Sampled
Pick your favorite 21st birthday present.
One evening with your parents at the theater or one night with a tattooed firefighter.
Gift yourself the 21st birthday present you wish you had – sex on the beach with a firefighter!
Royce is everything her parents will hate but exactly what her heart craves.
-Goodreads reviewer LC
If you want to get away from your parents on your twenty-first birthday, tell them you’re visiting a responsible friend. A solid pre-med friend would never help you get all slutted up and take you to a sake bar/dance club.
‘Slutted up’ wasn’t quite true. Like the good girls they were, they followed the Beyonce rules of sexy. Skimpy top or skimpy bottom, but not both.
Hence, on her twenty-first birthday, University of Chicago senior-to-be Vandy Patel wore a skin-tight, fluorescent-pink, long sleeve top with a micro mini.
And also her first thong.
That might have been violating all sorts of Tiger Mom rules, but too bad. Tiger Mom was Korean, not Indian, and honestly, Indian moms were far more intimately acquainted with tigers.
Genetics or something, right? Vandy’s med student brother Raj would know that, or her engineer sister, Aparna.
Who cared, because Vandy was ordering her first drink.
She’d worked her way to the front of the bar, and when she got there, she realized she had no idea what to order. “I want a…”
The bartender, who wore a kimono but was decidedly not Japanese, waited a couple of seconds and then turned her eyes to a different customer.
“Oh, damn it,” she swore.
“Order Ginjo,” a man next to her said.
She turned to say something back and stopped with her mouth open. White guy, green eyes, red hair past his collar. Muscles. Freckles. Worse, did he have a tattoo?
He glanced at her uncertainly. “You okay?”
“Yes-yes. I am. I just never had sake before,” she stammered. His blue suit jacket brought out light flecks in his irises.
“Why don’t we fix that?”
“I’ve never ordered before. It’s my twenty-first birthday.” Now she sounded lame.
“It’s best to buy the bottle.” He waved the bartender over and paid for a bottle of sake with two cups.
“I need two more cups,” she interrupted. “I’m here with two girlfriends.”
He nodded, and Vandy resisted smirking at the bartender.
See, hot guy in his half unbuttoned white dress shirt wanted ‘Vandy with a V, not an M.’
She grabbed the two cups the bartender set down and led him through the crowd back to the side tables. It was more difficult than she expected because the dance floor had gotten busier. Luckily, he had a solid six inches on her and shielded her from the worst of the jostling.
Anna and Tara were quite surprised by her new company.
“This is…” Vandy realized she didn’t know his name.
“Royce,” he politely supplied. “I was giving the birthday girl a hand. Is it really her birthday?”
“Of course it’s my birthday. You think I’m pretending?” Vandy said, slightly affronted.
“I can’t say since you’re a pretty girl.” Royce set out the cups on their table.
Tara, Anna’s friend from Case Western University, sniggered. “I absolutely did that at Friendly’s when I turned twelve. You got a free sundae.”
Vandy’s mom, Dr. Sonal Patel, would have been unbelievably embarrassed if Vandy had ever pulled something like that. However, since he called her pretty, she might reconsider. “I don’t need to pretend. It’s my real birthday.”
“Here’s my present, birthday girl. Don’t forget to pour for each other,” Royce offered gallantly and moved to leave with his cup.
“Stay.” Anna stopped him. She pointed to the chair next to Vandy. “You paid for it. You should at least try it. Teach her how it’s done. It is her first time.”
Vandy flashed a scowl at Anna. They’d gone to high school in Charlottesville together but ended up at different colleges. She wore a little green dress that nearly violated Beyonce’s rules, and she had more than a little mischief behind her smile.
“Can’t refuse that.” Royce sat down, and his gaze dropped when his leg brushed Vandy’s.
His eyes flashed with something Vandy didn’t quite recognize. She burned too hot and too cold at the same time. Part of her brain urged her to drape her knee over his.
Which she did not obey.
They both reached for the bottle at the same time, and his fingers covered hers.
Calluses. This man worked for a living. What did he do, with his tribal tattoos peeking out of his cuffs and twisting up his wrist?
He didn’t move his hand right away and caressed the top of hers with his thumb.
She’d thought trying out college guys had taught her about lust and passion. This didn’t even compare. He wasn’t a boy who stayed up reading Fundamentals of Microeconomics and whined about his stock portfolio.
Royce poured the three of them glasses and passed the bottle back to her. She remembered not to stare at his lips and poured his cup.
She picked up her glass and said, “Bottoms up.”
He put a hand on her wrist to stop her. “No. Sake is meant to be sipped. It’s not a shot. And it’s stronger than wine, so unless you want it to knock you on your cute little birthday girl ass, sip it.”
She nervously licked her lips and took back everything she thought before. She was totally staring at his lips. His behavior wasn’t any better because his hand released her after a solid ten seconds while he stared back.
After taking a sip of the sake, which tasted relatively sweet, she found her tongue. “So, do you live around here?”
“Cleveland born and bred,” he said. “You ladies?”
“Anna and I go to Case. She’s visiting from University of Chicago,” Tara said.
“Chicago?”
“Yeah. I’m an accounting student.” Vandy tried to sip her sake again without slurping.
“I was kind of surprised she got a whole week off to visit me. She took classes the past two summers, and she’s an intern at KPMG,” Anna added.
Vandy would have kicked her for making her sound boring if her knee hadn’t bumped into Royce’s.
“What do you do?” Tara asked at the same time Anna said, “What are you doing here tonight?”
“Hanging out with friends from work.” Royce set his cup down and aimed his next words at Vandy. “Would you like to dance with me?”
She must of have heard that wrong. He wanted to dance with her?
Vandy didn’t move until Anna nudged her with a foot under the table, missing Royce’s leg completely. “She’d love to dance.”
Unable to think in sentences, Vandy tried to wiggle off the chair without losing her skirt. Royce helped her up with his hands gripping her hips. She froze for a second as he headed to the dance floor without checking on her.
Probably because normal girls didn’t turn into mumbling zombies.
Anna, who had been her best friend in high school, shoved her in the direction of the dance floor. “He’s into you. Go get it!”
Successfully not tripping over her three-inch strappy heels, Vandy made it to the dance floor.
Within three seconds, a few things were clear. Royce was a passable dancer. Vandy was not. She gave him her best smile and almost cracked her head on his chin.
Obviously, she should have been taking ballet classes rather than going to national honor society classes and oboe lessons. When her mother sent her to swim lessons because ‘drowning is a leading cause of death under the age of twenty,’ she should have considered that dance floor humiliation was a leading cause of social death.
Less weekends studying and more time going out might have prevented this too.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. Her hands fluttered in weird directions as she failed to locate the beat.
“Try this. Lean back and stop thinking.” Completely ignoring the actual music, he twirled her around to press his chest to her back. He swayed back and forth, and she felt some of her tension ease.
He was much larger than her, firmer, muscled and, oh my god, was that his cock? Could she think about his cock? Did she do that to him?
Experimentally, she thrust her butt against that spot, and his hands caught her hips. She froze again, but he bent his head down and kissed her by her ear.
Unfamiliar need rushed through her. The heat of him, the darkness, she wanted his hands on her. She was hot, bothered, and wishing they were alone. What would it be like to get the way too short skirt off and feel him for real?
She ignored her mother’s constant refrain of ‘a good Indian girl is judged by how she behaves.’
Royce’s hands guided her right back to what she’d been doing, and he whispered, “What’s your name, birthday girl?”
Feeling daring, she tried an experimental hip wiggle. “Vandy. Vandy Patel. Like Mandy with a V.”
He matched her movements. “Vandy. If you keep doing that, I might have very bad thoughts about you.”
Did bad thoughts include naked thoughts? She had plenty of those. “I – I – I…”
The music faded away, and he stopped dancing. “Don’t worry, Vandy. I won’t take your halo. Though your phone number would be nice.”
“I’m only here for a week,” Vandy said and instantly regretted it. A hot guy who admitted to having sexy thoughts about her asked for her number. She sounded like a complete goody-two-shoes.
He didn’t react. “I see. Let me take you back to your friends. Have a happy birthday.”
She followed him back to the girls, cursing rather loudly in her head. Way to torpedo things. In the first ten minutes of meeting him, she’d proven to be a novice drinker, dancer, and flirtee. Great.
Her friends weren’t alone, though.
“These are Royce’s friends. Did you know they were Cleveland firefighters?” Anna’s words ended in an exultant note, pointing to two guys with way too many muscles.
“We saw you dancing it up with our Royce,” one guy said, with Tara hanging on him.
Royce stopped short, looking considerably less excited to see his friends than Vandy would have expected. “It was one dance.”
The second guy almost mocked. “You stopped at one dance?”
“As I was saying, it’s Vandy’s twenty-first birthday,” Tara said helpfully. “Royce bought us sake. Want to join us?”
“Murphy was showing Mandy a good time?” the first guy said, like it was an odd occurrence.
“She’s visiting for a week from college.” Royce, whose last name must have been Murphy, partially blocked her from his friends.
“You don’t even need a week. You gonna make Mandy’s twenty-first birthday memorable? Give her an adventure?” the second guy shouldered past Royce and gave Vandy a head-to-toe visual assessment.
“She’s not interested, Jon,” Royce said, while it seemed that Royce wasn’t interested.
“What twenty-one-year-old doesn’t want an adventure?” Jon said, having finished his assessment. “Mandy’s dressed for it.”
“She doesn’t seem to like the adventuring type,” Royce said and took half a step away from her.
Definitely not what she wanted. “I am the adventuring type,” she lied.
Royce’s green eyes seemed shadowed with doubt. “Really?”
“Really.” Vandy hated how her face felt hot.
“Any tattoos?” His gaze skimmed down her sleeves to her short skirt.
“Zero.”
“Felonies?”
“None.” She kept her chin up. It was her twenty-first birthday, and this man screamed adventure.
“Misdemeanors? Shoplifting?” He took that step back toward her and hooked a finger on the boat neck of her shirt. “Even if you didn’t get caught.”
“Never. Accountants need clean records,” she gasped. His heat radiated through her skin. Here he talked about how she DIDN’T want adventure and yet he seemed not to be able to back down.
“Streaking? Skinny dipping?” Royce slid his hand down her back to her waist.
“No.” Vandy faced him, almost in his embrace.
“Ever had a one-night stand?” he asked.
She licked her lips, wanting to lick his. Everything else faded away except him.
Jon less than helpfully ruined their moment. “You’re barking up the wrong tree. She’s probably a virgin.”
Royce started to step away again, and she stopped him by laying her brown hand on top of that vine tattoo on his freckled forearm. “Not a chance. It is college.”
Losing her virginity at the end of freshman year to a friend of a friend after an accounting exam had been disappointing. Vandy had tried it out with a couple more guys, but they had been equally underwhelming.
But the way her body hummed suggested a night with him would be very different from a quickie in a dorm room.
“Sounds perfect for you. Take Casey’s truck if you’re sober enough to drive. It should be fully loaded after Casey’s last time.” Jon took a set of keys from the relatively quiet first firefighter. “It’s about time you had some fucking fun and got your cherry popped.”
“What does that mean?” Vandy asked.
“You’ll have to find out if you’re up for an adventure,” Royce said, giving her a seductive grin at last.
That decided her. “I’m in.”
He reached around her hip, pulled her phone out of her pocket, activated the camera, and took a picture of himself. “Send that to your friends.”
“They need that?”
“Don’t want your friends to worry when you leave with me.”
“I thought I was being adventurous?”
“No reason to be dumb. My brother’s a cop.” He brought his lips close to hers. “And I promise any DNA will be willingly given.”
She opened her mouth and thought better of it. He confused her with his combination of hot and cold, danger and caution. He acted like he wanted her to come with him, but didn’t.
Screw it. It was her birthday. She stood on her tip toes and kissed him.
Those hard tattooed arms enclosed her with an unyielding grip as he kissed her back. He tasted like sake. Sweet, heady, and boiling. She wanted to climb onto his body, grip him with everything she had.
When she pulled away, she could hear cheers from his friends. Vandy, feeling bold, said, “Fuck them. It’s my birthday, and adventure can be my present this week.”
She couldn’t quite read his expression, but he definitely looked hungry. He took the keys, and she followed him out. Anna and Tara gave her very enthusiastic thumbs ups before chatting up his firefighter friends.
When they got in the truck, Vandy wasn’t sure how to feel. She may have just agreed to a one-night stand. “Where are we going?”
“On an adventure. Not to the red room of pain.” He put the truck in gear.
“Red room of pain?”
“You know… Fifty Shades of Gray. The movie. It was a book first,” he pointed out, “and fanfic before that.”
“I didn’t read it. I heard it sucked,” Vandy said, trying and failing to sound more edgy.
“That’s the point. Hide it under another book cover. Pretend you were reading something intellectual. What do you do for fun?”
“Study. Chat with my friends. I’m doing an internship in an accounting firm this summer, so I work events with them.”
“That’s a lot of things you do for other people. What do you do for you?”
“I exercise. I swim. We have a really nice pool at the college and the firm has a gym. Hey, don’t judge me. What do you do for fun other than firefighting and sake tasting?”
“I taught myself to play the ukulele. And I sing with it. I think I want oboe lessons even though I can sing while playing it.”
“You want to play the oboe? I played that in middle school band. Back when I had braces and a perm. And I can’t believe I said that out loud.” Vandy covered her mouth as if her crooked teeth and fried hair could come back.
He laughed, “Why?”
“Because I’m driving to parts unknown with a hot guy on an adventure, and I told him about my crossbite and Cheetah Girls phase. “
“If I didn’t want you to talk, I wouldn’t be talking to you. And you don’t seem like a badge bunny.”
“What’s a badge bunny?”
“You don’t need to worry about it. You’re not a badge bunny.”
“Tell me or I’ll Google it.” She waved her phone with mock threat.
“Badge bunnies are people who have sex with firefighters because they’re firefighters. They’ll sleep with any firefighter they can find. They’re not particular.”
A completely ridiculous wave of jealousy swept over her. “You know badge bunnies?”
“I can’t say I ‘know’ the badge bunnies, but I’ve seen them.”
“‘Seen them’ or slept with them?” Vandy’s nerves were on edge now. She’d known Royce for at best an hour, and she was irrationally angry about anyone he’d been with before.
Irrational didn’t even describe it. Crazy. Insane. Pathologically jealous for no stupid reason.
“I don’t sleep with badge bunnies.” His answer came short and clipped.
“Then why did your firefighting buddies say… and why are you with me?” Her emotions went on full spin cycle. Jealous, needy, horny. He liked her enough to leave with her, but the way his guy friends acted…
“My friends have big mouths and think a dick in any chick equates happiness. It doesn’t.” He parked with unnecessary force in an empty parking lot. “I just didn’t want my job to be the thing that made you interested. We’re here.”
“Where is here? And does this mean we aren’t going to—” Her black hair had to be redder than his.
“Open the glove compartment and take out what you find there.” Royce took a blanket out from behind his seat.
She obeyed and a wide array of condoms fell into her lap. “So ‘yes’ on the sex thing?”
“We’re having an adventure.” He dropped his suit jacket on the driver’s seat before opening her door. He offered her his hand.
She considered it.
Royce waited. “I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to.” He scrunched up his face and dropped his voice. “Come with me if you want to live.”
“Are we going somewhere dangerous?”
“It’s from Terminator. I guess you haven’t seen it. We’re at Edgewood Park Beach.”
That decided her. She took his hand and made sure to lean into him. Her breasts pressed into his solid chest, and she felt that weird electric shock of her nipples hardening. She let her legs straddle one of his.
He closed the door and pressed her against the truck, letting the hard planes of his muscles push back. Royce’s face was inches from hers, and she could actually feel his heartbeat increase against her breasts. His hand cupped her butt and lifted her up against a bulge down by his crotch.
“What are we doing here?” she whispered, the cool night air refusing to enter her lungs.
He gave her a wide grin full of wicked temptation. “We’re going skinny dipping.”
Learn more!
Pick your favorite 21st birthday present.
One evening with your parents at the theater or one night with a tattooed firefighter.
Good girls like Vandy Patel spend their days behind books in the library. But when her twenty-first birthday rolls around, she meets Royce Murphy with his tattoos and gorgeous red hair. Just the guy her mom would tell her never to date.
And his kiss is more than enough to lead Vandy astray.
Warning: This steamy new adult romance is the perfect for readers who want some HFN summer fling catnip. Please avoid if you hate smoking hot sex on the beach that leaves you with hickeys in very interesting places.
If you’re a steamy medical romance fan, you have got to try the MetroGen books by Carina Alyce. Not only is she a real doctor, people have compared her books to Brittany Sahin, Nicole Snow, K.C. Crowne, Lucy Score, Kaye Kennedy, Janie Crouch, and J. Saman. Think Grey’s Anatomy, Chicago Fire, and Outlander all written by a real doctor.
Her books regularly feature tropes of protector romance, romantic suspense, action adventure romance, BWWM, military romance, erotic romance, curvy girls, alpha male heroes, doctor romance, firefighter romance, police romance, and many many more.