by Tessa Layne
“We fly out this week for a few days. Check the grapes, let the grower know what we’re planning, and fly back close to harvest time.”
He narrows his eyes. “And when do you expect that?”
“It’s been hot and dry this summer. All signs are indicating an early harvest - I’d head out the end of the month and start checking brix levels daily beginning the first week in August.”
Jason’s jaw tightens. “Depending on how things go, that could coincide with the harvest here. Then what?”
Fuck. I hate it when he runs contingencies. It’s not just a military thing either. He used to do this when we were younger, too. Only then, his intent was to box me in. Make me feel small. I won’t give into that this time. Not anymore. “Then I’ll go it alone.”
“Do you honestly think you can do that and make a good wine right out of the gate, with no experience whatsoever?”
“I have plenty of fucking experience,” I retort, my own jaw clenching. “It’s not rocket science.” And I already have a brilliant idea to move the wine once it’s released, but I’ll be damned if I let Jason in on those plans. I’ll be long gone from here by the time the bottles are ready for sale.
Something close to admiration flashes through my brother’s eyes. It’s a first, and so startling, I almost don’t believe it. But then he drops the bomb. “Well good luck, then. I won’t be able to go with you this week.”
“What? What do you mean? You agreed.”
His face is stony, implacable, and right now, I fucking hate him. I should have expected this. “Millie’s been put on bed rest. I need to stay here.”
“But can’t her dad take care of her for a few days?”
Jason glares. “She’s. My. Wife.”
“We all know what promises mean to you.” I spit.
Quick as lightning, Jason’s out of his chair and he’s pinned me against the wall. “Want to elaborate on that? Asshole?” he snarls.
“You know what I mean. Asshole.” I snarl back. “Wanna punch me out for speaking the truth? Go right ahead. It won’t be the first time.”
His eyes are as angry and hard as I’ve ever seen them, and I brace myself for the punch I’m convinced is going to land somewhere above my navel. I silently dare him to take a hit, and he might have done it, too, if not for his phone vibrating next to his laptop. He steps back, flexing his right hand, and checks the text that came in. “Take Macey. Her family owns a vineyard in Upstate New York. She’ll be able to help you.”
“Is this some kind of a guilt gesture?” I snap. “Because, no thanks.” I’m playing him a bit here, but I don’t want to come across as too enthusiastic. A few days alone with Macey is a fucking windfall, and I’m not going to do anything to make Jason any more suspicious about us than he already is. And although wild horses couldn’t drag the admission from me, I’d appreciate her input.
Jason gives me a look of pure disgust. “You know what your problem has always been? You’re too cocky for your own good. And one of these days, real soon, it’s going to catch up to you.” He pokes a finger into my sternum. “And when it does, you better pray to your Higher Power that someone gives a shit.” He turns on his heel and exits the office, slamming the door behind him.
Chapter Twenty
Jason is at Macey’s when I pull up in the Pagani. It doesn’t surprise me, but it does irritate the shit out of me. As far as he’s concerned this is strictly a business trip, although I have other plans for Macey as soon as we’re out of Kansas airspace.
Jason gives me a hard stare as I saunter up the walk, aviators firmly in place. “A little overdressed, aren’t you?”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“Do you honestly expect to walk through a vineyard in a linen suit?”
Absolutely, now that he’s suggested I shouldn’t. “I think I can afford the dry cleaning.”
Jason looks like he’s about to say something, but slams his jaw shut when hell-child bursts through the front door. I have to admit, she’s as cute as a button, and I have no idea why she likes me. She’s like a cat who knows you’re allergic. And somehow, she’s wormed her way into my affection, even if she’s trouble with a capital T. “Hi, Austin,” she says. “Mommy says you’re going to the ocean.”
“Not exactly, kiddo. But we won’t be far.”
“Will you bring me some seashells? I love seashells.”
Fact. She has three egg-cartons full of seashells that she’s forced me to sort over and over, and over. I’ve learned enough about seashells, I could be a fucking marine biologist.
“I told you, sweetheart, mommy isn’t going to have time to go to the ocean this trip,” Macey reprimands as she pulls a small suitcase onto the porch. She’s wearing the pink sundress again, the one she wore when she came onto me in the vineyard, and I can’t help but wonder what treasure she’s hiding under it this morning. She gives me a bland smile before looking to Jason. “My parents will be here this afternoon, is Millie okay?”
I have to admire her composure. Nothing about her body language or her expression conveys we have dirty hot sex on a regular basis. Fleetingly, I wonder what it would be like if people knew about us. If we were a real couple. But that brings unnecessary complications and certain death at the hands of my brother, so I push the thought away as quickly as it enters.
Jason nods. “Emma and Jamey are looking in on her until I can get back.” He ruffles Sophie’s hair. “And we’re gonna go ride bikes over at the park, and after that maybe a horse ride at Uncle Sterling’s. How does that sound?”
Sophie bounces and claps. “Will you let me ride no hands like Austin does?”
Two pairs of eyes swivel my direction, one wide and shocked, the other narrow and hard. I raise my hands. “What? She had her helmet on.” I can’t believe the little hellcat outed me. That was supposed to be our secret. “She was fine. I was right next to her the whole time,” I finish defensively. “Gotta let kids push their boundaries. Right Jase?” I give him a meaningful look. “Kind of like jumping off bridges, huh?” I add, referring to the time Jason forced me to jump off the Pope Street bridge in St. Helena when I was eleven.
Macey covers Sophie’s ears. “Don’t give her any ideas. She’s already tried to jump off the shed with an umbrella trying to be Mary Poppins.”
Jason shifts his eyes away with a cough. “Don’t worry, I’d never let anything happen to Soph. You know that.”
Macey levels a glare at both of us. “Well, I don’t need either of you encouraging her wild behavior.”
I grab her suitcase. “She’ll be fine, won’t you, Sophie?” I offer her a fist bump as I pass, and wink at my brother. “Don’t let her do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Jason utters a throaty growl in response, which draws a chuckle from me. I hold open the passenger for Macey, and give Jason and Sophie a final wave before I slip into my car. Slipping into the low seat is a welcome change from the truck. Like a homecoming of sorts.
“Did you have to goad him like that?” Macey admonishes as we speed away.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“So tell me.”
Her challenge lingers in the air as I drive north toward the airport in Manhattan where our private jet waits on the tarmac. But I know better than to open that can of worms with Macey. She loves my brother, not romantically, but a fierce kind of familial love that if I examine too closely, makes me jealous as fuck, because he doesn’t deserve it.
I place my hand on her knee, sliding it up her leg with a dirty grin. “I’d hate to ruin your impression of him. And besides, there are other things I’d rather discuss.”
“Like what?” She laces her fingers with mine.
“Like what’s under that sexy skirt of yours.”
Her husky laugh fills the car. “It’ll cost you to find out.”
“Name your price, Gorgeous.”
“Hmmm.” She taps her lip in mock speculation. My mind runs in a thousand directions, each of them a sexy scenari
o involving naked body parts, so when her answer comes in a breathless rush, I’m momentarily stunned. “I want a day in bed - naked, and watching our favorite movies, drinking wine and eating Chinese take-out.”
I blink, taking a moment to process her request. It’s… intimate. Frighteningly so. I was prepared to finger her pussy while I drive, not engage in an activity normally reserved for couples in love. The back of my throat tickles as I search for a response. I can feel her eyes on me, expectant and hopeful. The back of my neck heats uncomfortably as the silence becomes heavy. But I can handle this, can’t I? It’s just fucking with food breaks, and a movie soundtrack in the background. It doesn’t have to be… emotional. “Deal.” My voice comes out strangled. Tight. Afraid. Fuck me, can she hear it? I clear my throat, forcing the conversation back to safer territory. “Now, show me that pretty little pussy of yours, Gorgeous. I wanna see you finger yourself until you come.”
Her hands ruck up her skirt, but she stops, mid-thigh. “I-I’ve never…”
“Masturbated in front of anyone? Good,” I growl. At least there’s something she’ll only have with me. “Are you wet just thinking about it?”
“Yes,” she breathes, slowly hitching her skirt higher, hand slipping beneath the pink layers.
“Are you wearing anything under that?”
“No.” Her voice catches on a laugh.
“Such a dirty girl,” I say roughly. “Show me. Did you shave again? Is your pretty pussy soft and smooth for me?”
Her laughter is sweet and soft, and it turns my cock to steel. She flips up her skirt, and opens her knees.
“Fuck, your cunt is gorgeous.”
She draws a finger through the smooth lips and I groan, gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turn white. “Again. Do that again.” I swerve, narrowly avoiding a truck that’s too close to the center line.
“Eyes on the road, bad boy,” she says sharply.
“Tell me what you’re doing then. In detail.”
That elicits a laugh so full of promise my cock jerks, wanting in on the action. She leans over the console and runs her hand over my length. “I’d hate to distract you from driving.” She makes quick work of my belt, button and zipper, and slips her hand inside my shorts, squeezing me and palming my slick, engorged head. My mouth turns to ash. I was supposed to be in charge here. “You’re supposed to be touching yourself.”
“This is so much more fun,” she rumbles.
“Time for me later, Gorgeous. Now stick your fingers inside your hot little cunt.”
She releases me with a laugh and I nearly weep from the ache in my balls. She unclips her seatbelt, then slips a foot out of her shoe and places it on the dashboard. “I’m not buckled, so drive carefully.”
My speed has slowed to a crawl. For the first time in probably ever, I’m driving the speed limit, a leisurely forty-five miles-per-hour. “I’ll be careful,” I say tightly.
I quickly glance over and her fingers are dancing over her pussy lips, circling her clit. “God, you’re gorgeous,” I say too loudly. I’m sorely tempted to pull over and watch, but the fact that I can’t, that we’re driving, not to mention the possibility we might get caught by someone who knows Jason, keeps my eyes on the road. Mostly.
“No peeking.”
“Then talk.” My words come out terse, clipped. I can’t talk and concentrate on the road anymore.
“I’m touching my clit.”
“Is it wet?”
“Yes.”
My cock jumps. I know she sees it because she sucks in a breath and hums in the back of her throat. “How wet?” My voice is so strained I don’t recognize it.
She reaches over and paints my lower lip with her arousal. “Very.” I nip at her finger, sucking it into my mouth and lapping her essence like I’m starving. The taste of her, the scent of her, only makes me want more. It’s sweet and sharp, a picture of contrasts, and I’m addicted to it. My hand drops to my cock, and I pump once, twice, just to take off the edge. “I thought I was supposed to do that.”
“Then get to it baby. A man can only take so much. ”With another breathy giggle she brings her hand back to her core. I hear the second she slides into her slick, hot channel. “One or two?”
“Two,” she answers on a gasp. The sound of her fingers slipping in and out of her hungry pussy is the most erotic thing I’ve ever heard.
I sneak a look. I can’t not look. Not when Macey is fingering herself in my car as we fly down the road. It’s as beautiful as I imagined - her first and second fingers coated with her juices, her mouth open, tongue fluttering against her lower lip, eyes half-lidded, as she brings herself closer and closer to the edge. “Fuck that’s hot. Where’d you learn to do that?” She smiles like there’s some secret part of her that I don’t know about.
I want to know about it. I want to know all of it. And not because I’m going to explode into a million pieces if I don’t sink my cock into the place it calls home, right now.
Her breath comes faster, and her hips are pumping as she chases down her orgasm. My cock responds, energy spooling and coiling in my balls ready to release the second I relinquish the iron-control I’m exerting not to come like a thirteen-year-old who’s never been touched. “I’m… close,” she squeezes out, voice rising in a moan. “I’m… coming. Oh jesusfuckingshit I’m COMING.” Her face is the picture of perfection, frozen someplace between a beatific smile and a grimace of pain. Her body shudders as the waves take over and her eyes fly open in surprise. No words come from her, only ecstatic sounds as she shudders and bucks.
“Hang on, baby.” I hit the brakes and pull over. As soon as the car comes to a stop, I jam it into park with a silent apology I’m treating her so forcefully. I slam the seat backward and reach for Macey. It’s not graceful, but the only thing that matters is that we end this together. She climbs on top of me straddling my hips and sinks into me at the same time I thrust up with a grunt. We both gasp at the intensity of it.
Her voice breaks and she stutters. “God… so… full.” And then her mouth is on mine, her fingers clawing at my head, her tongue fucking mine as she rides me hard. She’s an animal, a wild woman as she takes her pleasure on my cock, rocking and twisting. The scent of our sex fills the car and it’s heady, and warm, and I want to lose myself in this moment. I never want it to stop, I never want to stop seeing Macey, I never want to be with anyone else. I shut my eyes against the perilous thoughts, the thoughts that could bring me to my knees, or worse, break me. But they’re there, with each thrust and hitch of our hips, snowballing into an avalanche of feelings I can no longer deny and don’t have the power to reject. “Austin,” she cries out, freezing, then collapsing with a groan as tremor after tremor shakes her body.
Her cunt squeezes me like a vice, pulling everything I have from inside me, wringing me from the inside out. My eyes fly open and our eyes lock. I’m powerless to look away, powerless to stop the emotions flooding through me. Her gaze tells me she feels it too as I let go with a roar, emptying my come into her womb with the ferocity of a lion. I’m shattered, consumed, burned to ash. I’m in love with Macey McCaslin and I’m scared to fucking death.
Chapter Twenty-One
We’re late to the plane.
I feel off-kilter, unsettled by what transpired in the car. What am I supposed to do now? This is a fling. With a term-limit. I’m not relationship material, and I’m sure as hell not father material. There’s no place for this to go. It has to end. But that’s the last thing I want.
Macey lays a hand on my arm once I hand off the suitcases to the flight attendant. “Are you okay?”
I’ve never been so relieved for the protective shield of sunglasses. I toss her a smile as I help her up the stairs to the plane. “Never been better.” Liar.
Her jaw drops as she turns in a circle inside the plane. “Wow. This is… just, wow.”
“It will ruin you for other air travel.” I cross to the bar and help myself to a tumbler of Pappy. Ask me
if I give a shit that it’s ten-thirty in the morning. I lock my elbow to keep my hand from shaking and take a sip, pouring all my focus into the warm, fuzzy feeling as the liquor slides down my throat.
“You’re going to be great. You know wine and grape growing better than you think you do.”
Her sweetness is like a knife to my heart. She’s trying to be supportive, encouraging. She thinks I’m freaking out about the wine. “Come here,” I say gruffly, and open my arm. I drain the tumbler with a silent apology to Pappy. Pappy Van Winkle shouldn’t be gulped, but this is an emergency. I kiss the top of her head, drinking in the citrusy scent of her that simultaneously lowers my blood pressure and sets my heart hammering. There’s no way out of the mess I’ve created for myself. And if I continue to think about it, I’ll need to be committed. So I do what any self-respecting asshole in my situation would do. I fuck Macey’s brains out the entire flight to California.
The visit to the vineyard can only be described as hellish. The grapes are overgrown and it’s too late in the growing season to thin them now. The damage has been done. I’m outraged that my father, with all of his talk about preserving a ‘family legacy’ has allowed his vineyards to be so abused. I see the board now for what it’s always been - a bunch of sycophants kissing up to the CEO in order to keep themselves in the manner they’ve become accustomed to. And he accused me of sucking off the family teat?
This must show on my face because the head grower pales. “You’re fired,” I snarl. “Pack your things and go.”
“B-b-but, you can’t do that,” he blusters. “It’s nearly harvest.” Then he glares. “Mr. Case will have something to say about this.”
“I bet he will. Please inform him the younger Mr. Case has made an executive decision.” I turn on my heel leaving the grower and Macey to scramble after me.