Excerpt: Fire In You by Jennifer L. Armentrout
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Summary
From the # 1 New York Times and International bestselling author comes a richly moving story about heartbreak and guilt, second chances and hope. Full of familiar, fan-favorite characters and no two people more deserving of a happy ending, Fire In You will burn bright beyond the last page…
Jillian Lima’s whole world was destroyed in a span of a few hours. The same night her childhood love, Brock ‘the Beast’ Mitchell, broke her heart, her life was irrevocably altered by the hand of a stranger with a gun. It takes six years to slowly glue together the shattered pieces of her life, but Jillian is finally ready to stop existing in a past full of pain and regret. She takes a job at her father’s martial arts Academy and she’s going out on her first date since a failed relationship that was more yuck than yum. Jillian is determined to start living.
She just never expected Brock to be a part of her life again. But he’s firmly back in her life before she knows it, and not only is he older, he’s impossibly more handsome, more teasing and more everything. And when he sees Jillian, he’s no longer capable of thinking of her as the little girl who was his shadow growing up or the daughter of the man who gave him a second chance at life. He sees the woman who’d always been there for him, the one person who believed in him no matter what.
Brock knows she’s the one he should’ve made his, and what begins as a tentative friendship quickly turns to red-hot chemistry that sparks a flame that burns brighter than lust. Falling for Brock again risks more than her heart, because when the sorrow-filled and guilt-ridden past resurfaces, and a web of lies threatens to rip them apart, the fallout could lay waste to everything they’ve fought to build together, and destroy the dreams of those they care most about.
Excerpt
“Okay. This conversation has gone way off track,” I said.
“Those are the best kind of conversations.” He reached behind him and curled his large hand around the mug.
I ignored the comment and refocused. “The reason why I’m in your office is because I wanted to see you—”
“It’s about time you admit that,” he replied smoothly, and those eyes of his, dark and endless, took on a lazy quality that had my pulse once again pounding all over the place. “Have I told you lately how much I like it when you wear your hair down?”
“No,” I whispered.
“I do. You have beautiful hair.” His jaw tightened. “Never noticed that before. You always had it pulled up, didn’t you?”
“Um.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Always pulled up.” With one hand still wrapped around the coffee cup, he picked up a piece of my hair, running his fingers along the strand. His voice deepened when he said, “You’ve always been a pretty girl. I know I’ve said that to you before, but you’ve become such a beautiful woman.”
I wanted to laugh, to ask him if he’d been drinking this morning, but my heart was beating too fast. I had no idea how to process what he was doing and saying. Brock had told me I was beautiful before, but he’d always said it back then in a way that it was just a passing compliment, one tossed out and not really meaning anything. Hearing it come from his mouth now was nothing like before.
Lifting my gaze once more to his, I found that I was unable to look away. Brock was one hundred percent a grown man now and he never, ever had looked at me like he did in this moment, like he was…he was starving, and I didn’t understand how he could be staring at me like that. It didn’t make sense, not in the world we lived in.
Brock let go of my hair and his fingers brushed over the curve of my cheek. My skin tingled from where his fingers had touched, like an electrical jolt to my system. His gaze slipped from mine, coasting and lingering over my mouth before going even lower, and a sweet, heady flush of heat spread. Under the sweater, I could feel my nipples hardening.
Slowly, torturously, he dragged his gaze back up to mine. A shadow passed over his striking face and he swallowed once more, then lowered his chin. “Jillian, I—”
“Am I interrupting?”
I jumped at the sound of an unfamiliar female voice. A flicker of surprise skated over Brock’s face and then his jaw hardened. I glanced over my shoulder, and nearly fell out of my chair as I whipped back around, my eyes wide.
It was the fiancée.
Kristen Morgan.
Oh my God.
About Jennifer Armentrout
# 1 New York Times and # 1 International Bestselling author Jennifer lives in Martinsburg, West Virginia. All the rumors you’ve heard about her state aren’t true. When she’s not hard at work writing. She spends her time reading, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, and hanging out with her husband and her Jack Russell Loki.
Her dreams of becoming an author started in algebra class, where she spent most of her time writing short stories….which explains her dismal grades in math. Jennifer writes young adult paranormal, science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary romance. She is published with Spencer Hill Press, Entangled Teen and Brazen, Disney/Hyperion and Harlequin Teen. Her book Obsidian has been optioned for a major motion picture and her Covenant Series has been optioned for TV. Jennifer has won numerous awards, including the 2013 Reviewers Choice Award for Wait for You, the 2015 Editor’s Pick for Fall With Me, and the 2014/2015 Moerser-Jugendbuch- Jury award for Obsidian. Her young adult romantic suspense novel DON’T LOOK BACK was a 2014 nominated Best in Young Adult Fiction by YALSA.
She also writes Adult and New Adult contemporary and paranormal romance under the name J. Lynn. She is published by Entangled Brazen and HarperCollins.
Connect with Jennifer: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads
