Bronwyn Jameson - The Ashtons - Jillian, Eli & Charlotte

He wanted sex—all those ways—with her, the good girl, the ice princess, the wife who couldn’t keep her husband satisfied. Oh, wow.

Jillian closed her mouth and swallowed audibly. Their eyes clashed with enough heat to set the timber cottage ablaze. She didn’t blink, didn’t flinch, just held his gaze with wide-eyed, I’m-shocked-but-in-the-nicest-way interest, and stunned them both by saying, “Okay.”

Okay?

Seth stared back, unable to muster enough blood to jump-start his brain for several long drawn-out seconds. Enough blood had mustered in other places to jump-start all kinds of motors, to send them revving and roaring and rocketing into overdrive.

“Okay?” he asked finally, on a rising note of disbelief. “All you have to say is ‘okay’?”

“Actually, no.” A whisper of a smile crossed her lips. “But I’m having some trouble with words. With finding a path from here—” she tapped her head “—to here.” She touched those same fingers to her mouth. “I suspect your straight talk just melted a few synapses.”

Yeah, well, same here, he thought. He’d thought he’d shock her right out the door with his hard-core honesty, by laying his every erotic midnight fantasy on the line, but all he’d done—apparently—was incite her sloe-eyed interest.

She couldn’t want to do all that with him.

His head spun with the improbability. And then he remembered the look on her face when she’d galloped up that hill. He recalled her passion in the tasting room and the cab sav headiness of her kiss.

Yeah, she could.

“Have you found those words yet?” he asked, needing to know for sure. To hear more than “okay” from her lips. He didn’t know whether it was dread or hope that thudded hard in his blood and his head and his ears, whether he wanted her to tell him to go to hell or to see her start unbuttoning the prissy pink shirt she wore.

“Sex,” he said, just to make sure she had the picture. “Once, not as any kind of a relationship.”

“I’m not looking for a relationship, Seth. I don’t have a great record with those. But I’ve never had a one-night stand or an affair or whatever this is we’re talking about. How do we, um, go about this?”

With creditable control Seth rocked back on his heels. “You sure you don’t want to think it over?”

“Good Lord, no! After all those things you said…” She huffed out a breath and straightened her backbone decisively. “I don’t want to think about it, Seth. I want to do it.”

She was killing him. Slowly. Inch by painful inch.

“The logistics are going to be awkward,” she continued in a rush, “since I can’t ask you over to my place and vice versa. Do we book a room somewhere?”

Hell, no. The tacky hotel room was Jason’s modus operandi. Get a woman, get a room. Seth’s jaw locked hard. He couldn’t do this, not this way. “We’re not getting a room.”

“Well, there is here,” she suggested after a moment’s hesitation. Her hands waved around to indicate the cottage. “It’s empty until Anna moves in. And sort of isolated.”

Which made it sound as if they’d be sneaking around behind her parents’ back like a pair of horny teenagers. Didn’t that just beat everything? She lived with her parents. He lived with his daughter. And this wasn’t going to happen.

He rubbed the back of his neck, tried to find the words, discovered that the one word he needed to say—no—kept sticking in his throat.

“How would Saturday night be?” she asked, hesitant, hopeful. “I’m babysitting Jack tomorrow night while Mom and Mercedes take Anna out to dinner. Maybe I could fix a pic—”

“I’ve got something on Saturday night.”

Her mouth formed a silent “oh.” Disappointment and something else flickered in her eyes, then she looked away. Moistened her lips. “Like…a date?”

“You think I’m dating someone? And spending every night thinking about sex with you?”

A flush pinkened her cheeks but she lifted her chin. “Of course not. That just slipped out. I suppose it’s something to do with work?”

Yeah, right, because that was the only social life he had. It irked him that she was right, irked him that she was watching him and waiting for an explanation. “It’s a dinner up near Oakville. Robert and Sophia Neumann asked—”

“You’re going to the Casinelli dinner? Wow. I am speechless!” But only for a second, because then she was shaking her head and saying in an awed tone, “I heard Sophia’s pouring her 2001 pinot noir and you can’t get a ticket for love or money. How did you come to get one?”

“They’re friends.”

“I adore their wines. Are you good friends? Old friends?”

Irritated with her enthusiasm, and more with the whole situation of wanting a woman and not being able to say right, let’s just do it, he leveled a piercing gaze at her shiny-eyed face. “What is it you want, Jillian? An introduction? A job reference?”

He might as well have slapped her, she recoiled so sharply. “Of course I don’t want anything like that.”

Cool tone, haughty expression, hurt eyes. And Seth realized what he’d accused her of and how that would sit. Jason had used her that way. He’d pursued her and married her for a shot at the Ashton name and money and connections with the wine industry.

And that’s exactly why Seth had never broadcast his close friendship with the couple behind the world-famous Casinelli label. Jason would have used that, too. Jillian wouldn’t—she had too much class, too much pride, too much self-respect.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was way out of line.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“Yeah, I do.” And he also needed to do something to repair the damage of his thoughtless words, to wipe away the cool detachment that he knew was her defense. To bring back the sass and the heat of the cab sav woman. He bent down and touched her shoulder. “Hey. I really am sorry.”

“I shouldn’t have pried. I just got carried away by the notion of the Casinelli dinner.” A wry smile quirked her lips. “I guess I poured the enthusiasm with a heavy hand.”

Don’t do it, Seth. You don’t want a date; you don’t even know if you want to risk the complications of uncomplicated sex with this woman. “You’d like to go?”

She went very still. “Don’t mess with me, Seth.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“Sophia Neumann is a goddess. I worship the grapes she walks upon.”

“But?”

Slowly she shook her head. “But I feel as if I’ve finagled this invitation and that’s—”

“Do you want to go or not?” He looked into her face and saw the suppressed gleam of longing. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

She opened her mouth, probably to object, then closed it again. Smart girl. He’d made up his mind—she was going. And right now he had to be going. He’d stayed far longer than intended and Rachel would be testing Rosa’s considerable patience with her heavy-duty where’s Daddy nagging.

Later he would deal with Jillian’s okay, I want to do it bolt from the blue. Because for all his big talk about how many ways he wanted to make her come, the notion of booking a room for a sexual tryst didn’t sit right. She was his sister-in-law, his daughter’s Aunt Jellie, his seven-year fantasy, his—

“Wait.”

Scowling, Seth stopped in the doorway and turned back.

“What will I wear on Saturday night? I mean, what’s the dress code?”

“Black tie,” he said, amused by her very female reaction despite himself. “There’ll be plenty of serious money on show, so don’t be afraid to knock yourself out.”

Knock yourself out? Man, she knocked him out when she came down the winding staircase at The Vines, looking like his idea of a goddess in a dress that draped around her body and flowed with her long legs. It was red, as in the cherry-rich hue of a young cabernet. Red, as in the color of passion. Red, as in, the blood hurtling through his veins and the haze that clouded his vision.