Wine, Tarts & Sex

Five

In the course of the next week, both Jake and Liv were busy enough to relegate heated memories to the discard bin.

But on Monday when Liv was making her usual deliveries, she found herself experiencing a heightened disquiet on a couple levels as she turned into the alley behind Chaz’s restaurant.

First, sales weren’t her strong suit, and whenever she had to pitch her wines, she was nervous. While Jake Chambers hadn’t refused the bottles Chaz had ordered last week, she wasn’t sure he would remain a customer. There were lots of wines out there and even more wine merchants. He didn’t have to buy hers.

Secondly, she had to admit, his image had popped into her thoughts once or twice in the course of the week. He had killer sex appeal, there was no denying it. So it would be a matter of keeping her cool and remembering this was a business call. And also remembering that men like Jake Chambers weren’t on her wish list.

When she walked through the door into the kitchen, she saw him in the back, seated at Louie’s desk, a phone to his ear.

He swung around at the sound of the door opening, lifted one hand, fingers splayed, indicating five minutes, and then pointed at a table and chairs near the doorway into the dining room.

Fucking a she looks good, he thought, wondering if she always made her deliveries in sexy dresses and spiky heels. But hey, it was a great sales tool. It was working for him; after a dutiful week of celibacy, it was really working. Cutting his conversation short, he told his supplier he’d get back to him.

“Sorry,” he said, walking toward Liv a moment later. He jerked his thumb back toward the desk. “I’ve been on the phone or the computer nonstop ordering shit. I repeat,” he said with a smile, sitting down on the other side of the small table, “delivery people look a helluva lot better out here.”

She smiled. “Thanks. I’m meeting friends for drinks. How are things going? Are you making progress?”

“Yes and no,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Things never go smoothly on all counts. I’m used to it.”

Trying to ignore the impressive width of his shoulders on display in his lounging pose, she nodded toward the two cases of her wine stacked under the counter. “I thought I’d stop by and check, but I’m guessing you’re not interested in any more of my wine.”

Oh, Christ-he hadn’t moved them very far. “I’ve just been too busy to get back to you. Actually, I am interested.” In her, not her wines, particularly in that sunflower-yellow dress with those little ties on her shoulders that looked like they’d open real easily. “Why don’t I double Chaz’s order.” How could it hurt to have sex with another good-looking blonde? In this case, a blonde with big, lush breasts that he could reach out and touch if he was real stupid, he thought, flexing his fingers against the uncool impulse.

“You don’t have to be nice just to be nice.” He obviously was, but for reasons that didn’t bear close scrutiny, she found herself willing to overlook his diplomatic reply.

“No, really, it was an oversight. I’ve been busy as hell.” He smiled. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a lame-ass salesman?”

“I know. Fortunately, I don’t have to actually make a living doing this.” She pushed her chair back, realizing she’d better leave before those hard muscles under his T-shirt got to her any more than they already had.

“Why don’t I try your wines as long as you’re here,” he quickly suggested, his weeklong celibacy steamrolling over saner counsel. “You could give me some background on your operation.”

She glanced at her watch, lied to herself that this was strictly business, and said, “Sure, why not. I have time.”

The word time hung in the air for a flashing moment while two minds sent up word balloons rife with possibility and/or knotty complications.

But man of action that he was or impelled by a libido that decided it would have no more of this ignominious abstinence, Jake quickly came to his feet and held out his hand. “Let’s sit in the dining room. The view is better.”

His hand was large and strong, Liv thought when she shouldn’t. When, if this was just about a wine order, she wouldn’t have even noticed. As she rose and placed her fingers on his palm, as his hand closed over hers, even had she been concentrating with a laser-sharp focus on business, the seismic tremors that shook her would have been enough to blow any mission statement to kingdom come.

Freaked out, she snatched her hand away. “I’ll get the wine,” she said, enunciating with special care to mitigate her breathiness. “Why don’t you find some glasses and a corkscrew.” Seriously, she didn’t want to be aware of his closeness, his formidable size, his heated gaze. For sure, she didn’t want to yield to her tumultuous desires. Not with a man like Jake, who could compete in the Guinness book of one-night stands. Not that she was necessarily against casual sex. She was just against casual sex with Jake Chambers, celebrity.

Quickly pulling out a bottle of her red and one of white from the cartons, she deliberately preceded him into the dining room. Setting the bottles on a table near the windows, she sat down and gave herself a good talking to.

“You’re right, the view is great,” she said in a normal tone of voice as he approached a few moments later. She was feeling better, more in control. She wasn’t fifteen. She could manage him.

“I’ve had my eye on this place for a while. I’m glad the timing was right for Chaz.” Setting four glasses down, he opened the red wine first with a deftness that bespoke considerable experience. Pouring them each a glass, he sat down across from her and lifted his glass in salute. “To Liv Bell Wines.”

“I confess to a certain prejudice. I hope you like it.”

After a smell, a swirl, a taste, he said, polite as hell, “It’s excellent. My compliments. Tell me about your vineyard.” If she talked, he didn’t have to, particularly when it came to discussing her wine. While it was passable-not that he had expected more from the cold Midwest-he wouldn’t have been able to offer praise with any conviction.

She told him a little of how she’d decided to get into the business, a brief, edited account short on the passions that motivated her. She talked about her various grape varieties, her small winery, several of the people who had influenced her decision to start a vineyard. He was surprised to discover she had a chemistry degree-so much for the blonde bimbo designation-and more surprised to hear that she’d worked in several of the really fine boutique vineyards in France. Too fucking bad she had chosen Minnesota to practice her craft.

“I know Michel Chapoutier and Olivier Bernard, too. Nice places to learn your trade.”

“And the weather is better than here.”

So she knew and still had gone astray. Not that he said a word. “Let’s try the white,” he said instead.

“It’s made from one of our locally hybridized grapes. It’s a blend of an ice wine and a table wine and not bad, if I do say so myself.”

After tasting it, he offered his compliments and asked her some more questions about her vineyard.

In turn she asked him about what had prompted him to become a chef, their conversation a variation on the what-sign -are-you getting-acquainted discussions. His account was even more abbreviated than hers; Cornell, the Culinary Institute, and apprenticeships in some of the better restaurants on the planet.

“You’ve seen a lot of the world.”

“I expect you have, too.”

“More than enough, thank you. I’m in my Faustian stage now, and I’m pretty damned content.”

“I guess I’m on that same search myself.” He lifted his glass. “To fulfillment.”

She lifted her glass and smiled. “Amen.”

She was interested, he could tell. He was a master at recognizing willingness in a female. Not that she was flirtatious as was normally the case with him. But Liv Bell didn’t have to press; not when she looked like she did. He expected she was more familiar with sitting back and waiting.

It turned out he was wrong.

Abruptly rising from her chair a few moments later, she said in a voice that was either crisp or taut or some equivocal register in between, “Thanks for the conversation. But my friends are waiting. I’d better go.”

“Don’t go.”

She opened her mouth to say, Why, but didn’t.

“Forgive my bluntness,” he said, responding to the flush on her cheeks, coming to his feet with deliberate slowness in order not to frighten her off. “It’s just that you’ve been on my mind.” To her flaring gaze, he added, “Honestly,” not realizing the truth of his statement until he spoke.

“I’d rather not be on your mind.” She half-lifted her hand. “No offense, but I’ve deliberately left that glitzy world behind.”

“Me, too.”

Her gaze narrowed as though assessing his authenticity.

He smiled. “Word of honor.”

He looked so artless for a moment, she couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, right.”

“No shit. I have. Or I’m trying. You reach that stage-” He shrugged.

“When you’ve seen and heard it all.”

“Exactly. In fact, I was going to work on being a monk for a while.” He smiled. “But then you came along.”

“I wouldn’t want to lure you from the path of righteousness. ” Even as she spoke, she was struggling with the vice versa part of that equation.

“Please, lure away. You intrigue the hell out of me.”

He was way too sexy and too beautiful, and she seriously hesitated for a moment. “Thanks, but no thanks,” she finally said, tamping down her willful carnal urges. “I just don’t see an upside. And my friends are waiting,” she added, perhaps to bolster her self-control more than for any other reason. “I’ll deliver your order next week.” Swinging around on her spiky heels, she walked away.

“I’ll make you dinner afterward.”

The soft, lush intonation drifted after her. She knew what afterward meant. She knew what before afterward entailed. She should keep walking. She should go through that door, get in her truck, and drive away. “What would you make?” she asked, turning back.

“Anything you want.” His smile was benevolent. “Anything at all.”

Oh my God! She could feel his sexy promise of anything pulse through her vagina, whisper over her nipples, drift across the heated surface of her skin, spike through her brain. “I’m really tempted,” she said on a small, caught breath. “I’ve never had a personal chef,” she murmured, or any of the other pleasures her brain was suddenly conjuring up just looking at God’s gift to women standing no more than six feet away.

“There’s always a first time for everything,” he said softly.

He obviously wasn’t talking about food. Nor was she actually thinking about food.

“If it helps,” he added, moving toward her slowly, as though understanding her indecision required a certain degree of finesse, “I’m probably more tempted than you. I was planning on going to bed early and watching TV.” He lifted his shoulder slightly in a small renunciatory gesture as he reached her. “You changed my mind. I think it’s-” He caught himself before he said something outrageously stupid like the glow of your sun-kissed skin. Instead, he lightly touched her bottom lip with the pad of his index finger. “You know you’re beautiful. You hear it all the time, I expect. But you are.”

She started to say, Thank you, but his mouth suddenly covered hers and swallowed up her words, his kiss hard, invasive.

And a helluva lot more feverish than he would have liked.

He abruptly jerked away. “Christ-I’m going to scare you off. Sorry.” Drawing in a deep breath, he flashed a boyish grin. “Maybe we should have another glass of wine and give me time to cool down.”

“Let’s not.” Blatantly aware of his tantalizingly huge erection that had been very recently pressed against her stomach, her libido way past jazzed, she said in a tone of voice that could only be categorized as decisive, “I’m not really in the mood for more wine right now.” Reaching out, she ran her fingers over his rock-hard penis stretching the denim of his jeans. “And he doesn’t look like he is, either.”

As his erection swelled larger, he murmured, “So I don’t have to worry about scaring you off.”

She gazed up at him from under her lashes. “Not unless this gets too big for me to handle.”

The implication in her statement set off a chain reaction of salacious possibilities; it took him a millisecond to restrain his baser instincts. “Why don’t I keep it under control, then.”

“You can do that?”

He wanted to say, Maybe, if you stop doing what you’re doing, but he wasn’t abstemious by nature, so he lied and said, “Sure I can.” No way was he going to equivocate at this point. Particularly when they were both in the same frame of mind. Mustering up what he hoped was a casual tone, when he was, in fact, seriously cautioning himself to restraint, he gestured toward the kitchen. “Care to go upstairs? ”

She smiled. “Definitely.” Turning away, she moved toward the kitchen.

Darling Livvi doesn’t play games. Nice, he thought as he followed her.

“I can’t stay long,” Liv said as he caught up with her. “I really do have friends waiting.”

He didn’t often hear the equivalent of Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am in reverse. In fact, he never had. Whether inspired by vanity or selfishness, he pulled his cell phone from his jeans pocket and held it out. “Give your friends a call. No sense in rushing.” Although he didn’t know if he could give her any guarantees about the first time. He was fucking primed.

“I’ll give them a heads-up at least,” she said, taking the phone from him. “Although you don’t have to make me any food, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I wasn’t thinking about food.”

She smiled. “Two minds with but a single thought. It must be karma.”

“Damn right,” he said, grinning back, although his karma was pretty much self-motivated and action-oriented. “Tell your friends you’ll meet them later.” Much later-but he was polite enough not to say so.

Stopping at the base of the stairs, Liv punched in a number and, leaning against the doorjamb, she smiled at Jake while she waited for someone to answer.

“Something came up,” Liv said a moment later. “No, it’s not a man. Why would you say that?” She grimaced faintly. “I left my phone in my truck, okay? And for your information, that’s not true. It’s business. Yeah, yeah, cute. Look- I’ll be there before you anyway. You’re usually late. Yes, absolutely-it’s business. I swear.” And she flipped the phone shut while her friend was still talking.

“Sounds like you were getting some static.”

“Shelly always thinks everything’s about a man. It may be for her-she’s been dating a lot since her divorce-but it’s not for me.” Liv flashed Jake a rueful smile. “Present company excepted. You turn me on. What can I say?”

“Lucky me.” Apparently darling Livvi’s criteria tonight was just basic cock. Not that he took issue.

“Lucky us, I hope,” she murmured with a sidelong glance.

He grinned. “Are you going to be demanding?”

“Does it matter?”

“Fuck no.”

“I didn’t think it would.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means your reputation precedes you.” She smiled. “I know friends of friends of friends. Women always talk.” Like he was hung and knew how to use it. As for the National Enquirer story, she highly doubted it after feeling the size of his dick.

“I’m at a disadvantage. I haven’t heard anything about you.”

“There’s nothing to hear. I lead a simple life.”

“You haven’t always.”

“Yes, I have.”

“Even in the L.A. scene?”

“Even then. I’m careful in my friendships.”

“Like now?”

“Usually-I’m careful in my friendships.” That at least was true. “I must have been working too hard. And suddenly, you were here reminding me to take some time to play.” Lies, lies, lies; she hadn’t planned on touching Jake Chambers with a ten-foot pole.

“I can’t think of anyone I’d rather play with,” he said with a grin. “After you.” He nodded at the stairs. “I’m living mostly out of my suitcase; forgive the mess.”

She almost said: The mood I’m in, it doesn’t matter. But, opting for something less revealing, she said instead, “Not a problem.”