Bottles & Blades (Eagles Hockey: Oak Ridge Vineyards #1)

Chapter 9

Nine

Tiff

I grab another plate from the cabinet—my last plate, considering the other two I currently own are sitting on the drying rack.

The drying rack.

My stomach flutters, my heart rolling over in my chest.

He did my dishes.

A billionaire washed my dishes.

While I wait for my brain to explode—or maybe to avoid his question—I hurry to the cheese, to the salami, to the bread, and start putting a plate together for him.

He stands close, his spicy scent in my nose, but he doesn’t speak.

So I slap together a plate that’s not nearly as pretty as what he made for me, but he doesn’t seem to mind, taking it without hesitation when I hold it out.

Of course, that may be because he immediately sets it aside.

He drops his hand to the side of my neck, the contact light but still searing through me.

I exhale.

The rough pads of his fingertips brush lightly over my skin, raising goosebumps in their wake. The sensation is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced—or maybe that’s not exactly right. A man has touched my throat, but only in a medical setting, and as pathetic as it sounds, no man has ever touched me in a non -medical way.

But almost as soon as the thought runs through my mind, I know that’s not fair.

I have a few friends, a father who cares—and they’ve held me when I’m upset, hugged me when I needed it.

I’m not starved for touch.

I just…well, nothing has ever felt like this .

It’s not needles poking, tests being run, cold stethoscopes on my skin.

And it’s not comfort that’s approaching brotherly or fatherly or friendship.

It’s…

My nerves on fire, my blood singing, my heart thudding against my rib cage, my body so critically aware of this man that it feels as though I cannot take a full breath.

“You need to eat,” I whisper.

His hand flexes on my throat, and it’s not an order that comes out of his mouth this time—something I’m coming to realize is an anomaly. This man regularly deals in orders. Or dishing them out anyway. “Will you talk to me if I do?” he asks.

“Not about that time in my life.” I surprise myself with the vehemence in my words.

He studies me closely for a long moment then nods. “Back to tit for tat for anything but that?”

Relief boils up in my belly.

He’s not going to push this.

“I don’t think we were doing that all that well to begin with.”

“How about this…” He slides his hand down my throat, resting it on my shoulder, his thumb sweeping across my collarbone, back and forth, back and forth.

Pinpricks of sensation on my skin.

Heat twining through my insides.

My bones turning to mush, but somehow I manage to gather the few threads of rational thinking I still possess in this moment. And there’s enough of them that I identify the silken thread that’s now weaved its way into his voice. It’s delicate, barely perceptible, and yet…it’s sending alarm bells blazing through me.

He’s calculating.

He’s stubborn.

A ruthless businessman who’s been in the news enough that even I —who prefers to live my life in books—know that he’s fair and tough and very, very good at crushing anyone who crosses him.

That reminds me to be on edge.

And approximately one second later, I have the confirmation that reminder is there for a reason.

“You answer my questions or?—”

My stomach sinks.

Threats.

Dammit. I can’t even have one of the fantasies from my books—a billionaire with a heart of gold who wants me and only me—not even for one evening.

“I won’t kiss you.”

My mouth drops open.

“Fuck it,” he mutters, blazing blue eyes on mine. “You answer my questions or don’t. I still have to taste that gorgeous mouth.”

Then his hand on my shoulder shifts, diving into the drying strands of my hair. He tilts my head back and…

His mouth is on mine.

I gasp, and he doesn’t hesitate to taste that burst of air on his tongue, to draw me closer.

He’s strong and hard and tastes like that fabulous wine and?—

He lifts his head. “Buttercup?”

My lids flutter open, body awash in sensation, my lips swollen and needy. “Yeah?” I whisper.

His striking blue eyes search mine. “Baby.”

“Yeah?” I whisper again.

“Have you ever done this before?”

The pleasure, the need, the soft cloud-like feeling surrounding me of being safe and wanted and alive disappears in an instant.

I go ramrod stiff, embarrassment flooding through me. “You should go,” I whisper.

“Buttercup,” he murmurs, brushing the backs of his knuckles over my cheek.

“Go,” I say, making an order of my own.

One he ignores, allowing those knuckles to trace lower, to drift down my throat, my shoulder, the side of my arm, my wrist, my hand.

Then he laces our fingers together, picks up the plate I made him, and draws me to the couch.

“Tell me.”

It’s an order.

And one, for some godawful reason, I can’t ignore.

“What do you want me to say?” I whisper. “That I spent most of my childhood and teenage years in the hospital so I’m a virgin?” I close my eyes, embarrassment washing over me again. “And that yes, worse, I’m twenty-seven years old and I’ve never kissed a man. I was sick. I wasn’t out on dating apps, didn’t spend a bunch of time getting drunk with my friends—mostly because my friends were the nurses and volunteers and medical assistants in the hospital. And later, when I was in remission, when I was able to catch back up on life, I…”

Embarrassment hits hard and heavy.

But this man wants to know. “You what?” he presses.

“I was more worried about finding a way to stop my parents from losing their house and then finding a way to finish my GED and getting a job, so I could afford to move out on my own.”

He looks around. “Looks like you did that, buttercup.”

I exhale, the embarrassment slightly less crippling because there’s a note of pride in his voice. “It’s not much, but it’s home for now.”

“And now what are you focused on?”

“I’m working on my degree.” I sigh. “It’s taking a while, as these things do, especially because my parents aren’t well and a large amount of my time and money goes toward taking care of them. Eventually, though, I’ll work in translations and travel the world.”

“Why translations?”

I shrug. “It’s flexible—I can work for the government or businesses or even do contract-based translations. All of which means I can go anywhere.”

“Anywhere meaning where?”

“France is my top pick,” I say. “I haven’t been, and Paris is the place I want to go most in the world—the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the food, the shopping.” I know my tone is dreamy, so I feel the need to make sure he knows I’m not delusional as I add, “But everyone speaks such good English in Paris that I doubt I’ll get a job there right away.”

“Knowing that, where do you think you’ll start?—”

I frown. “Are you going to tell me anything about you?”

“Yeah,” he says. “After you tell me why, despite you never having kissed a man, that what we shared was still the best kiss of my life.”

I inhale sharply.

“Don’t choke,” he growls.

“More orders,” I mutter, but manage to exhale slowly enough so I don’t waterboard myself on my own spit again. “And I want to go to all of the usual places,” I tell him instead of acknowledging the scary elephant in the room. “Italy and the UK, Norway and Sweden, Denmark and Finland, New Zealand and Australia, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Amsterdam, Korea, Japan—” I cut myself off, my cheeks heating. “I’ve never even been outside this state,” I admit, “so really, I just want to go anywhere.”

“And you’ll do it through languages?”

“It’s one of the only things I’m good at.”

His eyebrows gather together, and he opens his mouth—probably to dish out more orders—but I beat him to the punch.

“Now, since I’ve spilled my guts, Mr. Billionaire,” I say, going for the big guns, “I’m ordering you tell me one thing that you’ve never told anyone else.”