He steps to me, his hands framing my face. “But we’re just beginning, and I plan to live every day with you like we’re dying. And to kiss you like I will never kiss you again.”
And so he does. He kisses me, and it feels like a kiss from a dying man. A kiss to last forever, whatever our forever may be.
Dear Readers:
I can’t believe it’s over! I’m already imagining the wedding, and a chance for Ella and Sara to sit and talk for hours. They need to talk about those journals! And about the wedding . . . well, you know Ella might need to have a gun strapped under her dress, and actually have to use it. That would be so fun and pretty sexy, too. And you know Niccolo would have to show up with a gift, and a problem. Oh yes, he would. Maybe that follow-up story will happen. I’d like it to happen. If not, perhaps I’ve now sparked your ideas for what comes next—and a reader’s imagination and excitement are the best compliments a writer can have. I already miss Ella and Kayden and I hope you will, as well. And then there’s Sasha and Adriel—those two need a story! Whatever happens, thank you for taking this journey with me.
And if you haven’t read Chris and Sara’s story, and even want more Blake Walker, you can find them all in the Inside Out series.
xoxo
Lisa
Can’t get enough of the sizzlingly sexy and provocative adventures from New York Times bestselling author Lisa Renee Jones? Keep reading for an excerpt from the first novel in her bestselling Inside Out series.
if i were you
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I am still standing in the middle of Chris Merit’s display, in stunned disbelief, when something snaps inside me. I am hot and confused and feeling like the world is spinning around me. I’ve spent money I don’t have on the ticket for the night, but I can’t get out of this gallery fast enough. I run for the door, not literally, but I might as well be running. This heat I feel is unexplainable, considering the gallery is chilly, and I need air desperately. I need to think. I need to figure out what is going on inside me, because it is nothing I know as familiar.
Exiting to the street, I welcome the cool night air washing over me. I turn quickly to my left, intending to head for my car, when the strap of my purse catches and snags on the brick of the building and somehow it snaps open. The contents spill to the ground. With exasperation, I squat, trying to retrieve my items. This is so my life, and there is a tiny part of me comforted by my familiar clumsiness, by something that feels like me. I mean, who else can manage to catch her purse on a wall, of all things?
“Need some help?”
My gaze shoots upward to find Chris Merit at eye level, and for a rare moment in time, I can’t find the words to ramble with my nerves. While I’d felt comfortable with him inside the gallery, I am dumbstruck now that I know who he is. He is brilliant. He is also incredibly good-looking and he’s squatting down on the ground with me, which somehow feels wrong. This night has me feeling as if I am in the Twilight Zone. There is no other explanation for how bizarre it is.
“I . . . ah . . . no,” I manage. “Thank you. I got it. It’s a little purse. Doesn’t hold much.” I scoop up my lipstick and a tiny wallet, and slide them back inside the bag before pushing to my feet.
He grabs my keys and stands, towering over my five feet four inches by a good foot. I hadn’t realized how tall he is when he’d been sitting beside me at the Ricco event, or how earthy and deliciously male he smells, but the wind lifts and the scent tickles my nose. He is different from Mark, not so sophisticated and debonair, more raw, and yes, like his scent, earthy.
He gives me another one of those devastating smiles he’d used on me in the gallery and dangles my keys in the air. “You might need these to go wherever you’re going so fast.”
“Thank you,” I say, and accept them. His fingers brush mine, and electricity charges up my arm, across my chest, and steals my breath. My eyes meet his, and I see awareness in the deep green depths of his stare. Only I’m not sure if it’s the same kind of awareness I feel. Maybe it’s simply that I hide my feelings horribly and he now knows I’m reacting to him, and it amuses him.
“You’re leaving early,” he comments, his hands going to his hips, which pushes back his blazer enough for me to see the stretch of his black T-shirt across his impressive chest. I approve, as I’m sure the rest of the female population does.
“Yes,” I say, and jerk my attention to his face, to a full mouth that has me a bit breathless, but then everything has me breathless tonight, it seems. “I need to get home.”
“Why don’t I walk you to your car?”
He wants to walk me to my car. I’m not sure why he would want to do that. He doesn’t even know me. Is it possible that he felt that same electricity I did, or do I amuse him and he wants to continue the entertainment? Mark did say he has a strange sense of humor. “Why didn’t you tell me who you are?” I blurt, not liking the idea of being a joke.
His lips quirk. “Because then you would have told me you loved my work even if you hated it.”
My brows dip. I’m not sure how I feel about that. “That’s sneaky.”
“It spared you the awkwardness of pretending to like my work.”
“There wouldn’t have been any awkwardness. I like your work.”
“And I like that you like my work,” he approves, a warm glow in his eyes. “So . . . shall I walk you to your car?”
My escape has been further waylaid, but I’m not sure that is a bad thing anymore. “Okay,” I squeak, appalled at my lack of voice. There is a reason I don’t date much: I’m horrible at it. I get shy and I pick the wrong men, who use both of those very things against me. Dominant, controlling men, who seem to turn me on in the bedroom and off in real life. It’s genetic. I’m quite certain that had I a sister, she would have been just as foolish about men as myself and as my mother had been. And while Chris, at first impression, doesn’t strike me as arrogant or controlling, his failure to tell me who he was earlier in the evening was in fact a way of controlling my reaction. Not that I think he is interested in me. I’m overanalyzing and I know it. Chris Merit could have his choice of women and, in fact, probably has. He doesn’t need to add little ol’ me to the list.
“You know my name,” he says, pulling me from my reverie. “It’s only fair I know yours.”
“Sara. Sara McMillan.”