Bronwyn Jameson - The Ashtons - Jillian, Eli & Charlotte - Just a Taste / Awaken the Senses / Estate Affair

Crazy, too, that his watchful intensity no longer made her uncomfortable. All through that wonderful dinner she’d felt his attention with a mixture of quiet nerves and deep self-awareness and secret delight. It had been so long since she’d been on a first date that she’d forgotten the thrill of anticipation.

The not knowing how the night might end.

Well, she still didn’t know. She had come home with him, but this was a family home, shared with a daughter and a housekeeper. She had no reason to believe there’d be anything beyond the wine-tasting test, no grounds for the weird sense of their aloneness as she watched Seth deposit bottles and corkscrew and glasses on a low glass table.

No reason, either, for the leap of her pulse as he reached up to slide his loosened bow tie from his neck. In the taxi they’d shared on the drive back to Napa, he’d shed his jacket and untied the tie. “Feels like I’m trussed and bound,” he’d said.

But now—

“What are you doing?” she asked, her stomach jumping with nerves as he stretched the length of fabric between his hands and started toward her.

“You did say a blind tasting?”

“Yes, but—”

“This is your blindfold.” He stopped in front of her. “If you still want to do this.”

“Yes, I just—” Her gaze skittered toward the staircase and back. “What if someone comes downstairs?”

“Rachel is sleeping over at Rosa’s. We’re all alone.”

Jillian’s pulse raced. Was she ready for this? For being alone with this man and doing all the things he’d told her he wanted to do with her? She sucked in a slow breath. One step at a time, she told herself, starting with the tasting test. This she could do. Blindfolded, she would be better able to concentrate on the wine and not on Seth with his crisp white shirtsleeves and dark male aura.

With an accepting shrug, she turned around. Her belly swam with nerves and anticipation as he moved close behind her and covered her eyes with the slice of black silk.

Oh, how wrong could one girl be?

Instead of blocking him out, the darkness intensified Seth’s nearness. The tie carried his scent—nothing artificial, just earthy, sexy man. And he stood so close that their bodies brushed with charges of electric friction as he worked to fasten the tie.

The task seemed to be taking an extraordinarily long time, between the slippery fabric with its undulating widths and his big hands trying not to catch her flyaway curls in the knot. Her chest constricted, tight with the knowledge that he would take the same care of her, with her, in his bed.

Oh, yes, she could do this. In the dark, with her senses filled with Seth, anything was possible. Anything, except standing here passively while he fiddled and diddled…

“To get the wide part over my eyes, you need to tie it here—” she found his fingers and moved them to her temple “—instead of at the back.”

“Right.”

The word was low and thick; his breath fanned the side of her face; her body gravitated toward the source of heat. Could he be any slower? Any more of a tease?

“Stand still,” he growled. “I’m nearly done.”

Yes, and so am I, she almost growled back. But then his big hands were on her bare shoulders, turning her to face him. “Can you see me?”

I can feel you, smell you, all but taste you in my blood, but…

She shook her head. “No.”

His grip on her shoulders tightened for one long, dizzy moment when she thought he might bend down and kiss her—please, yes!—but then his hands dropped away. “Do you want to sit down?”

“Standing’s fine.” I think.

A low grunt of acknowledgment and he moved away. To the table, she imagined, to the expensive bottles of pinot that waited. A dozen thick, thudding heartbeats later she heard the distinctive suctioning sound of decorking, and that jarred her out of her sensual stupor.

“Please, just start with the one.” She pressed her hands together in entreaty. “I can’t stand to see you waste those.”

No answer, except a clunk—metal corkscrew against glass?—and the liquid slush of pouring. Then the sense of movement, the whisper of fabric, the shift of air, the scent of man in her nostrils.

The sweet tremble of desire deep in her belly.

He pressed a glass into her hand. Wine, Jillian thought, as her fingers folded around the stem, grounding her in a familiar world.

“We’ll start with one,” he said. “Seeing as you asked so nicely.”

Jillian smiled her thanks, for that consideration and for the several steps he took back out of her space. Now she could at least try to concentrate on the wine. Normally she would have let it breathe, but this wasn’t normal. She swirled the wine in her glass, wished she could—

“You need help getting the glass to your mouth?”

“I’m sure I can find my mouth, even in the dark,” she said, surprising herself with her prim tone. She swirled some more. “Since this beauty hasn’t breathed sufficiently, I’m helping release the aroma.” She lifted the glass, surprising herself again, this time with the steadiness of her hand. “And holding it to the light to check the color.”

His low smoky laughter slid through her. “Would you like me to do the honors, seeing as you’re at a disadvantage?”

“Please.”

He didn’t touch her, but she felt his nearness, the nudge to the base of her glass, lifting and tilting it for his inspection.

“Well?” she prompted. “What color do you see?”

“Red.”

Laughter exploded from her throat, laughter and backed-up breath and tension. A whole big barrel full of tension. “You don’t want to try for a more specific description? Like, which shade of red?”

“Like your dress.” Fingertips brushed over the one shoulder strap. “Pinot noir.”

The soft touch shivered through her skin, and the weight of his words echoed through her memory chords. Frowning, she searched for the time he’d said those words in that exact tone. In the tasting room. Yes. “That afternoon with the Red Hat ladies, you described my mood as pinot noir. What did you mean?”

“If you were a wine, that would’ve been my pick. That day, pinot noir.”

“And other days?”

“A cool white, a summer sparkly, a bold red. But as I said, I don’t know wines. Only what I like.”

Jillian pictured the hitch of his shoulders, felt a similar hitch in the region of her heart. He’d really seen that many facets of her personality?

“You’re a bit like a blind tasting.” He fingered the blindfold at her temple. “I never know what’s in store.”

Oh, my.

“So, we’ve established you’re holding a pinot noir,” he said, steering her attention back to the glass that remained steady in her hand. Amazing given the fine tremor in her blood and her flesh. “What else?”

She swirled that glass, the familiar, the anchor, but her senses were jarred, her perception askew. Amazing that he hadn’t completely floored her with those seemingly casual comments. Amazing that she hadn’t seen this coming, given how often he’d slayed her in these past few weeks.

This…wow, she did not know what to call it, did not want to put a name to it. Deeper than infatuation, richer than lust, scarier than sexual fascination. And, blast it, she liked him.

Momentarily rattled, she stuck her nose in the glass and sniffed deeply. Again, until the aromas filled her senses and drove out the disturbing sense that she’d strapped herself into a roller coaster. She sipped and tasted until her world rocked back on its axis. Safe and steady again, she felt the texture in her mouth, chewed on the flavors, and her confidence skyrocketed as the complex layers revealed themselves.