Excerpt of Tempt Me by Tamara Hogan

Headlights swept across the west wall. Who the hell…? He hadn’t taken the time to close the security gate behind him when he’d driven in earlier, but the private road leading to the cabin was strewn with No Trespassing signs. Couldn’t people read? And when had it gotten dark? He glanced at his sketch pad again. Maybe if he didn’t answer the door, whoever it was would turn around and go away, and he could— The garage door opened with a muffled hum. Whoever had just arrived had the next best thing to a house key. Damn it. He flicked on the room lights with a nudge of his elbow, and then stalked to the kitchen sink to rinse the worst of the clay from his hands and wrists. He had only himself to blame for the unexpected company. His family thought he was on a plane to Los Angeles, and he hadn’t told anyone about his change in plans. Maybe Lukas and Scarlett were sneaking away for a long weekend. Maybe it was Sasha with her latest lover, or his father and Claudette. He glanced at the kitchen counter, where his silent cell phone mocked him. He’d turned it off after letting Brooke and the pilot know that he wouldn’t be traveling to California as planned. Ratcheting back his annoyance, he flipped the switch that would flood the driveway and garage area with light, and opened the heavy oak door. “Wow.” Every surface—the pine boughs, the gravel driveway, the electrical wires, Bailey’s tiny red clown car—was filmed over with ice, and— He blinked. Nope, he wasn’t hallucinating; that was Bailey’s Mini Cooper all right, limping into the garage as a wicked rain/snow mix spit from the sky and froze on contact. What the hell had she been thinking, driving in such dangerous weather conditions? It was sheer dumb luck that she hadn’t skidded off the road, slamming into one of the thousands of lethal, telephone pole-sized pine trees lining the road for miles. And why hadn’t she emerged from the garage yet? “Shit.” Ducking back into the cabin, he jammed his arms into his parka, slung a knit scarf around his neck, stomped his bare feet into a pair of thick-soled Sorels, and headed back out. Needles of sleet pricked his face and bare hands as he shuffled across the driveway as quickly as he dared. Any thoughts he might have had about renting her a hotel room in town until the weather cleared flew out the window. No one was going anywhere tonight. He’d keep his hands to himself if it killed him. Entering the double garage, he found Bailey sitting in the still-running Mini, her white knuckles clutching the steering wheel. When he tapped on driver’s window, she blinked but didn’t move. It took a couple of tries for him to get the car door open—the iced-over handle kept slipping from his hands—but when he finally succeeded, a blast of sauna-hot air escaped. Somehow, the little car’s defroster had kept her windshield free of ice. “Bailey?” No response other than a shiver. Adrenaline crash. He glanced down at the gearshift. At least she’d managed to put the car into Park. “Bailey, I’m going to turn the car off now.” As he reached for the ignition, his parka sleeve brushed against her down vest, a whoosh of rip-stop fabric. So much for keeping his hands to himself. His traitorous hearing picked up her gasp over the sound of the ice pellets pinging off the garage roof.He inhaled as her emotional reaction flooded the cab. She was ambrosia. He wanted to swim in her, wallow in her, let her desire for him plane the rough edges off his frazzled libido. But… He waited several silent seconds, and then sighed. Yep, there it was. The guilt chaser. With Bailey, there was always guilt. He gently peeled her cramped fingers off the steering wheel. Despite the heat in the car, they were cold as icicles. Now that he had a firm grasp on her hands, he turned her body so she sat sideways on the driver’s seat, and tugged her to a standing position. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go inside.” “Rafe?” She looked at him, blinking owlishly. She wasn’t wearing a lick of makeup, and her blonde pixie hair was completely covered by a black knit cap with two tiny ears sewn onto the crown. “I need to leave.” Her words sliced like tiny swords, but the emotions behind them were so much more complex: desire, guilt, sheer panic, and utter exhaustion. “Look at the weather. Let’s go in the cabin, get warm in front of the fire, and figure out what to do. Come on.” Closing the car door, he led her out of the garage and into the ice pellets pounding down from the sky. “What were you thinking, driving in weather like this?” he muttered, trying to shelter her body with his. Even through the layers of down, her essence leached into him. He gulped like a parched man crawling on hands and knees to a desert oasis. Hell. What random cosmic alchemies had conspired to make her —an innocent, guilt-ridden human—the sole object of his desire? Why wouldn’t anyone else do? “The roads were okay south of Eveleth,” she muttered, skating across the driveway with him in a sloppy duet. “Got a late start. Had some work—” An explosion rocked the night, a blown transformer shooting sparks into the black sky. “Aah!” Bailey slipped and lost her footing. He grabbed her. Bobbled. And they both went down.