Touch: Awakening

The first touch burns. The second will change her life.

In the future, humans will never see each other face to face. Technology will facilitate all interactions, from emails to spoken conversations to a hike up a tree-lined mountain. They'll rely on machines to provide them with their basic needs and favorite indulgences, and they'll never know another person's touch.

This is the world Alexis is born into.

A grad student slated to become impregnated in a few months' time, Lexi's been struggling with her wild and reckless thoughts. Why aren't they allowed to question the Government's decisions? What if her friend, Parker, is right, and the pill regimen they're on deadens their sense of touch? And why does her heart stop and her chest squeeze whenever she's around Drew?

Drew's a dangerous man. He asks the questions she's afraid to voice and makes her think. Makes her wonder. Makes her yearn. He promises to help her find the answers, the two of them fumbling toward something they don't understand.

The first touch is painful, the second one less so. Each one awakens feelings Lexi has no words for, until she craves Drew like an addict needing a fix. As they discover what the Government has kept from them all their lives, they fight to find a way to have it all - even as it threatens to destroy them forever.

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Later chapters contain situations intended for a mature audience. Consider yourself warned :)