“Got it.”
Was he always this frustratingly evasive? “So what are we doing with each other?”
He twitched his shoulders, shrugging this away the way he might get rid of an aggressive fly at a picnic. “I don’t know. My crystal ball’s in the shop.”
Okay. Enough with the walking. Yanking her hand free, she darted in front of him, giving him the choice of stopping or plowing over her. He stopped. Grudgingly. And huffed out an exasperated sigh that did nothing to soothe her increasing agitation.
“I don’t think you understand that I can’t just—”
“You talk a lot,” he told her. “And you think too much.”
He thought this was talking a lot? Boy, was he in for a rude awakening.
“Get used to it,” she warned.
“Anything else I should get used to?”
“Yes. I’m a big control freak. Very anal-retentive. I make lists. I check things twice. I don’t just make willy-nilly decisions without thinking about the consequences.”
“That’s the city in you. Here in the country, we know we can’t control the weather and we can’t control every opportunity that pops up along the way.”
Something about the O-word made ice form in her gut. “Is that what I am? An opportunity? So now you can cross ‘had wild sex with a supermodel’ off your bucket list and move on to the next item?”
He stilled, his displeasure so obvious and overwhelming it was like a fire hose blast to the face. She had to fight the urge to duck and run.
“Is that what you think about me?”
It was hard to hold his gaze and not shrink inside her skin like a chastised teenager. That low, irritated voice of his must be very effective in keeping Kendra in line, poor child, because it made Livia feel like a slime-trailing slug, and she was a grown woman.
“No,” she said, staring at the ground.
Considering her for a minute, mollified for now, he tilted his head and tapped his index finger against his lips. “You want a formal declaration, Livia? Is that what this is about?”
“A formal decl—”
“How about this?” He swallowed roughly, making his Adam’s apple dip, and she seriously wished it wasn’t so dark outside because she’d swear he was blushing. “For the first time since my wife died, I’m interested enough in a woman to let her spend a little time with my daughter and introduce her to my parents.”
“Oh,” she said, her heart skittering to a stop.
“I’ve never gotten involved with a guest at the winery, and if I did want to get involved with a woman, it wouldn’t normally be with a celebrity who lives four hundred miles away and is wanted by most of the men in the English-speaking world, most of whom have way more money than I do.”
Livia’s stare froze into a gape.
“However, I am so intrigued by you that my doubts seem ridiculous. And, in case you didn’t notice, the train has already left the station on something developing between us. So, if all that makes sense to you, and if you’re on board with me not being able to predict the future, I’d really like to get to know you better while you’re here. Okay?”
She nodded frantically.
“Can we walk now?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Thank God for that.” He started off again.
Undone, Livia gripped his hand tighter and leaned her head against his shoulder, knowing that if she wasn’t careful—if she wasn’t really, really careful—she was going to fall crazy in love with this man.
Chapter 7
“I want you to see something,” Hunter said as they turned a bend in the path.
“Oh, yeah?” Livia lifted her head and stared up at him with avid interest, as though he might whip out a Ferrari and present it to her. That was one of the things he really liked about her, the enthusiasm that made everything feel like a great adventure. Was she always like this? So bright-eyed and enthralling? “Is someone finally going to give me an official tour of the winery?”
“We can do that tomorrow.”
“What is it, then? Ooohhhh. Stars.”
They’d come to the hillside’s edge, where the path ended, opening up to a sweeping view of the dark valley and, beyond that, the gentle beginnings of the mountains. Above all that, a sprinkling of stars glittered like diamonds spilled on black velvet.
“Oh, my God.” She tipped her head toward the sky, gaping with open delight. “How amazing.”
Grinning, he wrapped his arms around her from behind, rested his cheek against her temple and enjoyed the feel and smell of her. How did she maintain that country girl’s spirit of delight in simple things even though her modeling career had no doubt molded her into the most sophisticated woman who’d ever crossed his path? Why did this woman thrill him beyond all reason?
“Is this okay?”
He nuzzled the sweet column of her long neck and prayed she didn’t push him away anytime soon because there was a serious question in his mind about whether he could let her go or not. But, in answer, she relaxed against him and rested her arms atop his to keep him close.
“It is not okay at all. I plan to call the police and have you arrested for assault in a couple hours or so.”
“Well.” He shifted enough for his raging erection to settle into the cleft of her amazing ass, just so she could see what she did to him. For emphasis, he ran his tongue up the side of her neck and nipped her earlobe. “As long as I’m already in trouble…”
Her breath did an excited little hitching thing that went a long way toward unraveling what normally passed as his self-control. That was strange and problematic. Self-control and he were buddies. They hung out with discipline and perseverance. As a gang, the four of them managed both his winery and his daughter, and kept his dog from being any more unruly than he already was.
That made for smooth sailing, right? Keep your nose to the grindstone, Hunter, build your winery and raise your daughter. Keep the blinders on and look neither left nor right. Other people might have more of a life, yeah, but not you. Fun with a woman is strictly off-limits to you, so don’t even think about it.
Normally, that was all well and good, and he embraced his duties with enthusiasm.
But normally he didn’t have Livia in his arms, and damn…she felt good. Really good. So good that he wasn’t in any hurry to return to the house and tuck his daughter in bed. Nor was he anxious to attack the paperwork waiting for him after that. Nor, come to think of it, did he see any need to work like an indentured servant tomorrow. Ownership had its perks, and he was pretty sure that the winery wouldn’t turn to salt and dust if he took tomorrow off.
He wanted to play, just this once, and he wanted to play with Livia.
In more ways than one.
The fact that this woman could make him think unprecedented thoughts like these should have made him run for the hills. Instead, it made him feel…he felt…it was like…
He felt alive.
With Livia, he felt as though he’d put one foot through the door back into the land of the living. Was that allowed when his wife was dead? Probably not, but until a bouncer showed up to throw him out, he’d spend as much time with her as possible.
Livia swiveled her hips, grinding into him, and this time it was his breath that did the hitching, especially when a female murmur of appreciation hummed in her throat.
“Wow.” Underneath her sudden breathlessness, he heard the strain in her voice as she tried to keep this light and easy when really this growing thing between them was enough to scare any thinking person to death. “Do the stars always get you this excited?”
Nuzzling his way to her ear, he whispered the truth.
“This is all about you, Livia, and you know it.”
If a person could melt and stiffen at the same time, that’s what she did. It was like she wanted to relax and enjoy this moment with him, but wouldn’t give herself permission.
He could almost hear her doubts cranking like a hamster on a wheel. “There you
go thinking again. Maybe you should ease up on that a little.”
“What, relax? Me?”
“Aren’t you on vacation?”
She grinned, causing her cheeks to plump against his lips. This was nothing less than an invitation to kiss her sweet skin again, so he did. “It’s hard to relax when I’m always dashing off to do the next thing. Plus, it’s hard to relax in a great new place when I’m anxious to explore it.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah.” She paused, apparently fighting the urge to hold tight to her secrets. “It’s hard to relax when you’re touching me.”
Was that it? No. His gut told him there was more, and he wanted all of it.
“Because…” he prompted.
Turning her head just enough, she looked him in the eye and let herself be vulnerable. “Because you make my skin hum.”
Something happened between them in that moment. Maybe it was the connection of their gazes or her willingness to let him get a little closer or, hell, the starlight. He couldn’t pin it down to one single cause. All he knew was that a tenderness for her opened up inside him, blossoming like a daylily in the sun, and the feeling was familiar and not unwelcome. He’d felt it before, with Kendra, of course, and he’d felt it with…
Whoa.
Time to slow this down a little.
But…one more kiss first. He had to.
So, letting all of her go except her hand—he wasn’t made of stone, and he could only control his skin’s craving for her so much—he smiled a little to tell her it was all right and brushed her lips with his.
Then he towed her to the nearest wrought-iron bench, where they sat. And then, because you couldn’t properly stargaze while sitting upright, he eased her back until her head was on his lap and he could stroke the fine hair at her temple while they talked.
*
Bit by bit, Hunter felt the tension ease out of her and he considered it a triumph, something as big and significant as the invention of movable type or the discovery of penicillin.
“Do you have stars like this in L.A.?” he asked after a while, because some foolish and insecure corner of his brain needed to know that he and Napa had things to offer her that the City of Angels—and the rest of the world, for that matter—didn’t.
“Who knows?” she answered. “No one in L.A. has been able to see the sky in living memory.”
“The smog isn’t that bad, is it?”
“Not really. But this is spectacular.” She pointed at something that held her rapt attention. “And there’s the North Star—”
“Actually, that’s Jupiter.”
“Jupiter,” she murmured, her body loosening a little more. “I’ve never seen it before.”
It made him happy to introduce her to something new. Ridiculously happy. Too happy, because the feeling could easily become addictive and he was already addicted to both her smile and the feeling of his hands on her body and hers on his.
For a while there was a wonderful silence broken only by the occasional rustle of the wind through the trees. She stared at the stars in the sky, he stared at their reflection in her gorgeous dark eyes, and life was good. Quiet didn’t bother him. He’d never been one to talk just for the sake of hearing his own voice. But then it occurred to him that he had everything to learn about her and only a few days to do it, so he’d better get started.
“Tell me one thing about you,” he said.
Her brow scrunched. “One thing?”
“One thing I need to know to really get you. Other than you love baseball.”
She grinned, her confusion clearing. “I’m from small-town Georgia.”
Being from northern California himself, this needed some clarification.
“And therefore…?”
“And therefore I’m a country girl at heart. I like peaches fresh off the tree and my mama’s snap beans drenched in butter. Also, lumpy grits drenched in butter and biscuits drenched in butter. If you don’t have biscuits, I’ll take cornbread, but I prefer the biscuits. Or I’ll just take the butter. I like to have my sisters and brothers around, with all their screaming children, and it’s best to sleep with the windows open so you can get the cool night air. It’s good for sleeping.” She paused and seemed to think it over. “That’s about it.”
“That’s you in a nutshell?”
“That’s me in a nutshell.”
This information needed a little bit of analysis; the scientist in him required it. “You didn’t mention anything about your career.”
“Hmm. Guess I didn’t, did I?”
Wow. For someone who made money hand over fist, that was really strange. And so was the fact that everything she’d just said was inconsistent with modeling as he understood it.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but is anything you just named possible as, one, a model, and, two, a model based on the West Coast? I mean, do you get down South much? And do they serve grits to the models in Paris during Fashion Week?”
Her snort and dramatic eye roll needed no interpretation. “Honey, if anyone in the business knew I ate grits, they’d probably cancel all my contracts tomorrow. Grits go right to the hips.”
Well, he liked her hips just fine, thanks, but he didn’t want the conversation to get diverted because this seemed important. “Answer the questions, please.”
Something in her expression dimmed. She shrugged, studiously avoiding his gaze. “It’s my life,” she said simply. “My career has pluses and minuses. Everyone’s does.”
He kept quiet. Naturally, she noticed.
“Oh, come on.” Turning her head, she frowned up at him. “Are you telling me there’s nothing about your job you don’t like?”
“I could do without the mud.”
“That’s it?” she demanded.
How could he explain how he loved it here? It wasn’t something to quantify in ten words or less, or even a few paragraphs, but the grapes were in his blood. Corny, but true. He needed the hills and the river, the vines and the olives and the air.
Some people lived in concrete jungles with canned air, traffic and smog, but not him, not ever. The idea of being far away from the leaves and the harvest was enough to make him break into a sweat. If he didn’t have to worry about parasites, pests and the weather, he’d think he’d died and gone to heaven.
“That’s it.” He smiled wryly, telling it like it was without the varnish. “I’m a farmer. I love my farm. That’s what you need to know about me.”
Snuggling closer, she settled her head in the crook of his arm, rested her cheek against his belly and circled her arms around his waist. Her lids fluttered with drowsiness, reminding him of Kendra at bedtime, fighting sleep.
“I love your farm, too,” she murmured, trying to pout. “I only hope someone’ll take me on a tour of it before I leave.”
He stroked her hair again, fighting the growing tenderness he felt for her and losing big. “I’ll show it to you first thing in the morning, baby. If you keep working on relaxing. Deal?”
“Deal.”
She was true to her word. After a couple minutes, her breathing evened out, and before he knew it, she was asleep. Content in a way he hadn’t been for years, he sat there with her long past the time he should have returned to his house and to work.
*
The pounding continued.
Livia crawled out from under the delightful jumble of warm linens and cracked one bleary eye open against the faint predawn light trying to creep past the fluttering curtains. The open window, which had seemed like such a brilliant idea when she went to bed, now let in an arctic chill that would soon create conditions ripe for icicles and frostbite. It also didn’t help that she’d cleverly worn only a tank top and panties last night, thinking that’d be more comfortable than the new nightgown she’d brought. The floor was a frozen lake for her poor tootsies—her flip-flops were nowhere to be seen—and she hadn’t bothered packing a robe.
Some idiot, meanwhile, was trying to break down her
door.
Cursing, she hurried through the cottage, ran into an end table that’d moved two feet to the left sometime during the night and peeked out the nearest window to see what the big freaking emergency was and who she needed to blame and possibly kill for this rude awakening.
Oh, God. Hunter. It was Hunter. Nooooo.
He looked annoyingly bright-eyed beneath his baseball cap (today it was the Pittsburgh Crawfords), and was dressed in jeans and a jacket. His hands were filled with two disposable cups of coffee, which made her wonder what the heck he’d been knocking with.
Gasping, she let the curtain drop, ducked back into the shadows and wished she could hide beneath the nearest rug. Maybe if she was really still and quiet, he’d go away and—
“I saw you,” he called from the other side of the door.
Of course he saw her.
With no other choice available, she sucked it up and tried to be a woman about this. All she could do was sweep her hands through the rat’s nest snarl of her hair and thank the stars she had good skin, although what woman on earth couldn’t benefit from a quick swipe of lip gloss? Ah, well. No time for that now.
Swearing she’d get even with him for this if it was the last thing she ever did, she cracked the door open enough to stick her head out and glare.
He grinned, the bastard. “Good morning.”
“It’s the crack of dawn. Less than the crack of dawn. The roosters haven’t even had their coffee yet.”
“I thought you wanted your tour today.”
“I do want my tour. You said ‘first thing,’ which to me means sometime after the sun actually rises. I’m on vacation.”
The bright amusement in his expression left no room for sympathy for her lack of sleep. Of course, he didn’t know that after he’d woken her from that wonderful spot with her head resting on his lap, walked her back here and left her with a chaste kiss on the doorstep, she’d spent several hours writhing around the bed in sexual frustration.
She’d wondered, in no particular order, whether he was sleeping, what, if anything, he was sleeping in, what kind of bed he had, whether he was thinking of her and whether he wanted them both to be in the same bed anywhere near as much as she did. The result was a solid fifteen minutes of sleep for her, which was something less than what she was used to, even with her frantic work schedule.
Love in the Limelight Volume Two: Seduced on the Red CarpetLovers Premiere Page 7
