Follow My Lead Read Free Page B

with another woman, a need to escape into each other, a need not to speak, not to think.
Damion’s hand slid up her back, into her hair, angling her mouth to deepen the kiss, to take more. Whatever happened beyond this moment, beyond the desire, didn’t matter. There was no right or wrong, no enemies or even friends—there was just feeling, needing, taking.
     
     
    Darla set the book down. No enemies or even friends . That passage was just a little too close to what she wanted to happen with Blake. This was so not the answer to resisting Blake Nelson. She reached for the bag of chocolate and unwrapped a piece, not looking at Blake, but she could feel him looking at her. She was about to stick the first Hershey’s kiss into her mouth when the plane jolted. She yelped and the candy—the piece in her hand, and the entire bag—went flying.
    Blake captured the bag and pushed her tray up, turning her toward him again. “Turbulence is nothing to worry about. Once you’ve been on a few really bad flights you realize just how much a plane can take.”
    The attendant rushed over to them. “Everything okay?”
    “Is it?” Darla asked.
    “Of course, honey,” she said. “Bumps are normal. It’s August. This time of year, hot air pockets create turbulence.”
    “You’re sure?” Darla asked, watching her expression closely for signs she, indeed, was not sure but didn’t want to say as much.
    “I’m positive.”
    “Two more mimosas when you can, please,” Blake said, his focus on Darla. “If you get drunk, I promise to get you to your room, and I won’t take advantage of you, no matter how much I want to.”

3
    H E WOULDN’T TAKE ADVANTAGE of her, no matter how much he wanted to. That was the statement Blake had made that had opened the door of possibility for Darla, the one that spoke of honor, of a good man. Maybe she really had misjudged him. Maybe she was so conditioned to believe she always chose the wrong men that she was looking for flaws in Blake unfairly.
    “Here you go,” the flight attendant said. “Two more mimosas.”
    Blake passed Darla her drink and kept one for himself.
    “Actually,” Darla said. “I think we need to even the stakes here. I’ve had two. These two are yours.”
    He arched a brow and then eased his shoulder back into the seat, still facing her, his voice low and intimate. “I really will take care of you if you want to drink that.”
    “I believe you. How old is your sister? Younger or older?”
    “Younger by five years,” he said. “She’s twenty-seven.”
    “And here I thought the wrong man syndrome was a curse for show business types. Maybe it’s the curse of the twenty-seven-year-olds.”
    “I love the hell out of my sister, but she has issues way beyond age. Namely, she needs to act hers—but that’s a long story that would require a few extra mimosas. And you and I, well, we aren’t exactly in an industry that’s relationship friendly. It’s populated with a lot of people who are out for number one. That has to be different from the life you were living as the Colorado rancher’s daughter.”
    “I still live life as a Colorado rancher’s daughter,” she said. “And the minute this business makes me something else, I’m out.”
    “You might not know when it happens,” he suggested. “Most people don’t.”
    “My family will know and they’ll knock some sense into me.”
    He smiled. “Same with mine.”
    “You’re close to your family?”
    “Very. It was my father’s investment strategies that got me here to begin with. I started doing YouTube investment segments about the stock market while I was in college, which began with too much tequila and a dare.” He lifted his glass and took a sip. “Luckily I handle my alcohol better at thirty-two than I did at twenty-one. The first video was such a hit that I kept doing them, and somehow, someone who mattered saw them and the rest is history. That’s how I ended up writing that handbook for