Autumn in the Vineyard shv-3

by Marina Adair

  Frankie’s chest started tightening, really fast and really effectively, damn near cutting off her air. Thinking about things such as “like”—or the other word that started with L and had four letters—made her lungs burn. Lust, chemistry, raging hormones she could deal with. She was good at physical, great even. This emotional crap—it was just too much.

  So Frankie, taking it back to a level that didn’t inspire hyperventilation, locked her thighs around him, sliding her center up the smooth underside of his hard length and then reversing to sink back down, enveloping him between her. Nate’s eyes rolled back and his hips bucked a little, as though unable to get enough, increasing the friction and taking them away from cosmically connecting back to pure carnal need.

  Her head began to spin, which was a good thing because she could almost ignore her heart going soft. Picking up the pace she rose and lowered, again and again, increasing the pressure until his arms tightened like a vice, smashing their bodies together. But it wasn’t enough. Needing more, she rose up, her nipples scraping against his chest, until his tip was positioned at her entrance. The man was impressive and more than ready.

  With a sigh, she eased down stopping after only an inch, loving the slight burn as she stretched to accommodate him. Relaxing her thighs she let gravity take over, and slowly began to slip down farther when suddenly his hands tightened on her ass, holding her in place.

  “You feel so damn good.” His words were a low rumble that vibrated all the way between her thighs.

  “If you let go, I promise I feel even better.” She rolled her hips and he growled.

  “Can’t. Condom. On dock. In shorts,” he breathed, holding her still against him. The muscles in his neck tightened and his jaw clenched. Taking in a deep pull of oxygen he dropped his gaze to where their chests were mashed together and swallowed. “I want this so bad right now that I’m tempted to just say fuck it.”

  She wanted this too. Wanted so badly to feel him, inside of her, with nothing between them.

  “Frankie,” he warned and she kissed him quiet. She gave him a sweet, languid kiss that lasted for a long, erotic moment. They were touching everywhere, the sun hot on their exposed skin, while the water lapped around them as everything except their mouths remained perfectly still.

  She pulled back, taking his lower lip with her. “Then fuck it.”

  “Frankie,” he said again. But this time his tone was desperate, ragged, telling a different story.

  She smiled. “I’m on the pill.”

  His eyes searched hers. “You sure?”

  “Oh, yeah.” And to show him she arched her hips back and down, taking him inside of her in one fluid motion. She inhaled at the pressure, breathing in his breath, completely lost in a wave of mind-numbing pleasure.

  “Oh, fuck,” he growled. “That feels so good, Francesca.”

  He lifted his hips as she sank back down and they quickly found a rhythm. The man was a master; after only one night he already knew how to touch her, tease her, drive her crazy. And he was fast learning how to shatter her defenses.

  “You are so beautiful,” he said against her lips.

  “Harder,” she rasped, pumping her hips faster, wanting his sweet words but not sure how to handle them.

  “Slow and easy, honey,” he whispered against her wet skin. “Just enjoy.”

  She was enjoying it—fast and hard and without the sugary endearments, thank you very much. But his hands settled on her hips, taking over and setting a leisurely but sensual pace while he whispered beautiful words in her ear. Words she’d waited her whole life to hear someone say, only she wasn’t sure if she could believe them—that she was even considering it was a sign that she was in over her head.

  “Harder,” she demanded, coming all the way up before slamming back down and taking what she wanted. She dug her nails into his back and when he was too busy panting in her ear to whisper she finally felt her body relax, felt her walls tighten, and with one last thrust a pulse of pleasure washed over her, while a wave of emotion crashed into her stealing her breath.

  Nate was right there with her. He buried his face in her neck and sunk his teeth into the sensitive skin at the slope of her shoulder as they came apart.

  Drained and breathless, they stood there, tangled in each other’s arms, swaying with the pond’s gentle current. The faint pressure of his fingers danced along her spine, his lips soothing the sting of his earlier bite. There was so much weight in their unspoken connection she felt as though it would pull her under.

  “I thought you said nothing ever bites here,” she joked, but nothing about this situation felt funny.

  “Sweet cheeks, it looks like you’ve caught the only thing that does.”

  “Caught?” The word stuck in her throat.

  He pulled back, just enough to look at her. Just enough to see the awe in his eyes as he said, “You’ve had me hooked for over a decade, I’ve just been waiting for you to reel me in.”

  * * *

  Something was wrong.

  Frankie hadn’t said more than four words to him after they’d had sex. And they were, “Not bad, stud boy.”

  Not all that encouraging for a guy who’d just had the best sexual experience of his entire life. Or for a guy who’d wanted today to mean as much to Frankie as it had to him.

  Hell, he could still smell her on his skin, taste her on his lips and instead of lying naked together in bed talking about what was happening between them, he spent the better part of the night sitting alone on the couch watching ESPN while Frankie disappeared outside to brush Mittens. When she didn’t come back in, he’d grabbed a bite, showered, and picked up a book. That had been two hours ago, giving him ample time to think himself into a serious state of frustration.

  Being patient wasn’t the problem. He was willing to give Frankie the time she needed if in the end she finally admitted what was going on between them was more than just sex. But he wasn’t willing to let her fears keep them stagnant. And he sure as hell wasn’t willing after today to go backwards, which considering the fact that Frankie stood in the darkened hallway, boots in hand, tiptoeing toward her room was exactly what she had in mind.

  He stood at the fork in the hallway and clicked on the light. Frankie looked up at him and froze. To her right was his master bedroom, to the left her own personal space. Nate had a bad feeling that if he didn’t fix this now, she would forever walk on the invisible line that had been drawn between them since he’d kissed her in high school.

  “Helps if you turn on the light.”

  Frankie straightened as though startled to find him there. Her hair was back in its braid, but she still had on the shorts, tank, and no bra from earlier. She was windblown, covered in fur, absolutely beautiful, and confusing as hell. “I thought you were asleep, I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “Was waiting for you to finish tucking Mittens in.” Crossing his arms, he rested his shoulder against the wall. He could tell by her body language that talking wasn’t on her top ten list. He could also tell by the way she was darting glances at his bedroom door that she wasn’t planning on coming to his room. “But since you’re sneaking down the hall I guess that was stupid. You are obviously avoiding me.”

  “How many times do we have to have this argument? I don’t sneak and if I didn’t want to talk to you, I’d just say so.”

  “Really? Because you came in the back door and rather than trample through the house in your dirty boots to piss me off like normal, they’re in your hands.” He stared her down. Spending the past two hours on a lumpy couch hadn’t really helped his patience. It had, however, allowed him to spin himself into a mood, so he took a deep breath and lowered his voice. The last thing he wanted to do was rile an already cagy Frankie. “You’re cautious. I get it. And with our history, I don’t blame you. All I am asking is that you talk to me, because feeling like I’m being played or that this is still some kind of game pisses me off.”

  “Still?” she said her eyes filling
with something even worse than anger.

  Ah, crap. She thought… “No, that’s not what I—”

  Frankie held up a hand. “My boots are covered in mud and I know that you mopped the floor yesterday, so I was trying to be nice. My mistake. Won’t happen again,” she said sharply and dropped the boots. Now her arms were crossed, she was throwing up those walls she was so fond of, and she was ready for a fight. “And I’m not playing. But thanks for reminding me where we stand, since last time I played in one of your stupid games, I got fired, kicked out of my family, and lost my grandfather’s respect.”

  Nate took a breath and ran a hand down his face. “Look, Frankie, I don’t want to argue. And I’m not asking for some big declaration. I’m okay if you want to take things slow as long as we’re both honest about what’s happening between us.”

  “What’s happening, Nate?” She took an aggressive step forward. “We had sex. We went to the lake. We fished. Then had sex again. It was fun. What about that is so confusing to you?”

  Because that wasn’t all that happened. They’d shared something, and she knew it—didn’t she? Hard to say when she sounded so damn sure of herself. “I like you. You like me. So why are you making this so hard?”

  “Because this is me, Nate.” She sounded tired. “Everything is hard with me. I didn’t mean to make you mad or ruin your night, I just… Look, do I like you? Yes. But I like lots of people. Do I want you? Obviously. That doesn’t mean that there’s anything more going on. Honest enough? Great then, I’m off to take a shower. Night, roomie.”

  Frankie brushed past him and went into the guest bath, shutting the door with a resounding thud.

  Nate heard the water hit the tub before he pushed away from the wall, his chest doing stupid things, like not working. It didn’t make any sense. She didn’t make any sense. He liked her, she liked him. So why did the sum balance of their entire relationship always equal disaster? With Frankie he always felt like everything was spinning out of control.

  He’d mentally weighed the pros and the cons of a relationship with Frankie, took into account that she needed to feel in control, felt more comfortable setting the pace. So he handed over the keys and she spun them right off the fucking cliff.

  After slamming his own door, properly and like an adult, he plopped down in the chair. Pulling the footrest up, he leaned back and pressed a hand to his head. His heart was pounding, his hands twitchy, and he felt sick. He hadn’t been this worked up since his parents died. And all over a woman who either A) didn’t like him enough to even try, B) was too scared to admit she liked him, or C) had been telling the truth all along.

  Maybe she was right. Maybe it was just sex and he was the one making this into something it wasn’t. Hell, they were so completely opposite, maybe it was naive to think Frankie could even provide the qualities he needed in a partner—and vice versa.

  Nate didn’t allow the death of his parents to make him wary of relationships like his brothers had. He took their deep ability to love as proof that that kind of soul-deep connection and unconditional understanding did exist. And that was what he was looking for. But would he find it in a woman who would give the shirt off her back without question, but one question about feelings and she’d aim for the nuts?

  Frankie was smart and sexy and honest and challenged him at every turn. But—Nate grabbed his legal pad and a pen off the end table—she was stubborn to a fault, could argue with an alpaca, and was awkward and unsure with kids.

  Nate released a ragged breath and closed his eyes. He loved kids. The more time he spent around his nieces, the harder it was to leave without feeling the unsettling knowledge that there was a gaping hole in his life that needed to be filled—not tomorrow but soon.

  Drawing a line down the middle of the page, Nate wrote REASONS TO WANT FRANKIE across the header, titled each column, and then numbered one to twenty down the margin. After he sorted and cleared out every emotion and thought, filled in every line, adding more numbers and even spilling onto the next page, he looked at the bottom entry in each column and swore.

  Pro: I love Frankie.

  Con: I love Frankie.

  * * *

  It was a quarter past four in the morning and Nate was still staring at the ceiling. He sat alone in his chair, head aching from frustration, body tense with worry. He was exhausted, the bone-deep kind that made thinking logically about anything impossible, which is why all the illogical crap was making it impossible to fall asleep.

  Realizing he was in love with a woman who couldn’t even say the word relationship without going into anaphylactic shock could do that to a guy. Admitting that he’d pushed too hard and may have blown it only added to the stress.

  He’d taken a hot shower and reorganized his REASONS TO WANT FRANKIE list, but even that hadn’t helped. He wanted to walk across the hall, tap on Frankie’s door—and what?

  Having sex with her would be a colossal mistake and yet she’d made it clear that it was the only thing on the table. Although he was pretty sure he’d screwed that up too when he’d stupidly implied that she was a game. God, how had their relationship become so complicated?

  He quietly chuckled. Regardless of what Frankie was claiming, they did have a relationship. It might be more than she was willing to admit and less than Nate was willing to settle for. But three lists, two studies on how friends-to-lovers were seventy percent more likely to last, and a mental accounting of every encounter they’d had over the past three months and Nate was confident that they were both in deep. Which was why she’d gotten scared at the lake.

  He got to her. Enough for her to pull back. She got to him unlike anyone he’d ever known. And beyond all reasonable explanation, they fit.

  Now he just had to figure out how to take what they had, dysfunctional as it was, and make it into something amazing, something that fulfilled what they both needed. And right now Frankie needed his understanding, his patience and her own space. She had a lot riding on this weekend, and the last thing she needed was more pressure.

  With a groan, Nate pushed the footrest down and threw on a pair of jeans. Sleep was not his friend tonight so he’d have to settle for caffeine. He opened the bedroom door and stopped.

  Dressed in a tank top, panties, and nothing else, Frankie sat against the wall, her legs pulled to her chest, her cheek resting on her bent knees. At the sound of his door opening, she lifted her head and it was like a sucker punch to the gut. Her hair was a rumpled mess, her eyes were red—from lack of sleep or crying, he wasn’t sure—and the way she wrapped her arms around her body as though they were the only thing holding her together broke his heart.

  “What are you doing up?” he asked quietly.

  “Waiting for you,” she said, her lavender-tipped toes wiggling nervously. “I didn’t want to wake you but I also didn’t want to miss you before I had the chance to say, to tell you that—Did I wake you?”

  She was staring up at him, looking beautiful and confused and so damn lost he had to take a steadying breath.

  “No. I was already awake and wanted some coffee.” What he wanted was to take her in his arms and tell her that everything would be all right. But he knew that if he did, they’d wind up naked, and there went him giving her space. “Why don’t we go in the kitchen?”

  He offered his hand to help her up, and she let him, which turned out to be a mistake because now she was pressed against his body, looking attractive in a pair of cream panties that were barely there and quite—sheer. All he had to do was lower his head an inch and they’d be kissing, which would lead to touching, and groping, and eventually—

  “Bed-sex.”

  Nate blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Bed-sex?”

  “Yes. And to tell you that I wasn’t trying to sneak past you tonight and I didn’t think I was avoiding you, but I thought about what you said earlier and well… I think I might have been using Mittens as an excuse not to
come inside. And I’m”—she took a deep breath and looked him in the eye—“sorry.”

  “You don’t need to apologize, Frankie.” Nate intertwined their fingers and brought her hand to his mouth, delivering a gentle kiss to each of her knuckles. “You have a lot going on right now and I get that—”

  “I’m scared,” she said, her eyes studying their linked hands. “I’ve never been very good at, you know, bed-sex.”

  No, he didn’t know. Frankie was an incredible lover. She excelled at chair-sex, oral-sex, lake-sex, and he didn’t know what bed-sex was, but he could guarantee she’d get a gold star in that too. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to tell me.”

  “That I like sex.”

  He couldn’t help it, he smiled. “Definitely something to add to the pro column.”

  “And the whole holding-cuddling part afterward is kind of nice. But then comes the talking part.” She forced herself to meet his gaze. “Not so nice. And finally the morning after.” She laughed but it was self-conscious. “I hate that part, the not knowing, you know? Do I stay? Do I leave? Does he want me to stay or is he figuring out how to ask me to leave? And if he wants me to stay, then for how long? And what if I want to stay longer than he wants me to, then what?”

  Nate wondered what would happen if he said never, that he never wanted her to leave. Frankie had spent most of her childhood being passed back and forth between families, and her adulthood trying to live up to unattainable expectations. It was easier for her to avoid relationships—even good ones—than to wish for something that might not want you back.

  “Assuming I’m the he in your example,” he said pulling her closer. “No. Yes. No. Yes. No. And for however long you want.”

  “You were the he in question,” she admitted. She took in a big breath, and then studied her toes. “Are you sure?”

  “Beyond sure.”

  “Even after I kick your ass in the Cork Crawl?”

  He released one hand to cup her face and tilt it toward his. “Especially then.”