Holding Out by Serena Bell: Returning Home Series Book 4
Title: Holding Out
Author: Serena Bell
Category: Contemporary
romance
ISBN: 9781732894839
Format: e-book
Publication Date: May 21, 2019
Pages: 267
Price: $3.99
Available from: Amazon, Kobo,
Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Google Play
HOLDING
OUT (RETURNING HOME, BOOK FOUR)
His friend’s little sister has just asked him for a BIG favor. The
trouble is, once won’t be enough … for either of them.
The
answer has to be no, of course. No way Griff Ambrose is going to help Becca
Drake solve her inexperience issues. Not only is she his friend’s sister, but
Griff doesn’t do commitment—not since the day he came home from war to find his
house empty and his wife gone.
But he can’t get Becca’s request—or pretty much anything else about her—out of his head. What can it hurt, anyway? If it’s awkward afterwards, they can just avoid each other. Right?
Becca Drake has turned her life around, and she’s proud of how much butt she’s kicking. The shy girl with the self-esteem problem has been shown the door, and New Becca’s in the driver’s seat. There’s just one more demon she has to exorcise. Her lack of experience is messing up her romantic life. Guys who might be okay with giving her a test drive act like they’re being auditioned for marriage when they find out exactly what she’s never done.
But he can’t get Becca’s request—or pretty much anything else about her—out of his head. What can it hurt, anyway? If it’s awkward afterwards, they can just avoid each other. Right?
Becca Drake has turned her life around, and she’s proud of how much butt she’s kicking. The shy girl with the self-esteem problem has been shown the door, and New Becca’s in the driver’s seat. There’s just one more demon she has to exorcise. Her lack of experience is messing up her romantic life. Guys who might be okay with giving her a test drive act like they’re being auditioned for marriage when they find out exactly what she’s never done.
Griff
is the perfect candidate to do the deed: He’s her friend, he’s hot as heck, and
neither of them wants anything serious.
Then Becca’s job goes belly up and she takes a temporary position at the veterans’ retreat where Griff works. Now she and Griff can’t stay out of each other’s way—and their entanglement keeps getting messier—and hotter. Worst of all, it’s getting harder and harder for Becca and Griff to lie to themselves about what they really want…
Then Becca’s job goes belly up and she takes a temporary position at the veterans’ retreat where Griff works. Now she and Griff can’t stay out of each other’s way—and their entanglement keeps getting messier—and hotter. Worst of all, it’s getting harder and harder for Becca and Griff to lie to themselves about what they really want…
RATING/REVIEW: ☕☕☕☕ ( 4 simmering cups for this sexy romance that has the hero all hot and bothered while the heroine just wants it done!)
This is the fourth book in Serena Bell's Returning Home series and fans will recognize the two main protagonists, Griff and Becca, since they've been a part of the series from the beginning. They get their own book now and what a story it is, with Becca wanting to get rid of her V-card and Griff being allergic to being The One but at the same time hates the thought that some idiot might do the deed without taking Becca's feelings into consideration. It sounds like a fluffy story with lots of laughs and sexy times, which by the way Ms. Bell delivers in spades! But its also about two people who appears not quite what they seem. Both Griff and Becca suffers from some insecurities that to the present still affects them and whatever decisions they make. I do love how everything plays out but probably not so much the big misunderstanding that occurs between Becca and Griff. I do understand that its a plot device to get these two to realize something in their personal life that needs fixing before they can actually be together, so it does serve a purpose plus it was short live, so definitely just a minor blip. Still Holding Out is definitely sweet, extremely hot and poignant. A definite winner in romance.
HOLDING
OUT EXCERPT
©
Copyright 2019 Serena Bell
All Rights Reserved
As she approached the range, she saw
him with the big bow in his arms, slinging arrow after arrow into the center of
the target so they stuck out like bristling porcupine quills.
She hung back, watching. He wore a
plastic chest guard and a leather arm guard, which made him look a little bit
like some medieval hero. And she wasn’t sure which was more mesmerizing: the
clutch of muscle in his back and shoulders, the cords in his forearm, or his
absolute laser focus.
She imagined what it would be like to
have all that intensity and concentration turned toward her. That precision.
That devotion to his task.
Her body warmed and softened in
appreciation. Which was unusual for her. She didn’t get turned on looking.
She didn’t get turned on that easily, period. She usually needed a lot of
warming up.
Except, apparently, when it came to
Griff Ambrose.
He reached into the quiver hanging
across his body and came up empty.
“Hey,” she called.
He jumped. When he turned, the
expression on his face was dark. Angry, she thought.
“Sorry—I didn’t mean to startle
you.”
He crossed his arms. “I’ll do it.”
“What?”
She’d heard the words but couldn’t make
sense of them.
“If you still want me to. If you
haven’t already enlisted CJ or some other boy. I’ll—take your
V-card.”
She felt a huge smile threaten to break
out all over her face, but her gut told her to play it cool. She shrugged. “CJ
wants to take me out for dinner. He was actually quite the gentleman about
asking me on a date.”
His expression darkened further. “No.
No dates with CJ. That’s the deal. If I’m going to do this—”
She raised her eyebrows at his grim
tone. God, he was making it sound like a household chore. “It’s not like
you have to. I told you, I’ll find someone else—”
“God. No. I’ll do it. I said I’d do it.
I don’t want you to pick some random guy. Then Nate would really kill
me.”
“It’s sex with a virgin—a friend,
even—not a death march,” she snapped.
She was aware of an ache in the center
of her chest. For a minute there, she’d thought—
But he was just doing her a favor, of
course.
He shook his head. Closed his eyes.
Then opened them again. “You’re right. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to sound
like that. It’s not a hardship,” he said, then gave a short dark laugh. He took
a step forward, touched his hand to her cheek, his thumb moving over her mouth
without touching it. An unfamiliar stab of heat shot through her. She wanted to
lean forward and take his thumb between her teeth.
That wasn’t her, either.
He took a step back, dropping his hand.
“I know you don’t want to make a big deal of it. So I’ll just say this. It’s an
honor, okay?”
For some stupid reason, that made her
eyes fill up with tears. She blinked, and luckily none of them fell, though he
blurred in her vision.
The moment stretched to awkwardness,
and she looked away. When she turned back, he was examining the feathers on the
end of an arrow.
“You still offering that archery
lesson?
“Hell, yeah. Walk with me. We’ll
collect the arrows.”
She fell in beside him.
“When you approach the targets, you
always need to make sure no one’s shooting. It’s easy right now because we’re
the only ones here, but sometimes it gets a little more complicated.”
He tapped the target at the base of one
of the bristling arrows. “You want to grab the arrow close to the target face,
down low on the shaft,” he said.
She wasn’t someone who heard double
entendres everywhere. Or at least she hadn’t been, before
playing Taboo the other night with Griff. Something about him wrapped
everything up in sex. Add to that the fact that he’d actually agreed to have
sex with her—
Yeah. She was thinking about shafts.
And grabbing them down low. She could feel her cheeks getting
pink, and she cursed the fact that she blushed so damn easily.
Were words supposed to do that? Creep
under your skin, down your spine, along your nerve endings? Were they supposed
to light you up like a Christmas tree?
While she’d been getting wet over
skinny sticks with feathers on the end, Griff had pulled the arrows from the
target, collected them in a fist, and turned back up-range.
She followed him back, suddenly wishing
she’d said something. Some brilliant sexy teaser about how she always liked to
grab low on the shaft. Something provocative enough to make him drop the
arrows, take her in his arms, and kiss her until she couldn’t breathe.
She’d never been kissed till she
couldn’t breathe, but she suspected Griff could have that effect on her.
“Stand here,” he said, toeing a sandy
spot on the ground. “This is the foot marker.”
He gave her an arm guard and showed her
how to strap it on. “You don’t really need a chest guard. It’s just to make
sure the string doesn’t catch on your clothes. If you were hunting or fighting
it would be a bigger deal.”
He stood behind her. “Is this okay?”
“Is what—?”
He wrapped his arms around her so that
the bow was in front of her and lifted her left hand to the grip. She was
hyperaware of his body behind hers, solid and hot.
He showed her how to nock the bowstring
into the cleft at the end of the arrow shaft.
Cleft.
Not a word she’d ever heard used. Or
used herself. Or contemplated. Not a word she would have said was sexy. But
with him standing just behind her, his breath against her ear, his hands
guiding hers, it was a word that could lick itself right into every last cleft on
her body.
If she turned around right now—
But she couldn’t. The way they were
standing, and the bow in her arms, froze her in place.
“And then you draw it back,
tight—”
He wrapped his hand around hers,
drawing her fist back, and the string with it. Now she made herself focus on
the bow and arrow, because it was taut in her arms, and it didn’t feel like
something to mess around with. Its contained energy was fierce.
Like the man behind her.
“See this?” he said, and he drew the
arrow back a little further, until his fingers brushed her mouth.
It was difficult to breathe.
“This is called the kisser button. For
obvious reasons. You use it to get alignment with your mouth at full draw. You
line up on the gold—that’s what we call the center of the target. You sight it
over the top of the grip. Right where the arrow head is aimed, see? And then
you let it fly. Release it. Okay. I’m going to let go. You keep the tension
on.”
He unfurled her fingers from around
hers and stepped back, taking his body heat with him and leaving the full
strength of the bowstring in her fist. Her arm muscles trembled—maybe from the
pull of the string, or maybe not.
“Let go,” he said.
She released it. The arrow flew and
lodged itself with a hiss in the target. Not anywhere near the center, but
still.
She stood there a moment. Her hands and
arms still felt shaky. Hell, her whole body felt shaky.
“Nice,” Griff said. When she turned to
look at him, his gaze was steady on her face. His eyes seemed to bore into
hers.
“Now you just need practice.”
WHAT READERS
ARE SAYING
“Holding Out is a
perfectly penned tale that will rattle your emotions, touch your heart, and
keep you captivated from start to finish.” —Red’s Romance
Reviews
“I
loved this book. A friends-to-friends-with-benefits-to-lovers romance that is
fun, sweet and heartfelt with fantastic characters and a sexy and emotional
love story, I was completely hooked!” —Escapist Book
Blog
“Wow.
This was such a great book! I loved that both Griff & Becca had to work on
themselves before they could find their HEA. I also loved that they both saw
the best in each other, and had more faith in the other person than themselves.
I didn’t want to put the book down!!” —Messy Bun Book
Blog
“Another
great read by Serena Bell! I think Holding
Out was
my favorite yet in the series! I absolutely adored the story line.” —Avid
Reader
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
USA Today bestselling author Serena Bell writes
contemporary romance with heat, heart, and humor. A former journalist, Serena
has always believed that everyone has an amazing story to tell if you listen
carefully, and you can often find her scribbling in her tiny garret office,
mainlining chocolate and bringing to life the tales in her head.
Serena’s
books have earned many honors, including an RT Reviewers’ Choice Award, Apple
Books Best Book of the Month, and Amazon Best Book of the Year for
Romance.
When
not writing, Serena loves to spend time with her college-sweetheart husband and
two hilarious kiddos—all of whom are incredibly tolerant not just of Serena’s
imaginary friends but also of how often she changes her hobbies and how
passionately she embraces the new ones. These days, it’s stand-up paddle
boarding, board-gaming, meditation, and long walks with good friends.
SOCIAL MEDIA
LINKS
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profile: https://www.facebook.com/serena.bell.3954
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