Blush

Surrender to Temptation

Lauren Jameson

NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY

New American Library

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

New York, New York 10014, USA

USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

For more information about the Penguin Group visit penguin.com.

First published by New American Library,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Copyright © Lauren Hawkeye, 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

REGISTERED
TRADEMARK
—
MARCA
REGISTRADA

LIBRARY
OF
CONGRESS
CATALOGING
-
IN
-
PUBLICATION
DATA
:

J
AMESON,
L
AUREN.

B
LUSH/
L
AUREN
J
AMESON.

P. CM

ISBN
978-1-101-62152-3

I
.
T
ITLE.

PS
3610.
A
464
B
58 2013

813'.6—
DC
23 2013002168

PUBLISHER
’
S
NOTE

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

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content..

As always, there are a million people who take part in the creation of a book, and who as such deserve thanks. For this book, however, there are three biggies—Deidre Knight, Kerry Donovan, and my own dear husband, Rob. Deidre—thank you for being so careful with the book of my heart. You’re not only the best agent in existence, but you’re a dear friend, and I value you more than I can say. Kerry—where to start? Thank you for believing in this book to begin with, and for pushing me (a wee bit mercilessly at times, if I may say so, ha ha!) to make this book more than I’d ever imagined it could be. This story truly would never have happened without your hard work. You’ve made one of my biggest dreams come true. Rob—what can I say? When I was swamped with this project, on our vacation no less, you kept me fed and watered and made sure I didn’t burn in the sun. That’s love right there. Thank you to all of the others who worked on this book, many of whom I don’t even know. Penguin rocks! To the rest of my family, particularly my mom, thank you for watching the kid when I needed to work and for supporting my dreams. Thank you to my Ravelry buds for the yarn-y inspiration for the club name in this book. Thank you to the Sirens and Scribes (Nini Angell, Grace Conley, Sara Fawkes, Barbara J. Hancock, Elle Ricci, Suzanne Rock, D. L. Snow, Juliana Stone, Amanda Vyne, and Cora Zane)—the never-ending group of awesome who critiques, celebrates, and holds hands—I love you guys. A special thank-you to Sara Fawkes, for answering my random questions and discussing erotica and BDSM with me ad nauseum. And, as always, a massive thank-you to my girl Suzanne Rock, who listens to me whine, kicks me in the butt, whips my plots into shape, and sends me knitting books. I adore you!

S
omeone is watching me.

Aware of his eyes on her, Madeline Stone drew her finger down the side of the glass, tracing a fat stripe in the condensation while resisting the urge to sneak a peek through her eyelashes at the man seated down the bar from her, to her right.

She hadn’t turned her head, hadn’t looked at his face. But a feeling had alerted her to his attention, that prickling of the skin at the back of her neck—the primordial human sense of being watched.

Though she was curious—men didn’t often take much note of her—she resisted looking. She had a purpose there tonight, a goal.

She had to focus on that. It was a small goal, to be sure, but it was a giant step on the road to getting her life back.

She felt jittery and drummed her fingers on the sticky surface of the bar to release some nerves. The clicking of her nails on the wood was an irritant as it scraped across her ears. Having wiped her soda glass clean of its chilled fog, she lifted it to her lips for a sip. The straw was bent at an awkward angle, and she had to open her mouth wide to catch it between her lips.

“You seem nervous.” The voice was low, velvety, and unexpected.

Maddy jolted, forcing syrupy sweet cola to splash from her cup. “Damn it.” She reached for a napkin to mop the spill from her hand. Embarrassed and grumpy now, she swiveled on her bar stool to face the person to whom the voice belonged.

She very nearly choked when she raised the glass. Her breath caught in her throat, and she felt a jolt of adrenaline go straight to her gut when she raised her eyes to the person who had startled her so. This was the man who had been seated down the bar from her, and she had been drawn to his presence, though she couldn’t have explained
why
, exactly. Maybe because he radiated a powerful . . . aura, for lack of a better word. One that was impossible to ignore.

His hair was dark, the color of black licorice. His eyes were blue, deep blue, like the sea. He appeared to be maybe a few years older than her, which put him in his early thirties. His face . . . well, he looked like a wicked fallen angel. But there was a hint of concern etched in the fine lines around his lips.

His body . . . oh, his body. Though he wore expensive-looking clothing—a soft button-down shirt and neatly pressed black slacks—the strength of someone who used his muscles hard couldn’t be hidden. An unfamiliar desire ran through her.

“Are you all right? I didn’t mean to frighten you.” There was that voice again, smooth and hot, like the burn of whiskey on the throat.

Maddy caught herself staring and saw the resultant smirk on his lips. Pursing her lips, she reminded herself that it didn’t matter what he looked like.

He couldn’t possibly be interested in her. After the events of the past year, Maddy knew that she radiated enough fragility, enough neediness, that most men would give her a wide berth, not bothering to search for a reserve of strength underneath.

She had one. That was why she was there—trying to again channel the strength that she had once had.

He seemed to be waiting for an answer, though, so she shuffled through the last few minutes in her mind and came across the question he had asked.

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” She needed something to do with her hands. She picked up her abandoned cola, sucked hard on the straw. The wetness eased the discomfort of her mouth, which was suddenly dry as the desert dust outside.

Maddy dared another glance. His eyes were fixed on her mouth, his expression entranced, and he watched her watching him. Instead of trying to pretend that he hadn’t been looking at her mouth, he drew his stare lazily up to her eyes, not caring that she knew.

His utter confidence made something unfurl deep in her belly.

“I’m fine.” Maddy repeated the words to break the silence that was growing uncomfortable . . . uncomfortable for her, at least. “I just . . . You startled me.”

Most people—at least, most people she knew—would have apologized for it, whether the apology was sincere or not. This man pinched his lips together in irritation and, as if she were a child, removed the nearly empty glass from her hand.

“You should never be startled. Be in control of your surroundings.” He reached behind her to set the glass on the bar. The ice rattled against the glass walls. As he leaned, he moved in very close to her, just for a moment. The intense heat that he gave off reminded her of the sun at midday in Nevada, glowing golden and hot enough to incinerate.

Maddy narrowed her eyes as she studied him—she was certain that she’d never met him before. Yet his words struck a chord deep within her, a meaning that he may not have meant layered underneath the simple sentence.

Always know where I am
. Well, there was her problem in a nutshell, wasn’t it? In the last year, she had lost all sense of where she was—of
who
she was, really. It was almost enough to bring her to tears in front of him.

She bit her tongue until she tasted blood, not willing to tear up in front of this man. He couldn’t have known how lost she’d been feeling. He didn’t know anything about her. Really, she should have been irritated with him for scolding her like he had.

She was a grown woman, after all—no matter how much she may have felt like a lost child in recent memory.

Many people would have felt uncomfortable under the intense scrutiny that she had been directing his way, Maddy mused. This man didn’t flinch, didn’t blush, didn’t toss her a cocky smile. Instead, he continued to return her stare, unabashed, stoic even, letting her look her fill. He didn’t touch her, either, but after he set the glass down, she felt as if his hands had been all over her.

“Let me get you something else to drink.” She thought he gave a flash of a smile then, just the smallest upturn of his lips, but the expression was gone before she could be certain.

He waved the bartender over; Maddy wasn’t listening and didn’t hear what they said. She was busy focusing intently on not making a fool of herself—that and wondering why on earth this creature was there, talking to her. What could have drawn his interest to her?

“There.” The man eased himself up onto the stool beside her and turned to face her. Their knees bumped together, and Maddy got the impression that he had done it on purpose.

“I’m Alex Fraser. Now, why are you so nervous, so uptight, that my hello made you spill your drink?” He steepled his fingers, rested his chin on them, and looked right into her eyes. As if he cared intensely about her answer. Rather than luxuriating in the attention, Maddy felt like a bug pinned on the wall.

“I . . . I . . .” She couldn’t tell him why. It was stupid. No, it wasn’t stupid, but it would
seem
stupid to someone who didn’t know her, who didn’t know what she’d been through or what had brought her there.

The man frowned when Maddy didn’t reply, and she felt, again, a bit like a child being scolded. Then he smiled again, a seductive smile right at her, and the sun seemed to shine.

“Let’s start with something easier, then.” The bartender arrived at that moment, setting down a bottle of wine with an elongated neck and two stemmed glasses. The man paid it not a whit of attention, keeping his eyes on hers.

Maddy found herself growing very warm.

“You know my name. Want to tell me yours?”

Why on earth did he care? Why did she care why he cared? “Maddy. Maddy Stone.”

He nodded as if he had never heard anything so interesting. “And is Maddy short for anything?”

“Madeline.” Maddy’s voice was soft, but she couldn’t seem to speak any louder.

“Well, then.” Enormously pleased, the man she now knew as Alex Fraser turned and poured two small glasses from the bottle, which was already uncorked. He handed her one, and though she could feel the heat of his hand as she wrapped her own around the glass stem, he didn’t touch her.

Maddy found herself oddly disappointed.

“Please share a drink with me, Maddy.” Instead of raising his own glass, he watched her expectantly. She lifted hers, studied its ruby contents, then lowered it again. As she returned her gaze to him, she knew her eyes must have been wide and befuddled by this inexplicable encounter.

“I usually stick to cola.” Maddy had learned the hard way that too much alcohol unlocked the grief that she tried so hard to keep pent up. She became another person entirely when she drank, a stranger who was wild, emotional, and above all, angry. Since she liked alcohol, it was just easier not to start.

“This is much better than cola.” He was watching her lips again, expecting her to sip.

She knew better than to accept drinks from strangers in bars, but she had watched this one’s journey from the bartender’s hands. Alex seemed to want so badly for her to taste it.

“You’ll like it.” The promise sounded sultry, and Maddy warned herself to settle down, knowing that his hormones were probably much calmer than hers in that moment.

“How do you know what I’ll like?” Her voice was breathy and so very unlike how she normally sounded. She had a sneaking suspicion that she would like anything he told her to like. Still, she couldn’t resist pushing, just a little.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d flirted. She had so much on her mind that no man had seemed worth the bother. Until this one. And the small smirk that curled his lips told her he knew just how attractive she found him.

Smiling a bit to herself at the strange rush that was filling her, Maddy lifted the glass to her lips and took a sip. Heaven poured over her tongue and down her throat, and she surprised herself by taking a second sip.

“It’s lovely.” Alex was watching her with pleasure, and she felt absurdly happy that her enjoyment of the wine pleased him. “What is it?”

“Mouton Rothschild, Bordeaux Red—1943 was an excellent vintage.” The flirtatious smile froze on her lips for a moment.

1943? This wine was seventy years old?

Her face displayed her shock, and Alex laughed—a sound unexpected from someone who looked like he did. There was no malice in the sound—he seemed to be genuinely enjoying her.

She couldn’t help it—she laughed along with him. “You know, a rum and Coke would have done the trick.” She eyed him through the lowered fringe of her lashes. She knew that she wasn’t imagining the sexual pull between them, but still her rational mind tried to reason with her. What on earth was he going to expect in return for two sips of something this outrageously expensive?

“Why not?” Alex sipped again, not breaking eye contact with her. “I think you deserve it. If you feel the need to alleviate some ridiculously misplaced sense of give-and-take, then tell me why you are so nervous.”

Maddy’s jaw dropped a fraction at his supercilious words, her sudden irritation lashing through the haze of the spell for a quick moment. Misplaced sense of give-and-take?
Excuse me?
But in the same breath he had told her that he—a stranger—thought she deserved wine that was over twice as old as she was. Flustered, she took another deep sip from her glass, buying time as she tried to figure out what had happened between them.

She wasn’t naive. She knew what men generally had in mind when they approached women in bars, when they bought them drinks. And she’d have had to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to pick up on the sexual tension that misted the air like heat rising from the sand, making her nipples pucker and the space between her legs ache.

But he hadn’t said anything overtly sexual, hadn’t asked her to go to his room, his car, his hotel room.

She was confused, attracted, and turned on as hell. Since she’d long ago learned that there was nothing very exciting about sex, the feelings this stranger was rousing in her were odd indeed.

Trying to cool off the internal heat that she felt rising, Maddy took one more small sip of the wine. Since she no longer really drank, she already felt a buzz humming through her veins from the potent liquid, but to her surprise, she found it pleasant. Relaxing.

It loosened her tongue enough to answer his question.

“I want to play a game of blackjack.” Oh, it sounded so lame outside her head. She was sitting in the bar of the El Diablo Casino in Las Vegas. Every other person wanted to play a game of blackjack. “I . . . I know how to play, but I’ve never done it in a casino.”

“Why haven’t you?” Alex’s voice wasn’t derisive; nor did he seem anything but genuinely interested. As he spoke, he reached out and toyed with the fingers of one of Maddy’s hands, making her breath catch.

She’d driven to the El Diablo rather than going to the smaller casino in Paradise on a whim. Right at that moment, she couldn’t have been happier with her decision.

“I—” Something about him made Maddy want to confide. At the last moment, she bit her lower lip, swallowing the words back down. “I just do. I never have, and it’s about time.”

Alex didn’t speak. When she dared to glance up, he had pursed his lips, regarding her as if she were an exotic animal that he had come upon unexpectedly. Yet no one had ever seen her as exotic before.

The look in his eyes told her that he wasn’t fooled by her answer. Her heart beginning to beat a rapid tattoo, Maddy looked away quickly, before the strange, sexy man could coax the answer out of her with one of those dark smiles.

“Then you should do it.” For reasons she didn’t quite understand, her spirits lifted at his words. “And don’t be afraid. Most of the people at the tables are there only because of greed. You aren’t, and that will give you an edge.”

Maddy shivered at the sincerity shining in those blue eyes, looking down at their intertwined fingers hastily. She felt like Alex could read her, could see right into her soul, and it made her uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable, but . . . she kind of liked it.

“It’s not that easy for me.” Maddy didn’t know why she felt the need to explain—she knew she’d never see the man again.

The realization sent her heart crashing down to her toes. Wildly, she realized that she wanted more time with Alex.

He hadn’t asked her for more. He hadn’t asked her the expected questions, hadn’t done what she’d thought he would.