COMBUST
Series: Everyday Heroes #2
Author: K. Bromberg
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: January 29, 2018
Cover Model: Blake Sevani
Design: Helen Williams
Photographer: Reggie Deanching
Combust, an all new sexy and emotional standalone
by K. Bromberg is AVAILABLE NOW!
From New York Times Bestselling author, K. Bromberg, comes the second standalone book in the Everyday Heroes series. Just how hot will firefighter Grady Malone turn up the heat?
Songwriter Dylan McCoy has been burned.
By her boyfriend she found in her bed . . . with someone else.
By the contract she signed that obligates her to work with him until the songs for his new album are complete.
By her agent when she asked Dylan to keep their breakup on the down-low.
When she finds herself in Sunnyville, she refuses to let her new roommate burn her too. Still . . . a rebound has never looked so good.
That’s her first thought when she sees firefighter Grady Malone.
Sexy. Charismatic. Unapologetic. He’s a man who carries his own scars—the ones on his back, the survivor’s guilt on his soul, and the fear in his heart.
When an unexpected visitor puts their roommate status to the test, will their undeniable attraction burn out, or will they both take a chance and play with fire?
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Preoccupied with a text on my phone from my agent, I walk into the kitchen and suck in a breath when I come face to back with Grady. He’s standing with his hand on the refrigerator door, head leaned inside, and his back fully exposed to me. It’s broad and strong and scarred immeasurably.
I stare.
I can’t help it. The marks are a dizzying array of dark and light and ridged and smooth. And they’re undeniably burns. Goosebumps chase over my skin as I imagine the pain he must have endured when he got those. I think of his habit of wearing unbuttoned shirts but never going shirtless and the hint of scars just visible above his collar that I never could have imagined led to this roadmap to hell on his back.
A part of me instinctively wants to reach out to touch them, bring some kind of comfort. It sounds ridiculous, even to me, but that doesn’t abate the urge.
“Not pretty, huh? Get a good look while you can.” His voice is gruff as his spine stiffens and body stills, emotion woven through the words.
“Thank God not all of you is pretty. I was beginning to feel majorly insecure having to live with perfection like you,” I say off the cuff, trying to make this situation less awkward. My attempt to settle the sudden tension sparking in the air around us.
“Perfection?” he asks as he turns to face me with a smile that masks the emotion swirling in his eyes.
“Yeah. You have scars. I have mermaid thighs.”
“Mermaid thighs?” He laughs. “What in the world are you talking about?”
“Thighs that touch from the top all the way to my knees.” I shrug as if it doesn’t bug me, as if I’m not highlighting one of the insults Tara threw at me. It’s a whole lot easier to make fun of myself so long as it puts him at ease.
“Do you ever give yourself a break?”
“Do you?” I ask the question, sparking a silent battle of wills as we stare at each other and wonder what to say next about the other’s insecurities. Coming up empty, I shift gears. “I think there is some type of rule about how many abs are fair for a guy to have when the rest of us are just struggling to find one of them.”
His smile rings more genuine as he steps toward me, and I step back, my hips leaning against the counter now.
“Is that so?” His voice lowers as his eyes flick to my lips and then back up. “I’m sure you have some under your shirt there.”
Why does the simple action make it seem so hard to swallow?
He takes another step.
“What are you building outside?”
“A playroom.”
A nervous chuckle falls from my lips as I think of all of the versions of playrooms I’ve read about in my romance books. My cheeks stain red as I imagine Grady with a flogger in one hand standing beside a St. Andrew’s Cross.
“A playroom?”
“Yeah.” He takes a step closer so we’re breathing the same air, his voice husky enough to cause every part of my body to grow alert. “A playroom. You know . . . a pool table. Foosball. A real man cave.”
I exhale a shaky sigh, suddenly more than aware that he’s so close, shirtless, sweaty, and smelling like sun and soap mixed together. But it’s his eyes that make my thoughts falter. There’s an intensity to them I don’t expect from the perpetually cheerful Grady Malone.
“Ah, that kind of playroom . . .” But my words trail off as he steps even closer and braces his hands on the counter on either side of me. I can hear his intake of breath. The music floating in from outside. The pound of my pulse in my ears.
“Hey, Dyl?”
“Yes?” Our eyes hold, my lips fall lax.
“I need you to open up.”
“What?” I question as his hand brushes against my hip and his fingers pull on the drawer handle I’m standing in front of.
“I need the bottle opener. You’re standing in front of the drawer it’s in.” His lips spread into a full-fledged grin as I scramble away from the counter and, of course, run smack dab into the hardness, all six foot plus of him.
And then I rebound off him again in a flustered state that has him laughing and me stuttering. “Sorry. I wasn’t—I didn’t . . .” His arms hold on to my biceps to steady me, which prompts me to look up and meet his eyes.
“We need to stop meeting like this,” he murmurs, the heat of his breath hitting my lips.
“We do.” Brilliant, Dylan. Freaking brilliant response. “I’ve gotta . . . I’ve gotta get back to . . . to writing.”
4.75 ‘Face Everything And Rise’ Stars
Holy Hot Fireman!!! This couple! Their past, their scars, their ghosts, their passion, their chemistry…. Their LOVE! Epic romance written brilliantly by K. Bromberg in the most perfect of ways.
Once again miss Bromberg gives us ALL the feels. Straight to the heart!
Dylan McCoy’s – yes, how awesome is that we get two amazing McCoy heroines in the same week? – has just been shattered to pieces by her long time boyfriend and rock star, Jett. So in attempt to heal her wounds and stay away from he source her pain, her brother gives her a refuse to a secluded location, in a small town, she just has to share a house with his friend, Grady Malone. Sounds easy enough, no?! LOL
“The heart’s blind. It’s the head that causes all the trouble.”
Not at all, because Grady Malone is a league of his own – and huge problems that haunt him – but that just makes his smoking hot package that much more difficult to resist. And honestly, who could? A drool worthy body, and a cheer up attitude that hides an enormous pain insane, but let’s you see his fragility? Yep, totally irresistible!
Perfection with a little bit of grit thrown in.
Any woman who says a firefighter in his gear isn’t sexy is lying because damn . . . that’s the only word I can form.
And I’m left contemplating the contradiction that is Grady Malone.
I loved how much tact Grady had with Dylan, and which buttons he knew she needed pushing. The fact that even though immediately physically attracted, they established a somehow strong friendship, and Grady acknowledged her broken heart, but still pushed her to let go, was refreshing. I wished he hadn’t go to a particular moment there to try to help her, but that just show how blind men are sometimes, that it needs to basically be slapped in their face to see what was obvious to everyone else.
“Because love is rarely pretty. It’s messy. It’s complicated. It’s often ugly, but that’s how you know when it’s right. Pretty doesn’t always last. It’s the things you have to work at that make the reward that much sweeter.”
“It isn’t talking the good game you should be worrying about. It’s if a man can back it up with his actions.”
“It’s okay to forget what hurt you, but just remember to never forget what it taught you.”
His words of wisdom truly were spot on, if only he could take those very words and apply them his own situation. The dichotomy of his character just proves how talented Ms. Bromberg is. His inner conflict, his battle with his ghosts, and his upbeat charisma, shows us a complexity that just kept us hooked to this tormented man, and cheering for him, and Dylan. Because boy, did he want her!
It’s the perfect mix of sexy and sweet.
“What do you say, Dylan?” Please. Use me.
And weren’t just talking about physically and sexual want, but a soul calming craving, in which only Dylan brought him a resemblance of peace! His very own soul whisperer.
Dylan, the more she can see beyond the playful facade, and the God-like body, the more she is drawn to him, and their insane chemistry, just lights her fire to unmeasurable proportions. Yes, she’s afraid all he makes her feel, and she may have fought their magnetism, but a man like Grady, and a passion like theirs just can’t be ignored.
It takes a second for my mind to catch up to what my body is already reacting to—the onslaught of everything that is Grady Malone.
Because this isn’t a let’s-play-house kiss.
Oh no.
This is a take-no-prisoners, no-holds-barred kiss.
Every touch is a splash of gasoline on a smolder. Every kiss is the match being lit. Every groan a lick of flame searing both my skin and my soul.
And it’s passion that if allowed has the power to heal them both. Two hurt souls that just might be each others salvation, they just need to let their minds feel what their hearts and bodies are trying to tell them. Combust really is a story about mutual healing through love. Epic love’s true power!
We all have scars. Some are visible. Some aren’t. In the end, they represent the fact that you’re stronger now than whatever tried to hurt you.
That night, the taste of your kiss seared into my goddamn mind, making sure no one else’s kiss could ever come close.
It was amazing to get even more of Grant and Emerson HEA here, and the rest of the Malone gang – including their parents – as well as all the awesome secondary characters. Like all the women in the story, I could imagine the droolfest that comes with these three men at one place. These Malones… WOW, they really are a league of their own. Full package material: smoking hot looks, loyal to the core and with capacity to love a woman, their soulmate, in a way that she becomes the center of his universe.
We’re Malones. This is who we are. We are public servants, and risk comes with the territory. We don’t have a choice in the matter. We were born to do this, but that doesn’t mean we should miss out on our lives because of it.”
Combust really blew all my expectations, and considering how much I loved the first installment, that’s saying something. These profoundly developed characters, intricate and complex plot lines that unveil themselves organically, makes the experience K. Bromberg is gifting us with her talented writing, that much more gratifying! How could I not, when she snags my attention from the very beginning to end?! Pure Contemporary Romance GOLD! Can’t wait to see what she has reserved for us with the remaining Malone and delicious single parent, Medevac pilot, Grayson!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
“I’m not asking to be your whole world, Dylan, I just want to be a part of it. I want to be the part that revolves around you. I want to be the one who grounds you so we’re forced to come home to each other, even when we’re mad. I want to provide the arms that hug you and the hands that hold yours through whatever adventure awaits us. I want you and whatever the two of us decide we want for our future.”
I want the good, the bad, the ugly in life . . . and I want it with you.”
We let our scars fall in love.
We let our hearts heal each other’s.
ARC kindly provided by the author via Social Butterfly PR for an honest review
New York Times Bestselling author K. Bromberg writes contemporary novels that contain a mixture of sweet, emotional, a whole lot of sexy, and a little bit of real. She likes to write strong heroines, and damaged heroes who we love to hate and hate to love.
A mom of three, she plots her novels in between school runs and soccer practices, more often than not with her laptop in tow.
Since publishing her first book in 2013, Kristy has sold over one million copies of her books across sixteen different countries and has landed on the New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal Bestsellers lists over twenty-five times. Her Driven trilogy (Driven, Fueled, and Crashed) is currently being adapted for film by Passionflix with the first movie slated to release in the summer of 2018.
She is currently working on her Everyday Heroes trilogy. This series consists of three complete standalone novels—Cuffed, Combust, and Cockpit (late spring 2018)—and is about three brothers who are emergency responders, the jobs that call to them, and the women who challenge them.
She loves to hear from her readers so make sure you check her out on social media or sign up for her newsletter to stay up to date on all her latest releases and sales HERE
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