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  Limits were made to be broken…

  Genevieve Rodriguez’s life isn’t panning out the way she’s always envisioned. At all. Not only is she exactly one “D” away from getting kicked out of school, but her heart is in pieces after her long-time crush marries someone else. For Genevieve, sunny Silver Strand has never felt more dismal.

  Then Adam Abramowitz, her super-cute, super-smart physics tutor—who never seems to notice even her sexiest tops—tells her his visa is about to expire and he’s going to have to return to Israel.

  Suddenly the words pop out of Genevieve’s mouth before she can stop them. “Marry me.”

  At first, it’s a joke…until it’s not. Because in that brief, unexpected moment, everything changes. The rules. The boundaries. And Adam and Genevieve are about to discover what happens when you push the limits.

  Previously released under the title Limits June 2013, and has been enhanced with new material.

  Table of Contents

  The Silver Strand series Hide Me

  Risk Me

  Own Me

  Deserve Me

  Crush Me

  Chase Me

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Discover the Silver Strand series… Hide Me

  Risk Me

  Discover more New Adult titles from Entangled Embrace… Getting Lucky Number Seven

  No Kissing Allowed

  What If

  Fearless

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Stephanie Campbell and Elizabeth Reinhardt writing as Lexi Scott. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Previously released under the title Limits in June 2013, and has been enhanced with new material.

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

  2614 South Timberline Road

  Suite 109

  Fort Collins, CO 80525

  Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

  Embrace is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

  Edited by Robin Haseltine and Liz Pelletier

  Cover design by LJ Anderson

  Cover art from iStock

  ISBN 978-1-63375-355-6

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition August 2015

  The Silver Strand series

  Hide Me

  Risk Me

  Own Me

  Deserve Me

  Crush Me

  Chase Me

  To Karly Lane,

  An ocean may separate us, but we’re always toasting your loyalty,

  success, and overall awesomeness.

  Thank you for your friendship.

  Chapter One

  Adam

  “Hell hath no fury like a yeast sample scorned.” I bang my head on the countertop, and my lab assistant, Cody, pats my back and takes a sip of coffee so thick, it’s practically syrup.

  “Shakespeare? This shit is getting tragic quick.” Cody looks over my shoulder and sucks his breath through his teeth. “Holy crap.”

  “Yes.” I knock my forehead on the cold, cruel laminate again and appreciate Cody’s brutal honesty.

  I need to hear this. I need to accept that my dreams of a PhD are slipping through my fingers fast. I can always go back to Israel and apply to school there. In fact, my father called just yesterday with “incredible news.” His longtime friend was looking for a research assistant.

  I imagine the smug look on my father’s face when I show up for dinner, still jet-lagged, my tail firmly between my legs. I imagine how he’ll scoff at my failed attempts to be independent, to pursue my own dream while I “turn my back on my homeland.” The last thing I want is to listen to him crow when I’m forced to accept employment through one of his connections.

  “I’m so completely screwed,” I mutter, staring into the petri dishes as if just looking at them hard enough will make those damn protein changes I need to see happen—need so badly that it starts a monster headache deep in my skull.

  Cody claps a hand on my shoulder and takes another long sip from his Doctor Who mug. “Dr. Gibson knows you worked your ass off on these trays. She’ll give you an extension,” he assures me from behind the blue TARDIS.

  And she will. I know that without having to ask. Dr. Gibson is all mile-long legs and shiny hair and way into open relationships with younger men who work in her lab. I’ve managed to appease her interest with stories about my time in the Israeli army without actually sheet hopping, and it’s always earned me a decent extension before. But even debasing my moral code and spending a long, sweaty night with my superior can’t get me out of this mess.

  “She’s fine with giving me another extension. It’s my visa that’s the problem.”

  Why? Why was I such a slacker when it came to keeping my paperwork up to date? Why did I try the patience of my foreign studies liaison over and over? Maybe because I was so sure I could get these damn yeasts to work, to back up my hypothesis, and do more than just complete my thesis.

  I wanted my name in the journals.

  I wanted to fly into my hometown and have my aunts carry around extra copies of a random science publication they’d never even known existed before so they could hand it out to neighbors who would say, “Adam Abramowitz went to the USA with nothing and came back a famous scientist!”

  I wanted to sit at the head of the table while my father scowled into his soup and I felt a surge of cocky pride I wouldn’t quite be able to keep off my face.

  I wanted to do this on my own, here, in the country I chose to be in, without accepting my father’s help…which would also mean accepting his never ending lectures about how I should have listened to him before I wasted my time.

  “Fuck,” Cody says, pulling the word out with the same level of doom that’s rioting in my brain. “You could always see if Dr. Cougar wants you to put a ring on it. Green card marriage to a brilliant, hot, older woman?”

  I shudder. “Even if I was that desperate, she’s married. To Dr. Ellison in Comparative Lit.”

  “Comparative Lit?” Cody scoffs. “No wonder she cheats on the poor bastard. Is that seriously a major? Pathetic.”

  “I hear you,” I agree, but for once my heart isn’t into mocking the liberal arts. And that’s how I realize my depression is complete.

  “Well, at least you can go back to Israel and take that research job with that guy your dad knows, right?” Cody’s trying. I should appreciate it. He’s way more of a friend than any other lab rat I’ve worked with before, which could be because Cody actually has a grasp on things like social customs and empathy. He is the rare scientist with a fairly raging social life.

  He’s also the most brilliant slacker I’ve ever met, and his intense optimism boggles my mind daily.

  “Sure.” I get up and start to toss the petri dishes back in the fridge with much less care than I usuall
y take. “I think I’m gonna call it a day.”

  “Uh, dude. Did you forget?” Cody shakes his head and laughs. “I’ll tell you what, man. I don’t care if you’re working on the cure for cancer—forgetting your Tuesday appointment is a crying fucking shame. I’m on the verge of revoking your man card.” He quickly holds up his hands. “Unless girls don’t do it for you. Which is totally cool.”

  I sigh. “Genevieve’s coming in today. Damn it,” I mutter under my breath. “Oh, I’m into girls. I love them. But that girl? Gen’s cool, but we’re just friends. She’s super sweet, but she’s such a pain in the ass.”

  “A gorgeous pain the ass.” He raises his eyebrows and lets out a long, low whistle. “I can’t believe that girl is as much trouble as you pretend. Did you see that little top she had on last week? Was it even a shirt? It was more of a sexy bra with some see-through cloth hanging off of it. Damn.” He rubs his hands and smiles appreciatively. “How do you get to tutor sexy Genevieve Rodriguez and I get nerdy Samuel McKenna?”

  I’m really close to telling Cody we should switch, just to keep the banter up. And I know I should laugh along. He’s trying to make me forget everything I’m worried about.

  But I feel…kind of pissed. Maybe even more than kind of.

  And super possessive. Genevieve was the first person on this campus to talk to me, my first week in the States. She noticed my kippah and invited me to some Jewish student meeting. I was so desperate to talk to anyone, I said okay…and after ten minutes of standing around awkwardly with a bunch of other Jewish college students, she suggested we go out for coffee. We started talking, we made each other laugh, she told me about her awful boyfriend—the first of about six since I met her—and we’ve been hanging out regularly since.

  Tuesdays I tutor her, because she can’t afford another shitty grade, and the last tutor she paid an arm and a leg to help her was a moron. She’ll literally flunk out of college if she doesn’t pass this course. Smart as she is, Gen doesn’t take herself all that seriously. I guess that’s my job.

  She’s the funny, outgoing beauty; I’m her serious, geeky friend. I think there’s a pretty popular sitcom based on this exact situation.

  “Maybe it’s a good thing you’re stuck with Sam,” I growl. “Genevieve needs all the help she can get. She needs to focus on mastering differentials. If her tutor spent all his time ogling her, she’d never graduate.”

  When I’m done with my little tirade, there’s a stretch of silence so deep it leaves me embarrassed. But Cody doesn’t seem upset at all.

  In fact, he’s laughing.

  “So I guess you did notice her little top. Nice. I’ve seen the way she looks at you, man. I’m not about to horn in, no matter how many times you give me that ‘just friends’ bullshit.” Cody’s smug look pricks at my usually level temper. “Much as I’d like to. Damn.”

  “The way she looks at me? Like I’m that annoyingly focused friend who wants her to get her work done? Trust me, Genevieve doesn’t mince words. She told me what an uptight ass she thought I was the very first day we met. Her words, by the way. Not mine.”

  And I’m glad she said them. Because—I can’t lie—I was drooling that first day. I knew my chances were bad to start with. Nerds like me do not score gorgeous chicks like Genevieve Rodriguez. But she set me straight right away, and now we have a good thing going. I try to keep her grounded, lecture her once in a while, and tutor her on Tuesdays, and she reminds me to take it easy now and then, drags me out of my lab to socialize with other humans, and sometimes pays attention to whatever lesson I’m going over with her. We have a solid friendship based on our easy back and forth and our ability to balance each other out. I didn’t really expect to become such good friends with her, but she’s made my last few semesters here feel almost like home.

  It’s a really comfortable, easy thing we’ve got going on.

  Aside from the times when I slip up and forget that it’s never going to be more than platonic. Luckily, she’s got a killer sense of humor on top of being drop-dead gorgeous, so I’ve never put my foot too far down my throat.

  “How cute.” Cody pats me on the back as he leaves the lab. “It’s like when a girl pushes you off the swings on the playground, man. Mazel tov, you’re officially not stuck in the friend zone! She thinks you’re dreamy!”

  “Fuck off, Cody!” I call, shaking my head as his snickers recede down the long hallway.

  In a few minutes, Genevieve will be here, ten minutes late on the dot. It’s one thing about her that drives me totally insane. And it makes me worried. How the hell is she passing classes if she’s showing up late to lectures? Why is she always exactly ten minutes late? Why not just come at the arranged time? When I mentioned this to her once, like a reasonable person, her answer was, “Why don’t you just change the appointment time, Adam? You really need to chill. And be more flexible. You’re going to give yourself an ulcer.”

  How can you like someone so much and at the same time want to scream in frustration when you talk to her?

  Exactly ten minutes after the scheduled hour, I hear her heels clicking down the hall. She’s holding a huge box, and I can see that she’s about to trip over the FedEx package Cody and I have ignored all day. I jump over the counter, crash into some stools, and make it to the door just as her toe catches on the package.

  I throw my arms around her tiny waist, but she bends one ankle at a funny angle, and the box crashes to the floor.

  “Shit! Are you okay?” I need to get her off her feet, so I scoop her in my arms and carry her to the rolling chair in the corner, my mind spinning, my heart trapped in my throat. “Let me see your ankle.”

  “Adam, it’s fine.” She winces as my hand travels down the smooth length of her calf to her delicate ankle.

  She’s got great legs. I have completely accepted that she’s just a friend who happens to be very, very attractive, and who I have zero chance with—but there’s no way I can deny what amazing legs she has.

  And these ankles? The scientist in me knows that her bones and muscles are perfectly capable of supporting her body weight. But the man in me wonders how such tiny joints can support the weight of a full human.

  Even if the human is probably only a hundred and twenty pounds drenched.

  “Does this hurt?” I gently turn her ankle right, then left.

  “It just feels bruised,” she says, her big gray eyes looking into mine. “Hey, you’re kind of sexy when you’re playing the knight in shining armor, professor.”

  That voice, smoky and sweet at once, would put me under a spell if I let it. Luckily she pulls a typical Genevieve move and jerks me out of my stupidity.

  She lifts that long left leg and rolls her ankle back and forth, making her ridiculous, glittery shoe catch the light and sparkle.

  “I don’t even care if I broke my ankle. These shoes are worth it.” Her smile is bordering on vacant, and I feel a twist in my gut.

  Why does she do that? Why does she play dumb when she’s anything but? I’ve told her a million times that people are going to overlook her brains because of how pretty she is—she should shock the hell out of them by showing off her mind.

  A blind man could tell Genevieve is gorgeous. But her brain? Now that’s the part of her that’s the real turn on.

  “You could have broken your neck wearing those, Genevieve. You could have been seriously hurt. What the hell were you thinking?”

  I mean to give her some sensible advice, to make sure she understands why her actions need to be rethought. But, as usual, it all comes out like I’m lecturing her, and I hate that. Why the hell can’t I keep my cool around this girl?

  She rolls her head back and twirls in the chair, her shiny hair flying all around. “Unlike you, professor, I know when to turn my brain off and stop thinking so I can have some fun once in a while.” She points the toe of one shoe my way. “You should try it more often. Speaking of having some fun, how about you go with me and my friend Nicola to that new club
downtown? It’s supposed to be killer, and she’s very, very cute!” She winks at me.

  I groan. “Right. Nicola. You made me meet her for coffee, remember? C’mon, Gen, she’s boring as hell. How about you stop trying to arrange dates with girls who don’t even get my jokes.”

  “How about you stop telling that lame joke about Schrodinger’s cat? Quantum superposition isn’t that funny.” She raises a dark eyebrow at me. “You had to explain the entire theory of paradox in quantum mechanics to me before I could even pretend to think it was funny.”

  “You didn’t think it was funny?” I ask, a little wounded. She’d laughed so hard! “Well, at least you understood. Nicola asked me how they make coffee decaf, and when I started to explain, she told me she’d rather believe it is ‘some kind of magic.’” I snort. “I could have explained it simply. It’s not a difficult concept to grasp.”

  “Okay, Nicola is kind of a space cadet. But I’m sure you could have made her understand. Because you’re a really good tutor, thankfully. How about I pay you back for tutoring me by taking you out to dinner? Have I introduced you to Amanda? She’s a comparative lit major!”

  I stifle another groan and change the subject fast.

  “How about we try getting you through differentials before you flunk?” I suggest, pointing to her backpack. “Did you get my outline? I emailed it after our last session and never heard back from you.”

  “Oh.” She purses her lips. “School email?”

  I nod, and she scrunches up her nose and shakes her head. “I’m sorry. You know I never check that one, Adam. Why can’t you send it to my normal email address?” She flashes me a wide smile that she seems confident will do the trick.

  I count backward from ten in Hebrew. “Because, as your tutor, emailing your school address is normal, Genevieve. And grodgiguez@ucl doesn’t cause me any pain to type. I’m just going to lay this out honestly, as your friend, okay? Pinksnoogle23@gmail? Brain cells die every time I even think about that username.”

  Genevieve tilts her head to one side so all her long, dark hair hangs down in a curtain. “Do you try to be this boring all the time? Like, is it work, or does it just come to you organically?”