Chapter Eight
David finished strapping Jaxon in his car seat and gave his chubby belly a scratch before closing the back door of the four-wheel drive. He said to Kerri, “Thanks for your help today. Say hi to Phil for me.”
“I will. Should I tell my husband you’ll be at the pub tonight to watch the rugby or do you have other plans?”
David scowled at Kerri’s faux innocent expression. “I haven’t made other plans.”
“He’ll understand if something better has come up.”
When Kerri wiggled her eyebrows, David rolled his eyes. “Sarah’s a…business thing.” That was all she wanted there to be between them apparently. “But it might take me a while to sort it so tell him not to expect me.”
“Business thing, right.” Kerri lowered her voice to a whisper. “It’s about time you met someone, David. Melissa’s been gone almost nine months. Is she nice, this one?”
Kerri had never come right out and said so, but David had sensed her dislike of Melissa and her refusal to even try to fit in with the locals. Melissa had been a city girl, through and through, and she’d never adapted to the rhythm of life in the vineyards.
He had to think Sarah would be of the same ilk. But as he turned, following the line of Kerri’s gaze, he saw Sarah bending down to pet Buster without care for the stray hairs that may land on her once-pristine suit. Then she retrieved the mutt’s revolting stick and threw it for him—something that even David was disinclined to do—and David wondered if he’d pegged her wrong. Despite her attire and the expensive European car, Sarah didn’t appear out of place playing with the dogs in the afternoon sun. Instead, she seemed to fit perfectly into that picture.
David roused himself from that wistful thought and turned back to find Kerri grinning at him. He showed her an admonishing look. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Kez. She thought Jaxon was mine.” That much had been clear from the way she’d blanched at the sight of him holding the baby, the disgust that had hardened her features before Kerri came back out with Jaxon’s baby bag and started talking about going home to her big studly husband.
“So now she knows he’s not.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Nothing worthwhile ever is.” Kerri shrugged and started the car. “Can I help it if I want you to be happy? You’re a smart bloke, Dave. Go with whatever your gut tells you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Kerri gave him a wave as she started the vehicle and headed down the driveway.
David watched her go, contemplating her advice. His gut told him the same thing it had three weeks ago—having Sarah turn up in his life was an unexpectedly wonderful stroke of luck for an average guy like him, and he shouldn’t squander it. He hadn’t been able to resist stealing a slice of the heaven she offered back then, and no matter what it cost him later he still couldn’t regret it. What he was going to do about the opportunity her presence now presented, he hadn’t yet decided.
He ought to send her packing in that gleaming Mercedes, like he’d wanted to the instant he realized she still thought fiscal generosity was the way to his heart. Heart, geez. David didn’t want to think his heart had gotten so swiftly and irrevocably involved.
Yet the truth was from their first meeting there’d been something about Sarah’s direct stare and her faintly curving lips that had wound around his most vulnerable places and squeezed tight. He hadn’t stopped thinking about her in the weeks since he’d left her hotel room, even when he knew it was pointless to dream night and day about a woman who despised him.
Pitiful stuff, Genero. Truly pitiful.
Turning on his heel, David headed back toward the small facility he used to invite visitors in for wine tasting and complimentary cheese. Sarah stood at the open door, peering inside. When David approached, she said without glancing at him, “It’s charming. Would you mind if I have a peek inside?”
Now would be the time to tell her to take a hike. What came out instead was, “Be my guest.”
David lingered behind her as she toured the interior, wondering what she thought of the exposed wooden floors and the bar decorated with corrugated iron. The old oak barrels used as cocktail tables didn’t exactly scream class. No doubt she was used to more lavish surrounds.
“It’s impressive what you’ve done with the place. I know you inherited it in some disrepair.” She turned and caught his surprised expression. “You have before and after pictures on your website, and lots of background information. It’s amazing the vineyard’s beginning to thrive again after the damage you sustained in the bushfires.”
Black Saturday must have been the last straw for his Uncle Fred, whose failing health had contributed to Windy Valley’s declined productivity. When the bushfires destroyed a good portion of the outer fence line, allowing kangaroos to graze freely on the crops, David had come from his sales job in the city to help.
“My uncle was sick on and off for a long time,” he explained quietly. “I didn’t know how sick until I got here after the fires and found him on the floor, barely able to breathe. He died a week later in hospital, from pneumonia. No one was more surprised than I when he left me this place—except maybe for my cousin Rick, Fred’s son.”
“He thought it should have gone to him,” Sarah concluded.
“Definitely. I guess Uncle Fred thought Rick would sell it. He travels overseas often for his job and never had any interest in learning the business. I spent summers here growing up and always loved the lifestyle. Uncle Fred wanted to leave it to a Genero who’d keep it in the family.”
Sarah nodded, the gesture showing she understanding the bonds of family loyalty. “You’ve done the right thing by him keeping the place open against the odds.”
Pleasure expanded inside him at her praise, defying David’s attempts to quash it. “I owed it to him.”
“Just as you owe it to him to keep running, keep expanding. I can help with that.”
“Ah yes.” David shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “Here’s where you remind me you’re here to conduct business.”
“I am,” she insisted. “Really, David, I don’t usually have to beg vendors to sell me stock.”
“You don’t usually deal with people who’ve been accused of blackmailing you into buying it.”
Tension squared her shoulders. “I told you I was sorry about that.”
“So that’s it—we forget it? Should I also forget what happened outside before? That you thought I had a wife and kid, which would make me not only a blackmailing cad but a cheating pig as well?”
“Kerri clearly knows her way around here, and the baby obviously adores you.”
“Kerri helps me out on weekends. She’s crazy about her husband, who also happens to be a friend of mine. And kids tend to like me—is that a crime?”
She insisted stiffly, “It was a reasonable assumption to make.”
“Not by my standards. Jesus, what kind of life have you had that you expect men to treat you like trash and are too surprised when it doesn’t happen to appreciate the gift it is?”
Her gasp was audible in the high-ceilinged room. Paling, she turned away on the pretense of studying one of the photographs of the vineyard that lined the wall, a black-and-white of his uncle planting his first cabernet crop back in 1982. After a moment during which her struggle to contain her emotions was palpable, Sarah finally responded in a tremulous voice, “You have no idea what my life has been like.”
David’s voice was as unsteady as hers. “So tell me, Sarah.”
“Haven’t you googled me?” she queried with droll sarcasm. “I did it to you.”
“None of the things I want to know about you can be found in some old magazine articles that have their own slant. I need to know why you’re so determined to hate me.”
She whirled back to him then, and David saw the telltale glistening of tears. “I don’t hate you.”
“You don’t trust me.” The mere suggestion of Sarah’s tears undid him and David took the few steps required to close the distance between them. Reaching up, he stroked his fingertips along her defined cheekbone. “Do you trust anyone?”
“That’s not so easy to do when you have something everybody wants.”
“I’m not interested in your money.” The acquisition of things for the sake of having had never appealed to him. One reason why he’d never been suited to his prior commission-based sales job and another key point of difference between him and Melissa. “And I’m no longer concerned with what you can do for my business by selling my wine.”
Sarah shook her head, mystification clear in the gesture. “But why?”
“Because if I take anything from you now, on some level you’ll always wonder if you were right back in Melbourne. You’ll always wonder if any interest I showed in you then, or that I show in you now or in the future is because of what you can do for me, not because of how I feel about you.”
Her trembling breaths fanned into the space between them while she searched his face, her gaze probing. “How do you feel about me, David?”
Even as he lowered his head, David called himself all sorts of idiot for being the one to make the revelations while she still held back. But the instant his lips touched hers it was like sinking into a familiar, intoxicating warmth that he couldn’t deny himself, no matter how risky it was to be alone out on the emotional limb.
She opened to him instantly, as though she’d been waiting, hoping, for exactly this. David’s arms went around her, winding like vines on the trellis and trapping her to him. She sighed, a small, delighted sound that brushed against his mouth and David responded with an animal snarl. He moved his hand to the back of her head and cupped it, holding her still as he deepened the kiss. He licked her lips, delved beyond her teeth and tasted her. Sarah wrapped her arms around his neck and sent her tongue out to dance with his.
Nothing much more than a sample of her and David was throbbing everywhere—his heart, his blood, his cock. Sarah was bound to discover the evidence of his arousal if he didn’t release her, and he wasn’t sure he wanted her to know just how much she affected him from so small an effort on her part. David pulled back, drawing in a steadying breath, taking a modicum of pride in the achievement.
But then Sarah chased him, her smoky-blue eyes still closed as she leaned forward, seeking his kiss. Giving herself away. So David dove back into her mouth, helpless to do otherwise. He pulled her lower body up against his, giving himself away too.
Sarah’s surprised gasp was swallowed by David’s mouth. She wiggled her hips against his, testing the truth of her discovery. David moved her backward, half stumbling, until her rear came up against the nearest flat surface and she was forced to still. Then David was the one moving, rocking his body in a helpless rhythm as she twined her legs around him. There was a clunk as one of her shoes hit the timber floor. David ignored it and went on kissing her, eating up her delighted sighs and the passionate response she couldn’t hide from him.
With the overturned barrel at Sarah’s back trapping her between it and him, David’s hands were free to explore. He skimmed over the slender curves of Sarah’s thighs, rose higher until he spanned her waist inside the über-professional jacket. The silk of the shirt underneath was soft, but not as soft as her skin. With a will of their own, his fingers crept beneath the hem.
The warmth of her flesh, the tautness of her abdomen, tempted David. Buttons popped open as his hands rose over the bumps of her rib cage, which became more prominent as Sarah sucked in a deep breath. When he encountered the undersides of her firm breasts, Sarah let all the air back out of her lungs, filling David’s hands with flesh that swelled and ripened, like fruit on the vine begging to be plucked.
“Sarah,” he rasped, his voice sounding like a swatch of fine fabric tearing in the afternoon quiet. He cupped her breasts, sweeping his thumbs over their pointy, lace-covered tips as he brushed his lips over hers. He couldn’t halt the instinctive grind, the thrust of his contained erection into the V of her open thighs.
Dry humping her up against a barrel in the daylight. Classy stuff, Genero. He put some space between them and saw for the first time the reality of what he’d done. Her blouse was open, the seams smudged by streaks of dirt put there by his hands. He was filthy and sweaty and smelled like sunscreen and soil. And he was still wearing his damn hat, when he’d oft been taught to take it off indoors, especially if there was a lady present. Had he completely lost his mind?
Muttering a rough apology, David released her and stepped back. Her sexy, bewildered expression almost made him gather her up again, drag her to the house by her hair. Then she glanced down and saw for herself how exposed she was. She grasped the seams of her blouse and pulled them together, sending a sideways glimpse to the still-open door. “Is there anyone else…?”
“We’re the only ones here.” Which didn’t excuse how far he’d let things go, not with Sarah, who was no doubt used to much subtler seductions. “I still shouldn’t have—”
“It’s okay.” Her fingers trembled as she redid the buttons he’d all but ripped open. “I was…”
“Beautiful. So damn sexy I couldn’t help myself. Sarah, I…”
She looked at him and those gorgeous blue irises still clouded by desire made him lose his train of thought. Her lips curved, and then they were both laughing at their mutual inability to finish a sentence. “I guess we’re both a bit—”
“Hungry,” David supplied, not letting her finish that sentence either. He hadn’t really been talking about food but the word conjured a response from his stomach. The afternoon sun had slanted deep and turned fiery orange, telling him it was almost time for dinner. “I was going to eat soon. Will you come up to the house and have dinner with me?”
Relief flooded him when she nodded. “That would be lovely, thank you.”
David smiled around gritted teeth. Lovely. She was a lady through and through, one who deserved so much more than a rough grope amongst the vines. David only hoped he could entrap his baser instincts for long enough to behave like a gentleman and not the callous bastard she was determined to think he was.
…
An hour and a half later, Sarah’s body was still prone to fits of lascivious trembling at the memory of that kiss. It simmered in the air between her and David as they sat at his four-seater dining table, sharing a bottle of excellent red and plates of tasty stew with mashed potato on the side. She may have initially managed to convince herself she’d come here for professional reasons but somewhere along the way she’d ended up on a bona fide date—the best darned date she’d been on in…forever.
They talked about everything from wine to world politics, their conversation interspersed with quiet laughter and sizzling glances that kept electricity crackling in the otherwise cozy atmosphere, as noticeable as the flames flickering in the fireplace. The dogs sat curled together in the corner of the room, where they’d settled sometime after David had asked Sarah to keep watch on the pot of stew in the kitchen so he could take a hasty shower.
He’d smiled before he’d gone, saying, “Feel free to snoop through my bookcases while I’m away.”
Sarah had done exactly that, trying her best not to think about David in the shower naked. She found a lot of historical fiction alongside thick texts on viticulture and the occasional biography. His movie collection was dominated by black-and-white classics starring Humphrey Bogart and Grace Kelly and, yes, Buster Keaton. Sarah had smiled at that. She’d still been smiling when David emerged from the bathroom wearing fresh jeans and a thick, olive-green sweater that she wanted nothing better than to burrow into.
The urge still hadn’t passed by the time Sarah pushed aside her empty plate with a contented sigh. “I have to say, that was some of the best osso buco I’ve ever eaten.”
“Thanks, but the praise belongs to Kerri,” David explained. “She drops off a batch of something or other at least a couple times a week.”
Sarah pursed her lips. “She’s good to you, that Kerri.”
“She takes pity on me. When I fend for myself the menu usually consists of beans on toast.”
Sarah glanced at the view beyond the colonial-style window, darkness now laying its blanket over the vineyards. The only light visible was that cast by the moon and stars. “No takeout around here, I suppose.”
“Takeaway joints are pretty much nonexistent.”
Turning back to face him, Sarah narrowed her eyes. “I’m from New York. There we call it takeout.”
“Ah, but you’re in Australia now, love. You’ve gotta learn to talk like one of us.”
Although his tone suggested he was merely teasing, Sarah couldn’t stop the heat from infusing her face at his offhand use of the endearment. She took a sip of her wine to conceal the teenage-like reaction.
She glanced over the rim of her glass to find David smiling at her, a sexy, self-assured grin that only ratcheted her temperature higher. “What?”
“You have a thing for my accent.”
Sarah scoffed but her cheeks flamed hotter. “I do not.”
“And you’re jealous of Kerri.” He released a sigh and reached for her hand where it lay on the table. “What am I going to do about you?”
“Do you really expect me to answer that?”
Excitement flashed in eyes that drifted over her face, settling for a lingering beat on her lips. “The thing is I like you, Sarah Harrington.”
The hushed way he uttered the words made Sarah’s heart skip with a mixture of exhilaration and panic. Attraction she understood. Sex she could handle. Somewhere between stirring the stew in David’s kitchen and being instructed on the many and varied Australian football codes, she’d acknowledged to herself that she wanted David to take her to bed. But the way he said “like” didn’t sound like a line, a prelude to a sexual encounter.
It sounded as if he really meant it. And that was the scariest prospect of all.
He wants you, Sarah, that’s what matters. He’d enjoyed having her take the lead role the last time they were together. With a slow smile Sarah extracted her hand from David’s and slipped it under the table. She traced her fingernails over his denim-clad thigh. “I like you too, David.”
Beneath her hand his muscles bunched. With a groan, David encircled her wrist, stilling her caress and instead twining her fingers with his once more. “I’m trying to be a gentleman here.”
“You mean it wasn’t your plan all along to lure me into your house, ply me with alcohol and seduce me?”
David’s expression sobered. “You seem to have trouble believing this but I’ve never operated on any kind of plan where you’re concerned.”
Was it really possible David Genero was exactly what he appeared to be—a genuine, honest character with no hidden agenda? It was such a rarity in Sarah’s world that it was difficult to trust the instinct that was telling her to believe it was true, that David was who he said he was. That all he wanted from her was…
His perusal skimmed over her again, the interest in it conveying exactly what he did want, what that kiss out in his shop had told her he wanted. Sarah’s blood rushed once more, causing her skin to flush hot with excitement.
Lust had never gripped her so tightly, caused this sense urgency while still allowing room for patience, the slow exchange of man-woman banter that led to what was feeling more and more like a foregone conclusion.
“If I owe you another apology, I’ll gladly give it,” Sarah said. “I’m sorry I keep misjudging you.”
“You don’t owe me anything.” Pushing aside his empty plate, David leaned forward and regarded her steadily. “But there is one thing I’d like to know.”
“Shoot.”
He paused, warning Sarah that his question would be a thorny one. “When you realized I wasn’t what you expected, did you try again?”