Page 46 of Love Among Vines

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

JADE

When Rett came upstairs with a bottle of wine, cooking was already underway.

Ground beef and onions were sizzling in a frying pan.

Minced garlic was waiting on a cutting board.

And Jade stood in the midst of it all, naked except for the apron she had borrowed from Rett.

Well, and the pair of four-inch stilettos she had snuck into her purse.

He stopped in his tracks.

“Good evening,” she said smoothly before turning around to separate the beef.

In a second, he was behind her. His hands slid around her hips.

She turned around and brandished the spatula. “Not yet,” she said firmly.

“What? Why?” His hands hadn’t moved.

“Remember the evening of torture you had in store for me before you’d finally consent to touching my body?”

“I don’t think a thoughtful date and careful wooing count as torture.”

“It. Was. Torture.” She punctuated each word with a poke in his chest. “And now it’s your turn to wait. Go make your ice cream.”

He frowned at her but reluctantly withdrew his hands. “For the record, I do not approve.”

“Remind me to play the world’s smallest violin for you.” She turned back to her beef. Ha. It served him right.

There was something so freeing about moving around the kitchen, fall air blowing in from the sliding door she had cracked open.

Rett’s long glances as he whisked eggs and carefully measured sugar.

The scrape of fabric against her bare nipples.

As long as she managed to not burn them on the frying pan, the evening was looking good.

Rett baked like a scientist. She half-expected him to pull out some beakers and goggles. He crouched down at eye level to measure liquids, carefully spooned and leveled his dry ingredients.

Jade, on the other hand, measured with her heart. How much of a difference could there be between four and six cloves of garlic?

“Excuse me,” she said, brushing past him to open the freezer door. With heels on, she was only a couple of inches shorter than him. When she retrieved a bag of frozen vegetables, he grabbed her hand and pulled her roughly to him, then pressed her against the refrigerator.

The frigid stainless steel pressing into her spine elicited a shiver. He did not relent, opting instead to lean in and kiss her, trapping her against the fridge with his hips. Her lips parted, and he plundered her mouth with a fury.

Heat welled deep inside her, and she couldn’t stop herself from reaching for him. The bag of vegetables fell to the floor. Screw dinner.

His hands were back too, palms skating along the curve of her ass and coming up to skim the side of her breast. A thumb rolled over her nipple and was nearly enough to bring her to her knees.

Her desire to make him suffer was quickly being outstripped by her desire to let the shepherd’s pie go to hell and have her way with him right there against the refrigerator.

“Sorry,” he said, breaking away and releasing her. “Just needed to get the heavy cream.”

“Did you find it behind my tonsils?” Even though he had moved away, her hands were curled into claws and the rest of her body was on high alert.

“No.” He opened the fridge door and peered inside. “There it is.”

He went back to measuring like nothing had happened. The audacity .

She took a beat, then bent down to retrieve the vegetables. Thankfully the bag hadn’t exploded. Although chasing down all the bits of carrots and peas while on her knees would have made a nice show for Rett, she really was starting to get hungry.

She shot a glance at him out of the corner of her eye as she dumped the vegetables into the skillet. His eyes were on her, and he was smirking. She made steady eye contact and tugged the apron to the middle so that her breasts were significantly more exposed.

His eyes darkened. She triumphantly went back to stirring the contents of the skillet. That would teach him to try to seduce her. She was in charge tonight, damn it. No matter what her vagina was trying to tell her.

“Excuse me,” Rett echoed. “Just need to get something out of this cabinet.”

In a second, he had come to a knee and planted himself between her legs. His hands guided her knees apart as she stood at the stove.

A retort was on her tongue. But then he touched her. First with his fingers, gently trailing between her folds. Softly teasing, gently caressing.

Her toes curled in her stilettos. The spatula clattered into the spoon rest. She was completely at his mercy.

When his fingers were replaced by a tongue, her knees buckled. She barely had time to move the pan off the burner before the first orgasm rocked her from head to toe. When she could breathe again, she pulled his face toward her until he was looking at her.

Those big green eyes, like a glimpse into a meadow she desperately wanted to paint. Something ancient and powerful unfurled deep within her like a coiled snake.

She dragged him over to the couch and threw him back onto the pillows. Slowly, deliberately, she released the tie on the apron until it fell to the floor.

His eyes raked over her body, and he reached for her. She climbed over his muscular thighs and straddled his hips. She tipped his chin up so he had to look at her.

Eternity shone back at her through those eyes. In an instant, she could see their future. A beautiful fall wedding at the vineyard. Penny chasing a gaggle of giggling dark-haired children across the front lawn.

Her own studio on the village green next door to Margie’s Café.

Weekly dinner with Cindy and Tom. Morning runs and steamy afternoons with Rett.

Gray-haired and knobble-knuckled, rocking together on the back porch overlooking the lake.

It would be beautiful. She could feel it in her bones.

Maybe she could pretend that this was all within her grasp. Just for tonight.

He pulled her roughly toward him until her lips banged against his, rough and desperate.

Her hands glided to his shirt collar, then his buttons. One by one they slipped away, revealing a hint of chest hair and his chiseled physique. Her hands traced his chest, determined to memorize every curve, every follicle.

No matter what happened between them, she would remember this for the rest of her life.

His shirt fell to his side, and her mouth moved to his neck. She ground against him, and his hands came around to her back. They caressed her bare skin, drawing a full-body shiver from deep within her.

They pulled back to look at each other for a moment. His eyes spoke volumes. Like, a full set of encyclopedias. But what were they saying? He was looking at her in a way he never had. A way that no one ever had.

Oh, hell. She was so screwed.

Determined to ignore the danger that was looking more and more inevitable, she closed her eyes and dove back in, more forceful this time. Their breaths met each other between parted lips. She ripped his belt off and his hips lifted. Pants hit the floor.

He moved to get up, but she pushed him back onto the couch.

His boxers went next, sliding over his knees to join the jeans around his ankles.

With her eyes on him, she lifted her pelvis and teased herself over him, running his head over her entrance.

Her hand slipped between them and closed over him.

After a couple of long strokes, she guided him to her and lowered herself down.

A deep sigh burst forth from Rett’s lips. She raised and lowered experimentally, marveling at how he filled her every emptiness. Her muscles twitched and expanded to accommodate him.

Slowly, she rocked.

His hands fell limply to his sides. She shifted forward, and he kissed her breasts tenderly.

Her head arched back as her body screamed with sensation. She slid her knees closer together and hovered again, raising and lowering, thighs burning with the effort.

His hands cupped her, supported her as she moved—slow at first, then faster.

She glided up and down, tension radiating inside her. He leaned forward to meet her, pressing his lips against her breastbone.

They were both getting close. His fingertips pressed into her, his breath in ragged gasps.

Their eyes locked again. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. They watched each other experience every sensation. Every thrust. Pleasure and desperation were in his eyes.

Finally, they exploded together like a cork releasing from a bottle. Rett fell back onto the couch and pulled her down with him.

Still joined, she rested on his chest. She fought to catch her breath as he twitched inside her.

She stayed there, in a cocoon of heat and arms, until their heart rates dropped. He stroked her hair and kissed her behind the ear. Goose bumps sprouted on her skin.

She turned to him, memorizing every inch of his face—the strong jaw beneath a trimmed beard, the vibrant green eyes, the slope of his nose and strength of his eyebrows.

She recognized this feeling. Love. It had been conspicuously absent from her life since Nate had shattered her heart into a thousand pieces. But here it was, all but sewn to her chest.

Fuck . Despite all her careful preparation, she was so screwed. Danger pulsated in the half-light around them. She might as well have been a freight train on an unstoppable path to heartbreak. There was no turning back. The brake lines had been cut. A head-on collision was coming.

Just as despair was setting in, lightning bolts shot up and down her arms and legs.

She stared at them, half-expecting to see scorch marks.

What the hell was happening? Her body hummed like she was made out of a trillion pieces of star dust. Something inside her awakened, soared.

She itched for her paint set, but she wasn’t about to interrupt what could be her last date with Rett.

Especially if she accidentally blurted something out and ruined everything.

Seriously, muse? It chose now to come back, when she was on the brink of heartache again? Was it really back, or was it just the ghost of the sensation reminding her of everything she had lost?

“Holy fucking shit.” Her head popped up, and in a second she had leapt off him.

“What?” His sleepy joy had been replaced with borderline panic.

“You didn’t wear a condom.” She stared down at herself, half-expecting to see a baby bump sprouting.

That had always been a hard boundary for her. She hadn’t even allowed Nate through the pearly gates without a raincoat.

“Oh, shit. I didn’t even think—I’m sorry. Fuck. But you’re on birth control?”

“Sure, I have an IUD, but there is no way I’m leaving the next twenty years of my future up to one not completely foolproof birth control method. Put some clothes on. We’re going back to Target.”

Rett grabbed her arm. “Are you sure? The odds of a successful pregnancy have to be incredibly low.”

“Are you kidding me? Look at you. Your sperm probably have drill bits for heads and the power to manifest an egg straight out of my ovaries.”

“I just meant I know emergency contraception can be hard on your body. You know if something happened, I would always take care of you. And the baby.”

His hand drifted to her abdomen.

“Are you insane? You want to try to figure out co-parenting when we live five hours away from each other? I’m sorry,” she said before he could say anything. “But if we leave this up to chance, I will fixate on it. I’ve never let anyone do that. Ever.”

“Not even the asshole?”

She shook her head.

His eyes were soft again, and he reached for her. She pulled back. Why was he willing to tie himself to her for the next two decades?

She had always been a bit of a free spirit, as evidenced by her current financial situation.

But contraception was never something she had taken lightly.

So why had she just thrown caution to the wind?

At no point had the idea even occurred to her.

She could only focus on the warmth of his breath on her cheek, the sensation of him inside her.

Her heart stuttered in her chest. She was so stupid. Falling in love with some random guy in the Finger Lakes. What was she thinking?

Her gaze fell back on him. But the problem was, he wasn’t just some guy.

He was kind, careful, whip-smart. So handsome that it almost hurt to look at him.

And they had less than a week left together.

Unless he wanted her to stay too. Her mom’s voice echoed in her mind.

Tomorrow was never guaranteed. She needed to woman up and talk to him about it.

After the great birth control crisis was resolved.

He cleared his throat and started buttoning his shirt. “I’m sorry for putting you at risk,” he said softly. “Let’s go.”