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.
After I stow my bag in the closet, I eye the steam shower longingly, but as soon as my gaze falls on the oversized claw-foot tub, the shower is forgotten. A nice relaxing soak to soothe 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 washcloth, 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 my 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 style just long enough to make him look rakish.
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 in, 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 about 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.