H Is For Hannah

Jennifer is writing a new story...

Hannah is the heroine of my newest manuscript. It’s an as-yet untitled contemporary romance with a little bit of an older hero. Well, older if you consider late thirties/early forties “older.” He walks with a limp as a result of a car accident that killed his wife seven years ago, is the father of a teenaged girl, and has greying hair at the temples. And he has a secret he’s unwilling to share with Hannah.

Hannah is in her late twenties, lives with her grandmother, has a recovering drug addict for a brother and is working toward a promotion at her marketing firm. She’s not sure she wants to get involved with the dad of a teen, or with someone who is older than she is by several years, but there’s something about him that attracts her. And when her grandmother is a little too enabling of her brother, it’s Dan to the rescue.

Or so she thinks.

Turns out, Dan’s firm is investigating her client and indirectly causes her to lose her job. And Dan’s secret? Well, let’s just say that he and Hannah’s brother are not so different, albeit for very different reasons.

When the secrets are revealed, the two of them are in for some trouble.

But it’s a romance, so you know you’ll get the “happily ever after.” It’s the getting to that point, though, where the fun comes in.

I’m still editing and revising and increasing the tension, but I’m hoping to start pitching it soon. So we’ll see what happens. In the meantime, here’s an excerpt:

He blinked. When she returned to his side and hooked her arm through his free one, he blinked again. She’d accepted his explanation. Was it really that easy? Maybe he should tell her how much he was attracted to her. Maybe it wouldn’t sound so crazy.
“What are we looking at?” She whispered out of the side of her mouth, pursing her lips together and giving him an insane urge to kiss them.
“What?”
“I assumed since we’re just standing here that you must be looking at something, and I wanted to join in the fun. Or did you not realize we weren’t moving?”
Her nostrils flared and she bit her lip, and Dan realized she was trying not to laugh. Now he really wanted to kiss her. Before he could act on it, his stomach growled.
“Was that yours or mine?” She looked over at him, eyebrow raised.
His lips twitched. His breath hitched. He couldn’t keep his laugh to himself any longer. It bubbled in his chest and he let it out as he shook his head.
“Okay, while I am older than you, I’m not old enough to be senile. Yet. So yes, I did know we weren’t moving. But thanks for that. And yes, that was my stomach growling, because I’m hungry. Except I think I need to put eating on hold for a moment, because what I need, more than anything else right now, what I’ve needed all night long actually, is to kiss you.”
He turned toward her, reached his hand behind her neck and drew her close to him. This is what he’d been waiting for. Tilting his head, he angled his mouth and softly touched her lips. A groan started in the back of his throat. Her lips were even more delicious than he’d imagined. They were sweet and soft and for the moment, his. He deepened the kiss and felt her arms wrap themselves around his waist. Good, because he had no intention of stopping anytime soon. Her body fit perfectly against his and he pulled her closer, wishing they could blend into one. She sighed and he slipped his tongue inside her mouth. It was like honey, and he couldn’t breathe.
Her fingers were swirling, drawing lines of fire along his back. Shaking, he pulled away and rested his forehead against hers. Her pupils were huge, like his he suspected, and her breathing was quick. Her hands hadn’t stopped moving and well, he wanted her to move them lower. But they were in the middle of the street and he wasn’t an exhibitionist. So he pulled farther away, took her hand, and led her toward the restaurant.
“Wait,” she cried as he limped as fast as he could to Isabella’s.
“What?”
“What about what I need?”
Before he could ask what she meant, she grabbed his head and pulled it down to her. She kissed him, hard, and pulled away.
“I wasn’t finished,” she said.