Chloe Peterson is having a bad night. A really bad night. The large bruise on her cheek can attest to that. And when her car skids off the side of a wet country road straight into a ditch, she’s convinced even the gorgeous guy who rescues her in the middle of the rain storm must be too good to be true. Or is he?

As a successful photographer who frequently travels around the world, Chase Sullivan has his pick of beautiful women, and whenever he’s home in San Francisco, one of his seven siblings is usually up for causing a little fun trouble. Chase thinks his life is great just as it is—until the night he finds Chloe and her totaled car on the side of the road in Napa Valley. Not only has he never met anyone so lovely, both inside and out, but he quickly realizes she has much bigger problems than her damaged car. Soon, he is willing to move mountains to love—and protect—her, but will she let him?

Chloe vows never to make the mistake of trusting a man again. Only, with every loving look Chase gives her—and every sinfully sweet caress—as the attraction between them sparks and sizzles, she can’t help but wonder if she’s met the only exception. And although Chase didn’t realize his life was going to change forever in an instant, amazingly, he isn’t the least bit interested in fighting that change. Instead, he’s gearing up for a different fight altogether…for Chloe’s heart.

Chase Sullivan is on his way to his brother’s vineyard, after having left a family party, when he sees a car in a ditch on the side of the road. He also sees a woman standing in the rain. He stops and though he offers to help she turns him down. He understands that she’s wary of a stranger but eventually his kindness calms the woman’s nerves and she gets in the car. She tells him that her name is Chloe and asks him to take her to a motel and he promptly ignores her request completely. He takes her to his brothers vineyard’s guest house where he’s staying and tells her that she can stay there while he heads to his brothers.

Chloe and Chase are greeted by a naked woman in the master bedroom who was supposed to be Chase’s hook up for the night. Chase is already ridiculously into Chloe after only knowing her for about a half hour and sends Ellen on her way. Not long after that Chase checks on Chloe and finds herself getting herself off with the bathtub jets and his name on her lips. This doesn’t help Chase’s lustful thoughts at all.

Chase is actually at the vineyard shooting a magazine spread as he’s a photographer and eventually Chloe helps out and they both get to know each other better. Unfortunately Chloe has a hard time trusting men as her ex-husband did a number on her – before and after the divorce. Chloe has trust issues and though she’s mightily attracted to Chase she knows she can’t trust herself around him or trust him. After only a few days though Chloe is not only in bed with Chases but listening to him proclaim his undying love for her. She knows she needs to keep her emotions in check but that’s so hard when Chase is so wonderful.

This is the start of the Sullivan series – a series about the 8 children of the Sullivan family. I can’t say that this was a completely auspicious start. The book, for the most part was centered on Chase’s insta-love for Chloe and her lack of trust in men. That didn’t stop them from spending ¾ of the book having sex. The problem for Chloe was that she wasn’t sure that she was willing to have it go further than a fling and Chase knew he wanted forever from the start. I have to say I had a real problem with that insta-love. I get wanting to know someone better and possibly liking them enough to want to date but LOVE? It was a bit much to swallow.

Chloe I understood a little better (although I will never understand why she got into a strangers car!). She’s had a rough life, although we only knew her ex was controlling and not much else about her. She had trust issues which were completely understandable and I felt that Chase didn’t giver her quite enough space with those issues to be quite honest. They did seem to work things out in the bedroom – or on the patio, or…wherever they happened to be. Most of the book was taken up with sex scenes and though it was sexy at first it got to be a bit old after a while.

The scenes when Chase and Chloe weren’t having sex were fun. They had dinner, danced, had a picnic…just fun normal things and it showed that they were very compatible.  I also had an issue with the setting.  While the setting was wonderful it didn’t show either of them in their real lives and that, I think, shows a great deal about a person.  Can they live with each other when real life comes buzzing in?  IDK.

Though I didn’t love book 1 in this series I’m curious enough about Chase’s vineyard owner brother, Marcus, to read the next book in the series and see what’s up.

Rating: 3 out of 5

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place.

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