Page 15 of Bordeaux Bombshell (Sunshine Cellars #3)

Nate

I didn’t hear a word she said after “I loved you once” fell from her lips. The words reverberate through me, pulling at the threads stitching my badly mended heart together.

But it’s the look that flashes across her face a split second later that obliterates my ability to stay away.

The ever-present fire that’s kept me at a distance, threatening to incinerate me both literally and figuratively, replaced by fleeting softness.

Since I’ve been back, she’s only shown me her anger, the hard shell meant to keep me out and herself safe.

But for a moment, her soft underbelly peeks out.

In my mind, she’s eight years old and hiding behind the shed so no one sees her cry.

Twelve and wearing her high heels, stumbling to the car behind her dad, on her way to her first school dance after asking me if I liked her dress.

Seventeen and staring up at me from her bed, lips wet from our first kiss.

Eighteen and brushing a pinky finger against mine in the dark of a movie theater.

Twenty-three and on her back in the far corner of the farthest field, the setting sun dripping gold across her bare breasts as she whispers she wants to come to France with me.

The guilt that has kept everything about us in the shadows pulls at me, threatening to drown me once more. It swirls in my gut with the panic I felt when that asshole grabbed at her, and my shock when she stood up for herself.

The turmoil inside me is all wrapped up in the infuriating woman poking her finger in my chest, her lips inches from mine.

And since the caveman she claims I am is beating inside my mind that I need to mark her as mine, I do the most logical thing. I kiss her.

Unlike a few minutes ago, this time, I don’t even try not to lose myself in Sydney.

Sliding my arms behind her back, I pull her flush against me, her torso liquid fire in my palms. She twists and squirms in my grasp, like the hellcat we’ve all teased her for being, but she doesn’t pull away.

Instead, she molds her body to mine. Not melting, but softening enough to give a little before she turns hard again.

I taste the beer she was drinking and smell the perfume she’s wearing, the combination intoxicating as she lets out a breathy “Oh no.”

“Oh no, what?” I break away to look behind me at the bar entrance. “Did you forget something?”

She backs away, eyes narrowed. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter. Goodnight, Nate.” A sedan pulls up in front of us, and she shakes her head like she’s clearing her mind.

She checks with the driver as I crowd behind her.

“Let me come with you.” Tentatively, I stroke a finger down the back of her arm.

I have no idea what’s happening right now, but I’m so close to sneaking behind her defenses, to maybe getting her to fucking talk to me again, that I can’t just let her leave.

Not now.

There’s a frozen moment where she looks back over her shoulder at me, and we lock gazes. The same confusion I’m feeling is shining back at me from her hazel eyes.

She doesn’t invite me to follow, but she doesn’t tell me to fuck off either. And when she doesn’t close the car door in my face, I take it as all the invitation I’m going to get and slide in beside her.

“Syd—” I start as the driver pulls away from the curb, but she covers my mouth with a hand, cutting me off.

“Don’t talk to me. I’m still mad as hell at you.”

I can’t look away from her, chest rising and falling with each labored breath she takes. When she doesn’t take her hand away, I trace the length of her middle finger with the air between my lips. Not quite touching. My eyes never leaving her body.

When she doesn’t flinch or remove her hand, I take hold of her wrist, supporting the weight of her arm, and continue tracing each finger with my breath, only a millimeter of space between us.

My lashes drift closed as I shut out everything except the sound of the car, the smell of perfume drifting off her wrist, and the tiny hitch in her breath every time I venture near her palm.

If she won’t let me talk, I’ll find another way to use my mouth to tell her I still want her.

I’ve always wanted her. Even when I couldn’t and shouldn’t have.

Being on the other side of the world didn’t change how deeply she was embedded in my soul.

No one could replace her, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself they eventually would.

The truth is, by the time I realized why none of the girls I’d dated in high school seemed to fit, it was because Sydney was already firmly lodged in my heart, and there was no room for anyone else.

So I breathe the knowledge into her soft skin. The callus on the side of her thumb from her keyboard tickles my lips before I feel the familiar raised scar in the webbing between her pointer finger and thumb.

But she doesn’t pull away. A peek reveals her sitting back against the seat, head turned away to stare out the window at the passing cars, fingers twitching occasionally in my grip.

A strange kind of longing builds in my chest the longer we ride in silence, the longer she leaves her arm captive in mine.

Finally, we pull up at her apartment. Releasing her wrist, I climb out and follow her upstairs to her front door. Past the spot where I tripped her. Until she stops me in the doorway with a hand against my chest, her keys in the other.

“How did you know where I was?” she asks, pushing slightly.

“It’s Thursday. Karaoke night at Grady’s.” I shrug. “I wasn’t looking for you—it was habit.”

“You expect me to believe you weren’t looking for me when you showed up at my favorite bar on karaoke night? You don’t even like karaoke.”

“Maybe I felt like reliving my youth.”

“Bullshit.”

“What do you want me to say, Sydney? If I’m stalking you, you’ll be mad at me. If I’m dumb enough to say I didn’t expect you to be there, you’ll remind me of what a big dumb oaf I am.”

She rolls her eyes, still not moving out of the doorway. “An asshole, not an oaf.”

“Whatever. I didn’t come looking for you, but I wasn’t exactly surprised to see you there.

” I’d needed an escape from the winery after a long day of listening to my dad make plans for next year and the year after that.

Plans that apparently don’t involve him retiring but do involve me being there to do the backbreaking part of the work while he supervises.

But I don’t share because Sydney doesn’t get it. She works for herself, with the freedom to dictate who she works with and what she works on.

“So why are you stalking me, Nate? And don’t make up shit about a truce for Kel’s sake.” Finally pulling her finger away from where she lodged it into my ribs, she crosses her arms and waits, keys jingling impatiently. Head cocked to the side, her blond ponytail swings free, catching my attention.

Transfixed, I reach for it, wrapping the curled ends around my hand. “I was in a mood after work and needed to get away.”

“Was my brother busy?” We’re almost chest to chest again, her elbows brushing against me when she inhales.

I let her hair run between my fingers until it’s free, then graze the side of her jaw with my thumb. When she leans into my touch, I pinch her chin with my thumb and forefinger, pulling her face close to mine. “I didn’t want your brother.”

My heart picks up speed as her lips hover close to mine. When she sighs, all the tension leaves her body. “Fuck.” Arms dropping to her side, she leans forward, pressing her lips to mine. “This is such a bad idea, but I’m too tired to care.”

Before I can respond, she’s turned, silky hair swinging in my face as she unlocks the front door, and I follow her inside.

We’ve done this before. Many times since I’ve been back, but never like this. I’d show up, she’d let me finger her or eat her out, and occasionally, she’d return the favor. But there was never any talking. And absolutely no kissing. It was the one rule neither of us had tried to break.

Probably because we both knew crossing that line would mean we’d have to stop pretending we didn’t care. We could keep up the pretense that we’d moved on and this thing between us was nothing more than stress relief.

As soon as the door closes behind me, Sydney pauses, trapping me between it and her back. “What are we doing?”

Leaning forward, I trail kisses along her nape while I slide her leather jacket off to puddle on the floor.

“I’m not sure, but I know I want you. I’m exhausted from pretending you mean nothing to me.

That I don’t feel the electricity in the air whenever you’re within a mile of me, and I’m just waiting for the lightning to strike me down.

” I speak between kisses, and her shoulders tense. “Aren’t you tired of fighting?”

“I don’t know how to stop.” Her whispered confession echoes in the silent apartment.

Pulling back, I turn her to face me, cupping the sides of her face. “Be here in the moment with me. Focus on the here and now, not on what was.”

For all that she lets me touch her—demands that I do—she rarely touches me back. She’ll let me strip her bare, touch her, lick her pussy until she can’t hold back from her release, but she holds herself back from me.

If I had the willpower to hold back until she was willing to play ball, I would have done it months ago. But I can’t resist the morsels of attention she doles out. Like a sucker, I eat up every crumb and beg for more.

So when she slides a tentative hand beneath my shirt, her fingers warm against my skin, it’s all I can do not to moan out loud. I take it as an invitation and dive back in to take her mouth.

And even though I was being cautious, Sydney is the one who makes an unholy noise and plasters herself against me. Her grip on my back tightens, and she pulls me into the apartment, our lips never separating.

“Bed?” I suck in a breath as we maneuver through the living room.