Don't Hold Back

By Renee Dominick

There’s only one man for wild child Jenna McCaffrey—her best friend’s sexy grouch of a brother. For years, she’s wanted to get her hungry hands on the straight-laced professor and break his careful control. She’d come so close once... But now, her friend’s wedding party ranch getaway is the perfect opportunity for a do-over. And poor Rob won’t know what hit him.

Professor Rob Lindgren is close to attaining his final dream—tenure. Unfortunately, the university’s morality clause is making his life hell. He’s dying to let loose, and a weekend away from home is just what he needs...until he sees Jenna. She’s exactly as he remembers—still brash, still bold, still damn near irresistible. And Rob is tired of fighting...

Too bad they can only have one wicked weekend together. No way will Jenna’s wild ways ever fit in Rob’s perfectly planned life…

Each book in the To Have and to Hold series is STANDALONE:
* Hold Me Harder
* Don’t Hold Back

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: May 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9781640635524

Book preview

Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2018 by Renee Dominick. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 105, PMB 159

Fort Collins, CO 80525

[e-mail]

Scorched is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

Edited by Brenda Chin

Cover design by Cover Couture

Cover photography by illustrissima/Shutterstock

ISBN 978-1-64063-552-4

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition May 2018

For R, whose love and support has made embracing my dreams possible.

Chapter One

This is going to be it, Jenna thought as the chauffeur started up the limousine. Her Grade-A prime opportunity to convince her best friend’s smokin’ hot brother, Rob, to finally hook up. Finish the night he and Jenna had started all those years ago.

Eight years ago, to be exact. It was a long damn time to wait for the down and dirty, but it’s what she got when the object of her lust was too upright, too stubborn, to admit that the sexual tension between them needed some serious relieving.

Jenna’s best friend, Chloe, had invited her entire wedding party to a weekend getaway at a luxury dude ranch, and Jenna sat facing backward in the limo, which was how she saw Rob bolt through the automatic door outside baggage claim and come to a skidding halt, scraping his thick, blond hair off his forehead with an annoyed gesture as the SUV pulled away from the curb.

Talia, the only other bridesmaid Jenna knew well, elbowed her in the ribs. Damn, should we tell the driver to stop to let Rob in?

No. Jenna may have been sending him all the go signals since that oh-so-close night, but Rob had himself convinced she was a villain from the dark side, come to corrupt the Lindgrens like a suburban she-devil. He’d even told her so once. To her face. The other limo hasn’t left yet. He’ll be fine, and you have all weekend to drool over him.

Yes, Talia said wistfully. He is fine.

Indeed. Fine, smokin’ hot, and bangable as fuck.

Still, being stuck in a car with him for two hours might be too much torture. He just would have scowled at everyone the whole way, Jenna said.

Talia leaned forward for the last view of him as they accelerated away from the airport’s pick-up zone. But it’s such a hot scowl.

That was true, too. As much time as she’d spent at the Lindgrens’ house in high school, and later, during college breaks, Jenna had been subjected to it hundreds of times. Maybe thousands. She could see it now: straight blond brows clenching together, two vertical lines etched deep atop his nose, his Nordic-blue eyes swirling with annoyance. That scowl had showed up in her dreams plenty of times, but it was his lips that had been her kryptonite from day one. Full, sharply outlined, and begging to be drawn over with a tongue. Her tongue.

She’d done it once, that night she’d discovered him watching porn. She’d pulled away his laptop, straddled his thighs, and…well, it hadn’t been her best idea. Licking had turned to kissing, kissing to touching, and from there, she’d ended up on the floor after Rob unexpectedly shot his load when she’d whispered fuck me, and then vaulted out of his chair, angry and embarrassed.

Getting her mouth and hands on him would have been worth every bit of the angsty aftermath, if only it hadn’t left her wanting more, more, more.

No, Rob’s scowl had never put her off. She still wanted her do-over, to fuck the man into exhaustion, do all kinds of dirty, wonderful things with him until he was completely unraveled, lying at her feet, limp and tangled as a pile of overcooked spaghetti.

She stifled a groan because the odds of it actually happening were not good. If there was one thing Jenna could claim to be, it was practical. She knew better than to count on the impossible, and if someone told her to describe Rob Lindgren in one word, impossible would be it. In every way. Impossibly hot, impossibly repressed, impossibly untouchable.

…

We’re here. Rob was jostled awake by his twin sister, Natalie.

He struggled upright and scrubbed his fingers through his hair, trying to jog his brain awake, along with his body. He hadn’t taken many vacations in the last four years, not on his assistant professor’s salary, and certainly not the weekend before finals. This was a special weekend for Chloe—he wouldn’t have missed it for anything—but attending meant he’d had a late night getting his tests ready in advance, and an early morning flight from Salt Lake City. It only took five minutes of road-drone to knock him out.

Despite the small hassles, this getaway had come at just the right time. Rob was holding on to a secret, one he hadn’t mentioned to anyone in his family yet: he was about to be offered tenure. He had some significant life choices to consider, not the least of which would be relocating permanently to the Southwest.

The law school dean was a sixty-something, repressively conservative woman who didn’t much care that her one condition—that he would have to set down roots and marry the right girl—would not pass a legal challenge. It was an unwritten job requirement while she was in charge, and everyone knew it.

He didn’t mind the settling down part. It was the dean’s idea of the right girl that made him uneasy. He’d been dating those women for the last four years, and they left him…uninspired.

If only he hadn’t been exposed, in the most mind-fucking way possible, to the kind of woman the dean would consider wrong. The kind that might show up to the staff holiday party in a prom dress and thrift store motorcycle boots. The kind that wouldn’t be meek and passive but who could seize control of his body with a kiss and a hand on his junk and a whispered, "Fuck me, Rob."

The kind he was about to come face-to-face with at the top of this hill. The thought alone made his cock twitch.

The limo climbed a long driveway bordered by white fencing, and Rob took in the full scope of the ranch. Living and working at a place like this had been his dream, one he’d reluctantly abandoned when he got into law school. It had seemed like a common-sense decision. Now, looking out the window, he couldn’t remember why common sense had won out over passion, except that with him it seemed to be a pattern. He let out a low whistle as they passed half a dozen beautiful Andalusian horses grazing and lazing in the sunny pasture.

Told you, Natalie said.

There’d been a Lindgren family vacation here once, years ago, but Rob’s summer employment as a tutor meant he’d had to miss it. The limo rounded a bend in the road, and a magnificent barn came into view, with Appaloosas and Paints, no less fine-looking in their own way than the showy Andalusians, standing around in nearby paddocks. There’s telling me, Rob said, and there’s seeing it for myself. Did you check with—what’s his name, again? Natalie had never confided the details of her past relationship with the ranch’s owner to him, only that there had been one. A significant one.

Javier, and yes, I spoke to him. He knows you’ll be skulking around the barns.

They rolled to a stop below a two-story log guest lodge. The driver opened the door and Rob stepped out, breathing in a deep draught of air so heavy with pine resin, it almost felt sticky. He wanted to head right to the barns, but he had to wait for Chloe to arrive. He hadn’t seen his sister since the holidays. The least he could do was say hello to her first.

A burst of laughter from the group standing by the other limo drew his attention, and all thoughts of the barn and Chloe ceased. There she was, his template for the wrong woman, only today she wasn’t wearing a prom dress and boots, or a graphic T-shirt and low-top Chucks. Or barely there pajamas. Today she looked…practically practical.

She’s changed, hasn’t she, Natalie said, tapping him beneath the chin.

Rob firmed his jaw. No. Yes. God, yes.

Reviews for Don't Hold Back

[pelusa41-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Rcvd an ARC at no cost to author..This is the second book in series but can be read as a standalone, and since I didn't read the first one, I didn't feel like I missed anything. This is a fairly quick book about Jenna who always had a crush on her brothers best friend Rob. They all end up going to a ranch for a retreat for a celebration of her best friends getting engaged. Jenna had not seen Rob in years but she is going to go after him on this weekend and my friends they literally held nothing back.

[nelispelusa · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Rcvd an ARC at no cost to author..This is the second book in series but can be read as a standalone, and since I didn't read the first one, I didn't feel like I missed anything. This is a fairly quick book about Jenna who always had a crush on her brothers best friend Rob. They all end up going to a ranch for a retreat for a celebration of her best friends getting engaged. Jenna had not seen Rob in years but she is going to go after him on this weekend and my friends they literally held nothing back.