Hello ,

I'm back with the Sweet but Twisted Christmas cover reveal and a chapter reveal of Sweet Unknown (scroll down if you can't wait to meet Derek & Stella)!

If you want to take a closer look at click the image above, but here's a better look at Sweet Unknown.

And because I'm so excited for you to meet Stella and Derek, , here's the first chapter. Keep in mind that this is exclusive content that has been taken from my raw, unedited manuscript and is subject to change. My apologies for any grammar issues or mistakes in advance.

CHAPTER ONE

Stella

“What do you mean? You’re not here yet?”

I grabbed my oversized suitcase with both hands from the turnstile and hauled it off by the handle while holding my cell to my ear with my shoulder.

I could hear a woman’s voice laughing through the muffled receiver of my brother’s phone. “Sorry, I can’t make it, Stel. But Derek is on his way. He might even be there already.”

Did I hear him right? Derek? Our handsome but dreadful step-brother was on his way? I hadn’t seen him in years and the last few times weren’t ones I wished to remember. 

Just perfect.

And he was. Derek was perfectly charming and pleasant to everyone—except me. Things changed between us when he walked in on me having sex while home from school during my freshman year of college. After that, he found a reason to disappear every time I was around. It surprised me he was even around this Christmas. That was the first time in years. 

Was he over it?

That seemed like too much to ask of him. 

Also, what did I have? The scariest pair of tits known to man.

Because during the few conversations we had after that, I could have sworn that to him talking to me was akin to eating glass and letting it shred his esophagus on the way down. He always looked pained and sounded terse. I guess it was pretty awkward looking back.

“Stel? Are you still there? Shit, she’s pissed.” My brother said to whoever was in the room with him. 

“You’re right, I’m pissed,” I emphasized it in the same way he did. It deserved emphasis. This was a moderate failure in the brotherly love department. “This is some kind of joke, right, Jace? You wouldn’t send him for real, would you?” It surprised me Derek even agreed to it. It must have taken some convincing. “You couldn’t send Myles?”

“He’s out of town for a couple of days. Oh, and Mom and Dad wanted me to tell you they won’t be home until Christmas Eve. And that they’ve prepared the guest house for you.” It weirded me out he called Joseph ‘Dad,’ even though we’d only known him since our late teens. He was way more ‘go with the flow,’ than I ever could’ve been. Not that I had a dad around long enough to remember him. “The main house is being renovated for the party, so stay out of it. I gotta go though, okay, Stel? Love you.” 

I opened my mouth to protest.

Click.

I pulled the phone from my ear. He just hung up on me.

Jace ignored my question, which meant Derek was either on his way or had already arrived.

It was thirteen days until Christmas. And yet again, I was coming home single with zero prospects. To make matters worse, I’d be all alone in an empty house. I suppose that was better than the relentless jeers and comments about Spinster Stella. Being single at twenty-three years old was acceptable unless you had Katherine Holt as a mother. Which, unfortunately, I did. I’d be hearing about it as always. That was a guarantee. ‘When are you going to look for someone, Stella? You don’t want to end up like Aunt Patricia, do you?’

In some ways, I couldn’t blame her. My mother was a professional wife. It’s how she took care of us after our dad split. Joseph was her fourth husband and the only one who was rich enough to afford her for as long as he had. They were happy in their own way, I supposed.

The problem was, I wasn’t. But I didn’t want the attachment that came along with dating someone. Then again, that could be a by-product of my lousy relationship history. They say to learn from your mistakes and I was trying. I was. But how can you when each new guy comes with even more wild baggage? The older I got, the worse they got, and I was just plain tired.

I walked toward the sliding glass door that led to the passenger pickup area, scanning it for Derek to no avail. 

It had snowed in the last day or so but had warmed up enough since then until all that remained was slush and puddles. 

Typical Christmas in the Pacific Northwest. 

I approached the curb just as a huge black pickup truck with tinted windows roared up, shooting slush at me, soaking my t-shirt and jeans.

“Seriously?” I groaned, sloughing off the cold wet snow from my clothes. The window slid down.

“Bag in the back. Get in,” Derek barked.

“You soaked me!”

“Is this your first winter in Seattle, Stella? No. Stay away from the curb.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. My gaze met his narrowed eyes.

There it was. 

The same old pained expression.

I opened the back door to lift my bag into the back seat of the cab. It rolled to the side and fell on the first attempt. “Could your truck be any higher?”

He rolled his eyes and hopped out, rounding the truck in a few giant steps. “Could you be any shorter?”

He snatched the bag from me and tossed it into the back. I sucked in a breath as I tipped my head back, looking up at him. He towered over me, reminding me what it felt like to be this close to him. His broad shoulders and hulking presence sent a shot of heat through me. Damn it. How I’d wished for years that I could stop finding him attractive, but it never seemed to work. 

Asshole. 

He slammed the rear door shut and flung the passenger one open before wrapping his big hands around my waist and I yelped, “Get your hands off me!” 

He hoisted me up into the cab, plopping me down on the seat, and scoffed, shaking his head. “You’re welcome.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled, chewing at my lower lip. Too stunned by the sudden contact to come up with an adequate retort. 

He flipped a hand at me in response before slamming the passenger door closed, startling me.

My skin seared where his hands had been. I’m certain my cheeks were flush too. I might have been shorter than average, but I was curvy, so being lifted with such ease wasn’t something I was used to. 

If he can lift you that easily into a truck, what could he do in the bedroom? 

The seam of my jeans was growing wetter just thinking about it and it wasn’t from slush this time. Damn intrusive thoughts.

“What are you staring at?” he grumbled, his gravel tone chafing my insides in the most delicious way. He threw on a pair of mirrored aviators. “Seatbelt.”

I shook my head, snapping out of the trance he always managed to put me under. “Nothing.” My fingers fumbled for the belt before finding it, pulling it taut, and buckling it.

I swallowed hard. I really needed to get laid soon if I’d started fantasizing about Derek already. My poor, neglected hormones were clearly unsatisfied with my vibrator. I craved flesh. Warmth. A body pushing into me. 

Ugh. Just do something about it already. 

As Derek pulled out of the airport parking lot, I fished my phone out of my purse and typed dating apps into the search bar before scrolling through. It was the same old trash as always. A sea of worthless apps promising true love and compatibility. Neither was a requirement for what I needed. That’s when the feature ad caught my eye. Incognito. I clicked on it. The description touted it as the only app for anonymous hookups. The tagline? No names. No faces. No problems.

Did people actually do this? Hookup anonymously?

It was a scary thought. But also oddly hot. I squirmed in my seat, glancing over to make sure Derek’s eyes were on the road before I hit download. I didn’t actually have to follow through, but having a look around couldn’t hurt, could it?

Just then, Derek hit the brakes hard and my phone flew out of my hand, landing on the floor beside the gear shift.

The screen? Face up, of course. 

Panic struck.

No. No. No.

This couldn’t be happening.

I lurched forward and gagged as the seatbelt locked, choking me in the process. Derek reached over, picked up the phone, and tipped his head down to look at the screen before he let out a humorless laugh. “Some things never change, huh?”

I snatched my phone from him and locked the screen. Embarrassment flooded me and unceremoniously kicked my arousal to the curb. I wasn’t even going to dignify his question with an answer, but it still stung to be labeled as something I was not. Even if I had every right to do whatever I wanted with my body, with whoever I chose to do it with. But Derek’s opinion of me was formed years before when he’d walked in on the only one-night stand I’d ever had. 

Fine, if he wanted to be a judgmental prick that was on him. 

I was pretty sure he wasn’t a virgin, and I’d never known him to have a relationship, so I highly doubted he could cast stones. “I was looking at it for you.” I forced a smile. “You’d get more dates if you hid that sourpuss face of yours.”

“That’s sweet of you, but I’ll leave the fucking of strangers to you.” He made zero attempts to conceal the venom in his tone. 

“I know what I’m getting you for Christmas.” I looked out the window at the sea of cars around us. 

“What?” 

“A colonoscopy.”

He turned those mirrored sunglasses my way. I wish I could’ve seen his full reaction. 

“That way we can get the stick you’ve clearly got up your ass removed.”

He crooked a smile. “I’m not letting a strange man near my ass. That’s your department, Sugar.”

I huffed, folding my arms over my chest. “Do we really know anyone these days, Derek? Everybody’s so fake. What’s the difference? Just when you think you know someone, they’ll prove you wrong and tear you apart. I guarantee it.” Why did I even say that? Did I think he’d care that his sudden rejection of me hurt as much as it did? 

He slid the glasses down and looked at me out of the corner of his eye before accelerating through the intersection and veering to the right to merge onto the highway. “Can’t disagree with you there.”

Wait. What?

That was it. 

We were doomed. 

The earth was definitely going to open up in the next minute or two and swallow us up whole because the impossible had happened. 

Derek Holt had agreed with me, Stella Fletcher.

The apocalypse was nigh. 

His foot fell heavy on the accelerator, the engine screaming full-throttle as the truck picked up speed for the merge ahead.

“But that site.” He cut the wheel left, dashing in front of a car that hadn’t cleared the slow lane. “It’s dangerous.” He weaved around a car and I grabbed the door handle. “And reckless.” He hammered on the gas roaring by another car before weaving narrowly between two cars this time. 

“So is your driving. Have you lost your mind? Slow down.”

“It’s almost rush hour. I want to get out of downtown before we’re stuck together for hours.”

“Believe me, the feeling is mutual, but I’d much rather stay alive.”

He grumbled something under his breath. He either said, “I feel the opposite.” Or something about freeing an armpit. It was hard to tell over the incessant roar of the engine and the swoosh of passing cars. But there was no sign of him easing up, so I turned my attention to the side of the road and kept it there. 

Thirty-five minutes of high-speed travel later, we pulled up to the gate of the Holt estate. The three-story mansion sat at the end of the stretch of long drive. It came complete with twelve bedrooms, fifteen bathrooms, and an Olympic-sized swimming pool, steam room, hot tubs, tennis court, home theatre, and stood arrogantly among the evergreens. It was just as full of itself as its occupants were, my dear mother included. 

“If the main house is under renovation, where are you staying?”

Derek turned off the front drive onto the lane that led to the guest house. It was a more modestly sized house, but still had five bedrooms and seven bathrooms. At least it tried to be more subtle and, for that reason, I’d always preferred it. 

“If you’re asking if I’m staying in the guest house with you, I’m not, so don’t worry. I’m headed out of town for a few days, but when I get back, I’ll be across town at the Stanley Hotel.”

Finally, some good news. 

“Now get out.”

I hadn’t even noticed that we’d stopped. I fumbled with my seatbelt once again. Why did he always make me so edgy? Initially, it’d been because I had a crush on him. I couldn’t help it. I was in my mid-teens when my mother married Joseph, his father. 

Derek, a college student at the time, came along with him. Off-limits to me in every way, I couldn’t do anything but look, of course, and he never gave me any indication that he was interested in me at all. But every chance I got to ogle him when he was home from school, you can bet I did, even if it made my heart ache to do so. I’d never wanted anyone harder than I wanted Derek Holt. He was leaner back then and on his college swim team. Until he tore his rotator cuff, ending his career prematurely. 

I had no idea what he was doing these days that made him so beefy-looking, but whatever it was, the universe was thankful for it. Or maybe that was just me. 

He groaned, snapping me out of my heated reverie. “Get out of my truck, Stella.” 

“Right. Right. Sorry. I’m so jet-lagged. I’m not thinking straight.” 

“You flew in from the East Coast, darling, not the other side of the world. It’s only a three-hour difference.” 

My stomach twisted into fine knots at him calling me darling, the kind you find in a thread, the ones that can never be undone. I wish I had it recorded. The rasp of his tone and knowing it was directed at me would be enough to make me come. “You’d think, but the wild nights of debauchery have me on a unique schedule.”

“Very funny,” he said, completely deadpan. 

I shrugged, looking at the house. “I thought it was.” Was I really going to be alone here for twelve days? What was the point of coming home for winter break?

Derek cleared his throat, and I glanced over at him. He was staring at me with his trademark intensity, the same look that made the hair on my arms stand on end. “Try to be good, Stella. You’re here for the holidays, for family, not…that.” He pointed an accusatory finger at my phone. 

There he goes, judging me. Again. 

I reached for the handle before flinging the door open. I was only going to have a look around the app after a glass of wine or two, but now that he said that, I’d be messaging people for sure. 

How dare he try to shame me? I was a grown woman. I slipped out of the truck, stumbling as I did. It was just as much an oversized beast as he was, and I hated them both. I flung the back door open, reached up, and yanked out my suitcase, dragging it hastily down the driveway toward the house. 

Derek called out. “Forget to do something?”

I knew he was referring to the two doors that I left, very intentionally wide open. 

I stopped, turned, and popped a hand on my hip. “You’re the one that agreed to play chauffeur, Derek. Do your job.” 

I spun on my heel and crossed the rest of the distance to the house. I didn’t hear him drive away until I was inside with the door shut and locked behind me, staring into the quiet, empty house. I kicked off my shoes and stripped off my shirt and pants, balling them up so they wouldn’t soil the sterile all-white decor of the guest house before I trudged up the stairs with my suitcase bumping behind me. 

A quick shower, then wine.

Before I was back to disappointing my hypercritical step-brother some more, only this time, he’d never know it.

Coming to Amazon & Kindle Unlimited November 3, 2023! Sweet Unknown is my full-length debut but I've priced it like a novella for a limited time only. Pre-order today to lock in your discount (it'll be going up in the new year).

PRE-ORDER TODAY

I'll be back with a spicy sneak peek from Derek and Stella later this month, . Until then, take care!

Much Love,

Lia

P.S. If you're on Tiktok don't forget to follow the series for updates here: https://www.tiktok.com/@sweet_but_twisted

Or follow me on the social media platform of your choosing for more frequent updates here: https://literarylovepotions.com/lia-preston/