Just a Taste Page 13

  “For five years? Yes, I remember.” Silence strung out between them, taut and awkward, until she made an impatient sound and wrenched away from his slackened hold. “That surprises you? That your brother was as selfish in bed as out of it?”

  No, it didn’t. That’s not what had hit him with staggering force. It was the notion of first, the primal masculine force, the knowledge that he’d given this woman something no other man had.

  She turned her head, slowly rolled it against the sheets until she faced him again. Her gaze was direct, but not steady enough to hide the anxious flicker in their rock pool depths. “I’ve pretty much wrecked the mood, haven’t I? Mentioning another man while I’m in your bed.”

  “No.”

  Their eyes met and held and whatever she saw in him caused her to still, to steady. To swallow. “You’re not touching me.”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  “Can I,” she said, wetting her lips, “touch you?”

  His hardness ached with the thought. And strained toward her hand as she stroked his belly, as she dipped her fingertips inside his waistband.

  “Let me,” she whispered as she turned onto her side. He kissed her with her taste on his tongue and lips and she stretched her long body against his and touched him through his pants. Tortured him with those long, elegant fingers.

  Seth sucked air through his teeth and swore softly. “Take them off,” he said tightly. “Undress me.”

  But when her fingers dawdled at his waist buttons, when she unzipped his fly and sat back on her heels and stared at him with glazed eyes and flushed cheeks and moist lips, he was caught in a strange ambivalence.

  He wanted that mouth on him. The wet stroke of her tongue, the curl of those fingers, the caress of her hair against his belly and thighs. But, God, he wouldn’t last a minute. Too long coming, he told himself, too long for the first time not to be where he most craved.

  Deep in her body, eye to eye, her legs tight around his waist.

  “Later,” he ground out when she reached for him, when he enclosed that hand in his and held it tight against him for one on-the-brink second. “You can have me later, sweetheart, for as long as you want. Now I just got to get inside you.”

  Shoes, socks, pants, he shucked them all with an efficiency he didn’t feel, with a haste he felt in every drum tight cell of his body. He found and donned protection, rolled back onto the bed and kissed her, promised himself that later it would be slow, worshipful, memory-feeding. Promised her that later he’d taste the wine on her breasts, lick it from her nipples, drink it from the sweet dip of her belly.

  Later.

  Now they rolled together in a tangle of limbs and skin and edgy greed. He fed on her mouth, her throat, her breasts, and she arched and whimpered and fisted her hands wherever they could grab hold. His sheets, his hair, his body, it didn’t matter. And then his hand touched her slick heat and whatever she moaned into his mouth he heard as I’m ready, take me now.

  “Too long,” he told her as he moved between her legs, as she lifted them and—God help him—wrapped them all the way around his waist. “Too long coming,” he finished as his one long, controlled thrust filled her.

  The sensation stunned him, held him still, buried in her tight, wet heat, while his pulse thundered and slowed in his ears. The pleasure was so intense, so white-hot, so razor-edge, he didn’t want to move, to risk shattering it, but she stretched beneath him and somehow changed the angle of their meeting.

  Their mating.

  Her legs wrapped higher, drawing him deeper—unbelievably deeper—and he couldn’t hold back. He moved slowly, the friction unbearably intense, the sight, the feel, the scent of her wrapped him in spiraling coils of sensuality. Her skin shone golden in the lamplight, mysterious in shadows, as she moved with his rhythm, as she flowed with the dance, as pleasure gripped her and stretched her tight beneath him.

  This was the risk he’d taken. This risk of it never being enough, of never having enough to give this woman who’d captivated him for seven long years. This woman who looked right into his eyes and hid nothing as she took her pleasure, a long, shattering climax that drew him with her. He arched his back and surrendered to the hammering need, the screaming pressure, to pour himself deep into the heart of her welcoming body. To empty himself into her soul.

  Dawn was leaking through the slatted blinds when Jillian woke, painting pale stripes of light over the gray carpet and charcoal sheets. And the man, spread-eagled in sleep, at her side. For a moment she lay perfectly still, waiting for her sluggish mind to come awake along with her body. Her heart, she noticed, was very much ahead of the game, beating too fast, as if she’d woken with a start.

  Except she hadn’t. Perhaps it had simply never slowed down. Perhaps it never would.

  Carefully, she turned on her side, wincing with the pull and tweak of body parts unused to such activity. Oh. Dear. Lord. Such activity. She squeezed her eyes shut and stretched the sheet higher over her naked body, all the way up to her chin. And then she shook her head at the ridiculous attempt to hide from all she had done during the night.

  Not the exciting things, not the first-time things, not even the shockingly illicit, but the complete trust, the no-holds-barred giving, the raw emotional intensity of the lovemaking.

  Her eyes jarred open. Lovemaking? Panic sent her racing pulse into overdrive.

  No, no, no. Not lovemaking, Jillian, sex. That’s all he wanted, that’s all you wanted. She’d been there before, allowed the lines between lust and love to blur. Not again, not ever again.

  Instinctively she reached for her ring finger, found it as naked as the rest of her body. Naked, unprotected, vulnerable. And still her heart thudded, too fast, too loud.

  She had to get out of here, to put some space and perspective and sanity between her and this man and her unsettling thoughts of love. She abandoned the sheet, and slipped silently from the bed…until her foot tripped on a shoe and tipped her against the bedside table.

  The lamp rattled and rolled on its base. The half-full bottle of wine rocked, and with a soft curse she lunged to rescue it before it spilled. Saved. Exhaling her relief, she collapsed onto the edge of the bed and pressed a hand against her racing heartbeat. She stared at the wine, her flesh shivering hot and cold with the memory of how he’d licked it from her skin.

  Oh. Dear. Lord.

  Behind her she heard the rustle of sheets, felt the motion of the mattress shifting underneath her.

  Oh, no. She so did not want to do this. She so did not know how to handle a morning after.

  Breath held, she glanced across her shoulder. He still slept. On his belly now, arms holding a pillow tight, disturbed by whatever etched frown lines deep in his forehead, but asleep nonetheless.

  She did not want to smooth them away. She did not want to slip into his arms to replace that pillow. She did not want to kiss the tight line of his mouth until it relaxed and softened and opened under hers.

  No, Jillian. You do not!

  More careful with her feet, she slipped from his bed again, stooped to gather her clothes and shoes, and hustled her bare backside out the door and to a downstairs bathroom to wash and dress. Quickly. She didn’t stop to call Mercedes until she was outside, hurrying away down the quiet cul-de-sac to wait for her ride.

  Eleven

  J illian didn’t know much about these things, but if the night meant anything, then surely he would call? At the very least she’d expected an angry call because she’d left while he slept. She didn’t think that would sit well with Seth.

  Well, apparently she knew diddly-squat.

  The only phone call came Monday morning while she was out riding. Eli scribbled the message on a scrap of paper, and she read it as: S.B. away today. See Lou (surname indecipherable). Will need yr OK on floor.

  Message received, loud and clear. They were back to a business relationship. He was possibly even avoiding her, sending Lou to this job in his stead.

  Loud and
clear yet difficult to accept, apparently, because when she drove up to the winery on Tuesday morning, the sight of his truck drove all the air from her lungs and left her chest feeling tight and achy and empty.

  Not even him, just the sight of his blasted truck! And it wasn’t as if they’d even be alone, she realized as her perception widened to take in three other tradesmen’s vehicles lined up side by side in the parking lot.

  “You are pathetic, Jillian.”

  She slammed her car door and stood there, drawing deep breaths and remembering a time when she’d found it easy to hide her emotions behind a cool, calm facade. Now she didn’t even have the crutch of her wedding band to twist on her finger, to remind her she didn’t need these crazy, heart-lurching sensations stealing her sleep and her sanity and the very air from her lungs.

  Remember what matters, Jillian, what you can depend upon. Your career, the wine, your family.

  “Precisely.” She straightened the cuffs and turned-up collar on her crisp, business-first shirt and started for the door. Late yesterday a subcontractor had laid the floor. With the wrong colored slate. And, despite Seth’s message, she hadn’t come by to check until after they’d all gone home.

  She pushed through the door and into…chaos.

  Power tools roared, the floor was halfway uprooted, and Jillian could still hear the thunder of her pulse as her eyes zeroed in on one figure. Yes, she could pick him in the dark. Dressed or undressed. Her face heated at the thought, the memory, the image of his strong, broad-shouldered nakedness.

  Flapping a hand in front of her over-warm face, she considered coming back later. Yes, she was pathetic and a coward. Then Seth sensed her presence, she knew. A stillness came over his body even before he turned and their eyes collided across all the disorder and debris.

  Déjà vu, intense and dizzying, washed through her. Villa Firenze. Only two weeks ago? It seemed much longer. So much had happened, so much had changed.

  Or had it?

  As he approached, she caught the guarded expression on his face, the tightness in his jaw and mouth, and she wondered if anything had changed at all. If, in fact, their past would always clutter the space between them.

  And then he was there, right before her, and she couldn’t think of a thing to say. No, that was a lie. She thought of—and rejected—several attempts. A polite How are you? A blithe I didn’t kill you, then? A catty Glad you could make it today.

  She settled for a hand-waving gesture toward the mess before them. “You’re redoing the floor?”

  “It wasn’t what you wanted or what I ordered,” he said curtly.

  He’s talking about the floor, Jillian. Slate. Tiles. Not what anyone ordered or delivered on Saturday night.

  Annoyed with how she’d over-read his comment—and with his snippy tone—she glared back at him. At the side of his face, actually, and the muscle that twitched below his cheekbone. “Perhaps if you’d been here yesterday instead of sending Lou, you would have caught the gaffe in time.”

  That brought his head around. “I can’t be in two places. That’s why I asked you to double-check. Was that too much to ask?”

  Stung, by his tone and by the truth, Jillian pressed her lips together. “No, and I apologize. Perhaps you should have spoken to me directly, if you anticipated a problem.”

  “I didn’t anticipate anything. I was covering my back, I thought.” He jerked his head toward the boarded-up gaps where the windows were to go. The windows still in production. “I had to go to the city to deal with another problem.”

  And she’d thought he’d sent Lou as a means of avoiding her. How unprofessional and unfair. He’d been working, looking after business, and she’d do well to take a lesson.

  “How are the windows coming along?” she asked briskly.

  “Fine, now. They’ve promised I’ll have them in a week.”

  Jillian frowned. “That’s cutting it close.”

  “Close to what?”

  “May first. The party we’re planning. Will the room be ready?”

  Hands on hips, he stared at her for a strung-out second. “Don’t you think you should have asked that question before you started sending out invitations?”

  “You said two weeks.”

  “I estimated two weeks. If everything went right.” He shook his head with patent disgust. “Does this look like a site where things are under control?”

  No, and he looked close to losing control. Seth Bennedict, the man she’d always considered so calm and on top of things…except on Saturday night in his bedroom. Then he’d been raw and edgy in a different way.

  The two thoughts came together in Jillian’s mind with a thunderclap of understanding.

  “What, exactly, are you so ticked off about, Seth?” she asked slowly. “The subcontractor not doing his job? Me not checking the slate for Lou? Or is there something else on your mind?”

  For a moment he went completely still—except for that muscle kicking up a storm in the plane of his cheek—and then he scrubbed a hand at the back of his neck. Expelled a breath. And when his eyes swung around to hers, they simmered with temper. “You didn’t have to sneak off in the middle of the night. I took you out—I expected to take you home.”

  Wow. Okay. So, she’d known he wouldn’t like that. And she’d deduced that his bad mood might be personal as much as work related. But she hadn’t expected such an explosion of frustrated emotion. It put her at a momentary loss.

  “I’m sorry,” she said finally. What else could she do but apologize? “I didn’t realize it would be such an issue.”

  “It’s not an issue. It’s how I do things.”

  He was curt enough, his stance confrontational enough, to tickle the edges of Jillian’s temper. She stiffened her backbone. “And I have no idea how these things are done. I’ve never had casual sex before. And since I’m being honest, I might as well add that I knew it would be awkward like this afterwards. That’s why I left.”

  Seth stared at her, incredulous. “Casual sex. Is that what you think we had?”

  “That’s what you said you wanted. Sex, once, not a relationship.” Their eyes met and held, hers clouded with confusion and…Hell, he didn’t want to know what else. “Are you saying that’s changed?”

  He didn’t know what the hell he was saying, or why, but he did know that everything had changed except the one fundamental truth. “I can’t have a relationship with you, Jillian, any more than I can have ‘just sex’ with you. There’s too much between us. Too much past, too many complications.”

  “Because of Jason and Karen?”

  She knew?

  For a second his heart seized, but then he realized what she was asking. Them dying together, not sleeping together. The twined ropes of their marriages and relationships. He huffed out a breath. “They’ll always be there, between us. The third and fourth in our bed. That’s why I can’t have a relationship with you.”

  “Yet you slept with me.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t want you. That has never changed.” He wondered if it ever would, if there’d ever come a time when he could look at her without this fierce desire eating at his gut.

  He couldn’t do this.

  Couldn’t stand here and watch the confusion, the questions, the need for explanation, flitting across her open face. Too shocked for her usual poise, he took it. He jutted his chin toward the work site. “I need to get back to work.”

  “Can we talk later, then?” she asked.

  “There’s nothing to talk about, Jillian.”

  She blinked, as if taken aback all over again by his abruptness, and he wanted to knock himself down for being such a jerk. Hell, he ached to touch her, hold her, just breathe the warmth of her skin and the softness of her spirit.

  But she straightened her shoulders and nodded. “Okay, but you’ve been straightforward and honest with me—I owe you the same. I didn’t find anything casual about Saturday night. It was intense, incredible, amazing.” She met his eyes, ful
l on, no flinching. “So intense and involving, there was no space for anyone else in that bed, Seth. No one but you and me.”

  Proud and self-possessed, she turned and walked away.

  You’ve always been straightforward and honest with me.

  Seth felt like taking that honest word and slamming it against the wall, grinding it to pulp under his boot heel, hammering it into dust. He wouldn’t need any tools, either. He could pulverize it with his mood.

  Straightforward and honest. What a load of BS. He hadn’t been honest with himself and, worse, he hadn’t been straightforward with Jillian. And it was too damn late to change that. Two years too late.

  By the time she’d closed up on Thursday and driven into Napa on several party-planning errands, Jillian had convinced herself that Seth was right. All along she’d known that their shared history complicated things between them. Whether she’d stayed or not on Sunday morning did not alter that.

  She hadn’t seen him since Tuesday, and she didn’t know if this was a good thing or bad. Seeing him, not seeing him, expecting to see him, yearning to see him—she hated every stressful minute. This tasting-room project was supposed to win back her respect and confidence, not turn her into an angsty, sleep-deprived, lovesick basket case.

  Lovesick. Oh, dear.

  She’d used the term unconsciously without batting an eye. It didn’t mean she was in love. She didn’t know how to differentiate between the intense, white-hot cravings of lust—she definitely suffered from those!—and the deeper, lasting bond of love.

  So, okay, she enjoyed Seth’s company, she trusted him, she admired him as a father and as a man, and she loved how strong and desired and womanly he’d made her feel on Saturday night. But she did not want a relationship, either. Not yet. She simply wasn’t ready.

  She parked her car and, yes, she couldn’t help scoping the street for blue trucks since his office was on the next block. Her heart, she realized, had lodged in her throat and it only subsided after she’d double-checked and established that his truck was nowhere in sight. Not that she would have sought him out.