In this New Adult debut by Robin York, a college student is attacked online and must restore her name—and stay clear of a guy who’s wrong for her, but feels so right.
When Caroline Piasecki’s ex-boyfriend posts their sex pictures on the Internet, it destroys her reputation as a nice college girl. Suddenly her once-promising future doesn’t look so bright. Caroline tries to make the pictures disappear, hoping time will bury her shame. Then a guy she barely knows rises to her defense and punches her ex to the ground.
West Leavitt is the last person Caroline needs in her life. Everyone knows he’s shady. Still, Caroline is drawn to his confidence and swagger—even after promising her dad she’ll keep her distance. On late, sleepless nights, Caroline starts wandering into the bakery where West works.
They hang out, they talk, they listen. Though Caroline and West tell each other they’re “just friends,” their feelings intensify until it becomes impossible to pretend. The more complicated her relationship with West gets, the harder Caroline has to struggle to discover what she wants for herself—and the easier it becomes to find the courage she needs to fight back against the people who would judge her.
When all seems lost, sometimes the only place to go is deeper.
Harder, the second book in the Caroline & West Series is releasing July 1st!
In Robin York’s provocative new novel, two young ex-lovers find themselves together again in the shadow of tragedy—and an intense, undeniable attraction.
Caroline still dreams about West. His warm skin, his taut muscles, his hand sliding down her stomach. Then she wakes up and she’s back to reality: West is gone. And before he left, he broke her heart.
Then, out of the blue, West calls in crisis. A tragedy has hit his family—a family that’s already a fractured mess. Caroline knows what she has to do. Without discussion, without stopping to think, she’s on a plane, flying to his side to support him in any way he needs.
They’re together again, but things are totally different. West looks edgy, angry at the world. Caroline doesn’t fit in. She should be back in Iowa, finalizing her civil suit against the ex-boyfriend who posted their explicit pictures on a revenge porn website. But here she is. Deeply into West, wrapped up in him, in love with him. Still.
They fought the odds once. Losing each other was hard. But finding their way back to each other couldn’t be harder.
Advance praise for Harder
“Bursting with chemistry, emotion, and heart, Caroline and West’s story will take your breath away!”—Katy Evans, New York Timesbestselling author of the REAL series
“Robin York writes exceptionally real characters in achingly real situations. Harder had a hold on my heart and didn’t let go until the very end.”—New York Times bestselling author Cora Carmack
Ready for a scene from West’s POV? 😉
Rooftop Scene – West’s POV
“Lie down,” she says. “You’re blocking my stars.”
I lie down, elbows behind my head, and look up.
“It’s cloudy.”
“Shh.”
“There’re no stars.”
“Shhhhhhh,” she says again, with a lot of drama. “Shut up and enjoy the firmament.”
I smile up at the sky. Stoned out of her gourd, Caroline’s even bossier than normal. And she still says shit like firmament.
We look at the cloudy dark mess in the sky for a while. The night’s actually not half bad. The clouds are thick, but they’re moving in fast masses, and sometimes the moon escapes and brings some stars with it. Better than the usual Iowa sky, so often gray-white and thick with moisture. Fucking oppressive. The sky seems taller back home somehow.
It’s crisp out, but not as cold as it ought to be for the end of November. I’m wearing a heavy zip-up sweatshirt over a flannel and a T-shirt, and I’m comfortable enough, except for the strip of skin along my lower back where my shirts have all pulled up because I’ve got my arms above my head. I feel the roof through my jeans, numbing my ass.
It doesn’t matter. Being high makes everything crisp and sharp, but it also makes it so I just don’t care about shit like whether I’m warm. The buzz turns down the radio station in my head, constantly tuned to Oregon, and tunes in to Caroline.
She’s lying on her side, staring at me.
I feel her breath on my face. The warmth off her body.
I know exactly how far I’d have to move to kiss her, and it’s not far enough.
“I can see every single hair on your face,” she tells me.
“I shaved.”
“No, I mean, like, your pores. I can see all the places where the hairs come out. It’s weird.”
“It’s not weird. It’s my face.”
“Your face is weird, though, West.”
“Thanks.”
She laughs, a wash of spearmint-scented breath over my ear. “Please. You don’t need me to tell you how pretty you are.”
“Guys aren’t pretty.”
“Have you seen your roommate? He’s the prettiest girl on campus.”
“You should tell him that sometime. He’d be so pissed.”
“It’s not like it’s hurting him in the dating department.”
“Krish doesn’t date, Caro.”
“You know what I mean.” She leans closer.
“Why are you hovering over me like a vulture?”
“I like watching your jaw move when you talk. I can see, like, muscles and stuff. I never noticed before.”
“Maybe ’cause we don’t usually talk with your face three inches away.”
“That’s probably why,” she says solemnly.
“Or because you’re stoned.”
“Another strong possibility.”
I close my eyes. I feel like something important is slipping away from me and I’m supposed to want it back, but I don’t. I don’t want anything that means I’m supposed to keep apart from her.
“You are, though,” she says.
“What am I?”
I want her to tell me what I am. I walked in to this house of hers, this house with its big white columns marching along the front and its granite countertops, the deep white carpet in the living room that must be new because there’s not a stain on it. I walked in and got lost.
I don’t know who I am. She’s the only thing here I recognize, and it makes it harder to remember why I’m not supposed to put my hands back on her hips, pull her on top of me, kiss her cold lips, and push my fingers underneath her hat to feel the warmth of her hair, her head in my hands.
The only thing I know in this place is Caroline.
What am I?
When I open my eyes, she’s right there, looking at me. Looking into me.
She strokes one light fingertip along the bridge of my nose, pausing at the tip. Then skips down to the groove above my mouth. Over my upper lip. She’s drawing me with her finger, and it brings something up that I’ve shoved down inside me, buried in earth, covered over with a rock.
I don’t know what to call it. Greed. Need.
She’s touching me like I’m fragile, precious, and it’s making me want to flip her over, pin her wrists down, climb on top of her and do things to her until she feels boneless, desperate. Until the only word she can make with that mouth is my name, over and over. I want to know every fragile hollow of her body, and I want my tongue on them, my name inscribed in some secret language only Caroline and me even know.
“You’re beautiful,” she says.
I’m dangerous.
Robin York grew up at a college, went to college, signed on for some more college, and then married a university professor. She still isn’t sure why it didn’t occur to her to write New Adult sooner. Writing as Ruthie Knox, she is a USA TODAY bestselling author of contemporary romance, including RITA-finalists About Last Night and Room at the Inn. She moonlights as a mother, makes killer salted caramels, and sorts out thorny plot problems while running, hiking, or riding her bike.
