“Good morning,” I rasp out, throat dry as she strides toward the bed. I pull the sheets up and over my bare breasts, suddenly self-conscious of my sticky, juice-covered skin, but Laine’s having none of it. She climbs onto the bed knee by knee, then pulls me to her, hard. I let out a little gasp as I slide easily toward her, helpless as a turtle on its back, until the firm press of her thigh greets the growing ache in my core, separated by a thin layer of cotton. There, poised high between the legs that she spread, Laine sports a look of satisfaction that curves her mouth, heats her eyes. She presses my knees down until they’re flat against the bed, and I’m stretched wide open beneath the sheet that still separates us. She falls onto her hands on either side of my head, my hair towel fired for its lackluster performance and flung into the distance.
“Very good morning,” I amend, breathless.
Her eyes are greedy as she gives the line of my jaw a long lick, then gently pulls the sheet down from my clutching fingers, exposing one breast at a time. “This sheet’s not allowed, boss.” Her tongue travels down my collarbone, then dips between my breasts. Every unshaven hair on my body is standing fully erect, like a roomful of hands shot into the air, screamingPick me!!
“I’m filthy, Laine,” I murmur. “I’m covered in grape must. Let me shower first, I’m so stick—ohhh.” I break off suddenly when the wet tip of her tongue reaches my nipple, traces its circumference there.
“Filthy,” Laine breathes against my ferociously tight bud, then licks, hard. “Mmm…” Her thigh grinds against me, or maybe I’m grinding against it, like I’m thirteen all over again and discovering the beauty of a nice, round bed knob. “Sorry, boss. Shower’s not allowed, either.”
Turns out, the only thing thatisallowed is a pair of mind-bending orgasms, one for each of us.
The list of novel experiences continues throughout the day and into the next week, too. Not just sexual acts, either, though there have beenmanyof those. On Saturday, I woke up to find my trash had been taken out. At first, I thought it had magically disappeared, or that I sleepwalked it all the way to the winery, but then I spotted Laine whistling her way through the vineyard, hauling my bags of trash away like a very confusing Santa. Then on Monday, I got a text from Federico’s Auto Shop, informing me of my upcoming oil change appointment for the vineyard’s truck. So when Laine shows up at my office door in the middle of my weekly paperwork marathon with two milky iced coffees and a pair of chocolate croissants, and plops down in the chair in front of my desk, I’m almost not surprised.
Almost.
Laine catches me staring at her from over my croissant. “What? Do you like almond better?”
“What’s going on, exactly?” I whisper from behind the safe, predictable layers of flaky croissant she inexplicably bought for me.
Laine wipes a crumb from her mouth. “With the fermentation? Well, the whites have already gone through primary—”
“I mean, here. With us?” I take a huge gulp of coffee to avoid having to say more.
Laine’s brow relaxes, then arches into a bemused smirk. “We’re having a midmorning snack, boss.”
“In a casual way? Or an … exclusive way?” I sound like a dork, but it’s been two weeks of consistently amazing sex, like,on the daily, which is a new record for me, but in conjunction with all these small, thoughtful gestures? I thought I understood the rules of courting Laine, but this feels like new territory.
Maybe sheisgoing to murder me. I scoot my office chair back on its wheels on instinct.
Laine takes a long pull from her iced coffee, rolling the straw between her still smirking lips, then slowly rises. She comes around my desk to standover me, separating me in my rolling office chair from all my responsibilities, and slides one perfect half of her ass at a time onto my desk. Her legs are naturally spread apart, but the space between them draws my gaze like a magnet to steel. It’s an effort to flick my eyes back up to hers. The look on her face is a knowing, silky confidence that heats each area of my body in a cascade of tumbling sensation. We’ve already had sex once today, and yet …
She reaches for the croissant loosely dangling from my hand, places it to the side, then pulls me by the armrests into the V made by her legs. She stops only when her thighs surround my shoulders. The familiar smell ofhermixes with the tart grapes she’s been handling, and I want to bury my face in the warm denim of her jeans and breathe it all in. She stops me, though, cradling my head in her hands, her fingers pulling me by the hair gently, gently back, until my vision is filled with her, top to bottom.
“It’s in a very serious way, boss.” Her fingers tighten in my hair, and I gasp as she runs the back of one hand down my cheek, my neck, before yanking me closer to her. All it would take is a small squeeze to put me in a headlock with her thighs.
If this is murder, so be it.
But the squeeze doesn’t come, and her grip on my hair gentles. My scalp tingles with pleasure from the conflicting sensations. With her free hand, she reaches for the croissant and brings it to my lips, nudging them open. I obediently bite into the flesh, the pleasurable tang of chocolate and salt on my tongue mixing with the building ache in my pussy, and I moan as she watches me, as though the lick of my lips is a fascinating mystery.
“I’m going to take care of you, Zoe Brennan,” she says, her voice faint as she intently watches me swallow, then nudges my mouth again. “You’re mine.”
Sex in my office? Check.
Involvingcroissants? Didn’t see that coming, butcheck.
Reaching the absolute pinnacle of my desire and longing and—
happiness?
I sit back in my office chair, caffeinated, sugared, and thoroughly wrung out.
Check, check, check.
It’s terrifying, but each time the fear buoys in my chest, I feel Laine’s fingers pulling my hair, hear her sultry, commanding words:You’re mine.
And … I am. At some point, Laine hooked a steel cable into my core, pulling me utterly, helplessly into her wake. Laine could straight up destroy me if she wanted, but that makes whatever this is so much moresatisfying. All the protections I’ve built around my heart blunted the hurts caused by others, but they blunted the good feelings, too. I’ve never felt anything like the sweet, swoony rush I get when Laine takes me in her arms and tells me how smart I am, how talented, how incredibly sexy. I’ve been desired before, but Laine’s wants are on a whole new level. The steadfast devotion she puts into her work is lavished upon me, too, now. If I’d known as a lovelorn teenager—staring at her best friend’s older sister from across the dinner table, the lunchroom, the vast expanse of life and experience that separated me fromCharlaine Woods—that inside the girl I idolized was allthis?
I’d have followed her anywhere.
