Autumn in the Vineyard (A St. Helena Vineyard Novel) (29 page)

“Frankie,” he warned and she kissed him quiet. She gave him a sweet, languid kiss that lasted for a long, erotic moment. They were touching everywhere, the sun hot on their exposed skin, while the water lapped around them as everything except their mouths remained perfectly still.

She pulled back, taking his lower lip with her. “Then fuck it.”

“Frankie,” he said again. But this time his tone was desperate, ragged, telling a different story.

She smiled. “I’m on the pill.”

His eyes searched hers. “You sure?”

“Oh, yeah.” And to show him she arched her hips back and down, taking him inside of her in one fluid motion. She inhaled at the pressure, breathing in his breath, completely lost in a wave of mind-numbing pleasure.

“Oh, fuck,” he growled. “That feels so good, Francesca.”

He lifted his hips as she sank back down and they quickly found a rhythm. The man was a master; after only one night he already knew how to touch her, tease her, drive her crazy. And he was fast learning how to shatter her defenses.

“You are so beautiful,” he said against her lips.

“Harder,” she rasped, pumping her hips faster, wanting his sweet words but not sure how to handle them.

“Slow and easy, honey,” he whispered against her wet skin. “Just enjoy.”

She was enjoying it—fast and hard and without the sugary endearments, thank you very much. But his hands settled on her hips, taking over and setting a leisurely but sensual pace while he whispered beautiful words in her ear. Words she’d waited her whole life to hear someone say, only she wasn’t sure if she could believe them—that she was even considering it was a sign that she was in over her head.

“Harder,” she demanded, coming all the way up before slamming back down and taking what she wanted. She dug her nails into his back and when he was too busy panting in her ear to whisper she finally felt her body relax, felt her walls tighten, and with one last thrust a pulse of pleasure washed over her, while a wave of emotion crashed into her stealing her breath.

Nate was right there with her. He buried his face in her neck and sunk his teeth into the sensitive skin at the slope of her shoulder as they came apart.

Drained and breathless, they stood there, tangled in each other’s arms, swaying with the pond’s gentle current. The faint pressure of his fingers danced along her spine, his lips soothing the sting of his earlier bite. There was so much weight in their unspoken connection she felt as though it would pull her under.

“I thought you said nothing ever bites here,” she joked, but nothing about this situation felt funny.

“Sweet cheeks, it looks like you’ve caught the only thing that does.”

“Caught?” The word stuck in her throat.

He pulled back, just enough to look at her. Just enough to see the awe in his eyes as he said, “You’ve had me hooked for over a decade, I’ve just been waiting for you to reel me in.”

Something was wrong.

Frankie hadn’t said more than four words to him after they’d had sex. And they were, “Not bad, stud boy.”

Not all that encouraging for a guy who’d just had the best sexual experience of his entire life. Or for a guy who’d wanted today to mean as much to Frankie as it had to him.

Hell, he could still smell her on his skin, taste her on his lips and instead of lying naked together in bed talking about what was happening between them, he spent the better part of the night sitting alone on the couch watching ESPN while Frankie disappeared outside to brush Mittens. When she didn’t come back in, he’d grabbed a bite, showered, and picked up a
book. That had been two hours ago, giving him ample time to think himself into a serious state of frustration.

Being patient wasn’t the problem. He was willing to give Frankie the time she needed if in the end she finally admitted what was going on between them was more than just sex. But he wasn’t willing to let her fears keep them stagnant. And he sure as hell wasn’t willing after today to go backwards, which considering the fact that Frankie stood in the darkened hallway, boots in hand, tiptoeing toward her room was exactly what she had in mind.

He stood at the fork in the hallway and clicked on the light. Frankie looked up at him and froze. To her right was his master bedroom, to the left her own personal space. Nate had a bad feeling that if he didn’t fix this now, she would forever walk on the invisible line that had been drawn between them since he’d kissed her in high school.

“Helps if you turn on the light.”

Frankie straightened as though startled to find him there. Her hair was back in its braid, but she still had on the shorts, tank, and no bra from earlier. She was windblown, covered in fur, absolutely beautiful, and confusing as hell. “I thought you were asleep, I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Was waiting for you to finish tucking Mittens in.” Crossing his arms, he rested his shoulder against the wall. He could tell by her body language that talking wasn’t on her top ten list. He could also tell by the way she was darting glances at his bedroom door that she wasn’t planning on coming to his room. “But since you’re sneaking down the hall I guess that was stupid. You are obviously avoiding me.”

“How many times do we have to have this argument? I don’t sneak and if I didn’t want to talk to you, I’d just say so.”

“Really? Because you came in the back door and rather than trample through the house in your dirty boots to piss me off like normal, they’re in your hands.” He stared her down. Spending the past two hours on a lumpy couch hadn’t really helped his patience. It had, however, allowed him to spin himself into a mood, so he took a deep breath and lowered his voice. The last thing he wanted to do was rile an already cagy Frankie. “You’re cautious. I get it. And with our history, I don’t blame you. All I am asking is that you talk to me, because feeling like I’m being played or that this is still some kind of game pisses me off.”

“Still?” she said her eyes filling with something even worse than anger.

Ah, crap. She thought… “No, that’s not what I—”

Frankie held up a hand. “My boots are covered in mud and I know that you mopped the floor yesterday, so I was trying to be nice. My mistake. Won’t happen again,” she said sharply and dropped the boots. Now her arms were crossed, she was throwing up those walls she was so fond of, and she was ready for a fight. “And I’m not playing. But thanks for reminding me where we stand, since last time I played in one of your stupid games, I got fired, kicked out of my family, and lost my grandfather’s respect.”

Nate took a breath and ran a hand down his face. “Look, Frankie, I don’t want to argue. And I’m not asking for some big declaration. I’m okay if you want to take things slow as long as we’re both honest about what’s happening between us.”

“What’s happening, Nate?” She took an aggressive step forward. “We had sex. We went to the lake. We fished. Then had sex again. It was fun. What about that is so confusing to you?”

Because that wasn’t all that happened. They’d shared something, and she knew it—didn’t she? Hard to say when she
sounded so damn sure of herself. “I like you. You like me. So why are you making this so hard?”

“Because this is me, Nate.” She sounded tired. “Everything is hard with me. I didn’t mean to make you mad or ruin your night, I just… Look, do I like you? Yes. But I like lots of people. Do I want you? Obviously. That doesn’t mean that there’s anything more going on. Honest enough? Great then, I’m off to take a shower. Night, roomie.”

Frankie brushed past him and went into the guest bath, shutting the door with a resounding thud.

Nate heard the water hit the tub before he pushed away from the wall, his chest doing stupid things, like not working. It didn’t make any sense. She didn’t make any sense. He liked her, she liked him. So why did the sum balance of their entire relationship always equal disaster? With Frankie he always felt like everything was spinning out of control.

He’d mentally weighed the pros and the cons of a relationship with Frankie, took into account that she needed to feel in control, felt more comfortable setting the pace. So he handed over the keys and she spun them right off the fucking cliff.

After slamming his own door, properly and like an adult, he plopped down in the chair. Pulling the footrest up, he leaned back and pressed a hand to his head. His heart was pounding, his hands twitchy, and he felt sick. He hadn’t been this worked up since his parents died. And all over a woman who either A) didn’t like him enough to even try, B) was too scared to admit she liked him, or C) had been telling the truth all along.

Maybe she was right. Maybe it was just sex and he was the one making this into something it wasn’t. Hell, they were so completely opposite, maybe it was naive to think Frankie could even provide the qualities he needed in a partner—and vice versa.

Nate didn’t allow the death of his parents to make him wary of relationships like his brothers had. He took their deep ability to love as proof that that kind of soul-deep connection and unconditional understanding did exist. And that was what he was looking for. But would he find it in a woman who would give the shirt off her back without question, but one question about feelings and she’d aim for the nuts?

Frankie was smart and sexy and honest and challenged him at every turn. But—Nate grabbed his legal pad and a pen off the end table—she was stubborn to a fault, could argue with an alpaca, and was awkward and unsure with kids.

Nate released a ragged breath and closed his eyes. He loved kids. The more time he spent around his nieces, the harder it was to leave without feeling the unsettling knowledge that there was a gaping hole in his life that needed to be filled—not tomorrow but soon.

Drawing a line down the middle of the page, Nate wrote
R
EASONS TO
W
ANT
F
RANKIE
across the header, titled each column, and then numbered one to twenty down the margin. After he sorted and cleared out every emotion and thought, filled in every line, adding more numbers and even spilling onto the next page, he looked at the bottom entry in each column and swore.

Pro: I love Frankie.

Con: I love Frankie.

It was a quarter past four in the morning and Nate was still staring at the ceiling. He sat alone in his chair, head aching
from frustration, body tense with worry. He was exhausted, the bone-deep kind that made thinking logically about anything impossible, which is why all the illogical crap was making it impossible to fall asleep.

Realizing he was in love with a woman who couldn’t even say the word relationship without going into anaphylactic shock could do that to a guy. Admitting that he’d pushed too hard and may have blown it only added to the stress.

He’d taken a hot shower and reorganized his
R
EASONS TO
W
ANT
F
RANKIE
list, but even that hadn’t helped. He wanted to walk across the hall, tap on Frankie’s door—and what?

Having sex with her would be a colossal mistake and yet she’d made it clear that it was the only thing on the table. Although he was pretty sure he’d screwed that up too when he’d stupidly implied that she was a game. God, how had their relationship become so complicated?

He quietly chuckled. Regardless of what Frankie was claiming, they did have a relationship. It might be more than she was willing to admit and less than Nate was willing to settle for. But three lists, two studies on how friends-to-lovers were seventy percent more likely to last, and a mental accounting of every encounter they’d had over the past three months and Nate was confident that they were both in deep. Which was why she’d gotten scared at the lake.

He got to her. Enough for her to pull back. She got to him unlike anyone he’d ever known. And beyond all reasonable explanation, they fit.

Now he just had to figure out how to take what they had, dysfunctional as it was, and make it into something amazing, something that fulfilled what they both needed. And right now
Frankie needed his understanding, his patience and her own space. She had a lot riding on this weekend, and the last thing she needed was more pressure.