She wouldn’t drop her chin or her gaze from the window. He should have been sitting this way the whole time. She looked so pretty and indomitable, sitting here with her stubborn chin and heavenly dress in the hotel she created.
He thought about the other thing he’d been craving since harvest began.
“I’ll tell you what I think about your wine if you tell me what you think about my music.”
It had been a lucky break when she hadn’t blamed him for the Young Son songs pouring over the winery’s sound system. He knew the acoustics in the large facility made it difficult to hear them. But he had noticed her, more than once, humming along in her tone-deaf way. Did she like the songs? Had she heard any of the lyrics?
He scooted gently closer, until his knees touched the softness of her skirt.
She dropped her eyes to her glass. “That’s not a fair bargain, you know.”
“Why?”
“I have told you what I think of your music.”
Aish opened his mouth to object. But quickly closed it.
She’d spent hours and hours that long-ago fall listening to his music, playing him her favorite bands, critiquing a lyric or a hook, listening and loving every chord he strummed on the guitar, every note he sang. She’d believed entirely in him. Her faith in his destiny had been absolute.
He’d treated her praise like it was his due.
She didn’t want the apologies he felt like he could scoop out of himself in buckets. So he picked up the pale red wine that he’d been savoring because he wouldn’t pour himself another glass although its taste made him want to.
He sniffed it again, caught something sweet. Vanilla-ish. “It’s spent some time in American oak,” he said. She nodded.
He took a good drink.
I could drink a case of you, Joni Mitchell sang in his favorite song.
“My palate’s gotten used to fruit bombs, those big chewable Napa Valley cabs and Sonoma County pinots,” he said. She tucked her hair behind her ear; she was listening although she wasn’t looking at him. “This is...restrained. Delicate. Unique. You’ve got a little tobacco, a little acid. They balance each other nicely.”
He could see the pleasure on her cheek even if she didn’t smile. Then she stood, slid her leg over the bench and faced him too, letting their knees touch as her skirts fluttered around her lap. She could have slapped him, her move provided that much power and surprise.
“I was impressed by the variety of instruments you’ve incorporated into your music,” she said softly, eyeing him. “I always thought you planned on being more of a four-piece American rock band.”
Because he couldn’t not, he gently slipped his hand under her skirt to cover her knee. When she didn’t pull back, he slid two fingers under the bend, feathered them across the thin, ticklish skin. “We were an American rock band. With, like, fifteen pieces.”
She tilted her head to smile at him. “And a bagpipe.”
He dug all of his fingers between her leg and the leather, loving the weight and warmth of her, being able to claim and hold her this way, and took another drink of wine. Her eyes, as still and watchful as a cat’s, followed him.
He wanted to press her back and whisper love words about aroma and mouthfeel and finish against her skin.
He rolled the wine around in his mouth and swallowed. “You know what I really think, Sofia?” He gripped her knee and made his thumb memorize the bones. “I think your wines are fucking incredible. I think you already know that. And I don’t think you need to hear it from me or anybody.”
“No, I don’t,” she said imperiously, lifting her nose and exposing all that gorgeous skin—her neck, her chest, the sides of her sweet tits—to the lamplight. “But you owe me some fawning.”
He finished his wine in two big gulps. Then he thunked the glass on the floor and, his hands now free, slid them over her thighs, over the delicious fabric and warmth and softness, to her hips. She was so small in his big hands. Her waist looked as delicate as the wineglass stem. He met her eyes.
Her smile, the challenge and excitement in it, reminded him how that little nineteen-year-old girl had mastered him entirely.
“You want some fawning,” he said, lifting her and pulling her onto him, her thighs sliding over his, her weight in his lap. He gripped her thigh in one hand and her waist in the other as he looked up at her.
Slowly, lazily, she laid her arms around his shoulders. As if, of course, yes, like a thousand other men, she knew he adored her.
He smiled up at her with all the joy of being here. “You’re an artist with the grapes. Tasting what you created makes me want to cry. Once people get their heads out of their asses, you’re going to be queen of the wine world and I’m going to be some has-been in your liner notes.”
She shifted, just a little, but enough to push her closer to where he was hardening up for her. “You don’t get to feel sorry for yourself, not with the music you’re capable of.” She leaned in and feathered a kiss at the top of his cheekbone, letting him get lost in the smell and tickle of her hair. “You have a talent and a skill that’s a gift from God.” She kissed his bridge, the tip of his nose, rubbed her lips over an eyebrow. “If you waste it, or let this scandal distract you from it—” her hands, those small world-dominating hands, tugged back his head so she could smooth her mouth along his jaw “—then yes, you’re just a sad little man who buried that bold joyous boy.”
She bit the vein of his neck and he let his hands meet over her skirt and under her tight little ass so he could push her
