Stepping it Up: Hard to Hold by Trina Watters

About Stepping it Up: Hard to Hold by Trina Watters

Some walls protect us. Others just keep us from reaching what we need most.

Lena’s always believed strength meant not needing anyone. Love, in her experience, comes with conditions, silence, or the slow ache of being left behind. Years ago, when her mom married Jack’s dad, Lena and Jack tried to make family work—but the adults couldn’t, and neither could they. Now, years later, an unexpected weekend under the same roof reignites something neither of them ever fully let go of.

While her mom’s away, the quiet distance between them collapses into charged silences, old hurts, and one impossible kiss. What they had as teens wasn’t much, but the potential for something real has always simmered just beneath the surface. And now, Lena can’t stop thinking about the way Jack sees her—or how it felt to be wanted without conditions.

But wanting Jack risks more than just her pride. It risks everything she’s built to keep herself safe.

Hard to Hold is an emotionally layered contemporary romance about old wounds, unexpected longing, and what happens when you stop running from the one person who sees you clearly. Told entirely from Lena’s third-person perspective, this standalone novella in the Stepping It Up series blends slow-burning tension with a high-heat payoff—and the kind of heart that lingers after the last page.

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Author Bio:
Trina Watters writes emotionally rich contemporary romance that blends cozy warmth with just the right edge of steam. After nearly a decade away from the genre, she’s returned with renewed passion for character-driven stories full of quiet tension, complex backstories, and earned intimacy. A proudly LGBTQ+ author, her work often centers people who’ve spent too long feeling like a second choice, finding their way to someone who sees them as anything but.

Her stories explore longing, emotional intimacy, and the small moments that change everything, weaving together the familiar comfort of love stories with undercurrents drawn from deep personal experience and insight shaped by her ties to several alternative communities.

She lives in the central Midwest with her spouse and a very opinionated tiny scrungle of a dog. When not writing, she enjoys watercolor painting, setting things on fire (intentionally, with pyrography), exploring fiber arts, and getting far too invested in MMO RPGs or sprawling sim games—whether she’s managing a virtual city or tending a pixelated garden.

Trina is especially interested in the kinds of connections that challenge old defenses and the stories that stay with you, long after the last kiss.