Stark Naked

By Desiree Holt

Reenie Davenport is making a fresh start, and her first stop is her old college friend Amy’s family ranch in Texas, where she bumps into Amy’s very sexy, very naked, and very drunk brother. She tries to keep her distance from him, especially after he shows up at her door the next morning wearing a killer smile and asking her not to let first impressions ruin what could be a whole lot of fun as they get to know each other.

Matt Stark quickly realizes none of his usual lines will work on Reenie, which only adds to his desire to get her to lower her defenses around him and let him convince her not all men are out to break hearts. Sweet talking her into lunch is only the beginning of what Matt has planned.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Nov 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781640630697

Desiree Holt

A multi-published, award winning, Amazon and USA Today best-selling author, Desiree Holt has produced more than 200 titles and won many awards. She has received an EPIC E-Book Award, the Holt Medallion and many others including Author After Dark’s Author of the Year. She has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning and in The Village Voice, The Daily Beast, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The London Daily Mail. She lives in Florida with her cats who insist they help her write her books, and is addicted to football.

Book preview

Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

About the Author

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 by Desiree Holt. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 105, PMB 159

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

Select Contemporary is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

Edited by Heidi Shoham

Cover design by Fiona Jayde

Cover art from iStock

ISBN 978-1-64063-069-7

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition December 2011

Rerelease November 2017

To the real Matt Stark. Thanks for the inspiration.

Chapter One

I’m really glad you came out to visit tonight, Amy Stark said, carrying two margaritas into the family room of Stark Ranch. "And that you moved here. It’s been too long since we saw each other.

Reenie Davenport accepted the drink, took a tiny swallow of the icy liquid and stared out at the landscape, the rays of the dying sun pouring in through the big picture window. She’d spent a fair amount of time getting ready for this visit. She hadn’t seen either her friend Amy, or Amy’s very good-looking brother, since college graduation, so shoot her for wanting to look her very best. She caught her reflection in the glass of the window and eyed herself critically. Jeans and a simple sweater that made the most of her petite figure. Her naturally sun-streaked hair loose and swirling to her shoulders.

California girl comes to Texas. How did she look to Amy? And how would she look to her brother?

Not that I care. I’m done with men. Finished. Living a blessedly single life.

I don’t like cows. I’m not even sure I like cowboys. She threw her arms up in the air. So how the hell did I end up in Texas?

Amy Stark took a sip of her margarita. Because you got a good job offer and it was a chance to wipe California Dude out of your mind?

Reenie made a face. California Dude? Well, yeah, I guess that’s a good way to describe him. But I think I like Asshole Aaron better.

Amy laughed, and Reenie found herself smiling, realizing the pain in her heart over the jerk’s betrayal had finally dialed back to a dull ache. Her old college roommate had always had the ability to make her smile, even laugh at herself. Which was why Amy had been the first one she called when she made the leap to Texas and a new job. And why she’d jumped at the invitation to spend a weekend at Stark Ranch.

Moving to Texas was the most impulsive thing she’d ever done, but suddenly the state of California hadn’t seemed big enough to hold both her and Asshole Aaron. Especially since his betrayal had screwed up both her personal and professional lives. When an agency client had come calling just at the moment she needed an escape, she jumped. They were taking their graphics and marketing in-house and wanted her to be part of the new department. It had taken a few weeks to make it all happen, weeks of avoiding Aaron at work, of dodging her friends’ questions. And all she knew about Texas came from watching reruns of that old nighttime soap Dallas.

But Southfork Ranch had been almost in downtown Dallas and filled with beautiful people. Stark Ranch, on the other hand, was in the middle of no place. The sprawling ranch house had impressed her at once, with its vast open rooms and comfortable furniture that even in its simplicity still shrieked expensive. But although it was nestled in a copse of shade trees, there was nothing as far as she could see except rolling pasture. She felt completely out of place, like someone who’d gone to sleep and woken up in the wrong room. How did anyone live with this much open space? She needed walls, definitions.

I just can’t believe you actually live out here so far from…from…civilization, she went on. With all these…these…cows.

Cattle, Amy corrected her. Beef on the hoof.

Cattle. Cows. It’s all the same to me, Reenie said. I can’t imagine being out here with nothing but animals. She turned and winked at Amy. I prefer the two-legged kind.

Oh, we’ve got those. Amy grinned. And believe me, they’re mouthwatering. She pushed herself out of the big leather chair and came to stand by her friend. Anyway, I’ve never thought of this place as isolated. I can be downtown in San Antonio in forty minutes. It took you less than that to drive out here tonight.

I guess it just feels like you’re a world away, Reenie protested. She frowned. Somehow in the movies ranches always looked…busier. With more people. Doing stuff.

We are during the day. Life on a ranch, especially one this size, gets pretty hectic. Which is why on Friday nights the hands all get a chance to cut loose. Something you should do my friend. You’ve been strung tighter than a bow since you came to Texas.

I know, I know. Reenie sighed. I just can’t seem to put the pieces of my life back together. Taking this job was an impulsive move. I just wanted to get away from Asshole Aaron and California didn’t seem big enough to hold both of us. And you’re here and we haven’t seen each other since college. She sighed again. A long time.

But now we’re making up for it. And I’ll do my best to get your mind off the Double A.

Double A? Reenie couldn’t help grinning. How appropriate.

Well, he is. Anyway, I thought we’d hit Charlie’s. It’s the end of the week so the place will be packed. All the ranch hands will be ready to raise hell.

Oh. Well. Reenie let out a breath. Actually, Amy, I don’t think I’m quite ready for the meet-and-greet scene yet. I need some distance from it.

Double A really did a number on you, didn’t he?

Reenie hated the sympathy in her friend’s voice. No more than I allowed him to. It just took me too long to see him for the self-centered, conceited jerk that he was. The sex was so good I didn’t even look around to see he was banging half the women in the office and stealing my promotion out from under me. So, no, I don’t think I’m quite ready yet to jump back into that pool."

Maybe tomorrow night. See how you feel then. You’re here for the weekend, so tonight we could just pop in a DVD, watch a chick flick and get trashed on margaritas. Girl stuff.

That sounds pretty good. Thanks.

Amy pushed herself out of the chair. Okay, then. First let me at least give you a tour of the barns so you can say you know what happens on a ranch. You can’t visit a ranch without seeing what it’s really all about. And Stark Ranch is one of the best operations around. Then I’ll get us margarita refills and junk food.

Okay, okay.

Amy opened the back door at almost the same moment a man on the porch raised his hand to knock on it. He had to be close to sixty. His dusty jeans and boots indicated he’d been outside working. He pulled his worn Stetson from his head and walked over to Amy.

Everything’s bedded down, he reported. "Night shift’s