Page 45 of Taken With You
By the time he unbuttoned her shorts and slid down the zipper, she was hardly aware of the cold of the cave, the chill of the barrel at her back, the light falling around them, the sound of her own moans, and yet she was aware of so very much, so many subtle things, attuned as if she could sense the movement of the planet turning beneath her feet. She parsed every scent of the old place, the dampness, the various vintages, and the oak scent of the barrel wood soaking in the liquid.
She didn’t remember him removing her shorts and panties, but suddenly the chill air brushed her bare bottom. Gravity disappeared as he lifted her against the barrel, and her feet left the stone slates of the floor. A faint buzz came from afar, a bulb whose filament surged bright on the edge of dying, as Garrick spread her knees apart to slip his body between them.
As he locked her ankles at his back, he laid his mouth, warm and whispering, against her ear.
“Look at me.”
Had she closed her eyes? She blinked them open just as Garrick pulled back. His mussed hair fell over his brow, his expression serious. Digging his fingers into her buttocks to brace her, he locked gazes with her as he slid his thickness inside her body with slow and deliberate intent.
Heart beating against her ribs, she couldn’t hold back the moan that fell from her lips, nor, a short time later, the first squeeze of her orgasm. Any doubt that she loved this man died as, behind her eyes, she lost herself in the haze of a thousand falling stars.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Garrick stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass of his office window, staring down twenty-two stories at the concrete maze of Midtown Manhattan. Behind him, Shelley swept open the door to his office suite, tossed a pile of papers on his desk, and said something. He nodded to acknowledge it, though he hadn’t really heard her. His response must have been enough, because she left with a click of heels. The door to his office shut, closing out the voices, the phones ringing, and the percussion of fingertips clattering on keyboards.
The weight of the work pressed on his shoulders. But mentally, he was still across the country, making love to Amanda.
He shoved his hands into his pockets as the memory instantly rebooted, starting from when he’d first kissed those bite-swollen lips in the chill of the wine cave. She’d tasted like the vintage she’d presented to him in the late afternoon sun, surprising, subtly alluring, tempting him into another taste. His fingertips had itched to run over her smooth ribs, to tease her body into pleasure. He wanted to see her eyelashes flutter closed as she lost herself—
Fuck.
He dropped his head back and squeezed his hands into fists, forcing himself to think about returns on equity, balance sheets, arbitration clauses, and operating cash flows until his cock got the message and settled the hell back down. He’d been much better at compartmentalizing his life before he’d first glimpsed Amanda in the backyard of the winery, her blond hair shining in the Northern California sunlight. Now, she was always with him.
He swiveled on a heel and glared at his desk. He’d been working since dawn. He would be working all night. Then tomorrow again, and the next day as well. The few days he’d meant to stay in New York now stretched past a week. All he wanted to do was get on a plane flying west. He’d never been so willing to shuck his responsibilities, and, ironically, that made him keenly aware of how many responsibilities he had to shuck.
When, exactly, had he fooled himself into thinking he’d slowed down since Dominic died? He’d prided himself on delegating, on promoting promising colleagues into positions of power to share the burden. And yet somehow, even after eighteen long months, his workload hadn’t eased. All he’d managed to do was shift Dominic’s portion of responsibilities to others without changing his own. Despite the rock-climbing weekends and his other halfhearted attempts at kicking back, Garrick realized nothing had budged. He hadn’t changed his lifestyle at all.
Dylan and Logan had been right from the start.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and flicked through his contacts to press the first number he found.
Logan picked up on the second ring. “Garrick, what a surprise. How the hell are you?”
“Buried under a shit-ton of paper in Manhattan.” Garrick turned back to the window and wished he were gazing over vineyards. “You got a minute?”
“Sure.” The sound of an automatic door whooshing open came through the phone. “I was just heading home.”
“Home?” Garrick shook his head. “For the last few years, I couldn’t even keep tabs on what country you were in, Logan. Now ‘home’ drops out of your mouth like you hadn’t been running away from it for years.”
“Things have changed.” Logan’s laugh sounded ten times lighter since he’d fallen head over heels in love with his reluctant roommate. “Now I spend whole weekends away from the hospital, and I’m the happiest guy in the world. So what’s up?”
Words suddenly banked in Garrick’s throat, all the things he wanted to say but couldn’t quite articulate. “I’m…just checking in with you.”
“Nope. That’s my job, remember?” A beep sounded, as if Logan was unlocking his car remotely. “It’s Dylan’s job, too. He and I are supposed to be all up in your business until you figure out how to stop working like a dog and honor Dominic’s memory.”
“Hey, I bought a winery in his honor.”
“Noted.” Fumbling noises came over the line, as if Logan was swinging into the driver’s seat. “Dylan and I concede that half your promise is fulfilled. But as for the other half…didn’t you just confess to me that you’re buried under a shit-ton of paper?”
Garrick sighed. Back at the college reunion, when he and his friends had met on the rugby field of their alma mater for a late-night-baring-the-soul session, he’d promised them he would stop being all work and no play.
He hadn’t gotten very far on that. “Hey, I’m throwing a party this weekend.”
“Which is aworkevent.”
“A mix of business and pleasure.”
“In what proportions?” The rumbling sound of a running car came through the phone. “I remember how you make martinis, you know. Business is the vodka. Pleasure is the vermouth that you wave over the glass, adding nothing but fumes.”
