Page 44 of Taken With You
He persisted. “You know I’m your ally in this, right?”
“I know.” A prickling began behind her eyes. Why was he so kind, and attentive, and honest? If he was a mindless jerk, she could compartmentalize the sex and manage her expectations.
“Listen.” She squeezed her arms more tightly. “I’ve made a decision.”
He stilled, wary.
“Before you come back from New York,” she said, “I’m moving my stuff out of the cabin.”
The thousand expressions crossed his face all at once, too fast for her to parse. He shuffled back a step. He squinted and shook off the squint. He rolled his shoulders, then his neck.
“I have to,” she said, digging her fingertips into her skin. “The launch party is coming. You will have guests in the cabin. I can’t be there.”
“No—the only guests will be my family.”
“Did you tell them about us?”
“Hell no.”
“They’ll guess the truth if I sleep in the cabin. They won’t be the only ones who’ll speculate, either.”
It hit him, the consequences. She saw the strike of realization.
He said, with dragging reluctance, “Okay.”
She let go of the breath she’d been holding. It was a temporary relief, chased by regrets. But it was one thing to buy into a winery on a whim. It was another thing to entangle her heart.
“But this is temporary,” he added, tilting his head. “You’ll move back in when the launch party is over and they leave.”
But will you still be here? Will you stay with me?
The words hovered on the tip of her tongue. How could she ask? She was afraid of the answer and wasn’t sure what she wanted him to say.
“Amanda.” He stepped into her. “Answer me.”
How could she think when he stood this close to her? No other man had ever so muddled her thinking like this. “Can we talk about this later, Garrick?”
He made a noise in his throat, like he didn’t want to put this off, but after a moment he nodded. She didn’t know what her feelings were right now, only that her heart was floating up into her throat.
“I’ll follow your lead,” he said, his voice controlled. “But let’s be clear: I want you to stay.”
He lowered his head, blocking out the faint, yellowish light radiating from the lantern above. His lips fell upon hers softly. Barriers started rising in her heart, but they were nothing against his nearness. His kissing coaxed a slow wave of yearning through her. Her knees shook. She reached up and slid her fingertips through his thick, dark hair, urging him closer.
Garrick made a sound deep in his throat. He lifted his head only long enough for her to glimpse the light in his eye, the serious intent as he shifted the angle to kiss her anew. He pulled her lower lip between his, and then higher, and then working around her mouth until her lips were tender, swollen, tingling, as wet as she was swiftly becoming elsewhere. His chest rumbled with deeper desire. The shoulder she’d dropped her hand upon tightened as if he held himself back.
As he continued to kiss her—just kiss her—it came to her that not once yet had they made love like this, with a slow deliberateness that scattered the beating of her heart. Always before, he’d come at her hot, hungry, his hands finding where she ached the most, working her toward the peak of her pleasure with a swiftness and skill that left her panting. She’d wanted that drive to completion as much as he did. He’d read the signals of her body to perfection. They’d been in utter synchronicity, right down to the intensity of their mutual orgasms. He didn’t have to seduce her.
Yet he was seducing her now.
She dug her fingers into the bulwark of his shoulders as her legs threatened to give way. His tenderness filled her up. She might have resisted a full-frontal attack…this subtle nudging was beyond her. The sweet feelings made her vision go blurry. She pulled away to gather her wits. She pressed her cheek against the hollow below his shoulder so the tears would dry against the cotton.
She was falling…falling…. Maybe the dream she’d achieved when she joined him in this winery was only a portion of what she’d really yearned for, all along. What she’d really desired was to feel safe again.
To feel happy, to be loved.
He nudged her so she stepped back. The wood grain of a wine cask met her shoulders. She heard the click of the frame photo as he set it on top of the barrel. Her head fell back as he dipped his to kiss her throat, sliding his lips up with patient exploration. Behind her ear, the curve of her shoulder, the line of her jaw. She slid her hand from his shoulder to his chest to feel his heart racing under her palm.
He added to his kiss the touch of his fingertips as they scraped over her breasts, lingering on the nipples that had tightened to poke against the fabric of her bra and T-shirt, but not for long. His hands skimmed down like a tip of a feather to find the hem of her shirt, to skim back up her bare ribs…to find where all sensation had concentrated into twin tight aches.
