Mine For Now by Erika Kelly - published October 4, 2016

My review:

Mine For Now is completely different from her contemporary series about rock stars and their shenanigans, and has a different tone. I’m not sure if it’s categorized as such, but I’d definitely say that Mine For Now meets the criteria for “New Adult” romance. Dylan McCaffrey and Nicole O’Donnell are two kids just starting college. They eventually discover that they both have more in common – they both have alcoholic mothers. For Nicole, she has long since made the choice to cut her mother loose and accept that she can’t change or fix her. For Dylan, his mother is a millstone around his neck, and his journey toward coming to the same conclusions about his mother that Nicole made about hers is a difficult path that spans the entire book. Mine For Now is part gritty drama and part intense love story.

This book is told from alternating perspectives. Without part of the story told from Dylan’s perspective, I don’t think his story would be as compelling. Erika Kelly does a convincing job of detailing the chemistry between Dylan and Nicole. With small-scale intimate scenes that put the hero and heroine in extremely close quarters, the sexual tension and feeling of longing are amplified to an insane degree. The romance balances out the angst. This is a book that might make you cry but you’ll feel the need to read through without stopping. I like how Erika Kelly ties things up at the end and gives the characters a satisfying resolution to their stories.

An excerpt from Mine For Now: 

        Every time he closed his eyes he saw her. He saw her in his bed, those long eyelashes fanning in perfect arcs on her creamy skin. Or on his lap, straddling him, her face taut with sexual tension. Or, worse, he imagined her on her back, hair spread all over the pillow, breasts bouncing as he slammed into her. Jesus, he ached just thinking about it.

       He had to stop this. He had better control over his emotions than this—how else would he have survived this long?

      What was happening to him? That first night, when he’d brought her into his bed—he’d felt it then. This connection, this bond. He hadn’t even known her—but he’d felt her. Inside, he’d felt her. When had she become essential to him?

      Oh, shit. That was bad. Very bad. No one could ever be essential to him.

      What she’d said tonight—about recreating Gun Powder. He had done that.

       He’d hated his life back home. The town itself was beautiful, but it was filled with his big, extended family—family that wanted nothing to do with him. They’d given him a choice—him or his mom. Of course, he’d chosen his mom. But that had narrowed his social life to the guys who weren’t going anywhere.

      Or maybe he’d chosen those guys because he thought they’d understand his life a little better.

      And, yeah, he guessed he had done the same thing here.

      But he couldn’t stop thinking about what James had said about what he wanted deep down. He’d never been allowed to think about what he wanted. For him, it was about survival. Nothing else.

      And yet, he had worked his ass off to get into a top school. Why? Like James said, if he planned on going back to Gun Powder, why bother with the expense and hassle of Wilmington?

      Hope rose in him, a force so strong he couldn’t ignore it. He came here because he wanted more. Nicole.

     He did have something deep down. And that something was a someone.

     Holy shit. Adrenaline crashed his system.

     Nicole was his deep down. She was his home, his heart.