he’s moved behind the kitchen counter. He presses his iPhone into a small round speaker, and the music that starts isn’t what I expected. I was thinking some classical piano piece, or maybe something operatic, but it’s rock: Creed’s “With Arms Wide Open.”
There’s a flash of a memory—Alessandro tuning the radio in the rec room from the hip-hop station Trish left it on to something rockish.
“I was thinking about a chardonnay because I need something white to cook with,” he answers, lifting a bottle off the counter, “but I’m open to suggestions.”
I stroll toward the kitchen. “That sounds good.”
He uncorks the bottle, then waves the neck under his nose and sniffs at the end, nodding appreciatively.
“I forgot you like Creed,” I say with a nod at the speakers.
He glances that way as he pulls down two glasses. “Always have.”
“Thought you might have outgrown grunge,” I say with a smirk.
“Post-grunge,” he corrects, arching an eyebrow at me as he pours the wine. “My tastes are eclectic.”
I laugh. I can’t help it.
“I’m glad I amuse you,” he says with a secret smile, and something kicks in my chest.
“You do.” I move to the window because I suddenly feel in need of more distance between us. On the street below, I spy Mrs. Burke, picking up her pug’s poop with a baggy over her hand. A young couple with a baby in a stroller stops to talk to her. They all seem so friendly.
I haven’t known my neighbors since I was thirteen.
I feel something touch the back of my arm and I jump, swatting at the rubber bug I imagine there.
But it’s just Alessandro’s fingers. “Sorry. Your wine,” he says holding the glass out to me.
I sip it and it’s really good. “This is a great spot. Do you like it here?”
“I do,” he says, stepping up next to me in the window. “My family lived near here. I was hoping to find something in the neighborhood.”
I turn back to the apartment. “Studios are hard to find.”
His elbow brushes mine as he turns. I try to ignore the tightening in my belly at even that touch. “I was fortunate. Someone’s application had just fallen through when I was looking.”
I sip my wine and look out the window.
He steps back and looks at me. “Would you let me teach you how to throw a proper punch?”
The question surprises me. “Is that a skill I’m going to need in the next few minutes?”
An amused smile flashes over his face, but then his expression turns more serious. “I worry about you out there by yourself,” he says with a wave of his hand toward the window.
I shrug. “I’ve got the knee-to-the-balls and the finger-to-the-eye maneuvers down, so I think I’m probably okay.”
“And God forbid you should ever need to defend yourself against an attacker again, those will probably be more useful to you, but it can’t hurt to know how to deliver a solid blow.”
I nod. “All right.”
We step into a small open area between his couch and the kitchen counter and he takes my glass and sets it down. “Boxing is all about balance and leverage. You need to feel your base of support and stay on top of it. That gives you mobility and strength.” He lays his strong hands on my hips. “Don’t let me move you.”
I spread my legs slightly, and when he presses on one hip, pushing me to the side, I resist.
“Good,” he says.
He presses harder on my other hip and barely moves me, then raises his hands to my shoulders, and I hold my ground as pushes me in several directions in quick succession.
“Once you have your base of support,” he tells me, pressing his rolled-up sleeves higher on his forearms and drawing my attention to the lines of his muscles there, “you can either move or attack.” I lift my gaze to his face and know I’ve been caught looking when he raises an eyebrow. “Moving is definitely the better option. If you can run, always do. But if you’re cornered and you need to throw a punch, leverage your upper body off your solid base of support.”
“Meaning?”
He steps around behind me and gently grasps my forearms just below the elbow. “Meaning,” he says, lifting my arms, so my fisted hands are just under my chin and my bent elbows are against my ribs, “you need to keep everything close to the core until you’re ready to strike. They call it ‘throwing’ a punch for a reason. Stay balanced, then leverage off your base and throw your fist forward.”
I shoot my right fist out as fast as I can, jerking my arm out of his hand.
“Good,” he says. He draws my arm back to my side and I realize he’s pressed up against me, his whole front in contact with my whole back. I loose focus for a second when he lowers his hands to my hips. “Same thing, but snap your arm faster, then bring it right back to your core.”
I do as I’m told.
“Did you feel that?” he asks, laying his other hand flat and firm on my stomach. “If you’re strong here, in your core, that gives you a solid base to leverage off of.”
What I feel is his toned arms around me. What I feel is the irresistible urge to run my fingers over them and memorize the contours of the veins and muscles. What I feel is a tingle that zings out from my groin to his hand, low on my belly. But I’m pretty sure that’s not what he’s talking about. “Yeah.”
A shudder ripples over my skin at the feel of his breath in my hair, as if he’s lowered his face. His hands shift to my hips and his grip on me tightens. In that second, the urge to turn in his arms and stare into those dark, tortured eyes is almost unbearable.
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LISA DESROCHERS is the USA Today bestselling author of the A Little Too Far series, courtesy of HarperCollins, and the young adult Personal Demons trilogy from Macmillan. She lives in Northern California with her husband, two very busy daughters, and Shini the tarantula. Find her online at www.lisadwrites.com , on Twitter at @LisaDez, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LisaDesrochersAuthor.
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