Tequila High

  Tequila High

  100 Proof Series

  M. Leighton

  For Dad

  November 18, 2018

  I’ve come full circle, Dad. I’ve learned so much on this recent journey, the journey that started with your passing almost three years ago. As you did in life, you imparted something precious to me in your death. I wouldn’t be where I am right now if not for you. As always, you’re my hero. I’m thankful for you every day.

  I love you.

  Always.

  Laughter…

  …doeth good like medicine. Proverbs 17:22.

  I hope you find good medicine within these pages:)

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2018 by M. Leighton

  All rights reserved.

  FIRST EDITION

  Cover photo by bezikus

  http://www.depositphotos.com

  Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and storylines are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Tequila High

  100 Proof, Book 1

  Haley Brandt isn’t the one-night-stand type, but too much tequila and a man with two sinfully dark eyes left her breathless and willing to break her own rules. Her only solace was the fact that she’d never see him again.

  Until the next morning, when she finds out he’s her ride out of town and back to the ranch where she grew up.

  Nixon Holt works with Haley’s father, so Haley makes her position clear—she doesn’t get involved with ranch employees. Ever. At nineteen, she’d learned that lesson the hard way, and it became her one unbreakable rule.

  But Nixon makes his position clear, too; he’s going to wear down Haley’s defenses, and he won’t stop until she breaks all her rules for him. He’s well on his way when Haley finds out the one thing that could make her hate him. Nixon is left with two choices: walk away or break all his rules for her.

  Rum Crazy

  I hope you love Tequila High, but don’t run off when you’re done! The first chapter to Book 2, RUM CRAZY, is at the very end. I think that story is going to be spectacular fun:)

  Contents

  Connect With Me

  1. Nixon

  2. Haley

  3. Nixon

  4. Haley

  5. Nixon

  6. Haley

  7. Nixon

  8. Haley

  9. Nixon

  10. Haley

  11. Nixon

  12. Haley

  13. Nixon

  14. Haley

  15. Nixon

  16. Haley

  17. Nixon

  18. Haley

  19. Nixon

  20. Haley

  21. Nixon

  22. Haley

  23. Nixon

  24. Haley

  25. Nixon

  26. Haley

  27. Nixon

  28. Haley

  29. Nixon

  30. Haley

  31. Nixon

  32. Haley

  33. Nixon

  34. Haley

  35. Nixon

  36. Haley

  Epilogue

  To My Readers

  I’d Love To Hear From You

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by M. Leighton

  Rum Crazy Sneak Peek

  Connect With Me

  There are so many ways we can keep in touch, and I hope you choose at least one, because I’d love to hear from you. Since we’re all book lovers here, though, the best way to keep up with my book news is to subscribe to my newsletter. I only do them a few times a year, so I promise not to hound you:) You can do that HERE.

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  1

  Nixon

  I exhale when I step into the bar. It’s been a long week of ties and business meetings, neither of which is really my style. Never has been. I’m much more at home in worn jeans and dusty boots than the confining material of a Tom Ford suit, no matter how expensive the fabric or how great the cut. I’m still feeling confined, though. Confined inside my own head. I’m looking for some freedom from that, and right now, freedom looks like a loud, smoky dive bar, a cold beer, and a roomful of strangers who don’t give a shit about who I am or what kind of business I’m in.

  I spot her on my way to get a drink. Flames of dark red, wavy hair lick their way down toward a narrow waist when she tips her head to knock back a shot of tequila. She takes it like a man, not even reaching for the slice of lime right away. I catch a glimpse of her profile. Judging by the way she relaxes her neck and lets her head fall back, I’d say she’s enjoying the burn. As I watch, she arches her neck and licks her lips. Yeah, she’s enjoying it. I can almost hear her purr of satisfaction. I don’t know who she is, but she certainly has my attention.

  Stopping a few feet away, I watch until she finally lifts her head and raises the lime to her mouth. Two luscious pink lips part and wrap around the tender part of the wedge. I’ve never been envious of a piece of fruit before.

  Guess there’s a first time for everything.

  Her eyes drift closed as she sucks on the lime. She wavers the tiniest bit on the stool and then starts to laugh. A lot.

  That’s when I realize she’s drunk.

  Tequila high.

  Too bad. I would’ve enjoyed a distraction like her tonight. Very much.

  2

  Haley

  “Another round, Dwight!”

  I put out a very unsteady hand to stop my best friend from ordering more shots. “Lia, no! I haven’t been back to the ranch in ten years. I want to have a clear head.” I stare down at the row of empty shot glasses in front of me. The edges blur, and, for a second, they double. “I’m already off to a terrible start.”

  Lia waves me off. “Who are you kidding? You could always drink me under the table, and I’m not nearly drunk enough yet, so... Bartender!” She slaps her hand on the shiny, black bar to get his attention, which she does. Dwight raises a finger and sends a wink down the bar, the combination of which effectively scrambles Lia’s hormones. “My God, he’s gorgeous. I’m so gonna hit that.”

  “That’s the eleventieth time you’ve said that. Eleventieth? Eleven-teth?” My tongue tangles around the word, and my brain provides no help whatsoever.

  “Eleventh. E-lev-enth,” Lia supplies, sending us both into a fit of giggles for reasons I don’t fully understand. “Speaking of eleventh, I think it’s high time you jump back into sex.”

  “What does that have to do with eleventieth?”

  “Nothing, but don’t change
the subject. You need sex!”

  “Stop saying that,” I caution in a low hiss.

  “Saying what? Sex?”

  “Shhhh.” Paranoid, I glance left and right to make sure no one heard what she said. “Someone will hear you.”

  “I don’t care. I want someone to hear me.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  “You should. And here’s why.” Her voice rises to an embarrassing decibel, somewhere between a rational shout and an insane bellow. “It is not healthy for the human Virginia—”

  “My Virginia is fine,” I interrupt her to say.

  “—to go too long without…without…” I watch her struggle to find the word she’s searching for. When she can’t, she resorts to a widely recognized hand gesture.

  My mortification triples.

  I slap her hands down. “Ohmygod, please stop!”

  “This?” Her brow pleats into an adorable wrinkle as she refers to her hands. She’s genuinely perplexed. “Why?”

  “People know what that means.”

  “Of course they know. That’s why I’m doing it. I can’t think of the word. You know the one.” She raises her hands and starts pushing her index finger into the hole she’s made with the fingers of her other hand. Again, I slap them down.

  “Penetration!” She practically roars the word when it finally comes to her. She flings both her arms into the air like a referee calling a touchdown and starts chanting, “Penetration! Penetration!”

  I reach over to plaster my hand to her mouth.

  I don’t have to look left or right this time to see if anyone heard her. In my peripheral vision, I see at least a dozen heads spin in our direction. I think people three streets over heard her.

  “Oh, Jesus fix it,” I mutter, tucking my flaming face against my arm.

  “Nope. Only a penis will fix this.” She gives me an exaggerated wink.

  “Well, I think it’s time for me to go.” I start to slide off the stool, but she stops me with a hand to my arm.

  “I’m not leaving until you pick a dude.”

  “Then you stay and I’ll go.”

  “No, that’s not how this works. We came together, we’ll leave together. Unless we don’t leave alone. Hubba hubba.” She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively, and I can’t help but giggle. She’s ridiculous, and I love her.

  “Fine, we’ll leave together, but I’m not picking a dude, Lia. We’re at a bar. That’s how women get killed.”

  “I found a dude. Hot. Nice. Safe. But not too safe,” she says with a knowing nod. She leans around me to look down the bar at Dwight again. When her lips split into a beautiful smile, I know she found him. Poor guy. If she’s got her eye on him, he doesn’t stand a chance. He just doesn’t know it yet. “Now you need a dude.”

  “I told you—”

  “I heard you, but I never accept the first offer. Try again.”

  “That wasn’t an offer because this isn’t a negotiation.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Try again.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Try again.”

  “You’re being—”

  “Try again!” When I growl at her, she rolls her eyes and finally relents. At least a little. “Okay, fine. How about we compromise? How about you find a hot guy to at least kiss, and I’ll drop it? Then I’ll let you go back to the hotel while I stay and dazzle Dwight until he gets off. And then we both get off.” She snickers at her cleverness.

  “Lia…” I sigh. My childhood best friend is persistent. I’ll give her that. And she knows me well enough to know when to push her advantage, too.

  “Just one kiss. Or did you forget how? Want me to show you?”

  Several guys whoop their approval. Clearly, they’ve been paying attention, probably since Lia started using words like sex and penetration in her football-game voice. My cheeks burn hot again when a few errant comments erupt around us.

  “Kiss her!”

  “Let’s see it, ladies.”

  “Girl on girl is hot.”

  “Oh my God! Look what you’ve started,” I groan.

  “You can stop it right now. Just pick a hot guy and kiss him. Easy peasy.”

  On any other day, I’d outwit her. Tonight, however, the room is hazy and tilts when I move too quickly. I don’t expect to be outwitting anyone or anything, except maybe the mechanical bull that some girl is riding in the next room.

  “Fine, but then I’m leaving. I can’t stay here after I publicly molest a strange man when you’ve been screaming ‘penetration’ and making finger gestures all night.”

  In that adorably obtuse way she has about her, Lia raises her touchdown arms one more time and squeals “penetration.”

  “That was for good luck,” she explains, her chocolate eyes sparkling in glee. I narrow my hazel ones on her.

  “You’re a terrible friend.”

  “I’m a great friend, now pick a dude.” She grabs my shoulders and spins my stool around. It’s the first time I’ve braved an actual look at the crowd since Lia drew so much attention to us in here. It seems she very effectively grabbed the notice of ninety percent of the male population in the bar. But not one of them grabs mine.

  Until I’m spinning myself back around and my gaze collides with one that’s as black as the sky outside. It’s set in a face about as gorgeous as any I’ve ever seen, and I can’t look away. Can’t and, at the moment, don’t want to.

  Tingles shoot through me. Wave after wave of them, skittering down my arms and legs, tapdancing around in my belly.

  Maybe this is what it feels like to be tased, I think irrationally. It’s been a long, long time since a guy blew my mind and reduced me to a starstruck gawker.

  The man isn’t smiling; he’s just watching me. Not unlike most everyone else in here, yet also very much unlike everyone else in here. His eyes are like alluring bottomless lakes. They’re hot and intense, but not in a pervy way. He just looks…intrigued, although I don’t know why. At the moment, I’m like part of a sideshow at the circus. Nothing intriguing about that unless I have a beard or can swallow a sword.

  And, for the record, I don’t have a beard or a sword.

  When I continue to stare, he tips his dark head in acknowledgement of me. The corners of his mouth turn up in a grin so sexy my knees wobble a little. If I were standing, they’d probably give out and dump me on my ass.

  I’m getting a little short of breath when the back of Lia’s head pops into my field of vision, obstructing my view of him. Although I don’t like it initially, a few seconds away from those burning eyes of his is probably a good thing for my composure.

  After she gets in a good stare, she turns toward me, and I see her face. “Is that the one?” She hikes a thumb over her shoulder at him.

  I’m still addled, and my head isn’t quite back in the game yet. “Huh?”

  “Is that the one you pick?”

  “Pick?”

  “For the kiss, dummy.”

  The kiss. That’s right. How on earth could I forget?

  Damned tequila.

  Although I kind of like the thought of kissing a random stranger now that I’ve seen this particular one, it’s still not my style to be so brazen. “Can’t we just forget this? I’m ready to go. I’m gonna have a record-breaking hangover as it is.”

  In two days. When the drunk finally wears off. As it is, I think my nose is already numb.

  I reach up to feel the tip.

  Yep. Numb.

  “No! You’re gonna march that sweet ass of yours over there and reclaim your womanhood.” She pulls me off my stool, slaps me on the butt, and gives me a shove in hot guy’s direction. I hear her whisper to me as I stumble, “Own that shit, woman!”

  I glance up and find that hot guy is still in the same spot, still watching me, only now, he’s got his arms crossed over his broad chest. For a second, I get distracted by the ropes and bulges of muscle under the smooth skin of his ar
ms. His build is every bit as stunning as his face, which I manage to force my eyes back to only to get lost in those inky eyes again.

  I put one foot in front of the other and make my way to him. I’m vaguely aware of people moving out of my way as I do, but I’m far too focused on my target for it to fully register. If I weren’t, if I knew that the entire bar was watching me, I’d die a thousand deaths. And I’d never do what I’m about to do. But, lucky for me, I’m oblivious. Tequila can do that to you.

  I stop when I’m mere inches from him. He’s tall. Very tall, and I have to crane my neck to look up at him. He’s broad, too. Just a big, strong, strapping guy. A big, strong, strapping, gorgeous guy. Even more so up close, where I can count every long lash surrounding his scorching eyes and see the fine grain of stubble on his square jaw.

  God help me.

  He’s still wearing that tiny grin as he stares silently down at me.

  I give an awkward laugh. “Uh, hi.”

  “Hi,” he returns.

  Sweet mother of audio pheromones! His voice is like warm honey dripping down my chest. Or like melted chocolate being dribbled on my thighs.