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  Her fingers sank into the back of the chair one more time before she released it and clapped her hands twice. “Okay. So, tour. Then the good stuff!”

  We played the name game as she showed me through the production area. We played the school game, the résumé game, the summer camp game, the distant relative game, and ran down every possible way our paths could have crossed.

  “You’re from Bakersfield, right?” she asked as we meandered among the towering barrels in the cellar. “We bought a new tractor a few years ago, and I went with my dad to that big farm show—”

  “No.” I laughed, having a hard time imagining myself on any farm equipment. “No tractors in my background. My mom teaches English lit at a community college part-time and my dad was a newspaper reporter.”

  She was searching as hard as I was, struggling to make sense of this thing, this feeling between us, and that gave me a sense of rightness because she was in this place with me. But it also unnerved me in a way. That almost-kiss in the hallway hadn’t been only in my head. This thing that I couldn’t see or touch or understand had weight.

  “Maybe you just seem like someone I know,” she said with a shrug, her forehead briefly knitting in frustration.

  The urge to take her hand, to touch her, was so strong and my resolve was fading. I didn’t trust myself around her. So, we walked in quiet, save for the soles of our shoes slapping on the concrete floor. I’d been in cellars before, but as part of a tour group and sometimes with a slight buzz. Now I had that same light-headed feeling, but it wasn’t from wine. I hadn’t had a drop of wine all day.

  “How’d you get into wine?” I asked.

  “How’d wine get into me?” she said with a laugh. “I don’t know exactly. I just know I love it. It’s like any other art, in a way. I mean, do you like music?”

  “Sure.”

  “So, every rock band has pretty much the same instruments. There’s the bass, the guitar, the drums, maybe they’ve got a keyboard. Maybe they’ve got a harp or a trumpet or something else a little wacky, but it’s all pretty much the same tools. But what they create isn’t the same at all. It’s not just the Beatles versus the Rolling Stones. It’s punk, and death metal, and newgrass.”

  I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was lighting up as she talked, becoming more animated. All the stiffness in her body during the meeting was gone. She was new and fresh and entirely in her element.

  “Well, we all use grapes. And it’s the grapes you use, the way you tend them and their soil and air and water. It’s the varieties. Americans tend to like single-variety wines. Like a merlot or a pinot noir or a sav blanc. And that’s well and good and you can do interesting things there, but that’s not what I want to do.”

  Whatever she said next, whatever she said she wanted to do, I was sold. I was one hundred percent down for it. Moon wine? I was calling NASA. Wine popsicles? I’d find her capital. The single-minded, wholehearted joy that radiated from her was electric and irresistible.

  “Do you know our Drachenfutter?”

  “Yeah,” I said after a beat, realizing that we were having a conversation, and this wasn’t just me lapping up whatever words came out of her mouth. “It’s your flagship.”

  “And it’s a blend. A French-style blend.”

  “So, you want to do a new blend?”

  “Drachenfutter isn’t going anywhere. It’s great and we’re not stupid. And it’s important to us. It started out as a gift. You know that?”

  “That’s some gift.”

  “It is. Drachenfutter means ‘dragon’s food’ in German, but it’s really what you call an apology gift a man gives to his wife. In this case, it was an apology gift from my great-grandfather to my great-grandmother. She wanted a blend. He kept saying no, and eventually, he made her one as a surprise. When it turned out not just good, but truly great, he named it Drachenfutter.”

  “So, the wine itself is an apology?”

  “That’s the story, at least. Have you tried it?”

  “One time. Years ago.”

  “You should try it again. Next year’s release has really great promise.”

  “I’ll save up for a bottle,” I said, knowing full well that I wouldn’t be spending that much on a bottle of wine unless it was on the company’s dime for a very important client. “So, what’s your blend? It’s your take on Drachenfutter?”

  “Exactly. Like Drachenfutter, but my own. That’s where this new acreage comes in. The sun exposure is good, but the land gets this really nice breeze, like a little pocket with a gentle fan blowing all summer, and it’s about three degrees cooler than most of our current acreage. And so the combination of sun and cooler temps allows the sugars to develop differently. It’s a slower ripening.”

  “Slower is better than faster?”

  A naughty smile danced on her lips and I wondered just what she’d say, which way she’d play my accidental innuendo. “Depends on what we’re talking about. Sometimes fast is just as good, if not better. Anyway,” she said, the smile fading a bit but the light in her eyes still shining, “want to see where the magic happens?”

  She gave me a playful wink and turned on her heel. But I already knew. The magic was happening here.

  Chapter Six

  Kenzie

  “Most people think the magic happens on the production floor or in the cellar. And that is where the alcohol happens and where the grapes become wine, but that’s science and art,” I said, glancing over my shoulder and catching his gaze on my ass as we walked around the cool cellar, him following me on my so-called tour that was really me wandering around, jabbering away from nerves as I explained what our team was doing. “Temperature, time, yeast, and grapes, and you get wine. But that’s not where the magic happens.”

  I waved a hand toward the huge, wooden barrels stacked in the brick-walled cellar that spanned the length of our main production building before sweeping my raised hand across the cavernous space toward the wood-slatted double doors at the end, over twelve feet tall and wide enough to drive a forklift through when we moved the barrels to the bottling line.

  “That is where the magic happens.”

  He didn’t say anything, but I continued toward the doors, feeling every step he took behind me. His presence was intoxicating. On the production floor, I’d momentarily forgotten how to explain the clarification process, even though I’d given tours for years and had spent countless hours in the lab at college learning the science of a bottle of wine. I’d gotten lost in his green eyes with their halo of gold around the dark pupil, caught up in his gaze which was fixed on my own. I wanted to stretch on my toes to reach for a kiss, to turn that almost from before into a sure thing.

  In the cellar with him, it was all I could do to keep moving, to keep forcing myself to give him some words, to give him some motion that wasn’t pressing our bodies together. I needed a breath of fresh air to help clear my head. I stepped through the big cellar doors into the sunshine of a late May afternoon. The sun was low on the horizon. Not quite sunset, not quite evening, but a warm, glowing filter on the world that made the valley look like a vintage postcard.

  “There,” I said, extending my arms to show him the neat rows of vines. “You probably know that the grapes we grow on the estate are kinda special. Some of the oldest rootstock in the valley. So, you’re a wine guy?” I asked, hoping that he wasn’t just a banker, that maybe he’d understand the art, or at least be able to appreciate it.

  “Yes,” he said, firm in his answer.

  Some people, mainly my cousin, made fun of me for this. For my love and enthusiasm about the land and the grapes and this place my family built. I knew she’d understand too, one day. Right now, she had dreams that included magazines and recipes and glossy pictures. And that stuff sold our wines. But it wasn’t for me. This, I thought as I kicked off my ballet flats and stepped into a pair of tall red rubber boots that I kept by the cellar door, this was for me.

  Ryan trailed me like a puppy dog as we
crunched down a gravel drive and stepped among the vines. A puppy dog in suit pants, a loosened tie, and a crisp dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I’d tried to convince him to leave his suit coat in the tasting room office before I took him into the production areas, but he’d kept it on. Now, it was slung over his shoulder, hooked on the end of a finger. He was starting to come undone and I couldn’t help but wonder how far he would come undone for me.

  Ryan

  The late afternoon sun was overpowering after the soft light of the cellar and I blinked into it. The rows of vines stretching out into the hills, the river in the distance—I was taking it in with new eyes borrowed from Kenzie.

  “Gorgeous, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, my office isn’t this pretty,” I said without reservation.

  “No doubt,” she replied with a laugh. “It’s definitely a bonus. Now let me show you the best part.”

  I walked after her, up and down the rows of vines, enjoying the view of the vineyard and the view of her ass, the blue dress fluttering in the breeze. And, as beautiful as the moment was, her radiant happiness eclipsed everything else. I listened to her delighted chatter with less than half of my brain. No one in finance was this happy. She’d do great on the road show. Investors would dig her attitude, her knowledge. And her expertise was evident. She looked fresh-faced, but she knew her stuff. Authenticity wasn’t a buzzword for her. It was her, and I craved her.

  “What’s with the spidery things?” I asked, slightly concerned that something was going horribly wrong when I noticed the small sprays of tiny spikes among the leaves.

  “That’s the bloom. They’re flowers.” She paused and knelt down in the low, green, ground cover that spread like a tablecloth under the vines, the hem of her dress nearly brushing the earth. Her hands combed through blooms and leaves, inspecting them with care. “Bud break was late this year, all over the valley. But this field is cooler, so these rows were later than others. I was beginning to worry about them. But they’re thriving now. Come, look.”

  I didn’t have to be told twice. I’d take any invitation she offered. I dropped to one knee, not giving a damn that my suit pants were getting dirty.

  “See the tiny white flower here? Each of the little blooms can become one grape,” she said, and more words followed, but I only had thoughts about the gentle play of her fingers over the vine. Caressing, respecting, loving.

  I surfaced from my trance long enough to catch words about tying and bowing. I didn’t understand what she was saying, but I was riveted to the sounds from her lips. Some sort of witchcraft, I decided as I surrendered to the spell. I let it carry me out of my analytical world and into this place where there was only her, the sun, the earth, and the vines.

  She turned to face me. Her lips moved. Sounds came out. And this urge to kiss her overrode everything else. I gave in to it. I stilled her lips with my own, kissing her while kneeling among the vines. She kissed me back, our lips and tongues dancing and even the vineyard around us fell away. It was only her.

  When she pulled back her expression was surprised and her finger that had caressed the plant was ghosting over her own lips.

  What the hell is wrong with me? I rushed to apologize. I’d never stolen a kiss in my life, and I did it for the first time at thirty. “I’m so sorry,” I sputtered, feeling like the biggest pile of shit.

  Her lips slid into a grin and she wove our fingers together. “For what?”

  This time her lips fell onto mine. I squeezed her fingers between mine and, after dropping my jacket to the ground, lashed her to me with my other arm. The sun-warmed length of her pressed up against me, and—goddamn—all my thoughts were replaced by feelings.

  Kenzie

  It wasn’t the first time I’d made out among the vines. That distinction went to Caleb Symonds, who’d taken me to a dance my junior year of high school. Bottle of wine and moonlight and teenage hormones, and if he’d been willing, it would have been more than my top I’d lost that night.

  But that happened to another person. Because I wasn’t even sure of my own name as I lay on my back in the middle of a row with Ryan’s weight on top of me. A button from his discarded suit jacket dug into my flesh and I wiggled my hips away from the discomfort and toward him. He groaned in response and I nipped at his lower lip and rocked against him again, pulling another rasp of pleasure from deep within him. The way his growls reverberated into my lungs melted me. I was nothing but pleasure. My skin sang. I pulled my hands from his hair and coasted them down to feel his chest. Firm muscle teased me through his shirt.

  I had no patience for teasing. I wanted. I craved. I needed. My fingers worked at the buttons and soon his shirt joined his jacket on the ground next to us.

  “Kenzie,” he growled, thrusting against me as I trailed my fingernails along the hot, soft skin of his muscled back.

  Slow it down, I told myself. Slow this down. Minutes? Hours? A whole lifetime right here with him?

  My head was foggy with lust and I couldn’t make sense of anything. I didn’t even want to try to make sense of this. Because if I did, if I figured out this magic, it would vanish. I wanted to linger in this place with him forever. Just the two of us in the golden light of the late afternoon.

  I slid my hands around to his chest and pushed against his pecs. His lips left mine and wide eyes gazed at me in wonder, as if he was seeing the whole world for the first time.

  “Kenzie,” he exhaled again.

  I rocked my hips again and he lifted off me, rolling onto his back. I followed his lead, straddling him and gazing down at this amazing man who once again breathed my name like I was everything he craved in his world. Like I was a goddess and his singular purpose was to worship me.

  “Kenzie.”

  Sitting high like the goddess I was, I scored his chest with the backs of my fingernails and then soothed the marks with my palms, kneading his flesh. In answer, his hands slipped under the skirt of my dress and his fingers dug into my hips with a ferocity that stole my breath. There would be marks. And I’d relish them.

  The sky above us deepened and long shadows from the vines danced across his skin. I pawed at the buckle of his belt, my hands clumsy with need, and freed him.

  Ryan

  If someone had told me this morning that I’d be lying in the middle of a vineyard with my shirt off and my dick out while a gorgeous woman straddled me, I wouldn’t have believed them. And I didn’t really believe it even as it happened, even as the ground’s cool dampness seeped into my skin. It was the most real dream I’d ever experienced, and I was half convinced I was going to wake up at any moment. But real or not, I wasn’t going to stop to question any part of it.

  I thrust up against her center, my hands under her skirt, clutching the place where her thighs met her hips, my thumbs teasing the edges of her panties. I needed those gone. Now. “Kenzie,” I exhaled as she began to stroke me. She reigned tall and proud above me. Like a queen, and I was the stallion she was riding. But I was wild. She hadn’t broken me and wasn’t going to.

  Levering up to sit, I pulled her into a kiss, mauling her mouth and her dress. I fought with the long zipper down her back and pushed at the straps on her shoulders, baring her to me. Her breasts were round, suspended in nude lace. Her tight nipples greeted me, and I said hello to one with a lick of my tongue and a nip of my teeth while I pinched its companion. A happy squeak spilled from her as my other hand swiped across her slick, satin-covered mound. The panties had to go.

  I crept my hand under them and found her warm and wet.

  “Nuh uh,” she clucked against my mouth, pressing her fingers into my chest and forcing me to lie back down.

  My queen. My priestess. I obeyed.

  “What color?” she asked, her voice a breathy tease.

  I didn’t understand her question at first but once I did, I rose up to my elbows so I could pull the dress off her.

  “Mm-hmm,” she corrected me, pinning the skirt of her dress down with her hands.
“You guess the color right, you get to come first. You guess wrong, I win.” She lifted her skirt up a few inches from the pool it had made in my lap, against my straining bare dick.

  I tried to peek underneath it while I ran the odds in my head. I had to pick one color from the rainbow. It was a game designed for me to lose. “I’m not playing that game,” I said, burying my face in her cleavage, my hands clutching the warm, soft skin of her hips. I lifted her off my lap and placed her on her back, looking at her face-to-face, our mouths a breath apart. “I don’t care about the panties. I only care about what’s under them. And you always come first.”

  Kenzie

  The first evening stars sparkled in a purple-blue sky. The vines and trellises were dark forms in the twilight. And I closed my eyes to the beauty as Ryan licked me. Tongue and even teeth. His fingers tweaking my nipples as my hips bucked against his face. And if I cared, I would have been embarrassed. But I didn’t care how I looked or what sounds he summoned from me. Nothing in the world mattered except the pleasure he was wringing from my body. And when I broke, I fell apart, my body quivering with exhaustion and my cheeks damp with tears.

  “Kenzie,” he whispered, placing a kiss on my cheek and nuzzling me with his beard. “You good?”

  A shaky breath in and an equally shaky breath out. I nodded.

  “Good,” he said, dropping a lush kiss on my mouth.

  I urged myself to get it together so that I could give him a gift in return, but my limbs were heavy. I began lazily stroking him, and he placed his hand over mine, stilling my movement.

  “Whoa, Kenzie,” he cautioned, staring down at me, his eyes on mine. “Like you mean it.”

  “Like I mean it?” I asked, tightening my grasp. “Flip over.”

  Our positions once again reversed with him on his back, and I began to work. Actual, hard work in pleasuring him. The muscles in my forearm, my jaw, my tongue screamed at me. My knees dug into the ground. Everything ached. And it was worth every bit of discomfort to see his abs tighten, the line of his jaw draw taut, and his eyes grow glassy. To hear him pant. To know I was taking him where he’d taken me.