Blog Tour: Hold Me Until Morning by Christina Phillips (Excerpt, Review, Giveaway, Buy Links)
Sorry this one’s posting so late tonight, folks. I had a scheduling mix-up–completely my fault–and thought I was posting on a different day. Can you tell it’s Monday?
Hold Me Until Morning
Book Two
194 Pages
Release Date: 09/28/2015
Publisher: Entangled Publishing | Imprint: Entangled Brazen
Genre: Romance | Contemporary Romance | Erotic Romance
Series: Grayson Brothers | Heat Level: Hot and Sizzling
She’s the one girl he should never touch…
Cooper Grayson is supposed to hole up in a mountain cabin and protect his best friend’s little sister from the paparazzi for a week. That’s it. But Paris O’Connell isn’t a kid anymore, and it’s hard to remember this is strictly business when she bats her big green eyes at him…then crashes through all his carefully placed boundaries.
Paris loves a challenge. And gorgeous Cooper Grayson is the most dangerous challenge she’s faced yet. He ignores the sizzling attraction that keeps her awake at nights, and he doesn’t care about her fame or her contacts, only seeing her. When they finally kiss, Cooper leaves her bare. Exposed. His for the taking. And take he does…
For one incredibly hot week, Cooper fulfils her every fantasy. But when the real world crashes in, so does reality. And reality tells them there’s no way a Hollywood star and a bad boy from the wrong side of town could ever have a future together…
Amazon | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | B&N | Kobo | iBooks
Keep reading for an excerpt, more teasers, plus a review and rating, details on how to enter a giveaway plus buy links and author info.
From Hold Me Until Morning by Christina Phillips:
As the door opened, panic hit her. Nobody ever saw her first thing in the morning, before she’d even had time to wipe the sleep from her eyes. Image was everything. She’d had that drummed into her from the moment she’d signed her first contract at the age of twelve. Even Hudson fucking Bartholomew, the supposed love of her life, had only ever seen her once before she’d had the chance to make herself look presentable.
The look on his face had been more than enough to convince her that guys simply didn’t want to see her looking like her normal rumpled self. Even after spending the night with her. Even if they supposedly loved her more than life itself, all they really wanted was the image.
It was too late to stop Cooper coming in now. She tugged the sheet up to her chin. She wasn’t sure why. The sleeveless cotton top she wore covered a lot more than some of the skimpy things she’d had to wear as Lola over the last couple of years, and unless she pulled the sheet over her head she hadn’t exactly hidden herself.
Cooper entered the room carrying a tray. He’d brought her breakfast in bed? Seriously?
With a flourish he placed the tray across her lap. There was a plate of pancakes, a quarter glass of orange juice and—thank God—a mug of coffee.
“There was no juicer,” he said as he sat at the end of her bed as if this was a perfectly normal morning for them both. “I had to hand-squeeze those oranges.”
She looked back down at the glass before he could see the stunned disbelief in her eyes. She hadn’t thought twice when he’d bought the bag of oranges yesterday. He’d bought them so she could have freshly squeezed orange juice?
He really was taking his bodyguard duties above and beyond.
She cleared her throat. “I didn’t know you could cook.” He was built, he was sexy as hell, and he could cook. Did he have a girlfriend?
“Yeah, I can cook.” He sounded amused that she might think otherwise. Would he find it funny when he discovered she didn’t have a clue when it came to the kitchen? They’d ordered takeout yesterday and brought it home to eat. She’d planned to survive on fruit and salad. He didn’t look as though he could survive on salad.
“Well, thanks.” The aroma of the coffee made her fingers twitch. She couldn’t live without her coffee and had brought her own machine with her. “Aren’t you having any?”
He grinned. His hair looked damp and a shower fresh scent vied with the coffee for her attention. What time had he gotten up?
He looked good enough to eat. She dragged her fingers through her hair again, and by the feel of things she had a horrific case of bedhead. Inside she cringed—until she forcibly reminded herself that he was highly unlikely to take a photo of her looking like a witch and sell it to the highest bidder.
Of course he won’t. He was Scott’s best friend. Even so…
“I’ve already eaten. I thought I’d let you sleep in for a bit.”
He called seven a.m. on a non-work day sleeping in? With difficulty, she untangled her fingers from her hair and attempted to find some dignity. “Thank you.”
She waited for him to take the hint and leave. Instead, he leaned back against the brass rails at the foot of her bed. Did he intend to watch her eat? Nerves spiked in the pit of her stomach as she picked up her cup and took a reviving gulp of coffee.
“No problem.”
She peered at him over her steaming cup and tried to unscramble her brain. She looked hideous first thing in the morning, but this didn’t appear to bother him. Of course, she hadn’t just spent the night with him, which might account for it. On the other hand, there was a definite spark between them, which meant he found her hot.
At least, he’d found her hot yesterday when he’d brought her luggage in. She refused to let her gaze slip southwards now. Not that she’d see anything in any case, given the way he was sitting.
She squeezed her eyes shut and almost managed to convince herself the heat coursing through her was due entirely to the coffee flooding her system and absolutely nothing to do with Cooper Grayson and his dimple.
*ARC provided by Publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review*
First Impression: Extremely well-written, with fantastic characterization. The hero pulled me right into the story.
I love books with a best friend’s sister trope, but combine that with a rich-woman-poor-man trope and a hero as protector trope, and I am in book reading heaven. Not only was this book magnetic to read, but its lead characters are compelling and its storyline both fun and sexy.
I really enjoyed Cooper. I think he was a hot, sexy, and all around great hero. I also liked Paris and I related to her as both a woman and as a person. It’s easy to think about the kind of life we’d like to live, until we actually walk in those shoes and discover the glamorous life we expected isn’t quite as wonderful as we envisioned it to be. That’s a hard lesson to learn sometimes, but it’s a necessary one, too, because life doesn’t always work out like we plan and sometimes the best thing a person can do is to stop all the planning and take a second to breathe in the present. I feel like that’s what this book is all about, exploring an incredible attraction to someone who doesn’t care about all the outside trappings that can sometimes clutter our lives.
Cooper is a great fit for Paris, and vice versa. They needed to reconnect with each other and I loved that we got the chance to read about that reconnection in this book. It made for a really fun and entertaining read with some great chemistry and emotion between the characters.
If you love books with classic romance tropes given a fresh update for the modern age, Hold Me Until Morning by Christina Phillips is a fantastic read. Not only is it a well-written book with two really great characters, but it’s also a quick, fast-paced read with a really great message about life and not being afraid to stand up for yourself and your own dreams. Highly recommend reading this one!
Enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway here!
And don’t forget to check out the first book in the series!
Available now!
Every good girl loves a very bad boy…
Scarlett Ashford needs a date for her father’s wedding. Only she doesn’t just need a guy in a suit—she needs a bodyguard. The only problem is that Jackson Grayson is big and gorgeous and way too sexy. So much so that Scarlett’s tempted to let this hot bad boy ruin her oh-so-good reputation…
Jackson doesn’t do relationships and he certainly doesn’t sleep with clients. Yet he can’t fight their inconvenient attraction, or how badly he wants Scarlett’s warm and wicked curves against his body. He wants her. Now. Even if it’s just for one night, and even if walking away the next morning isn’t as easy as he thought.
Besides, one hot and incredibly intense night between a bad boy and a pampered princess could never turn into something real…could it?
Amazon | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | B&N | Kobo | iBooks
Christina Phillips is an ex-pat Brit who now lives in sunny Western Australia with her high school sweetheart and their family. She enjoys writing paranormal, historical and contemporary romance where the stories sizzle and the heroine brings her hero to his knees.
Christina is addicted to good coffee, expensive chocolate and bad boy heroes. She is also owned by three gorgeous cats who are convinced the universe revolves around their needs. They are not wrong.
Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads
This blog tour was put together by IndieSage PR
Pingback: Tour: Hold Me Until Morning by Christina Phillips ⋆ IndieSage PR