Plus One (Pig & Barley Book 3)

by Mae Wood

  I pulled my black lace panties down slowly, giving him time to appreciate my effort at a strip tease when I was already nearly nude. I left them hung low around my hips. Neither on nor off. A touch more and they would fall to my feet. My left breast was bare and damp from his mouth. The cool air of the restaurant and my arousal turning my nipples into tight, nearly painful peaks.

  Catching his eyes, I watched him push to his knees, bent before me in supplication. Without breaking our gaze, I pulled down the other cup, letting both my breasts hang heavy and free, before arching my back to reach behind and free myself of the black lace. A quick shimmy of my hips and the lace bottoms followed, both pieces pooling at my feet and his knees.

  “Born of sea foam.” I heard Bert growl before clasping my hands in his and tugging me down. I lowered myself to my knees and smiled at our mutually reverent position. “Let me worship you, Venus. No, before you ask, not the tennis player. Venus—Aphrodite, goddess of beauty. Goddess of sex. Goddess of desire.”

  “Goddess of love?” Before the final sound slipped from my lips, his mouth was on mine, claiming me, his tongue pushing and plunging and sweeping mine, calling me to play, to engage, to return the fervor. Unhesitatingly, I did. We feasted on each other’s bodies, hands stroking and cajoling, both of us pulling his clothes from him. A tangle of limbs, I found him over me and I wrapped my legs around his waist in anticipation of his entrance. Breathing out to relax for his first trust, he backed off of me.

  “Venus. Also the goddess of wine. Everyday wine. You, my goddess, are not the patron of table wine.”

  I pushed up on my forearms, my elbows aching on the bar’s hard top and my pussy pulsing with unmet want. Bert pushed off the bar to stand on his feet behind it.

  I rolled to my side to watch him. “Christ, Drennan,” he breathed. With a shake of his head he turned to reach into the wine chiller, retrieving a stubby dark green Champagne bottle with a cream shield shaped label that I recognized immediately.

  “Dom Pérignon,” I said.

  “1996,” he replied, turning the label to show me.

  I admired him work the wire cage free, his hands expertly twisting and the muscles in his forearms moving as he rocked the mushroom cork free. And I noticed something new with him standing in front of me, naked in the dim lights of his restaurant. “Your left arm doesn’t have much ink.”

  He paused, lifting his gaze from the cork to meet my eyes as a small pop escaped from the bottle. “The only ink on my left side, except for my bicep, is my Vandy star tattoo on my hip.” He gestured to it with the butt of the bottle toward his deliciously lickable V of muscle. “All Vandy men’s team swimmers have it.”

  “Why?”

  “Why the left? I don’t know.”

  “No, why is your left side pretty much empty?”

  A smile curved on his face. “Don’t laugh.”

  “Cross my heart.”

  “Okay, so my Venus in repose, let me tell you a story.” Holding onto the bottle by the neck, he took my hand with his free one. “Well, technically, I’m summarizing a story that was told in The Symposium, but stay with me.” He turned my hand over, palm up and formed it into a cup with his. “Some humans were originally created with four arms, four legs, and two heads or two faces, depending on the translation. But these humans were too powerful and the gods didn’t like this.”

  Cool wine pooled in the palm of my hand and Bert lifted it to his lips to drink. Champagne trickled down my arm and he chased it with his tongue. Only stopping to refill my hand and continue his story. “So the gods, fearing that these humans might rival their power or attack, decided to act.” He emptied my hand again, laving my fingers and leaving me trembling, quivering with need.

  Another pour. “The gods met and Zeus, he’s the king of the gods, devised a plan. To split these whole creatures who threatened the gods. To split them into two separate creatures and scatter them throughout the world. And not only would the power of these humans be halved, but they would yearn for their missing half.”

  Another drink. Another pour, this time my hand offered to my lips. And I took the offering, the wine spilling messily down my chin. He leaned in for a kiss, his tongue once again bathing me clean.

  “And if the halves were fortunate enough to find each other, they would want nothing but to cling to each other. At the joy of being whole, they would be content and no longer a threat to the gods.”

  He tipped the bottle and wine splashed on my breasts, turning them tight with need. Bending down, he began to lick and kiss my breasts, urging me to lie on my back. “I know this story. It’s The Missing Piece. The kids book,” I said.

  “Yes and no, but mainly yes.”

  The fragrant wine danced in the concavity of my stomach. His tongue tickling me as it explored, his lips forming a tight O to sip from my navel.

  “And so you’re saving that side. Where you were split.”

  “Don’t laugh.”

  “I’m not. So tell me this. Why the Dom?”

  “Frangipane and oranges. While I’m being honest, and you’re still not laughing, you’ve always reminded me of frangipane and oranges. I don’t know if it’s your lotion or what, but damn. One day I’ll make a pastry or, better, a brioche—Pain au Drennan. But this wine, it suits you. Exuberant and sophisticated.”

  I laughed and the new pool of wine at my navel rippled. “And this, my goddess of table wine, has notes of yeast on the nose and a candied citrus that lingers. Some say hazelnut, but I get a lighter nut. Almost an almond.”

  “Frangipane and orange,” I smiled. “But this isn’t to complement me. This is me.”

  “No, the compliment comes in a bit. Wait.” He cupped his large hand, offering me more than a taste. I sipped greedily from his hand before taking a gauche gulp from the bottle. Looking in his eyes, I ran my tongue around the lip, before taking the opening into my mouth once again and letting the bubbles slide down my throat.

  “Christ, Drennan.”

  “That’s Goddess Venus to you,” I replied with a sureness fitting the title, before passing the bottle back to him and watching his Adam’s apple work as he took a swig of his own.

  “Yes, goddess,” he said, pulling the bottle from his lips and pouring it directly onto my achingly neglected pussy. The wine splashed on my skin, the unexpected coolness shocking my skin and making my skin turn to gooseflesh. My already peaked nipples tightened more fully and a chill shot up my spine, immediately chased by another bolt of electricity created by his warm tongue lapping, broad, flat strokes, not gentle or playful, but firm and determined. Rolling me to my back, he climbed back onto the bar top and slung my calves over his shoulders. I obligingly crossed my ankles and pulled him close. A muffled groan was his response, the vibrations adding to the overwhelming sensation as I climbed and climbed, gasping for oxygen like a mountaineer. But as much as I wanted this, this orgasm he was gifting me, I wanted to take one from him. I wanted to carry that memory home with me.

  Unlacing my legs, I beat my heels into his back until his head popped up. And I immediately regretted my decision until I wrapped my arms around his neck, taking his mouth with mine, tasting the frangipane and oranges amidst the wine. Now saltier and more viscous.

  With my heels and hands gripping his back, I guided him more, pressing him up and into me until with a fuck, fuck, fuck from me, he was seated, our mouths never breaking.

  Simple rutting. No tricks. No flourishes, just being filled and filling in that base way we both craved. His arms looped under me, grasping onto the backs of my shoulders in a futile but desperately needed way to bring us closer. To fuse us together back into one being that not even the gods could sever.

  Lips left mine and I raised my chin in search of his mouth, failing before his forehead met mine.

  “Christ, Drennan. Just fucking Christ.” The staccato curse leaving him at a whisper. My eyes found his and I fell into them. Head first and forever. Drowning in dark dilated pupils surrounded by the cof
fee brown.

  Open mouthed, our lips barely grazing, we breathed the other in until we both fell over the edge. Together.

  He lay on his back, his arms pillowed under his head and I curled around him, my ass sticking out over the edge of the bar into the air.

  “I’m going to call Gaspard,” I said lazily. “Need to make sure the new bar in the tasting room is wider than this.”

  His head shot up. “The novelty will wear out.”

  “That’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

  I cringed when I realized where this conversation was headed. That my off-hand comment about future bar-top sex was about a future that wouldn’t include him.

  “Bert,” I said, pulling myself closer and trailing a hand through the smattering of dark hair on his chest and beginning to trace the lines of his now familiar tattoos. “I . . . This . . .”

  “Shhh. I know, I know, I know.”

  My chest ached from the pressure of words unsaid bubbling up through me, begging to be released into the world. I tamped them back down. Bolted them away back in my heart.

  “Let’s get you to the hotel.”

  I sat up and the world spun, even with my drinks being less than full pours, I’d had way over my limit.

  “You coming with me?”

  “Always,” he said with a wink and I made a note of another #overendo tweet.

  He climbed off the bar, unabashedly naked in his own restaurant and began handing me cocktail napkins to clean up.

  I pulled on my bra and dress, laughing to myself that I’d lived out the scene I’d imagined in my head so many times. My own personal fantasy but this time with Lickable Man himself and not Roger my rabbit.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Bert

  As Drennan dressed, I perched on a stool, enjoying the quiet moment. After a minute, I dressed myself and we headed out.

  A few short blocks away, I pulled up to the valet at The Peabody, Memphis’s famed old hotel. “Sure you don’t want to come home with me?”

  “No, this is easier.”

  “I don’t want to leave you like this,” I said, tacking on the last phrase before I showed all of the cards in my hand.

  She held up her hand to me. “Stop. It isn’t going to get easier, okay?”

  “Do you want me to stay?” I asked, confused by her steely tone. She’d never been forceful with me. Her sunniness hidden behind the cloud on her face. She placed one hand on the door handle where the valet stood ready to open it for her. A quick shake of her head and the valet took a step back. A sigh escaped her and it emptied all the hope in my chest. I knew the answer. The time at the restaurant was it. Our romance was over.

  “You know you’re my friend,” I confessed, wanting to say what I knew I shouldn’t but settling instead on something that was still honest.

  Her broad smile made my heart stop. Clear up to her eyes, her entire face radiated more joy than just a recently fucked happiness. “Ditto, my plus one.”

  “Text me when you get to your room, okay?”

  “Will do. And thanks.” She leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Now I understood the meaning of bittersweet.

  “Thank you. And send me pics when you get the tasting room done. I want to see how well that new bar turns out.”

  And that is how we left it, with me joking about her fucking on a bar with another man. I watched her hop out of the car. With a wave and a blown kiss, she turned and disappeared through the heavy brass and glass doors. I sat for a few minutes, waiting for her text until a car pulled up behind me and I had to pull forward.

  The phone buzzed when I was a few blocks away.

  Drennan: In my room.

  Me: Good. Safe travels. Text me when you leave.

  Drennan: XOXO

  Me: XOXO

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Drennan

  The valet held the door open to my car and I hopped in.

  “Ma’am, this was in the driver’s seat.”

  I passed him a five and took the small manila package from him. “Thanks.”

  “Thank you for staying at The Peabody. Hope you’ll visit us again soon.” The door closed behind me and I placed the package on the passenger’s seat.

  From Bert. It’s a good-bye present from Bert. It has to be.

  Before the tears came back, I nodded bye to the valet, put my car in drive and pulled onto the city streets, relying on Siri to guide me home.

  As my wheels touched the pavement of Arkansas, just over the bridge from downtown, I couldn’t hold the tears back. But I kept driving. Even trying the Lamaze breathing that Kenzie had learned when Leo was born. In through the nose. One. Two. Three. Out through the mouth, deep and cleansing.

  A few more miles and the tears were at bay. The skin of my cheeks tight from the dried salt water and my eyes feeling rough. More breathing. More miles.

  I pulled up a podcast on the decline of bee colonies and settled into my seat. A thousand miles of I-40 stretched ahead of me. Ten hours to Amarillo. I was going to do it.

  At the signs for Little Rock, I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t keep ignoring the taped together manila envelope with the large Drennan scrawled across it. It was just too damn loud. And it kept drowning out the bees.

  I pulled into the first Starbucks I could find. Yes, I called on enough customers in Little Rock to know cool, hip local coffee shops. But that wasn’t what I needed. I needed anonymous. I needed impersonal. I needed a fresh space to say good-bye.

  I tucked the package in my bag, ordered a tall black coffee and a croissant that was supposedly Pascal Rigo-approved, but I knew that anything frozen and on display just a few feet from an interstate wouldn’t live up to his original Boulange.

  After cleaning up in the bathroom, I settled into a well-used leather club chair, placing my coffee and pastry to the side as I set the package in my lap.

  What would he want to give me?

  Deciding that time wasn’t going to wait for me. I tore the paper open, shredding it like an eager kid at Christmas. To find . . . to find . . . a small notebook and a new copy of Bob Marley’s Greatest Hits. I barked out a laugh. The Post-it note on top read “The original couldn’t be salvaged. Enjoy the replacement.”

  I opened the green spiral notebook next, turning to the first page. “Recipes I enjoy. Some made up and some outright stolen.”

  Opening with angel biscuits and ending with the cocktails that were served last night at Pig and Barley, there were a dozen pages of his tight, messy half-print, half-cursive writing.

  Fuckity fuck fuck. That man. That lovely man. I laughed to myself through more tears, knowing I looked like a loon. A sip of coffee and a piece of the croissant, which was surprisingly passable, and I pulled myself together. Then I dug my phone out of my bag and dialed.

  “Drennan!”

  “Hey, Kenzie. I’m on the road. Already in the middle of Arkansas.”

  “Huh. Got a tatted dreamboat strapped in the seat next to you?”

  “Nah. He’s in Memphis. I’m headed home.”

  “I’d ask, but I can hear it in your voice. You sound like you’ve been crying.”

  “That would be an understatement. Off and on since I got up this morning.”

  “Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize it was like that.”

  “I didn’t really realize it either.” Big breath in. Big breath out. And I continued. “So, that’s that. I’m going to make it to Amarillo tonight. It’s another nine-ish hours on the road.”

  “I don’t understand why you just didn’t fly and get the car trailered, if you wanted to keep it.”

  Because I needed to feel every mile that my life is apart from Bert’s.

  “I want to get my head on straight,” I said unapologetically.

  “Okay. I get that. So, what, three days? Four?”

  “Yeah. Three days and a hell of a lot of caffeine. That’s the plan, at least. Amarillo, to Flagstaff, to home.”

  “Well
don’t push yourself too hard. You’re going to have to hit the ground running when you get here.”

  “Of that I have no doubt.”

  “No, really. Lexi Kormos quit. She moved over to Opus One. We’ve got no East Coast rep.”

  “Fuck. That’s an important role.”

  “I know. And the timing sucks. There’s a couple of big pre-Christmas thingies that someone needs to be at. And that someone is going to be you.”

  “Why can’t you do it?” I could hear the whine in my question.

  “Umm. Is this when I tell you that isn’t in my job description? I help make the wine. You help sell it.”

  “Fine. So New York? Miami?” Fucking Lancaster, I thought, already dreading running into him again. It would be impossible not to see him at at least one of these wine functions.

  “Yeah, and a couple other stops. You’ll be back by Christmas, though. It’s going to be a whirlwind. I’ll get the plans made for you.”

  “And I need a hotel in New York. I listed my apartment.”

  “Really? Why?” she asked.

  “Because I don’t live in New York. I live in California.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Bert

  “I’m on your wheel,” I heard Trip call out before seeing him in my peripheral vision a beat later. “You’re being one lousy motherfucker, you know that, right?” he said as he pulled up alongside me. I tilted my head toward him while we wove our way through some Arkansas back roads Sunday morning. “You. You’re not even Bert. It’s like Oscar the fucking Grouch.”

  I said nothing, but looked into his smug sunglassed face. “Gonna be more fun next weekend?”

  Ignoring my silence, he continued. “Look, no women. Just the guys and miles and miles in the Great Smoky Mountains before winter sets in.”

  “Fine.”

  “Great. Love the enthusiasm. You don’t even have to shave this mountain man beard you’ve got going on. Just get your head out of your ass and stop being such a fucking grump. I’ll pick you up Friday around lunch and we’ll head to the airport. Frank wants to ride first thing Saturday morning. Bring this,” he said, pointing at my road bike, “and your mountain bike, too. Frank posted some pics of a trail he had cut this summer.”