JustOneTaste (11 page)

It was heaven. When David Genero made a promise, he
certainly delivered.

The thought spiked Sarah’s heart rate.
A man who delivers
on his promises must be trustworthy.
She wanted to trust him with her secrets,
with her future, with her heart. She had to think the fact they couldn’t keep
their hands off each other was about more than mere sexual chemistry. Yet even
thinking along those lines seemed dangerous. Existing in this state of near
faith was like standing on the precipice of a bottomless crevasse. The unknown
beckoned her, thrilled her, yet terrified her still.

“I thought you were asleep.” David’s murmur rumbled against
Sarah’s ear where it rested against his chest.

“Who says I’m not?”

“You stopped breathing for a second there. You do that when
you’re worried about something.”

How could he know her so well already? “I wasn’t worried,”
she hedged. “Just thinking.”

“Oh no, thinking’s bad. Every time you start thinking I
ought to make you come so you’ll stop.”

Sarah chuckled. “Big words. I don’t think you could rise to
that particular occasion again tonight.”

After she’d taken her time in the hot bath David had drawn
her, he’d brought her to the living room where they’d pretty much stayed ever
since. He’d built a fire and laid a rug on the floor beside it, soon bringing
her down to it with him. They’d subsisted on a diet of cheese, bread, wine and
each other until the moon was high in the sky and the dogs were fast asleep in
another room. Sarah had welcomed him into her body several times, as the
pleasant ache between her thighs could attest. She had no idea what time it was
and Sarah didn’t care to find out. Not knowing was better. It helped sustain
the fantasy that tomorrow would never arrive.

With a shift of his hips, David nudged her stomach with his
semihard penis. “I’m not down for the count yet.”

“Unbelievable. I’ve
lost
count.”

“That’s because the jury’s still out on whether a multiple
orgasm counts as one or several.” The hint of smug pride in his voice couldn’t
be missed.

Rolling her eyes, Sarah rested her chin on her hands so she
could look at him directly. “You’re taking all the credit for that, I see.”

“Not all.” He grinned. “But definitely some.”

Sarah found herself returning his smile. “I suppose that’s
fair.”

He lifted a hand and stroked the hair back from her face.
The way his attention fixed on her made her breath still. “Sarah, you’re the
most amazing woman I’ve ever met. Every bloody thing about you is sexy, from
your eyes to your lips…”

He trailed off as he traced their outline, and Sarah figured
he was recalling how she’d wrapped those lips around his rigid cock out in the
vineyard, and again a little while ago. The second time she’d gone slower,
drawing out his pleasure until his breathing was shallow and his pleas for
mercy desperate. Against her stomach, he stiffened further and her body
responded, liquid warmth gathering between her thighs. Dear lord, she’d become
insatiable.

David moved his hands downward to cup her ass. He ground his
erection into her mound. “And this is the sexiest backside in the world. I
loved taking you from behind before. I loved watching your ass push back
against me as I fucked your tight pussy.”

Sarah’s nipples grew tight at his dirty words, her pleasure
made all the more intense because he uttered them for her, because she’d
discovered a penchant for hearing them that she’d never known she possessed.
Pushing up on her hands, she quirked a brow at him. “You know you say that word
like you’re at the doctor—
aaah
.”

He smiled and gave the anatomy in question a rough pinch
that made her squeal in delight. “Well, this
aaah
deserves a really long
vowel.”

Sarah dipped her head and kissed him, their mingled laughter
soon turning to moans of pleasure. David kept his hands anchored on her butt,
molding and squeezing it until Sarah was grinding against him, her desire
growing into an ache once more. When he broke their kiss and started nipping at
her neck, Sarah had to admit the truth. “I need you so much. I don’t know how you’re
doing this to me, but I need you more than air right now.”

He growled in her ear, “Gonna fuck you again, Sarah.”

“No.”

David stilled immediately and sought her gaze. It shouldn’t
matter so much, they were only words, but Sarah’s heart pounded with the
knowledge of what she was about to ask for.

She swallowed over the lump of nerves that balled in her
throat. “Please make love to me.”

His breath stilled, completely stopped like hers apparently
did when she was worried. Sarah’s heart slammed against her ribs as she
interpreted the emotions in his dark-brown eyes. Deep appreciation mingled with
absolute, primal determination. He held her head, lowered it and swallowed her
oxygen with a kiss that seared more hotly than the fire.

He ravaged her mouth, on the verge of losing control. The
prospect tempted Sarah to take her words back, to demand he forgo being gentle
and loving in favor of more marauding actions. But then David’s kiss slowed to
a languorous dance of lips and teeth and tongues, and Sarah couldn’t utter a
single word. She shut up and let him set the pace, trusting him to take them
both where they needed to go.

Trusting him.

Sarah’s heart stuttered as David flipped her over, pressing
her back against the downy quilt and staring into her face. He touched her
cheek, his fingers featherlight, reverent. Sarah held her breath—this time in
anticipation instead of concern—as he trailed his hand downward to brush tender
caresses over her throat, her shoulder. Her breast tingled as he neared, its
tip puckering into a tight knot. Tearing his gaze away from hers, David stared
at her breasts, watching their reaction in fascination as he gently fondled the
yielding flesh. Her nipples distended further, strained desperately for his
attention. But Sarah said nothing. She showed no impatience, made no demands.
She let David take his time.

She let herself trust him.

When at last his thumb brushed over her aching point, Sarah
gasped at the exquisiteness of the contact—too much but not enough, an
unbearable tease worth waiting for.

David’s command was husky, one rough syllable. “Arch.”

Sarah curved her spine, lifting it off the floor. She kept
her hands fisted in the quilt beside her head as David accepted her offering,
bathing her nipple in the wet warmth of his tongue. He teased and stroked,
squeezed her flesh in his hand while he sucked the stiff crest into his mouth.
He loved both her breasts until Sarah was writhing on the quilt, panting with
desperate want.

She didn’t hurry him. She didn’t instruct or control. She waited
for every touch, every hot kiss as his mouth moved lower, trailing over her
abdomen, circling her navel. Quicksilver heat shot to her pussy when he
descended farther. She was so wet, so needy. Yet she waited, growing to love
the excruciating anticipation in the long moments before he at last, at last,
wet her quivering lips with his tongue.

“Open,” he rasped, and Sarah’s thighs fell apart, inviting a
deeper kiss. The moist, hot pressure was pleasure unadulterated. Sarah let out
a long, keening moan as David made love to her pussy with his talented, giving
mouth. When he briefly lifted his head and issued his final, one-word command—
come
—Sarah
was once again more than ready to oblige.

Her insides quaked, her body falling to pieces as David’s
hot tongue worked its magic. She erupted in a rolling, undulating orgasm that
made her pussy quiver against David’s lips. The spasms continued to rack her
frame when David reached for a condom, swiftly donning it and probing her
entrance. He pushed inside her by degrees, ensuring she experienced every thick
inch of him with her still-fluttering inner muscles. His steady, purposeful
glide in and out of her body kept her hovering on the pinnacle of her climax,
regenerating sensations that ought to be fading. As David stared into her face,
his gaze as probing as his cock, Sarah was thrown into another series of
tremors.

Groaning, David sank into her deeper, harder. He never took
his eyes from her face as he joined her in ecstasy. It was so beautiful, the
simultaneous joy of it, that tears threatened. She hadn’t realized until that
instant that she’d never truly been made love to before.

This time with David was different, more intense than their
prior encounters. Yet in one fundamental way it was the same. She may have pretended
a few times to make love, but David never had. He’d always cherished her like
this, he’d always gifted her with his generosity, with his willingness to show
his emotions. His willingness to let love in.

So in a way it came as no great shock when David’s words
vibrated against her neck. “I think I’m in love with you, Sarah.”

David’s emotions were no surprise but they were everything
Sarah feared—and couldn’t help but hope for too.

Chapter Twelve

Mother Nature had certainly been generous over the weekend.
Sunday was another perfect day where the golden sunshine tempered the crisp
bite of the late winter air.

Not that winters in Australia—even in the southern state of
Victoria—could rival the snowy conditions Sarah had experienced in New York.
Here she found the chill bracing, invigorating rather than limiting. Having
been shooed out of the cellar by an insistent David, Sarah had decided to take
a stroll around the peaceful vineyard on her own. Or at least she would have
been on her own if Buster and Keaton hadn’t insisted on accompanying her.

Sarah grinned as she watched the two canines chase each
other around the vines. Having lived in apartments for several years now, Sarah
had thought she’d gotten used to not having a dog. But the antics of the two border
collies brought her a kind of contented peace she hadn’t noticed she’d been
lacking. She’d missed having a pet to share her secrets with. Thinking of
David, Sarah admitted she’d missed having a man in her life too.

That wasn’t entirely true. It wasn’t the lack of male
companionship that had created hollowness inside. It was the absence of hope.
When her first engagement ended, Sarah had been devastated. She’d been so
completely, blindly in love with Travis. Brent’s infidelity hadn’t hurt nearly
as much by comparison because she’d not invested as much of herself in that
relationship. She’d gone into it with greater wisdom and less optimism—less
hope. When that attempt at commitment ended in disaster as well, Sarah barely
had an ounce of faith left. She’d given up the dream of being loved for
herself, of finding that one person who understood her, who truly saw her and
not her family money.

Or at least she’d thought she’d eschewed that fantasy.
Apparently, she was still capable of believing in foolish dreams. Because she
couldn’t shake the growing belief that what she’d started with David deserved a
chance to turn into something permanent.

“Crazy, Sarah,” she muttered to herself. “You are
certifiably mad to think there’s a happy ever after here.”

Even as she spoke, a smile tugged at her lips. So maybe she
was certifiable. She was talking to herself, after all. Did it matter? Wasn’t
being crazy and blissfully happy better than being sane and miserable? Being
with David made her happy. Being made love to by him…wow. How could she
possibly give him up?

Halting her strides, Sarah assessed the verdant land
surrounding her, the vast sky so intensely blue it almost hurt the eyes. Why
would she leave all this forever to go back to a life that lacked color and
joy?

Something bumped into her leg and Sarah glanced down to find
Keaton staring up at her. Smiling, Sarah scratched him behind the ears, pleased
when he leaned closer to her, encouraging the contact. Even Keaton had warmed
up to her. Kerri Sayers had yet to thaw but Sarah wasn’t worried about the
other woman anymore. The last two days had proven that David’s relationship
with her was purely platonic. He never looked at Kerri the way he did at Sarah,
as if he wanted to eat her alive. And the way the woman lit up when her husband
Phil walked into the room made it obvious seductive intentions had never been
Kerri’s focus where David was concerned.

“Perhaps I’ll turn her around too, eh, Keaton?” Sarah mused.
“We’ll have to get along if I’m going to be coming here more often. Commuting
is doable, it’s only an hour from the city. I could make it most weekends.”

She thought of the mound of paperwork that would be waiting
for her when she got back to the office tomorrow, the reams of phone messages,
and wondered if she really could sneak off to the country all the time and
still keep on top of her job.

Then she thought of David, of the heat and affection in his
dark irises as he merged his body with hers, of the way his eyes crinkled at
the corners when he laughed. There had to be a way to make it work. Never
seeing David again did not present an acceptable outcome.

Somewhere along the way, she’d fallen head over heels for
the man.

Abruptly, Keaton barked once then took off at a dead run in
search of his playmate, who led them now by several hundred yards. Sarah pushed
on, her heart beating out a rapid tattoo as her revelation sank in. She was in
love with David.

Up ahead, Keaton ran around Buster, circling the other dog
and barking animatedly. Something about the tone of his yaps caused the hairs
on Sarah’s nape to stand on end, making her push aside her swirling
David-related emotions for now. Buster’s stance was one of hyperalertness, his
head still and his hackles raised.

Sarah increased her pace. “Buster, what is it, boy?”

He’d found himself another stick. That was the first thing
Sarah thought when she saw the long brown streak lying in the grass. But as she
drew nearer she realized the stick was moving—slithering. A shiver of revulsion
assailed her, cold, immobilizing fear chasing it down her spine.

She’d heard all the stories, of course. Australia was full
of venomous creatures hiding behind every doorway, waiting to sink their teeth
or fangs into you. David had even warned her to check her shoes before putting
them on, especially if they had been left outside for any length of time. She’d
half hoped he was joking about the possibility of spiders. She’d never had a
single scary-creature encounter in Melbourne.

But this wasn’t Melbourne and the snake raising its head with
intent to strike was no joke. Sarah stared in horror, too terrified to utter a
word of warning to the dog. The snake made a hissing sound that scraped along
her nerves like fingernails on a blackboard.

The next happened in flurry of movement. Buster leaped at
the snake, latching on to it with his teeth and shaking it from side to side.
The noise was horrendous, hissing and snarling overlaid by Keaton’s furious
barking. Sarah shrieked, at least she thought she did, as Buster fought with
the snake, his hunting instincts turning him from a playful pet to a wild
animal. Sarah had no idea if the snake was a venomous variety, if Buster would
be bitten or if he already had been. Afraid of doing the wrong thing, she could
only stare at the scene before her and do absolutely nothing.

In what seemed like minutes but was probably no more than
ten seconds, Buster stopped shaking his head. Panting, he dropped the snake on
the ground. He nudged it with his nose, mystified as to why his moving stick
had gone completely still.

Relief tempered some of Sarah’s panic. He’d killed it. A
deep red gash encircled the snake’s body where it lay lifeless on the grass.
But Sarah had no idea if it had managed to strike Buster at some point
throughout their life-and-death tussle. The dog appeared unaffected but how
could a person tell? How long did it take for snake venom to take effect?

“H-here, Buster. Here boy.” Sarah stammered the command, her
voice weak. Not surprisingly, Buster ignored her. She tried again, forcing more
stridency into her tone. “Here, boy, now. We need to go find David.”

It took several attempts for Sarah to attract the dog’s
attention away from his prize but eventually both Buster and Keaton followed
her hurried steps. By the time she reached the storage building, Sarah was
running. “David!”

David emerged almost immediately, concern on his face.
“What’s wrong?”

“There was a snake,” she panted. “Buster killed it. I don’t
know if it bit him.”

Cursing, David turned his attention to the collie. “Mate, I
told you to stay away from those little buggers.”

He scratched the dog’s ears, calming the animal as he
searched his fur, presumably for fang marks. He peered into Buster’s eyes
before glancing up at Sarah. “Did you bring it with you?”

“What?”

“The snake. You said he killed it.”

Sarah stared at him in horror. “Are you joking?”

David held up his hand. “Never mind. Just tell me what sort
it was.”

Did he think she’d done a course in snake identification
before being admitted into the country? Given the circumstances, that probably
wasn’t a bad idea, something the Australian authorities ought to consider for
all incoming visitors. “How should I know what sort it was?”

He pushed out a sigh, having the nerve to sound exasperated.
“What color was it?”

Sarah recalled her first sighting of the slithering
creature, remembered thinking it was a stick. “Brown.”

“Ah, shit.”

“Brown’s not good?”

“Definitely not. I can’t see any obvious marks but his fur
could be hiding them. I better get him to the vet.”

“I’ll come with you.”

Sarah started to lead Buster toward the shed where David
kept his four-wheel drive but David shook his head. He bent down to scoop the
dog up in his arms. “If he has been bitten, he shouldn’t be walking around.
It’ll only spread the poison faster.”

Guilt caused Sarah’s flesh to burn. She’d made Buster walk
all the way from the other side of the vineyard. What if she’d made his
condition worse? She’d never felt so inept in all her life.

David raced to let Kerri know what had happened while Sarah
climbed into the passenger side of David’s dust-coated truck. She held Buster
close beside her. Not to be left out of a road trip, Keaton settled himself in
the backseat.

David returned and jumped in behind the wheel. “Kerri’s
calling the vet. He’ll be ready for us when we get there.” Then he took off
down the driveway to the sound of crunching gravel.

They weren’t far from the property when Sarah noticed
something that made her heart sink. “He’s drooling. Should he be drooling this
much?”

David glanced at Buster, his expression tense. “He’s
frothing at the mouth. Ah, you crazy mutt. He bit you, didn’t he?”

“I didn’t know.” To her dismay, her voice came out sounding
whiny.

“Didn’t know what?”

“About the snake. What sort it was. How to stop Buster from
grabbing it. I didn’t realize making him walk would make the venom act faster.
I didn’t know anything!”

“Of course you didn’t—you’re a Yank.”

Not in the mood for his lame teasing, Sarah shot David a
glower. “I stood there and did nothing while he was bitten.”

“You can’t blame yourself. It’s a bit early for brown
snakes, we don’t usually have to be on the lookout until spring.”

Like the season would have made a single bit of difference.
“I’m not from this country, I don’t know all your crazy rules. Watch out for
poisonous snakes in spring, shake out your shoes before you put them on. And
whatever you do, don’t go swimming in the ocean or a man-eating shark will
swallow you whole!”

David’s laughter did nothing to settle Sarah’s rising
hysteria. “Come on, Sarah. A great white would more than likely only take a
chunk out of your leg. Besides, do you see a beach around here?”

“I can’t believe you’re being like this.”

“Like what?”

“So calm. So easygoing. You’re making
jokes
. Aren’t
you worried about Buster?”

David scowled. “Of course I am. But the vet will have
antivenin, so there’s a good chance we can save Buster if we make it there
quick.”

“And if we don’t make it fast enough?”

“We will. But if we don’t…” David took one hand off the
wheel to rub Buster’s ears. There was affection yet fatalism in the gesture and
for some reason it chilled Sarah’s bones. “Hell, these things happen. It’s a
part of life around here.”

Sarah fixed her attention on the scenery passing quickly by
her window. They were talking about his pet, his loyal companion. Buster might
die and all he could say was
these things happen
? She murmured, sounding
a tad fatalistic herself, “It’s not part of
my
life.”

“What are you talking about?”

Sarah remained silent, staring out the window and stroking
Buster’s coat. What an idiot she’d been, strolling around as if she hadn’t a
care in the world, actually contemplating a relationship with David. How could
she have completely forgotten she didn’t belong here? She was a city person
through and through. As a
Yank
she wasn’t even from this country. Her
stay in Australia was open-ended but she’d never considered it to be permanent.
What had she thought would happen—that David would ask her to marry him? That
she’d leave her home country forever?

For a man who didn’t even get upset when his dog’s life was
threatened?

These things happen.
Had that been David’s attitude
when his ex had left? During yesterday’s conversation she’d gotten the
impression he hadn’t put in a big effort to make her stay. Was that because he
simply didn’t care enough to bother? He had his winery, the life he wanted.
What else did he need? Any woman who became involved with him would have to fit
in or risk being superfluous. She’d have to be the type who knew to avoid
snakes, who could cook and clean and be part of this community. Kerri’s
attitude alone told Sarah she wasn’t likely to be welcomed into the close-knit
fold that David was a part of.

And if Sarah couldn’t fit in here, how long could she
realistically expect a relationship with David to last? She didn’t think she
could stand letting this thing drag on if it was destined to end from the
start. She was already too emotionally invested. She was nearly in tears about
a canine she’d only known two days. If she tried to pursue a relationship with
David and it didn’t work, she might fall completely apart.

“The vet surgery’s just up ahead. Not long now.” David
gripped her shoulder in a comforting gesture. “He’s going to be fine, Sarah.”

Sarah looked down at Buster, who was beginning to appear
listless. The saliva around his mouth appeared to have multiplied. “Sure,” she
replied, hoping it was true. That Buster would survive and live a long and
happy life at Windy Valley. He belonged there.