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I don’t respond. Not even a nod.
“I’ll take that as a yes. I have no idea what time you left your place. I was sound asleep. It was the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a long time, Dale, and it was because I was happy. Really happy. But you weren’t, were you?”
I was. I was ecstatic. Which terrifies me. Again I don’t respond.
She sighs. “So I came here. I came here to take in the beauty of this place. The magnificence. Because it is magnificent. No doubt. But more than that, I wanted to see what you see when you look at these vines. I wanted to find out if they offer something that I don’t. Something more joyful and profound than the lovemaking we’ve shared.” She pauses a few seconds, inhaling and exhaling several times. She closes her eyes and then opens them. “My senses are more acute than most, as you know. My sounds have colors, and my colors have sounds. I can sometimes taste music, and once I actually felt a certain song caressing my body as if it had phantom fingers that reached out from the notes. I’ve got all my senses on high alert, Dale. Every one of them—by themselves and intermingled. And you know what? It’s amazing here. It’s tantalizing and awe-inspiring. But it’s nothing compared to making love with you.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ashley
There.
I did it.
I made the ultimate confession to him.
Well, maybe not the ultimate. That would be those three little words that I feel so profoundly but know Dale will never return.
Already I know he won’t answer. Or if he does, it will be something douchey.
I stare again at the vines, at the gorgeous clusters of black grapes nearly ready to drop to the ground. I reach out and hold a cluster of fruit in my palm. It’s warm to my touch on this sunny day.
Dale inhales. Yeah, he just held back a gasp. Does he think I’d actually harm his precious Syrah? He doesn’t know me at all.
“Let go,” he finally says.
“Of the grapes?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck off, Dale. If you think I’d hurt these grapes, these vines—”
“No,” he says. “Let go, so I can kiss you.”
I drop my jaw open and move my hand back to my side. “Are you kidding me? After you left me alone at your house? You think you can—”
His lips come down on mine. Hard.
Hard and feral and perfectly beautiful.
I open. How can I not? I just confessed to him that making love with him was better than the peaceful beauty of these vineyards.
I wasn’t lying.
He probes me with his tongue, and I respond, melting into him. It’s a primal kiss, a kiss born solely of nature, and it’s fitting that we’re surrounded by nature’s own beauty.
Yes, he left me again.
But God, I love this man. His kisses, his arms around me, his hands caressing my shoulders, my neck, my cheeks. I love all of that. But mostly I love him. His good heart and his tortured soul.
Why can’t he be with me? Why can’t he get past whatever boundary he’s built within himself?
I may never know the answer.
Still, I’ve promised myself that I’ll take what he’s willing to give, and at the moment, that’s a passionate kiss. I urge him on with my own desire. My body responded to his presence the second he arrived, and now I’m as ripe as the grapes I was holding mere moments ago. My legs weaken, but Dale’s strong and muscular body steadies me.
I never want this kiss to end, but like all good things, it does.
But I don’t end it.
He does. He breaks away from me and gasps in a breath.
I stare at his face. His beautifully masculine face with his structured jawline and high cheekbones. His clear green eyes that are heavy-lidded and smoldering. And that mouth, those full lips that are even fuller from the kiss.
Last night, I asked him to make love to me here. Among these vines.
I now realize that can never happen.
To Dale, these vines are sacred, and making love here would taint them in some way.
To me? It would make them all the more sacred. But that’s because I’m in love with Dale. He won’t feel that way because he’s not in love with me. Does he even understand love? I’ve never been in love before, but I understand what I’m feeling. How can you mistake the feeling of passion and wonder and all-encompassing desire and yearning?
“Dale?”
“Yeah?”
I swallow, gaining courage. “Have you ever been in love?”
He widens his eyes. No longer are they heavy-lidded, but still they smolder. Nothing for a moment. A moment that seems like a decade. He’s not going to answer. Can I blame him? It’s a very personal question.
“Only once,” he finally says.
This time I widen my eyes. Definitely not the answer I was expecting. Dale Steel has been in love? When? And with whom? But I don’t ask. He won’t tell me, and part of me doesn’t want to know, anyway.
