Book Title: Loyalty and Lies (Chastity Falls #1)
Author: LA Cotton
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
Release Date: January 2015
Eighteen-year-old Savanah Parry just moved three thousand miles across state to escape. The memories…the whispers…the pain.
Chastity Falls Academy is supposed to be her fresh start; her salvation. And when Ana meets mysterious Jackson, she begins to think it is. She hasn’t smiled in almost sixteen months; not since the night her life changed forever, and despite her guilt…her loyalty, Ana can’t deny that Jackson is breathing life back into her. With Jackson by her side, Ana wants to believe she can heal and move on. But she isn’t the only one living a lie, and the small private Academy has secrets of its own. All is not what it seems, and Ana is about to find herself in a tangled web of lies; fighting for survival, again.
Loyalties will be tested, lies will be told. Welcome to Chastity Falls.
He glanced down at me, cradled in his arms like a baby, and smiled. “Well, Savanah Parry, you’re home.” Dropping me to the floor, he used the second key card on the small O-ring to open the door. I managed to balance on the wall enough to flick the switch, and then hop to the bed.
“Here, let me take a proper look.” Jackson dropped down in front of me, cradling my foot in his hands. “Ouch, you’ve sprained it pretty bad. You need to rest and elevate it. Do you have a towel?”
I pointed toward the small bathroom.
Two minutes later, Jackson came out with two towels. He threw the dry one at me and I started toweling off my hair. The second was damp and rolled up. “It’s not ice, but it should help with the swelling. Hmm, you need help changing?” His eyes flickered back to my chest and I coughed. “Just hand me those pants off of the back of the chair, and that tank?” I pointed to the desk.
He collected them up and handed them to me. Our fingers brushed, sending tiny sparks shooting through my skin. “Yeah, so umm, I’ll be right over here. Not looking,” he said, more to himself than me, as he turned away.
I scooted back on the bed, trying to peel the wet shirt off my body. I managed to wiggle free and yanked the clean tank over my head. My jeans were a different matter. They clung to me like a second skin and as I tried to inch them down my legs, my ankle burned. “Damn, that hurts.”
“You okay back there?”
“Yeah. You can turn around now.” I fastened the tie on the slouchy pants and slunk back into the pillows.
Jackson approached the bed, a strained look on his face, as his eyes raked over me. He wrapped the wet towel round my ankle, with enough pressure that I could feel it, but not enough it hurt, and then he grabbed one of the redundant pillows and placed it underneath my lower leg. “There, rest, ice, compression and elevate. You’ll be as good as new by tomorrow. So, anyway what were you doing out there?" He left my side and went to sit in the desk chair.
“The party at Dead Man’s Cove, remember.” The one you tried to talk me out of.
His eyes locked on mine and his jaw tensed. I couldn’t decipher what they were trying to say, but he seemed shocked by my omission.
“It wasn’t really my kind of scene, so I left… look how well that worked out for me.”
He rose from the chair and stalked toward me. I pressed back into the headboard, unsure of what to expect when he reached me. My heart pounded as his gaze seared into me and his fingers reached for my soggy hair, and brushed it out of my eyes. “I’d better go.”
My eyes fluttered shut and I gulped. His touch had been so gentle, yet I’d felt it all the way to my soul. “Okay. Th-thanks.”
His fingers lingered on my cheek and he looked like a guy carrying the weight of the world, like he wanted to say more, but couldn't find the words. And then he pulled back, andmy skin felt instantly cold at the loss of his touch. Jackson flicked the light switch as he reached the door, plummeting the room into darkness. The only light was the soft glow from the floodlight outside the emergency stairwell, allowing me to just make out his silhouette. The strained tick in his jaw and the lines creasing his brow. He almost looked pained.
I waited for him to leave. But as he turned the doorknob and half stepped out of the room, he glanced back at the last minute. “Ana, you should stay away from me.” It came out barely a whisper.
But I heard it.
Then he disappeared into the corridor.
Author of NA Contemporary Romance, L. A. Cotton loves writing about those first looks, first kisses, and happily ever afters.
A wearer-of-many-hats, L.A juggles being a full-time mum to two little people with two part-time jobs and college. In her spare time (and when she’s not camped out in front of the laptop) you’ll most likely find her immersed in a book, escaping the chaos that is life. LA has two books currently self-published: Fate's Love and Love's Spark. Loyalty and Lies, is book one in her NA college series: Chastity Falls.
You can connect with her at:
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