Page 28 of Bordeaux Bombshell (Sunshine Cellars #3)

Sydney

I didn’t lose myself in the moment until after the second orgasm. When I walked into Nate’s bedroom—purposefully still naked—I had every intention of distracting him from the unforgivable accusation I’d made.

But somewhere between the second and third rounds, when he had his tongue deep inside my pussy and his finger grazing the rim of my ass, I forgot my mission in driving out here.

I forgot I came here to prove once and for all that the Nate we all loved wasn’t the Nate who came home from France.

That not only did he leave all of us, but he left her and his son in France—proving that holding my grudge all this time was justified.

He wasn’t trustworthy, so I could finally walk away and not feel guilty.

I needed him to tell me to my face that I was right. That there was no going back. So I could leave with the giant “what if?” that’s been banging in my brain for years finally answered.

That my actions tonight were justified and necessary instead of cruel.

I’ve been shoving that tiny voice in the back of my mind—the one that won’t shut up—into a shoebox, taping it shut and locking it inside the deepest recesses of my mind so I can stay the course. There’s no turning back now. He’ll never forgive me for this, just like I’ll never forgive him.

The voice keeps saying that I really am as childish as I know they all think I am.

Except he didn’t do the unforgivable. He did come back the same man who left. And the realization that maybe I was the problem the whole time has been buzzing in my mind ever since I walked away from the dinner table.

But as my third orgasm comes barreling at me and Nate rolls me beneath his arms, caging me in as he slows his hips to a deliberate pace, all of that threatens to leave my mind.

There’s only space left for the rightness of his body against mine. The safety of his strong chest that would never let anyone hurt me.

“All I’ve ever wanted was you,” Nate lies, his eyes soft before he dips down for a languid kiss. He’s not fucking me anymore. Instead, he’s rolling into me with a depth and sweetness that screams a giant L-word that I refuse to name.

Except I know deep down he’s wrong. Because if he really wanted me more than the Ridge, he wouldn’t have walked away. The truth is that I’ve known since I opened my eyes and found him gone, he’d never want me more than his legacy.

Instead of answering, I pull his bottom lip between my teeth, the prickles of his beard rough against my sensitive skin. I don’t want to lie, so I don’t use words. Humming and moaning as he works me higher and higher, without making promises I won’t keep.

“You’re so beautiful. I want to remember you like this forever, baby.” Hooking my leg over his shoulder, Nate changes pace, driving harder into me. My hands free, I brush along his cheek, catching my thumb on the corner of his mouth. He turns into my palm to nip at my fingers, never slowing.

My pussy is enjoying this a little too much, betraying me by dripping for him, the beginning flutters of another orgasm distracting me again. He fills me perfectly, reaching all the parts inside me that have missed him for all these years.

Head still turned away, Nate glances sideways to meet my gaze, as if he can tell my mind is in two places. “Stay with me. Stay right. Here. With. Me.” Each word is punctuated by a snap of his hips, dragging his cock against my inner walls and corralling the chaos in my mind.

“I’m here,” I gasp out, my impending release building higher and higher. My hands scrabble at his waist, pulling him deeper as I spiral upward. “Don’t stop.”

“Never.” Somehow, he plows even harder into me, adding a little dig against my clit with each thrust. The movement calls my orgasm closer and closer until it’s filling the spaces between my cells, like I’m going to explode in a puff of smoke when I finally come.

Still reading my mind, or maybe just my body, Nate locks into me, his shoulders rocking beneath my hands. “Say you’re close. God, I need you to come. Come for me, Syd.” He thrusts a few more times before gasping out, as if he’s also about to disintegrate. “Please, baby, please.”

He swells even bigger inside me, legs shaking and unable to hold back any longer. His orgasm triggers my own, and I cry out. Am I imploding or exploding? Inhaling or exhaling? I have no idea.

But as I settle back into a Sydney-shaped being, I realize I was horrifically wrong about something.

There’s no getting him out from under my skin.

He is my skin. He’s not merely embedded into my cells—he’s the atoms that form them, and there’s no escaping that Nate Ridgefield will never let me go unless I force him to.

And I have to.

I can’t live like this anymore. I was telling the truth when I said I was tired of being angry all the time. But I thought the answer was to fuck it out of my system one last time, when in truth, I have to amputate my heart and cauterize the wound.

If I can’t love the man who’s perfectly shaped to my soul, then I can’t love anyone.

I’ll come back for the wedding for Kel and Maggie’s sake, but I have to get away from here.

Guess he won’t be the only one who ends up running away.

All these thoughts race through my mind in the time it takes Nate to roll off me and pull me into him. My back presses into his chest, and I’m grateful he can’t see my face or the tears dripping off the end of my nose.

We lie like that for a few moments, Nate running his fingers through my hair as I breathe carefully through my nose to hide the sniffles while I count in my head.

Eventually, the feeling passes, and I thank god for the TikTok I saw that said you can only really feel an emotion for ninety-seconds before it passes.

It fades just in time as Nate releases me to roll off the bed. “Don’t run away.” He points at me with a happy grin, twisting the guilt in my stomach. “I’ll be right back.”

He returns with a warm washcloth, which I take from him to clean up. By the time I finish cleaning up and make a quick trip to the bathroom, he’s under the covers, holding the blanket open in invitation.

“Come on, Hellcat. We need to talk about it.” His words are tough, but the tone is light, like he’s suddenly ten years younger.

I slide under the flannel sheets, sweat popping up on my upper lip. Whether it’s from the guilt, the horizontal exercise, or the heat radiating off Nate, I don’t stop to analyze. Instead, I curl against his chest, tucking my hands under my chin and staring at the faint scar on his pec.

“So…Manon’s son. Why?”

I knew he would ask. I just don’t want to answer.

But I owe him at least this much.

I must take too long to speak, though, because he squeezes my hip and asks again. “What did Manon say to you yesterday? Why are you so dead set against her?”

It pours out of me in a rush. “She was goading me, okay? There was a quiz about how well you know the groom, and she started answering the questions about you instead of Kel. Like she was trying to prove she knew you best. And I was not the bigger person, so I also started answering about you too.”

Let him think all I am is jealous. Better that he thinks I’m upset over an ex-girlfriend than the fact that I lost my mind thinking he had not only abandoned the life we’d planned but had the audacity to go recreate it in France with her, only to walk away from it again like an arrogant prick.

And the whole time, I’d had nothing but a few lousy boyfriends and carpal tunnel from swiping left.

“I’m still not connecting the dots, babe. Why did you think I would abandon my own kid?” He squeezes my hip again. “I want to be pissed. I should be pissed that you could think that of me after everything.”

“Nate—”

He cuts me off with a kiss to the forehead. “Honestly? I’m so happy to have you actually talking to me that it’s really hard to be angry right now.”

He will be tomorrow.

I cut him off this time. “I kind of lost it when she shared about the time you guys dumped me in the barrel and I thought it was the wood chipper. Like you’d told her about what a—what a baby I was.”

He chuckles, shaking the bed. “Gabriel also ruined several casks of wine by climbing into them or dropping things in them. I’m pretty sure I told them both that story after he dropped a couple of frogs into a cask of cabernet when he was four.”

We’re quiet for a few minutes, and I can’t help wondering what he’s thinking about.

Is he thinking about our childhood? Or Gabriel’s?

My postcoital bliss is quickly being replaced by tension as his breathing slows and his grip on me slackens.

If I’m going to go through with my plan, tonight is the perfect time to get some answers.

As he exhales softly against my ear, the question I’ve kept a secret for all these years tumbles out of my mouth before I can bite it back. “How long did you wait to sleep with her after you left me?”

Nate grunts and pulls me tight against him with a sleepy “What?”

But now that I’ve finally asked the question that’s been eating away at my soul, I can’t bear to lie here. To be vulnerable and naked against his body. I push him away and sit up, sliding until my back hits the headboard, the sheets crunched in my fists in a vain attempt to protect myself.

Maybe I don’t want to know after all. Maybe I should just forgive and forget about him, like everyone’s encouraged me to. No. I can’t. I need to know.

“I saw you with her. How long did you wait to fuck Manon? Were you already fucking her when you came home and promised me everything?” I hate the waver in my voice and the tears gathering in the corners of my eyes. He doesn’t deserve them, not for this.

Nate scrambles to sit, facing me in a tangle of sheets and limbs. When his leg brushes against mine, I flinch, and the confusion on his face shatters into a pained wince. “What are you talking about, Sydney? I told you it wasn’t like—”

“Don’t lie to me. I saw you with her.”