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**This is book 1 in the INSIDE OUT series, previously
published with a different cover. The INSIDE OUT series, is currently in
development for TV with Suzanne Todd (Alice
AVAILABLE NOW
If I Were You (bk 1) Special Edition Paperback
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Blurb
From New York Times Best Selling author Lisa Renee Jones, a
story with the heat of 50 Shades and the mystery of Pretty Little Liars. Now in
development for cable TV with acclaimed producer Suzanne Todd (Alice
How It All Started...
One day I was a high school teacher on summer break, leading
a relatively uneventful but happy life. Or so I told myself. Later, I'd
question that, as I would question pretty much everything I knew about me, my
relationships, and my desires. It all began when my neighbor thrust a key to a
storage unit at me. She'd bought it to make extra money after watching some
storage auction show. Now she was on her way to the airport to elope with a man
she barely knew, and she needed me to clear out the unit before the lease
expired.
Soon, I was standing inside a small room that held the
intimate details of another woman's life, feeling uncomfortable, as if I was
invading her privacy. Why had she let these items so neatly packed, possessions
that she clearly cared about deeply, be lost at an auction? Driven to find out
by some unnamed force, I began to dig, to discover this woman's life, and yes,
read her journals--dark, erotic journals that I had no business reading. Once I
started, I couldn't stop. I read on obsessively, living out fantasies through
her words that I'd never dare experience on my own, compelled by the three men
in her life, none of whom had names. I read onward until the last terrifying
dark entry left me certain that something had happened to this woman. I had to
find her and be sure she was okay.
Before long, I was taking her job for the summer at the art
gallery, living her life, and she was nowhere to be found. I was becoming
someone I didn't know. I was becoming her.
The dark, passion it becomes...
Now, I am working at a prestigious gallery, where I have
always dreamed of being, and I've been delivered to the doorstep of several
men, all of which I envision as one I've read about in the journal. But there
is one man that will call to me, that will awaken me in ways I never believed
possible. That man is the ruggedly sexy artist, Chris Merit, who wants to paint
me. He is rich and famous, and dark in ways I shouldn't find intriguing, but I
do. I so do. I don't understand why his
dark side appeals to me, but the attraction between us is
rich with velvety promises of satisfaction. Chris is dark, and so are his
desires, but I cannot turn away. He is damaged beneath his confident good looks
and need for control, and in some way, I feel he needs me. I need him.
All I know for certain is that he knows me like I don't even know me, and he says I know him. Still, I keep asking myself -- do I know him? Did he know her, the journal writer, and where is she? And why doesn't it seem to matter anymore? There is just him and me, and the burn for more.
Full Chapter
Chris maneuvers the 911 into the drive of a fancy high-rise
building not more than four blocks from the gallery. Before I can question the
fancy location being home to a pizza joint, as he’d called it, a valet is
already opening my door.
“I’ll come around to get you,” Chris says with a touch on my
arm. He doesn’t wait for a reply, climbing out of the vehicle and disappearing
from full view.
I am both charmed and embarrassed at the prospect he
believes the extra wine has made me a helpless lush. Worse, it wouldn’t be an
assumption completely without merit, and this night is exactly why I never let
myself lose control. It always backfires.
I unsnap the seat belt about the same moment Chris appears
at my door. Holding my skirt down, I slide my legs to the ground, all too aware
of his scorching gaze on my legs.
His hand appears in front of me, and I hold my breath,
preparing for the impact of his touch, as I press my palm to his. He pulls me
to my feet, onto the sidewalk beneath an awning, his hand settling possessively
on my hip. The rich sensation of desire spreads through my limbs. I have never
in my life reacted to a man this intensely.
Behind me, I hear the car door shut, and the engine rev,
before the 911 pulls away. “This doesn’t look like a place that serves pizza,”
I comment, but I am not looking at the building. It is Chris who has my full
attention.
“Two blocks down,” he explains. “We can walk there if you
want, or we can go upstairs to my apartment.”
Chris lives here, at least when he’s in the States. The
implications of our location are clear.
His long fingers curl around my neck, under my hair, and he
lowers his mouth to my ear. “Be warned, Sara. I’m no saint. If I take you
upstairs, I’m going to strip you naked and fuck you the way I’ve wanted to since
the moment we first met.”
The shockingly bold words ripple through me, and I am
instantly aroused, squeezing my thighs together. He has wanted to fuck me since
we first met. I want him to fuck me. I want to fuck him. Yes. Fuck. I want to
give myself permission to forget good, proper behavior and fuck and be fucked.
Wild, hot, uncontrollable passion, with no worries during and regrets in the
aftermath. I’ve never let myself feel those things. When in my life have I ever
experienced such a thing? When has any man ever made me think I could?
I press against his chest and lean back, my eyes seeking
his. “If you’re trying to scare me off, it’s not working.”
“Not yet,” he says, dark certainty to his tone, to the lines
etched in his handsome face. It is as if this is simply a seed already planted
that cannot be stopped.
“Not at all,” I counter.
He doesn’t immediately respond, and his expression is a mask
of hard lines, his jaw set, tense. Slowly, his fingers slide from my neck to
caress a path down my arm until his fingers lace intimately with mine. “Never
say never, Sara,” he murmurs, and starts walking, pulling me with him.
Anticipation sizzles through me as we walk toward the
automatic doors to be greeted by a man in a dark suit with an earpiece and buzz
cut.
“Evening, Mr. Merit,” he says, and glances at me. “Evening,
miss.”
“Evening, Jacob,” Chris replies. “Pizza coming our way.
Don’t frisk the delivery guy.”
“Not unless he’s a delivery woman, sir,” Jacob comments, and
I get the sense these two are familiar beyond the casual exchange.
I lift a tentative hand at Jacob. “Hi.”
“Ma’am,” he replies, and there is a slight shift in his gaze
I’m certain he doesn’t intend for me to notice, but I do. I read it as surprise
at my presence, and I can only assume I am far from Chris’s normal choice in
women. It isn’t hard for me to imagine Chris being a blond bombshell kind of
man, and where I hadn’t felt insecure moments before, I suddenly do now. I am
angry at myself for feeling such a thing when I’ve promised myself no more
self-doubt. When I crave the escape, the freedom, I was so close to
experiencing only moments before.
The elevator is right off the fancy lobby and past a
security booth. Chris punches the button, and the doors open immediately. I
follow him inside and watch as he keys in a code. The doors shut, and he pulls
me hard against him.
My hands settle on his hard chest, inside the line of his
jacket, and warmth spreads through me. “What just happened?” His hand brands my
hip.
My breasts are heavy, my nipples aching. “I don’t know what
you mean,”
“Yes. You do. Second thoughts, Sara?”
I scold myself for being so transparent. “Do you want me to
have second thoughts?”
“No. What I want is to take you to my apartment and make you
come and then do it all over again.”
Oh . . . yes, please. “Okay,” I whisper, “but I think you
should feed me first.”
His lips curve into a smile, his eyes dancing with gold
specks of pure fire. “Then you can feed me.”
The bell dings, and the doors begin to open. Chris wastes no
time pulling me to the edge of the elevator, and I watch in surprise as a
gorgeous living room appears before me, rather than a hallway. Chris has a
private elevator, and I am entering his private world, a world very unlike my
own.
Chris releases my hand, our eyes lock, and I read the silent
message in his. Enter by choice, without pressure. On some level I sense that
once I enter his apartment, the decision to do so is going to change me. He is
going to change me in some profound way I cannot begin to comprehend fully. I
think he might know this, and I wonder why he would be so certain, what is
etched with such clarity to him beneath the surface.
He has misplaced doubts of me in this moment, as he’d
doubted me at the gallery. I can see it in his eyes, sense it in the air. I
refuse to allow his lack of confidence in me, or anyone else’s for that matter,
to dictate what I can or cannot do ever again. I’ve been there, and I ended up
on the sharp edge of a cliff, about to crash and burn. I’d recovered, and I am
beginning to see that locking myself in a shell of an existence isn’t healing.
It’s hiding. Regardless of what happens at the gallery, I’m done hiding.
My chin lifts, and I cut my gaze from Chris’s and exit the
elevator.
My heels touch the pale perfection of glossy hardwood
floors, and I stop and stare at the breathtaking sight before me. Beyond the
expensive leather furniture adorning a sunken living room with a massive fireplace
in the left corner is a spectacular sight. There is a floor-to-ceiling window,
a live pictorial of our city, spanning the entire length of the room.
Spellbound, I walk forward, enchanted by the twinkling night
lights and the haze surrounding the distant Golden Gate Bridge
We are above the city, untouchable, in a palace in the sky.
How amazing it must be to live here and wake up to this view every day. Lights
twinkling, almost as if they are talking to one another, laughing at me as they
creep open a door to the hollow place inside me I’ve rejected only moments
before in the elevator.
I swallow hard as the song “Broken” from the band Lifehouse
fills the room, because Chris doesn’t know how personality is to me. I’m
falling apart. I’m barely breathing. I’m barely holding on to you.
This song, this place with the words, and I am raw and
exposed, as if cut and bleeding. Who was I kidding with the refusal to hide
anymore? This is why I’ve hidden. The past begins to pulse to life within me,
and I am seconds from remembering why I feel this way. I refuse to process the
lyrics and shove them aside. I don’t want to remember. I can’t go there. I
squeeze my eyes shut, trying to seal those old wounds, desperate to feel
anything but their presence.
Suddenly, Chris is behind me, caressing my jacket from my
shoulders. His touch is a welcome sensation, and when his arm slides around me,
his body framing mine from behind, I am desperate to feel anything but what
this song, no doubt aided by the wine, stirs inside me.
I lean into him and hard muscle absorbs me. There is a
strength to Chris, a silent confidence I envy, and it calls to the woman in me.
His fingers, those talented, famous fingers, brush my hair
away from my nape, and his lips press to the delicate area beneath, creating
goose bumps on my skin. And still, I barely block out the words to the song and
their meaning to me.
As if he senses my need for more—more something, anything,
just more—he turns me around to face him, and his fingers tangle almost roughly
into my hair. The tight pull is sweet, dragging me from other feelings, giving
me a new focus.
“I am not the guy you take home to Mom and Dad, Sara.” His
mouth is next to mine, his clean male scent all around me. “You need to know
that right now. You need to know that won’t change.”
But the song does change, and this time to another track on
what must be a Lifehouse CD. “Nerve Damage” begins to play. I see through your
clothes, your nerve damage shows. Trying not to feel . . . anything that’s
real.
I laugh bitterly at the words, and Chris pulls back to study
me. And I am not blind to what I see in the depths of his green eyes, what I’ve
missed until now but sensed. He is as damaged as I am. We have too many of the
wrong things in common to be more than sex, and the realization is freedom to
me.
I curve my fingers on the light stubble of his jaw, the rasp
on my skin welcome, and I have no idea why I admit what I have never said out
loud. “My mother is dead, and I hate my father, so don’t worry. You’re safe
from family day and so am I. All I want is here and now, this piece of time.
And please save the pillow talk for someone who wants it. Contrary to what you
seem to think, I’m no delicate rose.”
A stunned look flashes on his face an instant before I press
my lips to his. The answering moan I am rewarded with is white-hot fire in my
blood that he answers with a deep, sizzling stroke of his tongue. He slants his
mouth over mine, deepening the connection, kissing me with a fierceness no
other man ever has, but then, Chris is like no other man I’ve ever known.
His tongue plays wickedly with mine, and I meet him stroke
for stroke, arching into him, telling him I am here and present and I’m going
nowhere. In reply to my silent declaration, his hand cups my ass and he pulls
me solidly against his erection. Arching into him, I welcome the intimate
connection, burn for the moment he will be inside me. My hand presses between
us and I stroke the hard line of his shaft.
Chris tears his mouth from mine, pressing me hard against
the window, and I know I’ve threatened his control. Me.
Some part of me realizes the window behind me is glass, and
all things glass can break. He knows this, too, it’s in the dark glint of his
eyes, and he wants me to worry about it. He’s pushing me, testing me, trying to
get me to break. Because I slid beneath his composure? Because he really
believes I am out of my league? And maybe I am, but not tonight. Tonight, as
the song has said, I am broken, and for the first time perhaps ever, I am not
denying the truth of all of my cracks. I am living them.
I lift my chin and let him see my answering rebellion. His
fingers curl at the top of my silk blouse and in a sharp pull, material rips and
the buttons all the way down pop and clamor in all directions. I gasp, in
unfamiliar territory, and burning alive with the ache I have for this man.
He turns me to the window, and my hands flatten on the
glass. Wasting no time, Chris unhooks my bra, and it and my blouse are off my
shoulders in moments. He is behind me again, his thick erection fit snugly to
my backside.
“Hands over your head,” he orders, pressing my palms to the
glass above me, his body shadowing mine. “Stay like that.”
My pulse jumps wildly and adrenaline surges. I’ve been
ordered around during sex, but in a clinical, bend over and give me what I want
kind of way I tried to convince myself was hot. It wasn’t. I hated every
second, every instance, and I’d endured it. This is different though, erotic in
a way I’ve never experienced, enticingly full of promise. My body is
sensitized, pulsing with arousal. I am hot where Chris is touching me and cold
where he isn’t.
When he seems satisfied I’ll comply with his orders, Chris
slowly caresses a path down my arms, and then up and down my sides, brushing
the curves of my breasts. He’s in no hurry, but I am. I am literally quivering
by the time his hands cover my breasts, welcoming the way he squeezes them
roughly, before tugging on my nipples. I gasp with the pinching sensation he
repeats over and over, creating waves of pleasure verging on pain, and the
music is fading away, and so is the past. There is pleasure in pain. The words
come back to me, and this time they resonate.
His hands are suddenly gone, and I pant in desperation,
trying to pull them back.
Chris captures my hands and forces them back to the glass
above me, his breath warm by my ear, his hard body framing mine. “Move them
again and I’ll stop what I’m doing, no matter how good it might feel.”
I quiver inside at the erotic command, surprised again by
how enticed I am by this game we are playing. “Just remember,” I warn, still
panting, still burning for his touch. “Payback is hell.”
His teeth scrape my shoulder. “Looking forward to it, baby,”
he rasps. “More than you can possibly know.”
For More information on The INSIDE OUT series page
including: buy links, and excerpts for the additional books in this series.
Visit Lisa’s website here: http://bit.ly/1fWXnem
About the Author:
New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author Lisa Renee Jones is the author of the highly acclaimed INSIDE OUT SERIES, and is now in development by Suzanne Todd (
Watch the video on casting for the INSIDE TV Show HERE
Since beginning her publishing career in 2007, Lisa has
published more than 40 books translated around the world. Booklist says that
Jones suspense truly sizzles with an energy similar to FBI tales with a
paranormal twist by Julie Garwood or Suzanne Brockmann.
Prior to publishing, Lisa owned multi-state staffing agency
that was recognized many times by The Austin Business Journal and also praised
by Dallas Women Magazine. In 1998 LRJ was listed as the #7 growing women owned
business in Entrepreneur Magazine.
Lisa loves to hear from her readers. You can reach her at on
her website and she is active on twitter and facebook daily.
GIVEAWAY
Prizes include:
$500 gift card (winner’s choice!)
INSIDE OUT prize basket (full set of SIGNED INSIDE OUT
books)
20 Chris Merit and Tote Bag sets
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