“How did you find me anyway?” Blair asked, bringing him back from the edge of the gripping despair he’d battled since the accident.
He cleared his throat. “You weren’t in the tasting room but I saw your car out front and reckoned you’d be back here making wine or playing with dirt, whatever it is you do all day to create grape-y masterpieces. I just followed lights and sounds until I found you.”
Blair raised her eyebrow. “Grape-y masterpieces?”
“The wine,” he told her, slowly, as if she were a child.
“I’m not going to engage,” she muttered, shaking her head at him. “How do you like this wine?”
“As you know, I’m not huge on whites but to be honest with you, Ms. Sandoval, I think I liked whatever you gave me the last time better.”
“Yeah, definitely a better year,” she told him, taking another sip from her glass. “But this isn’t bad.”
“Hell no, not bad at all,” Cole agreed even though his opinion on wine didn’t count for diddly. But he’d already learned a lot from Blair, especially in just the way she tasted the wine. Not like the uppity wine guys on television. She simply looked like she was studying and enjoying it. Every once in a while, her eyes would close in pleasure and he’d feel an answering twitch in his cock but other than that he wasn’t sure what he was adding to her current research quest. He was more than happy to be part of it, however. “You’ve really got the job of dreams, don’t you? Just tasting wine all day and calling it work? I’ll be damned if I didn’t go into the wrong career.”
“People say that but I’m mostly a farmer and businessperson. Ninety percent of my work is making sure the fields are fruitful and that the grapes are healthy. Which I do love so you’re right that it probably isn’t a job to me.” That satisfied smile appeared again, tugging up a corner of her mouth as her amber eyes twinkled. “But yeah, you’re right, I do like that drinking on the job is not only encouraged but actually is my job.”
She held up her glass for a cheers and he indulged her. “So are you gonna let me take you out to dinner tonight? Like on a date?”
She paused, her drink holding still in the air below her lips. “Today?”
“Well, darling, I’m not here for that long so today would be nice. But maybe tomorrow night is better?”
She swallowed. “Okay,” she said. “If we think that’s wise.”
“We’ve gotta eat sometime, and to be honest, Blair, unless you’ve got pressing plans I think I’m already so addicted to that mattress of yours I don’t foresee myself doing much of anything else.”
He watched her eyes heat at his words and then just as quickly she tried to bank the desire. He felt the same. It was almost unwanted by him too. He’d made peace with his celibacy, had settled into his guilt and his life without his brother, and now all of that stuff he’d remembered about life was roaring back, reminding him how sweet it was and how much he enjoyed living it.
So if this was going to be the last time he saw her, he might as well take all the pleasure he could get.
He held up his wineglass. “I’m ready for the next one.”
She raised an eyebrow and poured a pinot grigio.
“What did you think about that last one, by the way?” he asked.
“It was decent. I got a little lime and some peach. Not as complex as the one we had the first time, but definitely drinkable.”
“Do you ever had a really bad year and do discounts on your wine?” Cole asked, remembering perhaps belatedly that he was interested in starting a winery in Louisiana. He and his financial guy had run the numbers and the wine economy was still in an upswing so it made sense for him. He’d floated the idea by his family on their weekly phone chats and they’d seemed interested in running an operation like that with him so it felt like progress.
Blair shook her head. “No, our discounts generally only take place on something we’re not moving fast enough and that’s mostly dependent upon the market. Some wines hit a quick trend. Pinot grigio now outsells our sauvignon blanc, for example, when that wasn’t always the case. But as far as the quality of the wine, if it’s so below par that we’d have to offer a discount, we just don’t sell it that year. We don’t offer our customers something inferior—my grandfather would rather die.”
“So what happens if you don’t sell a whole type of wine for a year?” he asked. “That has to put a dent in your bottom line.”
“It’s only happened once and that was early eighties, before I was born, when there was a major drought. Dad and my grandfather just said they sold more of the other wines.” She shrugged. “Nate has a contingency plan if something like that happens again, but to be honest, a large part of my job has been preparing for those kinds of inevitabilities. When you’re at the mercy of the weather you set realistic goals so you can meet them, and with any luck the years you exceed them will make up for years you come up short.”
Cole nodded, having been impressed with their operation on more than one occasion. Blair Sandoval was a wine superstar, her name spoken with reverence at every vineyard he’d ever visited. Her knowledge and care for wine garnered respect amongst billionaires and other international wine growers alike and he found himself falling under her spell again, just like he had last weekend. She was seducing him with alcohol, research and a visible passion for her work. “I’d like to meet your grandfather. You have to be a certain type of person to start and build something from the ground up into such a successful business.”
Blair snorted. “You can meet him, but he’s not exactly a people person.”
“I’m starting to understand why Nate is the face of this thing.” Cole chuckled. “He’s apparently the only one who likes people.”
“My mom does too,” Blair told him. “She was head of public-facing operations but is kind of in a state of semiretirement now where she only works whenever she decides something is happening that she doesn’t like.” Blair held up her glass to cheer him again. He didn’t know why but he liked that maybe they were celebrating the fact that he was back. “But that is, of course, her prerogative, however. Plus, I love watching Nate get annoyed. Mom might poke her nose into my personal life but she doesn’t bug me about my job, whereas Nate gets it in both areas. It’s a pretty sweet karma for all the grief he gives me on a daily basis.”
Cole wanted to laugh at Blair’s gentle teasing of her brother, but the story only got him thinking about his own brother and how their easy affection and ribbing had been completely taken from Cole’s own life. He loved his sister more than anything, but they’d never been as close as Cole and Scott.
Blair must have sensed his shift in mood, despite the smile he still had plastered on his face, and reached out to give his hand a squeeze. “Hey, I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me to go on about how much I love my brother,” she said with a wry smile. She’d been upbraiding her brother, but she was right, that was love. “I wasn’t thinking.”
Cole returned the squeeze and pulled her out from around the small bar so that she was standing in front of him. “I think a kiss would make it better,” he said, smarmy and opportunistic individual that he was. “I’ve been waiting with bated breath for one for well-nigh an hour now. I didn’t get quite the reception I was hoping for.” He wrapped an arm around her waist, drawing her closer. “Hell, woman, I flew halfway around the damn world for you. It’s the least you could do.”
Blair shook her head at his continued and insistent theatrics, but her arms rose and clasped behind his neck. She was so close and Cole could smell her again, vanilla and sun and earthy wine. He understood alcoholics now because he was addicted to her smell, the feel of her warmth against him, as if she was waking up his body. Just a week ago he’d been grumbling about having to fly back to the States for the Sonoma Speed Festival and now here he was back again of his own volition.
Her face lifted and she met his eyes. “I g
uess that probably does deserve a kiss,” she allowed, leaning in to drop a kiss on his cheek. “Even though I didn’t ask you here and technically you just showing up unannounced when you could have texted me does border on the creepy.”
“I will have you know that I weighed the potential creepiness against the thrill of the surprise and surprise won handily,” he admitted. “But I hear you”
“That’s okay,” she told him, pressing a delicately soft kiss on his other cheek. “I like surprises.”
So saying, she moved away from him, clearly intending for those barely-there smooches to count as kisses, but Cole wasn’t having it. He pulled her back against him and stood, locking his eyes on hers.
“Well, here’s a surprise for you if you think that’s an acceptable kiss for a man who has imagined kissing you again since the moment he left your bed.” And then he pulled her fully into his arms, his eyes closing to savor the sweet moment he’d been imagining for days as their bodies connected again. She fit right into him, standing between his thighs.
She looked up and he took her chin in his hand, thumbing her bottom lip. “I’ll show you the kind of welcome I’ve been expecting.”
Then his head dropped and he took her mouth, her arms tightening around his neck as the contact intensified. She was just as hungry as he was, their lips and tongues tangling together in a wet, hot joining. A whimper escaped her and absolutely inflamed him. He picked her straight up off the ground and into his lap, her legs wrapped around his waist and her warm center up against his already-throbbing cock.
“Is there anywhere we can go?” he murmured against her lips as he thrust against her. “For privacy.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything, just set her lips to his again, caught up in the kiss. So he went with it; he wasn’t picky, and quite frankly, if she didn’t have a problem with it he’d take her on the floor, on top of the bar or right in this chair with every single winery employee looking in if that’s what it took to have her again.
Finally, she pulled back, her hand sliding down to his chest, a finger running down the V of his shirt. “There’s a storage room down the hall that doesn’t have a window,” she told him, her voice breathy.
“Thank god,” he whispered, lifting her in his arms. “Do you care if people see you like this?”
She shook her head against his neck. “No one is really around right now anyway.”
“Well, I guess that means you can scream your little heart out,” he said.
“You wish,” she told him, setting her lips to his neck and sucking.
“You gonna leave a mark on me, Blair?”
When she continued to suck, he supposed he got his answer and it drove him fucking nuts. No, he hadn’t had a hickey since high school but he damn sure wanted her to mark him. The thought of being claimed by a woman even in a small, transient way should have had him shaking in his boots, but instead it was nearly causing him to lose his fucking mind. The thought that anyone would want him after all he’d done was a drug he hadn’t expected. The antidote to two years in an emotional desert.
“Did you do it?” he asked when she finally lifted her head to point to a door at the end of a long hallway.
She slid her thumb across his neck, the wetness cool on his skin. “Yeah.”
“Christ,” he muttered as he booted open the door to the room she pointed out. There wasn’t much, in what was clearly an old storage room, in the way of a bed but he couldn’t care less. There was a table similar to the ones he’d seen in the tasting room that would do nicely. He set her down on it, standing before her.
“You want everyone I see to know this was yours?” he asked, pointing to his neck.
Blair looked away, embarrassed now that they were face-to-face.
He lifted her chin. “Don’t be that way. I like it. I want everyone to know I’m taken,” he told her, even though that was a major leap forward in a relationship that was not a relationship at all but instead a one-night stand that they were now stretching out to include a brief afternoon interlude in a storage room.
Something like possession flared in Blair’s eyes, replaced almost immediately by uncertainty. He felt the same because he wanted to take things faster than was advisable.
Her gaze drifted to the mark and back up to his face. “It’s too small, I think.”
That got him laughing and he took her mouth again before saying, “Well, you’ve got two days to iron out the details.”
Then he pulled off his shirt, watched her do the same as he unbuttoned his shorts and kicked them away before helping her do the same with her jeans. He held the soft jean material in his hands for a moment. “I like these, you know?” he mused, running the fabric in between his fingers. “They suit you. Lived in but stylish, clean but rough around the edges.” He kissed her again, tugging at her bottom lip until she whimpered. “And I like it when you’re dirty, Blair. So fucking dirty.”
Crouching down to her newly bare pussy, his eyes fell closed as he breathed in her arousal. “You’re just as hot for me as I am for you, aren’t you?”
She nodded, eyes wide. He’d already figured out that she responded to dirty talk and he was more than happy to oblige her.
He drew a finger down the top of her slit, the moisture already pooling around his finger. “You’re extremely wet down here. Does that mean you want me?”
A harsh intake of breath as his finger kept sliding downward before stopping, poised at her entrance. “Are you planning to answer me?” he asked. “Unfortunately, I’m not a mind reader and making assumptions about a person’s needs in bed is generally frowned upon.”
She exhaled loudly through her nose. “Yes, I want you.”
A corner of his mouth quirked at the begrudging way she’d said it. It was okay—he did understand that people didn’t like to be prodded into doing things. It was just that he excelled at prodding and she was so cute when she was exasperated.
“That’s a good girl,” he cooed, knowing the patronizing words would send her through the roof.
As he suspected, her eyes narrowed and nostrils flared. Leaning back on the table, her legs came up to cross behind his neck, inching him closer to her center, which was just the place he wanted to be. With a raised eyebrow, she said, “Maybe it’s time for you to use that mouth the way I want.”
“That would certainly be both our pleasures,” he readily agreed, meeting her eyes. His thumbs opened her as their gazes locked and with his eyes still on hers he licked her in one slow lick from bottom to top, dragging his tongue wide across her slick clit. She shivered and he smiled. “I guess you like just about anything my mouth does?”
He played at her entrance, tucking his tongue inside her, eager to taste more of her. Pulling back he waited, looking at her expectantly. “Are you going to answer my question?”
That spark of danger flared in her eyes. “I would, but I don’t think you’re going to like the answer.”
Suppressing a grin at her refusal, he fastened his lips right on that growing bud, his tongue feathering over it again and again and again. When she was right on the precipice, writhing against him, he pulled away. “So you don’t like it when my mouth does that?”
“I do like it,” she choked sitting up to guide his head back to where she wanted him.
“Uh-uh,” he told her, resisting. “You still haven’t answered.”
She groaned. “Oh, my god, I don’t like it when you talk, okay? That’s the whole joke. Just, please.”
Cole wanted nothing more than to settle in between her thighs and never come out, but he couldn’t do it just yet. He also liked waiting, prolonging things until they were out of their goddamned minds. Some might call him a masochist, but he just liked to have a little fun.
“So let me get this straight,” he said. “You don’t like it when I say I want to eat your pussy so hard that my lips go numb
?”
Her hips twitched and he raised an eyebrow.
“And I guess that also means you don’t like it when I say I want to take you over into that tasting room in front of all those fine wine enthusiasts, bend you over the bar and fuck your brains out.”
She was outright glaring at him now but he could see her getting wetter, the light glistening off her as he held her open to his view. But she still didn’t retract her statement.
“So then I can only assume you also don’t like it when I tell you how much I want to ride you bare and come so hard inside of you that you have trouble standing the next day?”
She snorted and he grinned. “Too far?” he asked.
She just shook her head because of course he’d gone too far. They were going too far and it was exactly what they both wanted even as they both knew it couldn’t last.
“I love everything your mouth does, okay, Cole?” she finally said, thumping the table with her hand for emphasis. “Everything!”
“Aw, sweetheart,” he murmured, his fingers sliding inside of her. “That’s so nice of you to say, but I know you do. You didn’t have to tell me.”
CHAPTER TEN
BLAIR MIGHT KILL COLE. What had been a small possibility earlier was now a full-blown certainty as he drove her closer and closer to the edge of insanity.
His fingers were thick and clever and relentless and his tongue twice so, and as much as his words infuriated and inflamed her, what he was doing to her physically was far more difficult to handle. He played her, like she was his vehicle and he was easing her into each turn gently and then throttling down the straightaways going for the gold or whatever they won in racing, she had no idea.
She arched back, her body undone in the attempt to try to contain the pleasure and heat and lust raining down over it, from fingertips to her toes, her nerve endings were lighting up small fireworks of sensation. She wanted in a way she never had before. This virtual stranger had been holding a secret key to her own sexuality, letting her explore uncharted waters of desire.
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