Chapter 20
ALEXA
“Try this one.”
Dinner was cold. I was drunk. Nolan had punched down the wine, and damn, it was a beautiful sight, all those muscles working in unison as he shoved grape skins under juice with a giant potato masher.
Just because I’d never dated didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate a hot man when he was right in front of me.
And apparently, we were dating.
My lips still tingled.
Perhaps it was the wine?
“Let’s find a bottle to have with dinner” had turned into “Why don’t we try a few different kinds?
” and before I knew it, I was enjoying a private tasting with a half-naked Nolan who kept looking at me as though I were a sweet, vintage Muscat.
He’d kept his word about not kissing me again—slightly disappointing—although he had carried me to the gold mine when I complained about the walk.
Mental note: complain about walking more often.
I sat cross-legged on the wooden table in the underground tasting room, the twinkles from the chandelier bouncing off rough, dark rock.
Nolan poured a generous amount of red wine into a glass, swirled, sniffed, and swirled again.
The rich ruby liquid splashed across his wrist like blood and dripped to the floor.
“Fuck,” he muttered, and I saw the perfect opportunity for payback.
Before he could wipe the mess on his jeans—gross, but also typical Nolan—I gripped his hand and brought his wrist to my lips. Our gazes locked as I slowly licked a five-hundred-dollar Syrah off salty skin.
“Fuuuuuuck.”
“Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.”
He leaned in, but this time I knew what was coming and blocked him with an arm. “Nuh-uh-uh. Over breakfast, remember?”
“You’re a little sadist.”
Or possibly I’d just bitten off more than I could chew, started panicking inside, and needed time to google the answer to “Help, what do I do next?” The flirting was fun—this was flirting, right?
—but I felt as if I were standing on the edge of a diving board, a hundred feet in the air, daring myself to take a step into the unknown.
Maybe I’d slip gracefully into the water and surface with adrenaline and sweet, sweet satisfaction coursing through my veins.
Or maybe I’d give myself whiplash, bruises, and several fractured vertebrae.
I closed my eyes, trying not to let the toxic memories overwhelm me. My parents yelling at each other. Uncle Porter inserting himself where he didn’t belong. Ruby, lying bloody and broken after tangling with a man she thought she could trust.
Straight men were bad news. Okay, not all men, but at least thirty percent of them, and monsters didn’t always have horns and a tail.
Sometimes they made Thirty under Thirty and won industry awards.
Sometimes they carried a badge, rescued kittens, and played hero on the local TV news.
Sometimes they made you coffee and changed the lightbulb in your bedroom and lent you their sweater when you were cold.
From the outside, you just couldn’t tell who the devils were.
I opened my eyes, which was a mistake. The bulge in Nolan’s jeans was right in my line of sight, and I knew what that meant.
Pain.
Jez had seen the blackmail video. If any harm came to me, she’d make sure Uncle Porter paid. She’d also made disparaging comments about the size of his equipment, news to me because when Porter was ramming his dick in my ass, it had felt like the Washington Monument.
And Nolan? Officially, his dick scored nine out of ten, although I wasn’t sure whether the rating was for size or skill.
I should have asked more questions when I walked in on Ruby, Jez, and Ruby’s friend Tina ranking the men of Blackstone House over coffee, but I’d been too horrified-slash-fascinated to say a word.
Whatever, now Nolan was standing a foot away with a literal log in his pants, and blood rushed in my ears.
That thing was never going to fit. I’d end up in the hospital, and the doctors would ask more awkward questions, and I’d have to sit on one of those donut things, and—
Nolan raised my chin with a finger. “Alexa?”
“I’m scared,” I blurted.
His breath hitched. “Of me?”
“No. Yes? I don’t freaking know! This all feels weird, and I don’t like it. Maybe you should just date Marielle.”
“How the hell did we get from foreplay to ‘maybe you should date Marielle’ in less than sixty seconds? And for the record, I’m never going to date Marielle.”
“That was foreplay?”
“It sure felt that way to me.”
“Oh.”
He cupped my cheek with a hand. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on in that twisted mind of yours.”
“I don’t like straight dicks.”
“Well, good news. Mine has a slight curve.”
“What?”
“I mean, it’s not like a banana or anything. Your G-spot will love it.”
My breathing turned staccato. The edges of my vision darkened, and I fought to keep calm as his words left me squirming. We were in a cave. I had no phone signal. Nobody could hear me scream.
“I don’t have a G-spot, and when I said ‘straight dicks,’ I meant non-queer ones. They’re dangerous.” I glanced down again; I couldn’t help it. “Curved?”
“I’d offer a show-and-tell, but judging by the way you’re hyperventilating, that’s gonna be number seven hundred on our list.” Nolan stroked my hair, and it was oddly soothing. “I’m scared too,” he said softly.
“Why? My vagina doesn’t have teeth.”
“I’m scared of losing you again. That if I say or do the wrong thing, you’ll get on an airplane and disappear.”
“Sometimes, it’s tempting,” I admitted.
“Well, if you do fly off into the sunset, know this. I love you. I’ve always loved you, even if that love has evolved into something very different between then and now.
You’re a pain in my ass, a thorn in my side, and a shackle around my heart, and if you leave, you’ll take a piece of me with you. ”
I stared at him. That was so…so eloquent. Levi had been the artist in Blackstone House, the painter and the poet, but Nolan had just outclassed him.
And me.
Because what the hell did I say to that?
“Kiss me again,” I whispered.
Nolan studied me for the longest moment before he dipped his head, but instead of going for my lips, he feathered soft kisses along my jaw. Across my forehead. Over my cheeks. I wrapped my legs around his waist and gripped his shoulders and breathed him in. Did I really have to go to Japan?
Nolan rested his forehead against mine, palms on the table, arms caging me in. But instead of feeling trapped, I felt protected.
“More,” I demanded.
“Not tonight.” He picked up the abandoned Syrah and swirled again, this time keeping the wine in the glass, then held it to my lips. “Tell me what you taste.”
“Blueberry? Plum?”
“And?”
I took another sip. “Chocolate? The aftertaste is spicy. Pepper?”
“Good girl.”
Another flash of heat seared through me. Was this how dating worked? You ping-ponged back and forth between terror and exhilaration before you lit up like a firework or crashed and burned?
“Why does the wine taste different each year?” I choked out.
“The weather’s unpredictable. The profile changes as it ages. The winemaker decides to experiment.” Nolan rested a hand on my thigh. “I’m big on experimenting.”
“I’m not.” When his fingers crept upward, I sucked in a sharp breath. “People change too, though.”
Nolan chuckled softly and straightened. Since I was still wrapped around him like a baby octopus, I went along for the ride.
“C’mon, I’ll show you the difference between a damn good vintage wine and the grape juice it starts as.”
“Wait, what about the foreplay?”
“I’m testing your limits, and I’m not going to risk breaking them. I want you whispering my name in your sleep, not cursing my existence as you hurl a wine bottle in my direction. Hold these.” He put two long-stemmed glasses into my hand. “Next time, you’ll kiss me.”
Holy Toledo, he was still hard, and the tip of his dick rubbed against me as he walked. The effect was…monumental. Not just the size, but the fact that it felt delicious rather than disturbing.
Nolan turned out most of the lights, and I clung to him as he walked confidently through dimly lit passages to the winery. Equipment hummed, and the huge fermenters gleamed all around like giant sentries. He set me on my feet.
My legs were trembling, but not in a bad way.
“No, you can take charge. Only for the kissing part, though.”
He shook his head. “I want you breathless, not nervous, so we’re going at your pace.”
“But—”
“You managed to take the lead last time.”
Didn’t he realise that last time, I’d been panicking, scared of losing my best friend and terrified of being kidnapped by CPS? I’d acted out of desperation to keep Nolan with me and more than a little stupidity.
“Asshole.”
He ignored that as wine trickled out of a sampling spigot into one of the glasses.
“This is a Zinfandel. Still sharp, slightly tart. Try it.”
“So we’re just changing the subject?”
Once again, he held the glass to my lips, and I had to sip or spill wine down my shirt. It wasn’t balanced the way his older creations were. “Ugh.”
“The malolactic fermentation hasn’t finished yet. We’ll try the Syrah next. It’s even younger, still on its primary fermentation.” He moved to a different tank and poured another sample. “The fizz comes from the carbon dioxide.”
I took a mouthful, held it for a second, then spit it over Nolan’s shoes. “That’s absolutely disgusting.”
His brows pinched. “It should taste rough, but not spit-it-on-my-feet rough.”
“You could have warned me it was cabbage juice.”
“Cabbage juice?” He poured a sample for himself, sniffed, and tasted. His rapidly darkening expression sent a wave of ice water over the night, along with the foul aroma of rotten eggs. “Fuck, what the hell is this?”
I didn’t know the answer, but a whole new kind of fear welled up in me. And anger. Don’t forget the anger.
Rotten eggs… “Sulphur?”