Title: Cherished
by You (Love in the City
#4)
Author:
Steph Nuss
Release Date: Oct
7, 2015
Find on Goodreads
“Move in
with me,” he said.
Being cherished is how Tessa Wilder always imagined falling
in love. But for years, she’s always gone for the wrong guys. Now
that she’s fallen for one of the good ones, she fears
rejection.
“I can’t,” she
replied.
Justin Jameson quit looking for a woman after being used so
many times for his brains. A bit of an introvert and completely oblivious to
women’s advances, he can’t even see that his friend
cherishes everything about him.
When Tessa needs a place to stay, Justin’s the
first to offer her a room. Hearts are opened; feelings are ventured.
They’ll finally know what it’s like to be cherished in the
city until one moment threatens the relationship they’ve built.
“I can’t lose
you.”
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“I can’t
believe you agreed to live with a woman,” Cash said, sitting down on
the couch in my living room with a beer in his
hand.
It was Saturday afternoon, and
most of the gang was over at my place, waiting for Tessa and her brother to
arrive so we could help move all of her stuff in. Maverick and Harper were at
home with their baby girl, Seghen, and Paige had a work function with a
client.
I really couldn’t
believe it either. I’d never had a roommate before who wasn’t
some sort of family member, but I knew I didn’t want Tessa living in
some dilapidated hole in Grand Concourse again. Just hearing her talk about
growing up there pissed me
off.
“Living with a woman
isn’t so bad,” Carter stated proudly, with his arm slung
over Elly’s shoulder. “They make the place smell good.
They’re nice to look
at.”
“They
cook,” Fletcher added, rubbing Bayler’s thigh. They
weren’t living together yet, but they stayed together enough that he
enjoyed the benefits of Bayler’s excellent cooking
skills.
“Not all of them
cook,” Carter retorted, nodding his head toward his wife.
“Hey!” Elly
exclaimed, smacking him in the stomach. “I’m cooking your
baby right now.”
The room filled with laughter
as I paced over to the window and looked down at the sidewalk. I was nervous
because I wasn’t sure whether or not Tessa would like
living with me. I’d had the place cleaned twice this week in
anticipation of her arrival.
“But Tessa loves
cooking,” Elly continued, smiling up at me. “You can
finally stop eating out every
night.”
I scoffed, glancing over my
shoulder at her. “I don’t eat out every
night.”
Bayler laughed. “All
you have in your fridge are takeout boxes and condiments.”
“And beer!”
Carter said, clinking his bottle with Fletcher’s.
“Ladies,”
Fletcher stated, shaking his head at the women. “Jameson has the
necessities. Lay off him.”
“Tessa is going to
freak when she sees the fridge,” Elly said, laughing along with
Bayler.
I turned to face the gang as
anxiety tumbled in my stomach. “What do you mean? Why would she freak
out?”
“Because Tessa enjoys
cooking,” Bayler explained.
“Yeah,”
Elly said, nodding. “She’s used to having a stocked
kitchen, especially since she’s cooked for her and her brother most
of her life.”
Now I felt bad about not going
grocery shopping. The truth was, I did order takeout often, only because it was
easier than attempting to cook a meal. I’d grown up with either a
maid cooking for me or my grandma, but no matter how many times Janice Jameson
tried to teach me how to cook, the meal never turned out the way she made
it.
“You guys can go
grocery shopping later,” Cash said, running through the television
channels. “That way she can pick out whatever the hell she
wants.”
“Maybe
she’ll even teach you how to cook,” Elly teased, nudging my
arm.
“Yeah,”
Bayler continued, pointing her beer bottle at me. “Every guy should
know how to cook. Women love a home-cooked meal they don’t have to
make themselves.”
“I’m not
trying to find a woman,” I stated, furrowing my brows.
The gang laughed at my candid
response, despite the fact that it was true. I’d practically given up
on finding a good woman during my college years. The girls I seemed to attract
back then only wanted my help passing a class. The only date I’d been
on since was a few years ago when my grandma set me up with her neighbor, Elly.
The chemistry wasn’t there, so we became friends instead, which was perfectly
fine with me. She was still in love with Carter, and I’d been a loner
most of my life. When Carter moved back to New York, he and Elly started
dating, and I gained another friend. Our group of friends continued to grow
after that with the addition of Carter’s sisters, Harper and Bayler,
falling for two of our own, Maverick and
Fletcher.
“I call bullshit,
Justin,” Bayler exclaimed, rolling her eyes. She leaned into
Fletcher’s side and rested her feet up on the coffee
table.
The laughter quickly died down
at her blunt retort.
“Excuse
me?” I asked, deflecting my
surprise.
“All men are
predisposed to think with their penises,” she explained, entertaining
everyone with her words. “I don’t care how much of a genius
you are; you’re still a man, which means that brain of yours down
south is focused on sex just like every other man’s.”
Laughter grew louder around me
as I stared her down, the smile spreading wide across my face. We got a kick out
of giving each other a hard time, and I enjoyed dishing it out just as much as
everyone else. Leaning down next to her ear, I said, “No, Bayler,
what I meant was, I don’t have to try to find a
woman.”
She nearly spit out her beer as
she smacked me on the arm and laughed. “See! Just like every other
guy! I knew you had a dick in there somewhere,
Jameson.”
“Is this the part
where I tell you I know how to use it, too?” I asked sarcastically,
laughing along with her.
A knock on the door sounded
before she could reply, so I walked over to answer it. Opening the door, I
found Tessa and a younger guy standing behind her, with three suitcases resting
at their sides and a duffle bag slung across his body. She wore an old pair of
ripped jeans and a hoodie. Her long brown hair was knotted on top of her head,
but it was her light blue-gray eyes smiling back at me that caught my attention
the most.
“Hey,”
I said, grabbing one of the rollers. “Come on
in.”
“Thanks,”
she said, crossing the threshold into my
apartment.
The Love in the City series is
about a group of friends looking for love in New York City. Each book is about
a different couple, so they can be read as standalones. The stories are told
from both the female and male point of views, and they all end in happily ever
afters, no cliffhangers here! Finally, all the book covers are different colors
to represent a certain awareness or cause that is referenced in each book. Grab
the first book in the series, Wanted By You, for FREE
today!
Steph Nuss was born and raised
in rural Kansas, where she currently resides with her black Labrador son named
Gunner. She grew up with a passion for reading and writing. When
she’s not immersed into the land of fiction, she enjoys listening to
music that came before her time, watching movies and reruns of her favorite
shows, and hanging out with her family and friends. She also has a
bachelor’s degree in psychology that she’ll never
use…unless she’s profiling her characters of
course.
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