Page 24 of Bordeaux Bombshell (Sunshine Cellars #3)
My cock is getting harder the more I think about it. Pressing my hand against the swelling in my jeans, I can’t help groaning at the relief. I might be two mental images away from coming in my pants like a fucking teenager, but I can’t bring myself to care.
The image of Sydney straddling me on her couch the other night springs into my mind. The way her body fit against mine, the warmth of her pussy enveloping me.
Pretty sure her kitty is the only part of her body that’s forgiven me.
Except I saw the way she looked at me after that kiss. For a second, she was twenty-three again and still in love with me.
And I couldn’t hide the fact that I’ve never stopped loving her.
The click of the back door closing is the only warning I get before voices announce my dad and Manon’s arrival. Sucking in a deep breath, I desperately do mental seven times tables to force my blood back to my brain and out of my pants.
“There you are,” she calls out, striding toward me, all smiles. “Your father was just showing me the chardonnay. I think the prognosis is not so dire. Maybe not so great, but not a tragédie.”
She stops a few feet from me, her eyes dropping to my crotch before coming back to rest on my face. A slow smile spreads across her lips.
For the first time in my life, I’m grateful for my dad interrupting me mid-boner. “You all done being interviewed? Did Theo leave already?”
“Yeah. He and Emma just left.” I jerk a thumb over my shoulder, shifting my feet as my dick finally settles down and frees up the rest of my brain cells.
Manon sways, and a whiff of her perfume floats past me despite the damp patches on the shoulders of her jacket.
“Ah, Theodore. He is delightful. So grumpy, he is almost French.” She laughs, looking over at my dad while she lays a hand on my shoulder.
My stomach twists at the overly flirtatious tone she’s using.
It’s the same one she’s been using since she got here. I can’t tell if she’s playing up her tone on purpose, or if she’s just forgotten that I know her well enough to see through the act.
I back up a few steps, giving myself some room, right as my dad’s phone dings with an incoming text.
“Nate, your mom is cooking dinner.” He looks up, his voice carrying across the empty room. “She’s expecting us all in a few minutes.”
He doesn’t wait for us to respond, merely turns and walks out, shutting the door behind him, leaving me alone with Manon.
It’s the first time I’ve been truly alone with her since she arrived.
I’ve been avoiding it, partly because I don’t want to deal with her attention, but mostly because I don’t want Sydney to get the wrong idea.
“Ma choucroute…” Manon’s hips swing as she once again closes the distance between us. “Will you show me all the places I’ve heard so much about?”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not your sauerkraut anymore, Manon.”
“You’re still very sour, no?” There’s a tilt to her head as she asks, one hand lifting to rest against my chest. “Maybe I can make you sweet? Just like old times?”
Sydney’s face flashes in my mind. There’s no way in hell I’m going to jeopardize the progress I’ve made with her for a roll in the hay for old times’ sake. Besides, Manon never held a candle to Sydney, and she knows it.
I step back, and Manon’s hand drops. “Flattered, but I’m not interested.”
“Are you finally together with your sweetheart? With your Sydney?” Irritation turns to disappointment in her expression, deep furrows lining her forehead when she pulls her eyebrows down.
Shoving my hands into my pockets, my shoulders hunching, I head for the back door. “Not quite, but I’m making progress. I’m not going to fuck it up this time.”
If I haven’t already.
Waiting for her to follow, I hold the door open and check my phone, hoping to see a message from the woman in question. Once again, I’m disappointed. As she passes me, Manon peeks over the edge.
“If you want her, you should tell her.”
We walk down the path to the cabins. The big house is dark when we pass by, the windows black and silent beneath the gray skies.
This afternoon’s rain shower left puddles on the ground.
Mentally, I note where they are and which ones are vital for me to come back and level out before we open for the weekend.
“I have. Several times.”
“Have you really? You told her, ‘Sydney, I’ve been in love with you for my whole life. I never stopped loving you—even when I was fucking other women, I wished they were you. I was balls deep in another woman’s pussy, yet I called out for you and did not care that it hurt their feelings’?”
She doesn’t disguise the bitterness in her tone, and I wince.
“Jesus, Manon. When you say it like that, you make me sound like a fucking asshole.”
Laughing, she stops and turns to me, again resting a hand on my arm. “But you are an asshole. A delightfully grumpy one—with a cock that knows how to do its job—but an asshole all the same.”
The backhanded compliment takes me by surprise, prompting a deep belly laugh that startles a flock of birds in a nearby tree.
They take off all at once with an ominous flap of wings that has Manon shrieking and cowering from the sound, which only makes me laugh harder.
After a second, she joins in, pointing out the birds arrowing through the valley.
We’re still laughing when I open the door to my parents’ house. But as soon as I step inside, the laughter dies on my lips.
“Look who I found outside,” Mom crows, bumping the girl beside her in the kitchen. “She was wandering around in the rain like a little lost lamb.” Mom turns her gaze to Sydney, who’s standing beside her, slicing vegetables.
Now that I look closer, I can see the damp strands of hair sticking to the back of Sydney’s neck, her signature ponytail limp and scraggly. A familiar leather jacket and purse hang on the wall to my right, on the hook I usually use.
“Hello, Nate.”
She’s standing in my mother’s kitchen, smiling and greeting me politely. With a very large knife in her hand.
I am seriously fucked.