Nauti Enchantress
Page 1
Praise for the Nauti Boys series
“The Nauti series is one that absolutely no one should miss. The characters are brilliant, sexy, and real, while the high-octane action and soul-gripping plots have you on the edge of your seat. I loved it!”
—Fresh Fiction
“Steamy, smoking, hot, erotic, risqué. Romantic . . . Intriguing and hard [to] put down.”
—Night Owl Reviews
“Completely blown away by this surprising story, I could not put [it] down . . . and before I knew it, I had read this entire novel in one sitting. Lora Leigh has spun a smoldering-hot tale of secret passion and erotic deceptions.”
—Romance Junkies
“Wild and thrilling.”
—The Romance Studio
“The sex scenes are, as always with Leigh’s books, absolutely sizzling.”
—Errant Dreams Reviews
“Heated romantic suspense.”
—Midwest Book Review
More praise for
Lora Leigh
and her novels
“Leigh draws readers into her stories and takes them on a sensual roller coaster.”
—Love Romances & More
“Will have you glued to the edge of your seat.”
—Fallen Angel Reviews
“Blistering sexuality and eroticism . . . Bursting with passion and drama . . . Enthralls and excites from beginning to end.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“A scorcher with sex scenes that blister the pages.”
—A Romance Review
“A perfect blend of sexual tension and suspense.”
—Sensual Romance Reviews
“Hot sex, snappy dialogue, and kick-butt action add up to outstanding entertainment.”
—RT Book Reviews (Top Pick)
“The writing of Lora Leigh continues to amaze me . . . Electrically charged, erotic, and just a sinfully good read!”
—Joyfully Reviewed
“Wow! . . . The lovemaking is scorching.”
—Just Erotic Romance Reviews
Berkley titles by Lora Leigh
The Breeds
RULE BREAKER
STYGIAN’S HONOR
LAWE’S JUSTICE
NAVARRO’S PROMISE
STYX’S STORM
LION’S HEAT
BENGAL’S HEART
COYOTE’S MATE
MERCURY’S WAR
DAWN’S AWAKENING
TANNER’S SCHEME
HARMONY’S WAY
MEGAN’S MARK
The Nauti Boys
NAUTI ENCHANTRESS
NAUTI TEMPTRESS
NAUTI DECEPTIONS
NAUTI INTENTIONS
NAUTI DREAMS
NAUTI NIGHTS
NAUTI BOY
Anthologies
ENTHRALLED
(with Alyssa Day, Meljean Brook, and Lucy Monroe)
NAUTIER AND WILDER
(with Jaci Burton)
TIED WITH A BOW
(with Virginia Kantra, Eileen Wilks, and Kimberly Frost)
PRIMAL
(with Michelle Rowen, Jory Strong, and Ava Gray)
NAUTI AND WILD
(with Jaci Burton)
HOT FOR THE HOLIDAYS
(with Angela Knight, Anya Bast, and Allyson James)
THE MAGICAL CHRISTMAS CAT
(with Erin McCarthy, Nalini Singh, and Linda Winstead Jones)
SHIFTER
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) LLC
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China
penguin.com
A Penguin Random House Company
This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
Copyright © 2014 by Christina Simmons.
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
BERKLEY® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.
The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.
eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-62664-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leigh, Lora.
Nauti enchantress / Lora Leigh.—Berkley trade paperback edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-425-25599-5
I. Title.
PS3612.E357N3845 2014
813'.6—dc23 2014008223
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley trade paperback edition / June 2014
Cover photo by Radius/Superstock.
Cover design by Lesley Worrell.
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 websites or their content.
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For Sharon
Contents
PRAISE FOR LORA LEIGH
BERKLEY TITLES BY LORA LEIGH
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
EPILOGUE
I reached out to you and your fingers touched mine.
Lightning raced through me, static filled my veins.
My woman’s soul cried out in joy . . .
Then betrayal sang her venomous song.
And I learned your touch wasn’t mine alone.
Your kiss wasn’t drawn from the depths of a hunger that only a true heart can feel.
Your passion, your need, your desperate desire, and your pleasure . . . It wasn’t mine to claim.
It was for whoever lay beneath you.
It was for whoever drew your interest in that moment.
And there my heart lay bleeding . . .
There my soul lay wounded . . .
And still, the lesson was unlearned.
For my heart still sang at the sight of you.
For my soul still ached for the touch of you.
And the woman . . .
The woman is still lost in the dream of you.
LYRICA MACKAY
ONE
The blizzard raged.
A curtain of heavy white fluff poured from the skies, blanketing the ground and laying an enchanting veil of wonder over the land. The heavy, wet snow was thicker than it had been when Lyrica arrived at Kyleene Brock’s house. Now, the silent icy flakes were twirling and dancing in the heavy w
inds, creating a wondrous ballet of nature at its most beautiful.
And at its most dangerous.
Lying on the couch, her head propped against the thick pillowed armrest, she ignored the fact that the black chiffon and embroidered silk gown fell back to her thighs and that her robe had worked open from the loose knot she’d tied it closed with.
Kye’s brother, Graham, wasn’t here, she reminded herself. That was how she’d ended up stuck here with Kye after they had realized how heavy the snow was falling. Her friend hated staying alone. The house was too big and too lonely when it was just her.
Kye had acted as though something was bothering her, too, something she may have wanted to talk about. Not that she’d gotten around to talking about it. The minute the electricity had gone out and the other girl had realized they were stuck there for the night, she’d become almost angry, or worried about something. Something she had refused to discuss.
Pushing aside the thought, Lyrica concentrated on the scene outside instead.
The winds howled and swirled through the naked branches of the trees, whipping the thick flakes into masses of heavy drifts. The sight of it was magnificent, majestic. Mother Nature was throwing a glittering, pure white cape over the land outside and she was doing it with style.
Had Lyrica been at her mother’s inn, or the small apartment she rented in Somerset, the show wouldn’t have been quite so beautiful.
So romantic.
It was a night meant to be shared with someone other than a friend. A night to be sheltered in strong arms rather than reclining alone before the fire.
Lifting one arm over her head, she pulled at the waves of her hair absently, twirling them around her finger, tugging at them as she watched the snow fall and felt the bittersweet regret she felt each time she came to the Brock home.
When she’d heard Graham had returned the summer before, she’d been certain she would have a chance to . . . what? A chance at his heart? A chance to be held in his arms, to feel his kiss?
A chance to be his next flavor of the month?
No doubt, that was all she would have had a chance at. And despite the fact that she knew it, still he held her spellbound. No matter how hard she looked, no other man measured up to him, and no other man—or woman—could steal her attention from him.
She missed him.
He seemed to be absent from home more often than not in the past months. His current little love bunny, damned if she could even remember this one’s name, lived just outside Louisville. Graham drove out to see her often enough that Kye had begun worrying if Graham was more serious about her than he let on.
Lyrica did more than worry.
She often tormented herself with the fear that he was falling in love with the cool, sophisticated blonde.
She hated him for the very fact that this woman had lasted longer than the others.
She often hated him for the fascination she didn’t want to have for him.
A man hadn’t played into her plans for the future until she’d met Graham Brock. Until she’d stared into his golden brown eyes, like dark amber, and become trapped within a world of fantasy, hunger, and need that she had yet to escape from.
What would she do if he married the other woman?
Could she bear to see him marry?
It would break her heart.
The sound of the living room doors opening once again pulled her from her thoughts as a drowsy smile curved her lips.
“You know, Kye,” she commented as she heard the doors close again before several steps were taken into the room, “maybe we should have just called the guys and told them we were scared here alone after all. I bet they would have been right here on those snowmobiles and then we could have just gone to the apartment.”
Her brother and cousins had made the offer to come out for her hours before, and she knew they would have enjoyed the chance to use the snowmobiles they rarely got to ride anymore.
“That really wouldn’t have worked for me.”
Eyes wide, her heart suddenly racing in her chest, Lyrica found herself staring into Graham Brock’s dark amber gaze as he stood behind the couch.
He had savage features with a thin, deadly looking scar bisecting his cheek and running into the closely cropped beard he wore. His brows were lowered, a scowl pulling at his expression as he glared at her.
She should have been embarrassed. She was lying there with her gown nearly showing the fact that she wore no panties beneath it; her robe gaped open; and instead of hurrying to cover herself, she just grinned up at him.
“Still the overprotective big brother with Kye?” she asked, her heart suddenly racing in excitement as she felt her thighs tighten at the ache centered between them. Sometimes she just hated her body’s response to him.
“Something like that,” the answer came as his gaze drifted down her body before jerking back to her eyes. Have mercy. He was staring at her the way Dawg stared at his wife, Christa.
“Little sister can’t stay a virgin forever.” She winked up at him. “At least, that’s what I keep telling my big brother.”
The look in his eyes and the expression on his face had heat suddenly flooding her body. Graham rarely looked at her with the full strength of that dark hunger that lurked in his gaze. Sometimes she caught a glimmer of it, but never had she felt the full force of all that sensual, erotic hunger.
She was feeling the full force of it now.
She licked her lips nervously, stilling as his jaw tightened and his fingers gripped the back of the couch as though to keep himself from reaching out for her.
Did she really want to be his flavor of the month?
Was there a chance she could be something more?
“What the hell are you doing here?” Moving around the couch, he strode to the fire to grab the poker and prod the burning wood viciously before grabbing more logs and tossing them to the flames.
Freed from the sensual spell that his look had wrapped around her, Lyrica moved slowly into a sitting position that ensured her gown fell down her thighs a bit and pulled the robe tighter around her.
Propping her elbow on her knee, she rested her chin on her palm and watched him.
He wasn’t wearing a shirt, leaving his upper body bare. The firelight reflected off the bronzed flesh and rippling muscles beneath. He looked like a warrior, a noble savage just in from the battlefield.
The light dusting of chest hair hid the fine, spiderwebbed scarring she knew his chest held from the wounds that had sent him home the year before on a medical discharge. Though, Kye seemed to think there was more involved than just those wounds.
Snug jeans cupped a manly, sexy-as-hell ass and emphasized the hard, flat planes of his abdomen while . . . Oh, sweet mercy—
He turned to face her fully.
Those jeans did nothing to hide the heavy erection beneath as the broad shaft pressed demandingly against the denim. It rose high enough beneath the material that she wondered if she could catch a glimpse of it if he moved just right, beneath the low rise of his jeans.
Her mouth dried out, then watered quickly at the thought. Flicking her tongue over her lips to moisten them as she swallowed tightly, her gaze was suddenly caught by his again. And what she saw there had her heart threatening to strangle her it was beating so hard.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he growled.
“You weren’t supposed to be here,” she retorted breathlessly as he stood by the fire, watching her with narrowed, hungry eyes. “I didn’t hear you drive in.”
And she would have heard him. As heavy and deep as the snow was outside, there was no way he could have slipped in.
“I never left,” he informed her, scowling. “Only a moron would have ventured out today knowing this was coming.”
“Well now, doesn’t that put me in my place?” she murmured, amused at the veiled insult, though she held back the fact that Kye had sworn he was gone.
His lips thinned at the comment, the dark amber of his
eyes gleaming harshly between narrowed lashes.
“I’ll get the snowmobile out and take you to Dawg’s.” He all but demanded she leave with that offer. “His place isn’t far from here.”
She wasn’t about to go anywhere unless he physically dragged her out of the house. Not now. Not with this tension whipping through the air and the sudden, heated certainty that she had no intention of ignoring whatever it was that flared between them so often.
Lyrica Mackay as Graham Brock’s new flavor of the month? Her brother, Dawg, would have a stroke when he heard that one.
“If I wanted to get out in the snow, Graham, I would have let Dawg do just that earlier. It’s beautiful to watch, but I’m really not into being out in it,” she informed him archly. Her gaze drifted to his bare chest again, loving the way the firelight played against the mat of hair at his chest. It looked like burnished gold, warm and inviting.
She was pathetic.
She was hopeless.
No doubt he and his latest little love bunny laughed often over the silly little Mackay and her crush on him. It was nauseating. No matter the insults she flung at herself, she couldn’t keep her gaze from him, couldn’t stop wanting him.
He was her fascination. Her weakness. She couldn’t help it, no matter how hard she tried.
“I can’t believe Dawg didn’t head out here anyway,” he growled, muscular arms crossing over his broad chest as he continued to glare at her.
“He might have, if he had known you were home,” Lyrica pointed out with a grin. “I believe he may be under the impression that you’re not exactly in residence.”
His eyes widened briefly before his scowl turned to a glare so fast that she almost missed the transformation. “You’re trying to get me killed,” he muttered.
She would have laughed, but she couldn’t get the sound past the racing beat of her heart or the breathless need tearing through her.
She hated what he did to her. Hated how he made her realize things about herself that she hated realizing. Things such as the fact that she was ready to beg him to touch her.
“Well, if Dawg killed you, Graham, then Kye wouldn’t have to worry about any more of your little snuggle bunnies running around the house at all hours,” she pointed out innocently, though the thought of it had the power to make her burn with jealous anger. “I think she lives in fear of seeing any more of your naked lovers traipsing down the hallway. She’s convinced she’s been traumatized, you know.”