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

“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.

Too easy. This wine she would pick through a head cold. In the middle of a roller coaster ride.

“This is the ninety-nine,” she declared with a satisfied smile. “The nose is knock-your-socks-off intense—a distinctive personality you can’t mistake. Earthy and brooding. Robust. There’s a bigger structure, more complex than the ninety-eight, but still the Casinelli mouthfeel.”

No confirmation needed, she knew she was right. That knowledge danced through her like a cocky Travolta two-step.

“If you were a wine—” she lifted the glass in a smiling salute “—then this one is you.”

“An expensive pinot?” he asked after a thick beat of pause. “Are you sure about that?”

Was she? That day in the tasting room, he’d struck her as a big, bold, full-bodied cabernet. Other days he seemed so centered and together and confident, like a perfectly balanced Shiraz. Tonight at that dinner, the smoky chocolate notes of a merlot.

She moistened her lips as the possibilities shivered through her body. Too tempting, this chance to compare and contrast, with her senses primed by black silk and one of the valley’s finest wines. “Perhaps my call was premature. Perhaps I do need to reassess.”

Silence, when she’d expected a teasing comeback. Silence that ached in her breasts and tightened in her nipples as she felt him move closer, felt him take the glass from her hand. Oh, no. Her humming senses, her aroused body, her soaring confidence all took immediate umbrage.

If she was doing this, she was doing it.

Before he could react, she ducked under his arm and around behind him, using his big, solid body to anchor herself in the darkness. Her hands were on his sides, just below his waist and spanning the fine sleek fabrics of his shirt and pants.

Through both, his body heat scorched.

Jillian inhaled deeply, for strength and to control a sudden attack of lightheadedness. Then she commenced her analysis. “Appearance is tough to call, given I can’t see a thing, but I’m guessing this is a big red.” She slid both hands higher and spread them against his back. “Surprisingly fine texture, although…”

It was only his shirt, and she wanted to feel skin.

Emboldened by the dark, by the guise of the “wine-tasting” experiment, and by the way he stood still and compliant beneath her hands, she fisted her fingers in the fabric and tugged it clear of his trousers. Using her hands on his body for guidance, she worked her way around to the front and started unfastening.

“What are you doing?” he asked, low and throaty.

“The first step is opening the bottle. Letting it breathe.” With a side of his open shirt in each hand, she leaned in until her nose all but touched his throat. “Aroma is the most important part.”

“Why is that?” Deep, close, his voice seemed to rumble from his chest. Fortuitous that she didn’t need to think to answer because Jillian had ceased thinking. Now she operated on senses, on a purely visceral level.

“A good wine has its own distinct aroma. Very recognizable.” Like Seth, she decided. She would recognize him anywhere, purely by her body’s reaction to his scent. She breathed deeply, her senses so heightened by his nearness that they quivered. “The nose picks up so much more than the palate, so while the aromas are still in your nose, you take your first sip.”

She thought about tasting the hot skin of his neck, right there where she had sniffed, but at the last second suffered an attack of temerity. Instead, she stretched up on her toes and tasted his mouth. A slow sip from his lips that stirred her blood like the first juice from the presses.

“White pepper, a little heat,” she whispered. “Rich, velvety mouthfeel.”

“Mouthfeel. Is that what it sounds like?”

“Mmm.” She rubbed her lips against his, purred somewhere deep inside, then ducked back for another slow taste. “It’s all about how the…wine…feels in your mouth. As opposed to body, which is the weight on your tongue.”

She stroked his bottom lip with her tongue, and that was it. No more games, no more teasing, no more lessons in the art of wine. Strong, bold, assertive, he took her face in his hands and her mouth with his tongue. Just a meeting of mouths and bodies and a desire that shuddered through them both. She couldn’t get enough of his kiss, of his hands on her face, in her hair, and—thank you, finally!—on her body.

Even when that first swell of fever abated and the mating of their mouths turned less frantic, less carnal, she could not stop kissing him. She nibbled at his lips, along the whiskery harshness of his jaw and dipped down to the vulnerable spot at the base of his throat where life beat hard and fast.

No shyness now, when she nuzzled the hair-rough texture of his chest and licked one hardened nipple. His hands fisted in her hair and he muttered a caution about slowing down, something that urged her to, yes, slow it down and savor every moment before it slipped away. She slid her hands up and inside the sleeves of his shirt, peeling away each side until she could curl her fingers around the smooth, hot skin of his biceps.

A work of art, those muscles, to be explored and appreciated by hands and mouth and tongue.

Vaguely, his gravelly sound of frustration registered and she knew that his fastened cuffs had caught on his hands, holding him captive to his own shirt and her exploring mouth. Empowered, she smiled against his skin and carried on…until a loud bump and a low curse and the clink of glass against glass brought her head up.

Blinking, she realized the blindfold was gone—when had that happened?—and that he’d backed into the table. In another time, another mood, the situation might have struck a funny note, but now the only chords twanging were off-tune and awkward and terrifyingly serious.

Terrifying enough to rock her back on her new two-inch ruby-red heels as she broke an intense moment of eye contact. She waved a hand at his predicament. “Here, let me help.”

Surprisingly, he accepted, and she managed to fumble the cuffs undone and his hands free and it struck her hard—fist in chest, hard—exactly what she’d been doing.

Tasting him, undressing him, seducing him.

And now what?

They faced each other, hotly aware that the next step had to be taken, honestly, without the camouflage of darkness and the teasing game of tasting. Jillian’s heart pounded. Her tongue, she feared, had fused to the roof of her mouth and her knees started to wobble. She sank down onto the leather sofa and picked up the glass that had rolled to the floor—the empty one, thankfully—and sat it back on the table. Next to the open bottle of ninety-nine Casinelli pinot noir.

That she picked up, too, a solid prop for her nervous hands and a topic to get her tongue unstuck and working again. “So, I did get the ninety-nine right.”

“Was there any doubt?”