Love in the Vineyard (The Tavonesi Series Book 7) (26 page)

He stroked and licked until her hips rose, pressing harder against his mouth with each wave of her building tension.

He found the slightly roughened, mysterious spot inside her that would send her deeper. As her muscles gripped his finger, he stroked a perfect rhythm, matching the cadence of her gasping breaths.

“Adrian, please.”

Had her tone had any honesty in its protest, he would have released her. But he knew the demands of desire. She could wait. She
would
wait. And he forced himself to call up all his wavering command to make sure that he could too. When he entered her, he hoped she’d want him so badly that she’d never think of another man. He wanted to be the only man in her mind, the only man in her heart.

Forever
.

And then for one day more than that.

But he wanted her to feel the same. He wanted her to surrender to her desire. But he didn’t want her to surrender to
him
. He wanted her to meet him on fair ground. But that plan could wait to play out later, in due time. Now all he wanted was for her to surrender to the glory of making love.

He drew the tip of his tongue between the folds of her sex and continued licking her with a slow, steady rhythm, savoring her salty, honeyed taste. Her head thrashed as he laved her, and her inner muscles tightened harder around his fingers as she cried out his name again and again. He could spend an eternity pleasuring her, finding even more ways to send her into ecstasy.

When she bucked against him and then went limp with her release, her uninhibited cry shot straight into his heart.

Only the sound of their breathing broke the silence of the cave. He lifted his head and levered up onto his knees. Flickering candlelight shot streams of radiant light across her, lacing her body with a web of light and shadow.

She opened her eyes.

“Adrian.”

When she reached her hand out, twining her fingers in his, he felt like he’d been transported behind the lines of life as he’d once known it. He’d experienced great sex in his life but never combined with such surging, deep feelings.

The force of his recognition robbed him of words. He pulled her to him and cradled her trembling body with his arms.

She rested her head against his chest. Breath caught in his throat as she slid her hand to grasp his painfully throbbing erection through his riding pants.

“Do take these pants off,” she said with the breathy voice of a woman still under the spell of a powerful orgasm. “I want to
see
you.”

His pulse pounded as he wrangled off his boots and stripped off his pants. Turning back to her, his restraint was shredded. He drew her panties down her legs in one swift pull. He spread her legs and pinned her thighs against the cave floor with his knees. And admired the view. Her creamy skin framed lush dark curls and the slick pink flesh he’d been tasting and pleasuring.

She wriggled out from under his legs with a strength that surprised him. Then she knelt beside him and motioned to his shirt on the floor. “Lie down.”

No one had ever commanded him, certainly no woman. A thrill of titillation shot deep as he did as she bid.

“You’ll wish you had never introduced me to Italian restraint,” she said as she straddled him.

Placing one palm against his heart, she reached around behind herself and fingered his balls. He hauled in a breath and fought for control as she rocked her hips and slipped rhythmically along his shaft while stroking his tightening balls with her fingers.

He growled his pleasure, and she smiled. He cupped her breasts, his palms curving around the perfect and firm mounds. He tweaked her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, and she gasped.

“I want you inside me, Adrian.
Now
.”

He wanted nothing more. But he couldn’t resist teasing her. “What happened to slow?”

“Lost in translation?” she said with a low moan as she pressed her hands to his shoulders and wriggled until he could feel the pulse in her sex throbbing against him.

He gripped her hips, raising her, and she used her hands to position the tip of his erection at her opening.

And then he remembered—no condom. He grabbed her hips, his fingers denting her flesh, and dragged her up so that she straddled his waist, safely away from his throbbing shaft. His whole body trembled as his hands circled her waist and held her firmly in place.

“Natasha. I don’t have any protection.”

Her eyes widened in the flickering light. “
This
wasn’t the surprise you had planned?”

Had she really thought he’d brought her to the cave for sex? Was she teasing him? He couldn’t tell.

“No. I’d just thought to show you this place. Ohhh,” he growled when she reached behind her and fingered the slick hood of his shaft. “Stop that or—”

“I can’t imagine a better surprise,” she purred. She closed her hand around his hard shaft. “I haven’t had a lover for five years.” She bent and teased her tongue along his lower lip. “And I’ve been tested.”

Suddenly his argument for his perfect health record seemed unbelievably urgent.

“And I haven’t had unprotected sex since I was eighteen,” he bit out as she tried to wriggle free of his grip. It was the truth. He wouldn’t have dared. All he needed was a palimony suit slapped on him. He’d never met a woman worth the risk. Not until Natasha.

“Then it would appear we can have a happy ending.” She raised up and, lightning fast, dropped her hips and enveloped him.

Her tight warmth as he speared into her made him convulse and cry out her name. It had been a decade since he’d been flesh to flesh inside a woman. He’d forgotten the world-shattering rush of direct contact.

“Slowly, Natasha.” He stilled her hips with his hands and restricted her movement. “Slowly.”

He wanted the moment to last. As he rocked her, his thoughts, his plans—everything but the connection of their bodies—melted away. And below the blaze of desire, an unfamiliar feeling flooded into him, at first elusive, and then, like a camera coming into slow focus, he recognized the feeling.

Love
.

He’d thought he’d known the territory of his heart, thought he’d known what the word meant. Yet discovering that love and sex and ball-busting pleasure could be wrapped up in a single moment, in a single woman, astonished him.

And he knew in that moment that his plan was a perfect path forward for a life with her. It had to be, because he couldn’t imagine a life that didn’t include Natasha Raley.

Chapter Seventeen

THE BLASTS OF EMOTION THAT HAD ROCKED Natasha while making love with Adrian should have scared the dickens out of her. But as she lay in his arms in the candlelit cave, she didn’t feel fear.

She felt changed.

As they donned their clothes, she caught her reflection in a mirrored pane in a cobweb-covered hutch leaning along one wall of the wine cave. An inner shining reflected back to her as if calling to her to trust her heart, to trust life. But how could she trust anything she felt right then? She felt untamed, set loose—maybe even unmoored. How could she trust herself when she’d made such a mess of her life?

Like a thread of dye in a glass of water, fear began to release its poison, spreading slowly and coloring every thought and feeling in its path. She wanted to scream. She wanted to stop time. She wanted to start her life over, to get it right, to be born as a normal child without a disability, a woman with a normal family and an education. A woman with a future that didn’t terrify her.

She touched her hand to her cheek and then to the mirror. The pane came loose. Her body braced for the shatter as it dropped to the clay floor of the cave.

But it didn’t shatter. It rested, intact, against the leg of the hutch.

Adrian curved his arms around her from behind and touched his lips to the nape of her neck.

“You just avoided seven years of bad luck.”

Natasha let out the breath she’d been holding. “If only our wives’ tales and fairy stories were true.”

He turned her to face him. The gentle kiss he brushed to her lips had tears welling. Tears that she was determined this time not to let loose.

“I’d like to think they are, Natasha. I’d like to think that life brings us gifts that lead to joy.”

Some cynical part of her rose up, some part of her still angry for what had been, some part of her that didn’t believe in what could be. The part of her fed by fear.

“We don’t live in the same worlds, Adrian.”

The hurt in his eyes made her wish she hadn’t said anything. Some truths hurt more than the value of their telling.

He touched his finger to her heart. “We live in the world we choose to live in. The rest is details.”

Details
. Details like money for food and shelter, for an education for your children. For being able to pursue passion and dreams. She wanted to push at the walls of reality going up all around her. She didn’t want to be angry with him. He hadn’t chosen his parents, his station in life. He was a good man, a man she shouldn’t have let in so close. A man who would continue to live his life as it was meant to be. A life that she knew wouldn’t, couldn’t, include a woman like her.

She couldn’t look him in the eye. If she did, every confused emotion would pour out of her mouth and she’d regret spoiling a moment that should have its place without all that. A moment she could call up later, tugging the memory around her like an antidote when darkness threatened. She tried to step away from his embrace, but he snuggled her against his chest.

“Natasha.”

He paused. She loved how he said her name, how he said more with his tone than most people could with hundreds of words. As if her name were the beginning of a refrain of a song. A song she hoped never to forget.

“I have to go away again,” he said quietly. “For two weeks. I—”

Was it embarrassment she saw in the flickering light? Or just the weight of the truth he was about to tell? A sense of dread flooded her, pinning her in place.

“I promised Zoe I’d ride for her in a polo match in Santa Barbara.” He grinned, and her dread deepened. “I think you saw how much she likes to win.” He squeezed her hand. “And then I have to return to Rome for a long-planned memorial for my mother, a dedication for a library that was close to her heart.”

The gap yawned between them, widening as he spoke. It didn’t matter that his words were softly voiced, that his tone wasn’t arrogant. The matter-of-fact tone only made her feel the disparity more deeply. But the way he held her with his gaze made it impossible to look away. No matter what happened in her future, she would never forget the way Adrian looked at her. It made her feel treasured, even if she wasn’t the treasure he sought.

“But before I leave, I want you to know that I’ve put the reins of the new business in your hands.”

Her heart stuttered. What had he said? Maybe looking into his eyes had caused her to lose the thread of what he was saying.

“You
what
?”

“I’d planned to wait to tell you, but I can’t resist.”

The light dancing in his eyes and his happy smile felt wrong. All wrong.

“I made you the manager of the new native plant nursery. Anything you want or need to make it a success is at your disposal. Zoe and Coco can help you with artwork. And I’ve told Tammy you’re to have all the help you require, and for now I’ve assigned Enrique to work with you. Tammy says he’s great with plants,” he went on, almost without taking a breath. “I’m clearing the back greenhouse. We’ll build another before next season. And Alana has offered to house any starts that won’t fit in our greenhouse in hers.”

She stepped back from him. His words began to feel like prickles of ice against her skin. The cave that had seemed so magical, that had been the setting for the only experience of complete joy that she’d ever had, suddenly felt like a trap.

“The computer system is in,” he added. “And I think you’ll like the interface. Alana uses the same system and—oh yes, she also said she’ll help while I’m gone. I think she’s envious that—”

“Adrian, stop. I can’t possibly do what you’re imagining.”

“Don’t be nervous. I have great faith in you.”

“It’s
not
nerves!”

“This gives you a career path, something to call your own.”

Her fear broke into anger and embarrassment. She couldn’t do the job he’d assigned to her.

“You can’t just waltz into someone’s life and start rearranging it. Start dictating this and that like, like some oligarch.”

He flinched at her angry tone.

“That’s a harsh word, Natasha.”

“Okay, like some
billionaire’s
son.” Her tone was biting. Instantly she regretted her angry words. But shock made it impossible to corral the anger roiling through her. And under her shock and anger loomed the sinking feeling that he was paying her off for having sex with him. As if he felt guilty and this impulsive promotion was a salve for the eventual pain they both knew would come.

“Grandson,” he said, all trace of his smile gone from his face. “And, no, I wouldn’t dream of telling you how to run things. You can manage the new business however you see fit. But Tammy has her hands full, so you’ll have to do your own ordering at first, and your own record keeping, but Alana assures me the accounting system is excellent and easy to use.”

His tone was cool, calculating.
Businesslike
. As if he was trying to sell her on the position.

“I prefer to just continue as I am.” She struggled for a convincing tone. “I
like
what I’m doing now. You should hire someone with much more experience than me for this new project.”

He put his palms on her shoulders, but she twisted away. It was impossible to think when Adrian touched her.

“You’re perfect for this.” He let out a shuddering sigh that she wished hadn’t reached into her heart. “You have the passion, the vision. You love native plants.”

She couldn’t argue with that. And he hadn’t meant harm. Plus it was her fault he didn’t have the facts, didn’t know the nightmare he was spinning.