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They worked through the order, an evergrowing stash of cartons building up, cartons filled with bottles that could wait until they got home to label.
They worked and brushed and touched and got in each other’s way and exchanged heated glances and somehow made it through the order and another dozen until there was only one more box to be done.
‘Last dozen,’ he said, pulling the first of the dozen from the neck freezer and wiping it free of the solution before handing it to her.
She took it from him and grabbed her bottle top remover, snapping off the lid and the frozen lees into the disgorging bin and covering the opening with her thumb before she dosaged. ‘We’ll be done in no time at this rate.’
‘We make a good team.’
A moment’s hesitation before she handed back the bottle for corking. His fingers brushed hers as he took the bottle and she tingled. ‘You’re not bad at this,’ she said, feeling flushed with success at getting through the job so quickly, feeling emboldened by the clandestine and not so clandestine touches along the way. ‘For a Chatsfield, I mean.’
‘You’re not so bad yourself,’ he said, bottle positioned ready to be corked.
‘You mean, I’m not bad for an intransigent, uncooperative, stubborn woman?’
He hesitated, his hand poised ready to press the lever. ‘Did I really say that?’
‘You really did.’
He had the nerve to smile and the heat under her skin had nothing to do with the fire in the pot-bellied stove as it burned all the way to her toes. ‘What the hell was I thinking?’ He pushed down on the press and the cork pushed into the tight neck of the bottle and stuck fast. She sucked in air, trying her hardest not to make a sound.
And she knew she’d never cork another bottle without thinking of this man and sex.
She watched, her cheeks on fire, as he twisted the muselet tight with the applicator as expertly as she would have.
God, but he had gorgeous hands. Talented, long-fingered hands. If she played her cards right, those long-fingered hands could soon be on her.
She sucked in air in a whoosh.
How could she play her cards right when she didn’t know how this game worked? Seduction was a stranger to her, foreign and unknown and not to be trusted.
He swung around to pass her another bottle and brushed against her shirt and her breasts tightened and tingled and told her that seduction would take care of itself.
Thank God for instinct, she thought as she took it, disgorged and dosaged, grateful to have something real to concentrate on as she passed it back. Something concrete.
Ten more bottles, counting down.
They didn’t talk. There was no need. The not so accidental brushes of skin and cloth did the talking. And with every bottle the tension built until the air fairly crackled around them.
And then there was one.
CHAPTER NINE
FRANCO PASSED THE bottle to her reverently, his grey eyes the colour of the clouds that had scudded across the same storm-tossed sky the day he’d arrived, ripe with intent, ready to unleash their load.
She swallowed, her throat suddenly tight and dry, took the bottle from his hands and could feel those eyes on her back, through the layers of her clothes, warm upon her skin. The bottle opener slipped from her shaking hands and clattered to the floor
He picked it up, coming up so close that she couldn’t breathe, his eyes not leaving hers. ‘You dropped something,’ he murmured, so close to her face that she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. Her tongue flicked out to see if he tasted as good as she remembered.
He didn’t taste as good.
He tasted better.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered as their hands connected around the shaft of the opener, their eyes connected on another level. Vaguely she was aware they hadn’t finished, that there was one bottle in her hand left to disgorge, a bottle opener poised.
Just one more bottle.
It would only take a second.
But the hand curling around her neck, the fingers sliding through her hair, demanded her attention. His lips demanded her focus.
And if she could just get this bottle out of the way, then her hands would be free, like his. Right now she wished her hands were free to slide around his neck and up his chest.
Then his fingers in her hair drew her towards him and his lips came closer, and dammit, she needed her hands to be free.
It would only take a second.
The bottle cap and the lees shot into the booth. She covered the top with her thumb. Swung the bottle—she really could do this in her sleep—and dosaged the bottle the very same second his mouth met hers and she sighed into his kiss, and of the two incidents, the kiss was the more compelling, his lips opening, inviting hers to follow his lead, and she was all too willing to follow. Until wine under pressure sprayed from the bottle and by the time Holly remembered she should have covered the top, they were showered with the freshly dosaged wine. And they were both shocked and sticky and laughing as he took the fizzing bottle from her hand and parked it safely away on the bench where it could do no more harm.
