Unbroken Promises: a friends to lovers romance Read online

  “What have you been doing the last few weeks since you won your fight?” I laugh, continuing to jog in place to keep up the momentum.

  “Basking in the glory of my win,” he jokes.

  “Well, you need to bask in the glory of this run. Let’s go!” I take off running to get a head start knowing Marco will follow and catch up to me in no time, but when I turn the corner, I don’t see the huge ass rock in my way. My foot hits it, and because there’s nothing but air around to catch my fall, I fall onto the ground right onto my knees.

  “Ow!” I roll over onto my butt, holding onto my legs. My knees hit the hard ground and that shit hurt. Bad.

  “You ok?” Marco bends down to check on my knees.

  “I’m fine. It just hurts.”

  “Let me see.” He sits down next to me and grabs my legs, putting them on top of his. Both my knees are bright red and lightly bleeding.

  “We need to clean these up in case there are pieces of rock in your cuts.” Marco rubs his hands down my leg causing my stomach to do flip-flops.

  “I’m fine,” I insist, and try to move my legs out of his reach.

  “Stop. Let me clean your knees.” He grabs my legs and holds onto them tight. Then he grabs his shirt from the back and lifts it up over his head, leaving his sweaty front on display. I divert my attention back to my cuts.

  Taking his bottle of water, Marco wets the shirt and gently rubs each of my knees. I flinch when the material hits my cuts.

  “Sorry,” he says softly. He leans down and gently blows on the cuts, making my stomach clench and my heart go erratic. After both my knees are clean, he stands up then reaches down to help me up as well. As I come up onto my feet, my body hits his, not realizing how hard he was tugging me up. Our faces are close, only inches apart. He glances down at me and sighs, and I can feel his cool breath hit me. It smells like the peppermints he’s always sucking on. Our eyes lock and we kiss.

  And holy. Shit. Do we kiss.

  His lips start off soft just barely touching mine like he’s testing the waters, unsure of himself. Our eyes are still open, neither of us daring to be the first to blink. My heart is pounding, and his breathing is heavy. When my lips move in sync with his, his eyes close, his kiss becoming more aggressive. My head tilts to the side and his tongue finds its way inside. Marco’s hands leave mine and land on my butt, pulling me closer to him until our sweaty bodies are lined up with no space between us.

  Our kiss goes from sweet and gentle to frantic and desperate within seconds. Our tongues entwining with each other. I finally close my eyes and sink into his hold. Just as I think I am getting the hang of this, it stops. Marco’s lips leave mine and he backs up.

  “Shit.” His hands come up to his face, his head shaking in disbelief, and I don’t even know what to say. I would be lying if I said I’ve never imagined what it would be like to be kissed by Marco. I’m a teenage girl, of course I have. But I never imagined it would be so...Wow! This is my first time being kissed and if this is what my first kiss feels like...well, I can’t even imagine it getting any better than that.

  “Shit,” Marco spits out again. His head is tilted to the sky now like he’s praying to the heavens above. He’s breathing like he just ran ten miles and his fists are clenched at his sides like he’s pissed.

  “Umm...” I start to say having no idea what to continue with. What I want to say is “let’s do that again” but something tells me, Marco’s “shit” isn’t a good shit, more like a ‘what the hell was I thinking’ shit.

  “We need to get back,” he says, and without waiting for me he turns around and starts running back to his car. I run after him but unlike every time we have run together, this time Marco doesn’t wait for me.

  “Should we...maybe...talk about this?” I finally ask when I catch up to him outside of his car.

  “Later,” is all he says.

  He hits the key fob unlocking the doors and gets in, and without waiting for me to turn on the music like he always does, he turns it on himself. He turns it up loud, making it clear he doesn’t want to talk. Ok, fine, I think to myself. We will talk later, like he said. It will give me time to process what happened.

  Tomorrow.

  We will talk about this tomorrow.

  Once we have both processed what just happened we will discuss this.

  Purchase Tapping Out on Amazon (Also available on Kindle Unlimited)

  Other books by Nikki Ash

  All books can be read as standalones

  The Fighting Series

  Fighting for a Second Chance

  Fighting with Faith

  Fighting for Your Touch

  Fighting for Your Love

  Fighting ‘round the Christmas Tree: A Fighting Series Novella

  Fighting Love Novels

  Tapping Out

  Clinched

  Takedown

  Mob Romance

  Bordello

  Single Dad Romance

  Knocked Down

  Friends-To-Lovers Romance

  Unbroken Promises

  Football Romance

  The Pickup (coming in 2019)

  Acknowledgments

  The first person I need to thank is Kaylee Ryan. This book wouldn’t exist without you. Thank you for planting the seed, and then spending hours upon hours discussing the book, the details, the title, and the cover. My children, thank you for supporting me in my passion and believing in me. My crew who read this book as if it was their own, giving me their thoughts and opinions every step of the way to make sure the story in my head went onto the paper seamlessly: Stacey, Nicole, Brittany, Andrea, Tabitha, Ashley, Krysten, and anyone else I forgot because my memory sucks, thank you! Readers and bloggers, if you made it this far, thank you for taking a chance on me, especially those of you who have read my other books. I know this book is different than what I’ve written, and it truly means the world to me that you gave it a chance. Juliana, thank you for once again designing the perfect cover to do this book justice. My Fight Club, I love you ladies (and gents) so much! Thank you for reading and loving my books, and for simply being you.

  About the Author

  Nikki Ash resides in South Florida where she is an English teacher and writer by day and a writer by night. When she’s not writing, you can find her with a book in her hand. From the Boxcar Children to Wuthering Heights to latest single parent romance, she has lived and breathed every type of book. While reading and writing are her passions, her two children are her entire world. You can probably find them at a Disney park before you would find them at home on the weekends!

  Reading is like breathing in, writing is like breathing out.– Pam Allyn

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