“I like you.” His voice is low and soft, which I don’t deserve. I look away, down the rutted parking lot.
“Don’t…waste those words on me.”
He touches my cheek. “You just need someone to show you.”
“No.” I ease back again. “I don’t. So please, Torrin, stop trying to swoop in and save me. I don’t need saving.”
College freshman Quinn Montgomery will do anything to avoid the mistake her sister made—killing herself over a boy. But when she is forced into nude modeling at a local college to support her family after a bankruptcy, she begins to crack, just enough to let Torrin, the university’s top varsity oarsman, see that the real Quinn is not as feisty and unapproachable as she wants everyone to think. But letting someone in comes at a steep cost and, it turns out, Torrin is connected to Quinn’s family in more ways than she could ever imagine.
Book Excerpt
Please help me welcome Brooklyn Skye, author of STRIPPED!
She’s stopping by today to share her writing play list
for the STRIPPED Blog Tour hosted by YA Bound. As part of the tour Brooklyn is
giving away a signed copy of STRIPPED; read on for more details!
From STRIPPED:
Muscles. That’s all I
see walking toward me. Rock-hard muscles.
“No chance I’m
changin’ your name now,” Torrin says. Eyeing the cigarette pinched between my
fingertips, he lifts a teasing smirk. I grimace and hide the cigarette behind
my back because, really, I’m not in the mood for this.
Okay, that’s not
true. I’m sort of in the mood for it because it is loosely fascinating. I’ve
obviously charmed the guy out of his mind.
“I only took one
drag. This cigarette shouldn’t count.”
“Still does.” He sits
on the wall next to me. A camera swings under his arm.
“What if I’m really
stressed?”
Jutting out his chin,
he slips the camera strap off his shoulder. “Get rid of that thing and check
this out.”
I take another drag
and blow it out in front of me. He waves the smoke away from his face.
“That’s disgusting.”
I grin. “Someone
twisting your arm to sit here?”
He ignores my
question and sets the camera in my lap. I’m no camera expert, but I do know
this one’s probably over a thousand dollars by how heavy it is and the
overabundance of buttons and dials and digital screens. I should run with it,
sell it to pay for my tuition—
“A Nikon D300. Ever
use one of these?”
I shake the thought
away. It’s crazy. And I doubt I’d be able to outrun him.
“No.”
“Check out the LCD
screen. Three inches.”
I pick it up. At the
same time he leans in and presses a button on top. An intricate menu displays
on the screen with words and acronyms that may as well be a foreign language:
JPEG compression, NEF (RAW) something or other.
I am so stupid. So
stupid. I told him I was into photography, and that’s why he’s here trying to
camera-talk with me, but maybe I should’ve said I like to look at photos. He’s
obviously much more experienced and equipped and, God, I hope he doesn’t expect
me to be the same.
“I’ve had this for a
few months,” he says. “I’m still learning how to use it. The manual is over
four hundred pages.”
I lift the camera to
my face, peer through the lens at a teacher walking in the distance. Jackie
McNamara. Science department. She spoke to my dad once about funding for
telescopes. Bet she didn’t do something ridiculously illegal to get them.
Lowering the heavy
black box, I meet his gaze. “I’ve never held such a fancy camera before.”
He nudges me with his
elbow. “C’mon. I’ll show you how to use it.”
My stomach twists.
“No.”
He blinks. “No? Why
not?”
I stand. Because I’m
not at Pacific Rim to make friends. I’m here to earn money and I’m done doing
that for the day and should be heading back to school for whatever ghastly
concoction Loyola’s cafeteria decides to call dinner.
I return the camera
to his hand.
“I can’t.”
“Why?” He stands too,
looks down at me. “You have somewhere else to be?” His head cocks curiously to
the side. “A boyfriend’s house?”
“No.” The word comes
out too fast. Dammit. I grab my bag. “I mean, yes.”
“Well, which is it?”
He grins. “You seem a little unsure.”
My head is telling me
I need to walk away right now. Right now. Before I have to say anything more,
but my hands are the only ones listening, and they’re shaking and my feet won’t
move.
I need to kill this
conversation.
“Listen,
Torrin. You’re not getting in my pants. Not today. Not ever. So you can go
About the Author
Brooklyn Skye is just your average awkward girl who's obsessed with words. She grew up in a small California town where she quickly realized writing was an easy escape from small town life.
***GIVEAWAY***
One signed paperback copy of Stripped (US only) or one e-book copy with authorgraph (INT)
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