True Abandon by Jeannine Colette Excerpt Reveal

“I want you to get to know me now, as a man.”

I hold a finger up to him. “No.”

“Yes.”

Shaking my head, I state, “You can’t force me to spend time with you.”

“Yes, I can,” he retorts with a wink. He flicks a gaze around the room—the fourteen-hundred-square-foot Pele suite with two king-size master bedrooms, a living room, lanai looking out to the Pacific Ocean, and—

Realization strikes.

“Oh, no.” I put both hands up in the air and start to back away. “No, no, no, no, no.”

He smiles. 

“You’re sick,” I state. 

He strides toward me, each step more purposeful than the last. “Eight days and seven nights of personal concierge service.”

I continue to back up. “You’re insane.”

“Sit back and relax at our five-star luxury resort while your every need is met,” he recites the words from the hotel’s website.

My heels continue to retreat backward. “I don’t know what you think this service includes, but it’s not—” My back hits the wall. 

“Not what?” His palms are pressed flat against the wall by my head, his body pinning me in.

I gasp at the proximity. 

The buttons of his shirt are level with my eyes. The fire of the dragon peeks over the top of his collar. His strong legs encase me. The well-defined upper half of a man who clearly treats his body like a piece of art paired with the intoxicating smell of warm honey radiating off his skin trap me. I’m consumed by the power of this man, yet not one single part of his body is touching me. Not one tiny inch.

I look up and am a breath away from lips whose kisses are still ones I dream about. I dare myself not to, but I find myself glancing further up, and my heart stops at the look he’s giving me—the heated one of a man who is fixated on the one thing he wants. The determined yet yearning gaze of someone who has been deprived for years. The look of someone who is staring at what he needs. 

My body ignites. 

From the tips of my fingers to the swell of my chest and right down to the simmering of my core, I’m reacting to having this hard, powerful body so close. It’s so intense, so direly missed—and so very, very dangerous.

I tilt my head to the side, causing Jax to lean in and whisper into my ear, his breath hot against my skin, “There once was a time when you looked at me like I was your savior. Now, your eyes scream in disgust. Where you once melted, now, you flinch. I did that to you, and it kills me.” 

He pushes off the wall and stalks back to the middle of the room with his chest heaving. I was so concerned about my physical reaction, I didn’t even notice he had one of his own.

“I’m not the monster you think I am.”