Tough Enough (28 page)

Turn the page for a special excerpt from the next Tall, Dark, and Dangerous novel by M. Leighton

BRAVE ENOUGH

Coming soon from Berkley
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Weatherly

I’m surprised that I know the way back to Chiara. It’s been years since I’ve visited our family vineyard on the outskirts of a small Georgian town called Enchantment, but I find that I know the turns even before the navigation tells me which way to go. When I was growing up, it was one of my favorite places in the world. Winding roads, lush green hills, and purple-gray mountains rising up in the background—it’s like the best of every world, all in one spot.

Already I feel a little less claustrophobic just leaving Atlanta behind. Don’t get me wrong; I love that city, but with my father and his old cronies bearing down on me, I had to get away. I can’t very well come up with a plan to save myself if they’re occupying all my time and hovering around every corner.

The lightly scented breeze whips through my hair like a lover’s fingers as I slow my convertible to make the last turn. I barely creep along the serpentine road, taking my time to enjoy the sun filtering
through the trees and the broken glimpses of row after row of grapevines. Being here feels like coming home. It always did.

Throughout my entire childhood, we would come here for two weeks every summer just before harvest. Dad would catch up on the vineyard business for the first couple of days, but then he’d relax with Mom and me. We ate meals together, we swam together, we played board games at night together. We acted like a normal family and I loved it. There were no pretenses to keep up, no important people to entertain, no pressures from the outside world. Just us in a mountain hideaway, protected by rows and rows of grapes.

Even now, I feel the stresses of my life draining away as I drink in the sweet scent of the air. It’s as familiar as the bustle of city life, but as removed from it as east is from west. Although I haven’t been here since before I went to college, time is already melting away as though I visited just last week. Here at the vineyard, little changes.

As I drive past the rows, a flash catches my eye. I slow to a stop and focus on a broad, sweaty back as a man drives wooden supports into the ground in front of a downed vine. I let my gaze travel over him. He must be new because I don’t recognize the physique. And I think I’d remember if there had ever been a man built like this on Chiara grounds.

His shoulders are easily double the width of mine and he’s probably almost a foot taller, just guessing. And I’m not short at five foot seven. As I start to pull away, I let my eyes linger on his impossibly narrow waist and hips, and the world-class ass that fills out the black denim.

I’d love to see if the face goes with the body. I’m very curious about him now, and about what the heck he’s doing here. Maybe I’ll run into him later. If I’m lucky.

I came back to Chiara looking for some peace and quiet, some time to find a way out. I would not be at all opposed to a handsome
distraction, though. It’s been too long since I’ve been able to want somebody just because I want him and not because of how he may or may not fit into my life. Maybe it’s high time to go with my instincts. To go with someone who might be all wrong for me. To go with the passion. To throw caution to the wind.

As my dark hair flutters around my face, my optimism climbs with my speed. Maybe, just maybe, this little vacation will get a whole lot more interesting. It would be nice to get lost in something not planned and not political. Something real, something innocent to the ways of the world.

Is that too much to ask?

For my life, probably. But that doesn’t mean I can’t hope for it. Or try to have it. At least for a little while. A few weeks maybe.

When I pull up to the top of the circular drive, I shut off the engine and grab my smallest bag from the backseat. It has all I’ll need right now—my toiletries and a change of clothes. I want to get the grime of the road off me before I unpack and get settled.

I glance at the ivy-covered stone front of the main house, a smile tugging at my lips. So many good memories here.

The front door is unlocked when I climb the wide front steps and test the knob. Maybe Stella is cleaning today. Although I didn’t tell anyone I was coming (mainly because I didn’t want my father to find me right away), she keeps the house ready at all times. That must be what she’s doing.

“Hello?” I call when I step into the grand foyer with its Brazilian cherry floors, vaulted ceiling, and antique chandelier. My voice echoes around me, but otherwise I hear no sign of life.

I set my bag at the foot of the winding staircase and head off past the formal dining room to the kitchen at the back of the house. “Hello? Stella?” I call again. No answer.

With a shrug, I make my way back to my belongings and carry them up the stairs to the room I’ve always stayed in. It’s just one of the guest rooms, but it has a charming window seat that I used to curl up in a lot as a little girl. In my head, that made it mine, so that’s how I’ve always thought of this particular room—as mine.

I set my bag on the thick, beige duvet that covers the bed and begin taking out what few things I’ll need. As of today, gone are the “presentable” clothes. These are the days of spaghetti straps and sarongs, flip flops and loose hair.

I eye the steam shower longingly, but as soon as my gaze falls on the oversized clawfoot tub, the shower is forgotten. A nice relaxing soak to sooth my stiff, road-weary muscles sounds like heaven.

I cut on the spigot and test the temperature with the backs of my fingers until it’s a little warmer than what’s comfortable and then I start stripping. I grab two towels, a wash cloth, my phone, and my organic soap and set them on the chair that sits near the head of the tub. Then I climb in.

Air hisses through my teeth as the hot water stings my legs and then my belly. I let my skin adjust to the heat before I reach for my phone and turn on some music. I wet the washcloth, drape it over my eyes, and then slide down in the tub. Within two minutes, I’m already feeling boneless.

I soak for a good thirty minutes before pulling the plug and draining half of the tepid water so that I can refill it with hot. I grab my soap and roll the silky bar in my hands, working up a rich lather to spread over my arms. The scent of almond and coconut permeate the air and I can all but feel it sinking into my skin.

I lather my hands again and set my fingers to my chin and neck, working toward my chest. I close my eyes, the image of the vineyard guy popping unbidden into my head.

I wonder what he might look like. What color eyes would go with a body like that? Something exotic, maybe. Something piercing. Something that would say he wants me without ever having to open his mouth.

My breathing picks up as my fantasy takes off in an unexpected direction. I massage the scented soap into the soft mounds of my breasts, dragging a fingertip around each nipple over and over, imagining what it might feel like to have the calloused touch of a manual laborer there.

“My birthday isn’t for another week,” a deep voice purrs, jarring me from my thoughts.

With a gasp, I sit up in the tub, covering myself the best that I can. I forget all about propriety, however, when I see the tall, insanely gorgeous man standing in the bathroom doorway.

Black hair, cut in a longish style.

Gray eyes that are almost silver they’re so light.

Olive skin that matches the sweaty back I saw less than an hour ago.

It’s the man from the vineyard. His build and his coloring are unmistakable. As are the black jeans that he’s wearing. He fills them out as perfectly from the front as he did from the back, only this side includes a thick, tantalizing bulge behind his zipper placket.

Holy. Shit.

“P-pardon?” I stammer, my brain a jumbled mess. Between the little fantasy I was indulging, him catching me off guard this way, and his incredible good looks, I think I might’ve forgotten my name, much less that I should be prudishly insulted right now.

Only I’m not.

I’m intrigued instead. Especially when he grins.

If smoke could smile, this is what it would look like. Dark, mysterious. Sexy as hell.

Holy mother! What is a guy who looks like this doing working in a vineyard?

“My birthday,” he repeats in a perfectly modulated, cultured voice that sounds like chocolate and cinnamon. Deep. Spicy. Delicious. “Isn’t that what this is about?”

“Ummm, no. I don’t know anything about your birthday.”

“Damn. I was gonna thank the hell out of somebody.” His eyes rake my naked upper body and chills break out across my chest, reminding me that it’s probably extremely inappropriate for me to be carrying on a conversation with a perfect stranger when I’m in the tub.

But other than propriety, which I’m evidently not too concerned with right now, I can’t think of one good reason to ask him to leave. Not one.

“I’m Weatherly O’Neal. My family owns this vineyard. Who are you?”

One black-as-night brow shoots up. “I’m Tag. My family works this vineyard.”

Every cheesy book and movie about a rich woman and the cabana boy (chauffer, gardener, handyman, and a whole slew of other clichés) scampers through my head. Now I understand. Now I understand how it happens. Now I understand the draw. It doesn’t matter that our stations in life are worlds apart. It doesn’t matter that my father would have a conniption. It doesn’t matter that it could never work out. All my body and my mind are thinking is that the way he’s looking at me sets my blood on fire.

And I love it.

“Well, Tag,” I say, enunciating the name that somehow suits him perfectly, “I guess I’ll be seeing you around then.”

He’s still smiling. I don’t think he’s stopped since he showed up in the doorway. “I look forward to it. Very. Much.”

With that, he skims me once more with his smoky silver eyes and then turns, very slowly, to leave.

When I hear the door to my bedroom click shut—the door I forgot to close—I rest back against the cool ceramic and exhale. I smile, too, as I think to myself, Yep. This little getaway is going to be just what I needed.

Tag

So this is Weatherly O’Neal, I think as I watch the stunning raven-haired beauty slide onto a lounger by the pool and tip her face up to the sun. She’s wearing a tight camisole-type thing in red and a breezy wraparound skirt that shows off her long, slim legs when she sits down. Her skin glistens with a healthful glow after her bath. I can all but smell the sweet scent of her flesh from all the way over here.

It’ll be a long time before I can get the vision of her out of my head, particularly the one of her in the bathtub. I watched her for a few seconds before I spoke. Her eyes were closed, her head resting against the curved edge of the tub, and her slim fingers were teasing the most perfect nipples I’ve ever seen. They were rosy and hard and my mouth waters just recalling the way they poked wetly from the lush mounds of some seriously great tits.

Damn.

I didn’t get as good a look at the rest of her. Once I spoke and she sat up, all I could really focus on was her face. Heart-shaped, pale skin, plump lips just the right shade of pink. And her eyes . . . God, those eyes could make a man beg. If that body, with its round breasts, flat stomach, and smoothly shaved everything, wouldn’t do it, those eyes would. They’re a rich blue. Almost violet. They have an exotic shape to them that makes her look like she’s turned on all the time.

That or she was turned on.

I grit my teeth.

Double damn!

Yeah, her arrival is definitely not going to make things any easier for me. But nothing worth having is ever easy.

And I’d be willing to bet having her would be worth a lot of trouble.

I saunter down the dappled path to the patio that surrounds the pool. Weatherly’s head snaps toward me the instant my boot hits the hard surface and alerts her to my presence. Her mouth drops open the slightest bit and, for a second, there’s nothing but steam between us. Hell, I’m surprised the pool water isn’t evaporating.

I don’t stop until I’m standing over her, my shadow shading her face. She pushes her sunglasses up into the smooth sheet of her straight black hair and focuses those amazing eyes on me.

“I’m sorry that I interrupted your bath,” I say, pausing to inhale the decadent scent coming off her skin. “I’d have apologized at the time if I hadn’t been so . . . distracted.”

Her lips quirk, but just at the corners. “Distracted?”

“A bit, yes.”

“Hmm, what on earth had you distracted?”

She likes to play. God, this is going to be fun!

“The local . . . scenery changed today. It became much more . . .
dazzling. Took my breath away, in fact. Made it hard for me to think. My manners went right out the window.”

“That’s understandable. I was a little, um, preoccupied myself.”

“I thought you might’ve been. You looked deep in . . . thought.”

Her lips spread all the way into a full-on smile this time, making her even more striking. The only sign of embarrassment is the tell-tale pink stains that appear on her cheeks.

“I was definitely . . . thinking.”

The innuendo is as thick as the humid air seems to be. “Care to share what had you focused so . . . intently?”

“No, not yet.”

“Not yet?” I ask. She shakes her head, mouth still curved. “Well, whenever you’re ready to talk, I’d love to hear all about it.”

“I might take you up on that.”

I nod. “Will you be eating in tonight?”

“I will, yes.”

“Is there something particular you’d like? I can let Mom know.”

“Anything that goes well with a Chiara red. I’m in the mood for red.”

“I see that,” I say, nodding to her red strappy top. “Anything else you’re in the mood for that I should know about?”

She shrugs her shoulders, drawing my eye to the crease of her cleavage. “A surprise. Surprise me.”

“Oh, I can definitely surprise you,” I reply with an enthusiastic grin.

“Will you be joining me tonight then? You and your mother, I mean?”

“Isn’t it frowned upon to mingle with the help?”

“Nobody is here to care, is there?”

“Not a damn soul,” I say. “Seven?”

She nods and lets her head drop back. The way she’s staring up
at me with that sleepy, sexy look on her face . . . the way her body language seems to be begging me to touch, to taste, to take . . . Holy God!

I nod and turn to walk away, only because if I stay any longer, she’ll be coming out of those clothes. One way or the
other.