Wine, Tarts & Sex

Thirty

Jake’s aunt’s place on Deer Lake was what would have been called a cottage at the turn of the century. The large, two-story Victorian house was poised on the heights overlooking the lake, the grass newly mowed, the flower gardens immaculate, the siding freshly painted in a typical turn-of-the-century color: pale blue with white trim.

“Someone’s definitely paying to keep this place maintained, ” Liv murmured as she stepped out of Jake’s car. “It’s beautiful.”

“Thanks. It looks the same as ever,” he said with a noticeable satisfaction. “I spent some happy summers here as a kid. Come on in, we’ll give Aiko a call and tell her how good everything’s looking.” He nodded at Matt, who was running toward the lake, Janie and Roman in hot pursuit. “I know someone who’s gonna like it here.”

“You think?” Janie had complained they’d had to literally drag Matt out of the water whenever they wanted to come back from the beach.

“I’m not a betting man, but I’d bet on that one. Let’s get the place open before Chris and Amy get here. We’ll find a place for that painting.” Chris and Amy were bringing the Hockney painting and Janie’s considerable luggage in the back of their pickup truck.

After unearthing the key from under some gingerbread trim on the back porch, Jake opened the door and walked in. The kitchen was huge, and with the exception of new appliances, it appeared largely untouched since the house had been built. A large wooden table, used as a work surface from the evidence of hard wear apparent on its maple top, held center stage. Surrounded by chairs, it must have served for informal dining as well.

“I love old houses,” Liv murmured, thinking of all the people who must have gathered around that table over the years. “I bought my farm largely because of the house. Think of the memories.”

“Including mine,” Jake agreeably said. “I like that nothing ’s changed. I like that it’s been in the same family all these years. My uncle’s grandfather built it in 1904. The date’s penciled on a closet wall upstairs.” He held out his hand. “Come. I’ll give you the grand tour.”

“A workman left his signature on a timber in my barn, too,” Liv said, following Jake into the dining room. “Every time I see it I feel connected to the history of my place. Wow-is that a real Remington sculpture?”

“I don’t know-maybe-actually, I think it is.”

Apparently the original owner had a couple of nickels to rub together, Liv decided. Not that a lake cottage of this size didn’t give one a clue.

They moved through a dining room with a built-in buffet and sideboard that were fashionable at the turn of the century and entered an enormous bow-shaped room that conformed to the curvature of the lakeshore. A wall of windows offered glorious, panoramic views of the lake.

“How lovely,” Liv said, with a modicum of awe. The cabin she’d spent summers in as a child would have fit in this room. Not to mention the furniture looked like something out of an old Country Life magazine: soft sofas and easy chairs covered in subtlely faded chintz that probably was made to look that way from the beginning; fringed footstools; embroidered dog pillows here and there. In other words, posh.

“The upstairs isn’t so decorated,” Jake said, recognizing the note of wonder in her voice. “It’s more summer camp stuff.”

He took her upstairs to see the bedrooms on the second floor.

“Summer camp it might be,” Liv noted, as they returned to the ground floor. “But it’s definitely not Girl Scout camp on Fenske Lake.” The decor reminded her more of a Martha Stewart summer camp: the kind with painted metal beds, white wainscoting, linen curtains, homespun bedspreads, woven rugs, and wicker furniture, all color-coordinated with the paint on the walls. “Everything’s so perfect. It looks as though it’s hardly been used.”

“Actually, it has been. But my aunt had all the bed linens and curtains redone ten years ago or so, and lately, there haven’t been many guests.”

“If I have to be away from my vines,” Liv said with an approving survey of her surroundings, “I certainly can’t complain about the accommodations.”

“Hopefully, this won’t be a lengthy stay. Leo should be calling soon.” Jake shrugged. “He can decide to settle or not, and I’m guessing he’ll settle.”

“I don’t know if I’m that optimistic. Still, Roman knows the man better than we, and he seems to think Leo will panic.”

“Fucking a. Wouldn’t you?”

“I guess. So what-two, three days?”

“Sounds about right. Which doesn’t give us much time for a vacation,” he said with a grin.

“I hope your idea of a vacation and mine are the same,” she murmured, smiling back.

“I guarantee they are.”

“Such assurance.” But her voice was sportive rather than displeased.

“Let’s just say, I’ve gotten to know you. And since I braved armed desperadoes to be with you,” he said, grinning, “I’m figuring we might as well have a good time. Sit down, relax; I’ll go get us some food. Then no one has to go anywhere for however long.”

“So we could, like, stay in bed and we wouldn’t starve.”

“You read my mind, babe. Let me call my aunt, and then I’ll hit the road.”

“I’ll come with you. There’s no way I can relax anyway-what with wiseguys on the prowl and the enticing prospect of lurid sex with you revving up my psyche.”

Jake looked up from dialing the phone, one dark brow cocked. “Lurid?”

She grinned. “I meant it in the very nicest way.”

Jake gave her one of those amused, whatever-you-say-babe looks, then said, “Hey, Aiko, guess where I am?”

After Jake’s aunt in Seattle was thanked for her hospitality, Jake made a quick call to Eduardo. He didn’t explain why he needed him to come to Minneapolis; he only said, “Something’s come up. I need help. Bring out the usual crew tomorrow.” And he hung up.

Apparently the two men weren’t the chatty type, or maybe the usual crew was always held in readiness for such eventualities, Liv decided. But any further speculation had to wait, for the moment Jake put down the phone, he said briskly, “Let’s go tell everyone we’re going for supplies.”

The rest of the party had settled in down by the lake. They were given a heads-up on the run to the grocery store and offered their pick of bedrooms, save for the one at the head of the stairs that had been Jake’s as a child. “It shouldn’t take us long at the store,” he finished.

“Tet me tandy,” Matt shouted from where he was digging a hole in the sand. “An ice ceam!”

“Just a little,” Janie noted. “Any kind. He doesn’t care. And maybe a bottle of champagne. You know”-Janie smiled-“to celebrate Leo’s denouement.”

By the time Janie was finished adding to her list of necessities, Jake was nodding his head and thinking, If I can remember it all. But he only smiled and said, “We’ll be back soon,” waved, and he and Liv walked away.

“I really like that bedroom of yours-the porch, all those windows, the view.” Liv was lying back in the car seat, her bare feet up on the dash, the breeze from the open window ruffling her hair, bliss inundating her senses.

“That was my room as a kid. What can I say-it brings back fond memories.”

How darling. How sweet. How perfectly adorable, she thought, thoroughly awash in Pollyanna feelings when she should be uptight about wiseguys and her languishing vineyards. Instead of succumbing completely to Jake’s intrinsic darlingness, she should be worried about losing her grape crop-not drifting in some I’m-in-heaven parallel universe. “I’ll bet you slept on that bedroom porch when it was hot,” she murmured, imagining the darling boy-or maybe the even more darling teenage heartthrob-sleeping there on a hot summer night.

“Yeah. Without air you had to.”

His matter-of-fact response was transposed by her euphoric mind-set into a tantalizingly macho reply. Blunt, pithy, incisive, all male. A tiny quiver of desire warmed her senses at the thought of the coming night. “Could we sleep on the porch tonight?”

He grinned. “If you promise not to scream.”

She gave him a sulky look. “Be reasonable.”

“Seriously. Sound travels across the lake-especially at night. I don’t want the cops coming to check on us.”

Such brusque manliness only stirred her desires. Like, me Tarzan, you Jane. Like she was getting weak with longing just thinking about his hard-muscled virility and amazing stamina. Not that it would do to concede to such yearnings when they were only minutes away from the grocery store. “Tell me,” she said on a small, suffocated breath. “How did an aunt from Seattle happen to settle at Deer Lake?”

He shot her a look, her voice patently restive.

“I was just wondering,” she said lamely, unable to think of a more clever response when she was semifrenzied. “I mean, really, I want to know,” she managed to say with a slightly more decisive inflection.

“Aiko and my uncle were married while he was an exchange student in Japan,” Jake offered, careful to speak in a mild tone of voice. If she wanted what he thought she wanted-from a practical point of view-he’d rather wait until after shopping. “When they returned to Minneapolis, she opened the first Japanese restaurant in the city. A few years later, my uncle Joe had a job offer in Seattle. They moved, Aiko opened a restaurant there, my mom came over on a visitor’s visa, met my dad, and that’s pretty much it. You’re from around here, right?” Talk to me, babe, he thought. I’m too tall to even think about fucking in this small car.

Be mature. Act like an adult, Liv cautioned herself. Sex right now was out of the question anyway. Not that her body was completely willing to acquiesce, but she tamped down her lust with effort and gave Jake the short version of her life. She described her family: her mom and dad who’d retired to a lake nearby, her sister, Lila, and husband, Larry, who owned a dairy farm nearby, and their two kids who would be three and four next year. “So everyone’s close. And we all get along, which is nice. I can’t remember-do you have siblings?”

He had always been super easy to talk to. He was a good listener who asked pertinent but not overly inquisitive questions, and before too long, Liv had relaxed once again against the pricey leather seat. Jake should be a therapist, she thought; their conversation was soothing, tranquilizing, evoking warm, cozy feelings apropos family and childhood memories. It was pleasant and odd at the same time, because she’d never before felt like bringing a guy she was sleeping with home to meet her family, and now…

Wonder of wonders-Jake Chambers was a possible.

Not that she was about to mention her unusual feelings.

No point in scaring him off.

Especially before they slept on the porch.

Although it didn’t help her strength of purpose that their grocery shopping turned out to be one of those déjà vu experiences-like they’d done it a thousand times before. Nor did it help her tenuous self-control when he’d lean over from time to time and kiss her. He didn’t even care if people were looking. The first time he did it in the produce aisle, she’d panicked, her eyes flaring wide, and he’d only said, “Relax. No one knows us.”

By the time they reached the checkout counters, it was only a question of where they could have sex-not when. “Stand in front of me,” he whispered. “Or I’ll embarrass myself.”

“You shouldn’t have kissed me so much,” she whispered back. “I’m about to lose it.”

“Think of something gross. We’ll be out of here in ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes!” she shrieked, or shrieked as much as one could when they were whispering.

Shutting his eyes, he took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and said, terse and low, “Help me unload this cart, and then we’ll test out that backseat.”

“We can’t!” she whispered frantically enough that the checkout girl looked up and gave them a slow once-over.

“Damn right we can,” Jake muttered, ignoring the checkout girl, currently in the mood to ignore the world at large. For a fraction of a second he debated saying, I’ll be back for the cart, and dragging Liv out to the car. But then all his years of training kicked in, and he decided the ice cream and Popsicles would melt into a puddle before he returned.

Or maybe Liv’s petrified expression stopped him.

Shoving his hand into the cart, he grabbed the closest item, slapped it on the conveyer belt, and hastily unloaded the groceries.

A short time later, as they walked from the store, Jake tossed the car keys to Liv. “I’ll throw these groceries in the trunk. Turn the air on full blast.”

Liv made a moue. “We probably should wait.”

“Too late, babe. Come on,” he said with a grin, “I’ll make it worth your while.”

“There’re people everywhere.” His make-it-worth-your-while phrase was doing a number on her reservations, however.

“No one can see, baby. The windows are tinted.” Reservations weren’t on his radar with his libido in high gear. “Turn on the air, make yourself comfortable in the backseat, and I’ll see you in five.”

He always was so assured and on mission, although she couldn’t discount her own explosive passions. She could have said no with more conviction. She could have seriously protested. As if-when he was mere feet away and radiating sexual charisma big time. He was the kind of man for whom the phrase, Lead us not into temptation, had been coined.

She smiled faintly.

No point in dwelling on the downside, when the upside was oh so close.

And oh so gratifying.

Jake had his own fleeting moment of indecision as he was stacking the bags in the trunk, knowing what the temperature would be in a car trunk parked on an asphalt lot at midday. But fleeting was the operative word.

Banging the trunk shut, he moved around the car, opened the back door, and stood transfixed. “Whoa,” he breathed, arrested by the voluptuous image of sexual availability.

“Is something wrong?” Please don’t say you’ve changed your mind now, Liv thought, every amorous nerve in her body on full alert and waiting.

“No. You just look good enough to eat, although,” he muttered with a flicker of his brows, “this small backseat isn’t going to offer any smorgasbord opportunities.” Liv was half-leaning against the opposite door, nude from the waist down and-if her heated gaze was any indication- anxious.

“I don’t care-really.” A small breathy sound.

He smiled as he maneuvered his way into the backseat. “Lucky I know what you do care about.”

She gave him a quick, chin-up, liberated-woman look. “I’m not going to apologize.”

“Nor should you, baby. We’re both in the same boat,” he murmured, trying to find some room for his long legs. “Actually, this backseat is smaller than a boat. But, hey, the mood I’m in, I could fuck you in the backseat of a MINI Cooper.”

Just to make sure he wouldn’t break an arm later trying to dig a condom from his jeans pocket, he took one out in advance. “My apologies for destroying the romance, but in light of the cramped quarters, I’m puttin’ this on first.”

“If I was looking for romance, it might matter. However, ” Liv said with a grin, “I’m way past that road sign.”

He looked up, his task accomplished. “So, is Candy Land just around the corner?”

“Yup and I’m traveling fast.”

“That’s what I like about you; I hardly have to do a thing.”

Just let me look at you, she felt like saying. He was the sexiest man alive. “It works for me,” she said instead, smiling faintly.

“Let’s see how well it works,” he murmured, slipping his hands under her knees, pulling her downward, and climbing between her legs. “If I begin to crush you, punch me, and I’ll stop.”

“Sure I will.”

“I mean it,” he said, kicking the door accidentally, cursing, finally adjusting his hips so his cock was where it had to be and beginning to ease forward.

“Whatever you say-oh God… oh God-yesssss…”

No one spoke after that, unless heavy breathing and euphoric utterances counted. The windows steamed up, the groceries in the trunk melted, a young couple nudged each other when they walked by and smiled knowingly.

Not that the outside world intruded into the backseat of the silver gray BMW. Nor did reflections or considerations of any kind intervene in the purely physical pleasure consuming the attention of the two people in the car.

Since Liv was into multiple orgasms, Jake played the gentleman, more inclined than ever to be polite now that she’d welcomed him back into her life. Before long, however, even with air-conditioning, they were both slick with sweat or, in Jake’s case, dripping with sweat.

After Liv had come twice, he figured he’d been well-mannered long enough. “This is it, babe. My legs are going numb,” he muttered. “One last time.”

It was a very nice welcome home, despite the cramped quarters and sauna temperatures. It was the nicest orgasmic welcome he’d ever received.

He kissed her afterward, a serious, meaningful kiss. The kind of kiss he’d never bestowed on a woman before. Not that he noticed or cared. Or maybe it just felt so damned good, he was willing to overlook ominous possibilities like commitment for the first time in his life.

Liv understood their kiss was something out of the ordinary, too. It made her seriously consider the future when she’d always been a live-for-today kind of person. When she’d never seriously thought about settling down. But mostly, it made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside-maybe even in love.

Are you crazy? the little voice inside her head screamed.

Okay, okay, maybe she could say-just a little bit in love.

How about that?

Her psyche calmed down to match her overall really serene mood after three orgasms, and the world righted itself on its axis.

Jake did say on the way home, though, his expression and voice sober and wholly sincere, “I haven’t felt this good ever.”

“Me, too. Nice, hey?” she said with the unruffled calm of someone who had satisfactorily reconciled reality and fantasy.

It was even nicer that night on the porch outside his bedroom with the fireflies flitting by the screens and the moon big and silver in the sky and the night air gently wafting in the windows. It was magical in every way, their lovemaking leisured, their kisses sweeter, a sense of having come together beyond the seething drama of orgasmic release conjuring up altogether new emotions.

Perhaps even perilous emotions.

Or maybe just inexplicable ones for two people traveling into the unknown.