Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
B eatrix
Present Day
It’s absurd.
No more do I have time in my schedule to look at Ren’s dumb renovation project than I do to spend time with Ren—a man I shouldn’t trust any further than I could kick him with a muddy boot.
And yet, here I am doing both.
I follow him down Silverado Trail and tell myself I’m taking a needed break from working my tail off. Maybe I’ll get some design inspiration from his house. Or maybe I’ll get laid.
Holy hell, what?
The thought pops into my head unannounced. I could blame Julie for planting it there a few days earlier, and sure, sex would be nice, but not with Ren. Even if the man is hot with a capital H and a gallon of pico de gallo sauce on top. He’s always had that boyish charm that made it clear he could commit high crimes and get away with them just by smiling. His eyes twinkled with mischief, and when they were pinned on me…watch out. Cue body bursting into flames.
I drive and daydream about one escapist fling with a guy who looks like that, and I start counting…three, four, five. Not months, but years. Yes, that’s how long it’s been since I’ve had any fun with a man. I’m a good multitasker, but my tasks have not included sex in a long, long time.
As I cruise along behind his little roadster and watch his turn signal flash with ample warning to make the appropriate turns, I picture the man inside the car. He looks better in person than in pictures, where he’s inescapable on social media. I always have a knee-jerk reaction when an image pops up. I swipe it away as quickly as possible and don’t linger on captions detailing who he’s dating or what he’s doing. It’s like a form of fight or flight—I scroll away as a form of self-defense.
Seeing him in the flesh is a different thing. I can tell with minimal staring that Ren is in peak physical form, honed by hours of speed skating and weight training. He was a physical specimen in college, so put ten years of professional hockey muscle on him, and the story is over before it begins. All reasons why I should turn my SUV around and head back to Buttercup Hill.
It’s bad enough he’s here—in my town—but he’s making a home here. It’s bad enough seeing him with other women on social media, but I don’t want to witness it in person. And the worst part is that as much as I really want to dislike him, I remember all the reasons I loved him.
I hate that I still find him attractive, and I wish I could scroll away from him in person. Instead, I follow Ren up the driveway to the main house, determined to protect my heart and give him sass instead of feelings .
The house is a classic craftsman, and I can see the paint peeling from the front porch and pillars from fifty yards away. The property sits at the other end of the valley from Buttercup Hill, and I don’t remember it going on the market.
“How did you get this place? Was it a pocket listing?” I can’t help peppering him with questions the second he opens the door to his convertible Porsche, which stuck out among the pickup trucks and Teslas as I followed Ren along the St. Helena Highway. “Is it a tear-down or a fixer-upper?”
His eyes crinkle, and he smiles as he unfolds his long legs from the car and leads Truman across the front seat by his leash. “I’ve never seen someone this fired up about renovations. You’re adorable.”
I hate that the compliment makes my heart flutter. I hate that I’m reacting to him at all, when what I want is to be indifferent. I want to be the type of woman who could use him for sex, the type who could effortlessly walk away and forget about him, if only to even the score. I want to show him I’m no longer the same na?ve girl, pinning her hopes on a man.
And yet…my eyes rake over him, noting how he wears his hair a little bit longer now. It’s wavy and dark, offsetting the two days’ worth of beard on his face. He looks more mature now, face more angular, but with those same high cheekbones that could sever a pane of glass in two neat halves.
Moving down, I notice his lightly-tanned skin at the neck of his Henley, unbuttoned at the top. But it’s what’s underneath the shirt that holds my attention—hard planes of muscle as his pecs give way to abs that cling to the soft material. His shoulders and biceps stretch the cotton to its limit, and it’s all I can do not to reach out and wrap my hands around his muscles and squeeze.
Sex with Ren was good. More than good. I need a stern talking to, something like, “Beatrix, march straight to your car, get in, and drive away without looking back. Then, put your head down and get the inn finished. Dominick Renaldi can renovate houses and fling paint samples right up to your door, but you will feel nothing.”
“What?” he asks after I’ve stared silently for over a minute.
“Nothing.” I push my bottom lip forward defiantly.
“Not nothing, honey.” He casually runs a finger down the length of my arm, and I wonder if he can tell my skin is ablaze at the barest touch.
“Don’t call me ‘honey,’ Hockey Star,” I spit out, taking a step farther away.
He smirks. “You think you’re insulting me by calling me that? I know that look in your eye.”
My cheeks heat, but I have trouble not staring at his warm, teasing eyes.
“There’s no look.”
“Trix, I may not have seen you in years, but I know the look.”
“I was glancing over your shoulder at the moldings around the windows. They’re nice. That’s it.”
He smirks. “You can admire my…moldings anytime you want, hon.”
I refuse to give him the satisfaction of admitting I’m undressing him with my eyes, even if he knows it. “Let’s get something clear, Ren. I’m here as a design professional, despite what I said earlier. You should just forget about that part.”
He crosses his arms, grinning. “Can’t just forget.”
“Well, try.” I wrench my eyes away from his pecs, and they start watering from staring for so long. “So we should…look at the renovations, yes?”
“Sure.”
Ren moves ahead of me to open the front door, extending his arm toward the foyer. His large frame leaves little space in the doorway, and our bodies brush against each other accidentally as I slide past him. A frisson of awareness lights up my nerve endings, and my pulse skyrockets, sending a whoosh of warm heat through my veins .
Ren’s eyes fall on mine. The earlier smirk is gone. He’s just…looking.
My heart beats so loudly I’m sure he can hear it. Ren clears his throat and glances away, but a lick of electricity hovers in the space between us.
I follow him around as he points out various nooks and corners in need of help. Mostly, I’m staring at his ass, but I hum and nod as he gestures around the place.
“Ren, this house is…interesting,” I say. Actually, it’s not. It’s a disaster in need of repairs, renovations, and possibly a bulldozer. But I’m impressed that he bought it with no more than a tape measure in his pocket and a dream. “It kind of reminds me of the barn in that Carraway Farm series. Have you seen it on social media?”
“Nope.” His hand grazes my elbow as he shows me into a dilapidated library. I shiver and try to play it off with wild hand gestures.
“It’s this awesome place this woman bought years ago. It was run-down, kind of a disaster, and she turned it into a working farm. Now, it’s the cutest thing ever and she has like a million followers watching her play with baby chickens and pick onions.”
“Um, okay. The only takeaway was that you think my house is a disaster.”
I tilt my head from side to side. “I didn’t say that.”
It’s worse than a disaster.
We walk the premises—broken, ancient appliances here, cracked moldings and scratched wood floors there. I catch him watching me as I take in each room of the house, and his gaze feels like a breeze kissing my skin.
I pull up some old carpet and send dust flying a foot into the air. He points to a doorframe, and it comes off in his hands. We walk into the kitchen, which has broken cabinets and smells like a combination of mildew and rotting wood. Ren calmly escorts me out, his hand brushing the small of my back. “Don’t think we should linger in there.” His breath feathers over the back of my neck, and I melt a little.
When we’ve finished walking through, I turn to him, hoping the pity doesn’t show on my face.
“Okay, not beyond hope, but it’s a project, that’s for sure. The place has good bones, and it doesn’t need any real rebuilding. Mainly TLC for the surfaces. Paint, wallpaper, floors, fabrics. If you’ve hired a contractor, you’ll be able to get subs working on several things at once, but everyone wants to be last. Painters, floor people—they all want the last pass at the place, but you just have to tell them to work together. It can be done. What’s your timeframe? Because even if it’s short—and trust me, I know short timeframes—you can still get people to hustle when things need to get done. Furniture, floors, lighting, all of it can be installed like a movie set. Bam, bam, bam.” I motion with my hands like I’m firing a gun even though there’s no weaponry required in renovations. He probably knows that.
Or maybe he knows nothing at all because right now he gapes at me until I wave a hand in front of his eyes.
“You okay?”
He shakes his head as though coming out of a stupor. “You’re…different than I remember you.”
“Yeah? How so?” I have a feeling I know what he’ll say. I’m not the impressionable girl who was too na?ve to understand that hot hockey stars don’t stay with their college girlfriends. Now, I’m cynical and wise, just looking to satisfy my physical needs without strings attached.
“I guess, more driven and goal-oriented? Tightly wound?” It comes out like a question, but he doesn’t seem to be searching for a more apt way to describe me. “Like you’d only choose to get a cup of coffee if you needed a caffeine boost, not for the company.”
I could be insulted by his assessment, but it’s not untrue. I can barely recall the time in my life when I was different. I nod .
I’m this way because of you , I want to say. I’d never actually utter the words out loud, but they’re the truest truth. Perhaps it’s unfair of me to lay the blame for who I am now entirely at Ren’s feet. But when the love of your life sees you as an impediment to his bright future and discards you like dirty gum on his shoe…it tends to leave an indelible mark.
Ren may have been the catalyst for the protective barriers around my heart, but years of isolating myself solidified them into place.
My focus, my commitment, my success—all of them are a product of my relationship with Ren. More specifically, they’re a result of the way Ren walked away without looking back, leaving me to pick up the pieces of myself and figure out what to do next.
The idea that someone could want me and then…change his mind… That was a formative life lesson.
I’ll never do something like offer to follow a guy when I know now that love doesn’t mean forever.
“And what about you? Are you different than you were ten years ago?” There’s an edge to my voice, and he catches it, flinching at the implication that he was not a great guy back then. The jury’s still out on now.
He doesn’t answer right away. I start to wonder if he didn’t hear the question, but then he lets out a long exhale.
“I want to be.” He stares off into the distance. “I want to incorporate more into my life, which is why I started work on this house. To test a theory.” I want to know why he came to this particular town and bought this particular winery, but I try to keep my mind from wandering and focus on the conversation at hand.
“What’s the theory?”
“That I can have balance in my life if I work hard at it. It’s never been a priority before.”
“Oh. Well, I’m the opposite. Master at multitasking, here.” I point to my chest with both thumbs. “My whole life is balancing like a hundred plates at once.”
His jaw falls open and cocks his head at me. “I don’t mean juggling. I mean balance.”
“What’s the difference?” I literally don’t know what he means. It’s practically a school requirement to be able to look at a phone and do something else at the same time. It’s all about multitasking in this day and age, and I proudly wear my crown as queen.
His laugh is so abrupt it startles me. “I’m talking about life balance. Things outside of work. Though I’m not one to talk, at least not yet. All I do is play hockey.”
“Yeah. I recall.” I whisper the words quietly, but the past hurt comes rolling back in my tone. I guess I’m not completely over the way he said he loved me and made me promise I was his forever before abruptly breaking my heart and moving to Canada. Alone.
“Is this…do you want to talk about that?” He leans slightly forward like he might step closer, but then he puts his hands in his pockets and stays rooted in place, his expression wary.
We’re standing in an empty bedroom with dust bunnies around the baseboards, peeling paint, and broken windowpanes. In his presence, I feel like this room—battered and worse for the wear—and that’s a side I won’t let anyone see. Especially this man.
“No. I don’t.”
The problem is that I don’t know what I want. Now that we’re alone here, it’s awkward and confusing. A part of me wants to be mad at him or hate him, but another bigger part of me wants to take the high road and show him that all he’s really good for at this point in my life is a good time. One and done.
“Let’s see the rest of the house.”
He studies me for a moment as if he’s gauging whether I mean it. Finally, he nods. “Okay. Wait until you see the upstairs bathroom. It’s purple and black. Definite bordello vibes.”
“Well, who wouldn’t want that?” I quip, following him up the creaky wooden staircase.
As it turns out, I want a bordello bathroom and more. I love this house. And despite myself, I feel a jittery, schoolgirlish pull toward Ren’s broad-shouldered, chiseled form.
There’s also something else. The Ren touring me through his house is more reserved and pensive than the hotshot hockey star I knew when he was twenty-two. Now, he has an indefinable air about him—more mature, quieter, deeper. I don’t want to like it, but I do.
Once the house tour is done, as promised, Ren brings us right back to where we were an hour ago. Only now, he ups the ante, trailing a finger from my shoulder down to my wrist. He’s been doing this for the past hour, leaning in so I can feel his breath caress my cheek. And I’ve been doing my best not to shudder. Or downright tremble. To be clear, I’ve been unsuccessful.
The man is hotness in human form. Even as our relationship fell apart, we still had chemistry, and that was part of the problem—it distracted me from understanding what was really happening between us. The tearing apart of first love. I assumed that if I ever saw him again, the past hurt would prevent me from feeling anything.
I was incorrect.
I mean… I don’t want him, per se, but I want what I know he can provide. My body wants his body. Badly.
“So,” he says, eyes moving over me so slowly that I feel the burn over every inch of my skin. “Would you like to see the casita? It has actual furniture, couches. We could…sit someplace.” He can barely hide his cheeky grin .
A blaze of heat races through my veins. I know his bedroom is in the casita.
I’m not worried about him breaking my heart again. That’s impossible now. My heart is well-sealed and protected, not vulnerable to his charms. And yet, despite myself, I still want him. Maybe it’ll give me some sort of closure to have sex with him. Regardless, I’m curious enough to see how this all plays out.
Laughing like I’m immune to the implications of seeing his room, I take a step backward. Then another. I try my hardest to keep my cool and not let my lady boner make life more complicated than it already is. “Are you renovating that too? If so, sure.” My breath comes out ragged, betraying me and cracking on the last word.
A peal of laughter rumbles from his throat. “Like I said, you’ve changed a bit in ten years.”
My exhilaration over the idea of a hot, satisfying quickie turns to annoyance. “Not really. Even back then, I think I could hold a conversation without needing to jump you.”
His eyebrows bounce. “Not how I remember it.”
I’m about to pepper him with retorts about needing to get over himself when he closes the distance between us in two long strides. Grabbing my hand, he floods my body with that damn electricity that scrambles all thoughts except one—I need him. Now.
“Whatever,” I grumble, following where he leads me around the back of the house. I can’t help craning my neck to take in tiny details in the eaves and evidence of the original trim colors in places where the sun hasn’t bleached it. “You’re delusional. It’s embarrassing, really.”
But I’m the one picking up the pace.
“Not at all embarrassed,” he says, leading me down a smaller walkway than the one in front of the main house. This one is quaint, lined with potted plants that look well-watered. They alternate between wandering rosemary and perky lavender, somehow still in bloom in early August.
“So, you found yourself a gardener,” I observe as we reach the front door, flanked with two larger pots, each containing a lemon tree laden with fruit and smaller green plants at the base. And daisies, lots of daisies.
They’re my favorite flower. There was a house down the block from where Ren lived in college that had a whole hillside of daisies, and Ren would often pluck one stem and tuck it into my ponytail, flower on top of the band. That simple, sweet gesture was what made it so hard for me to accept how easily he seemed to walk away from me at the end—I couldn’t believe a man with that kind of heart could turn so cold.
Surely it’s a coincidence that daisies are growing here now, but it makes me happy to see them.
Ren stops in his tracks so fast that I run smack into his back. I barely have time to put up a hand to brace myself, and now it’s crushed between us, the hard muscles of Ren’s back under my palm. He spins around, freeing my hand, and I feel an urge to reach out and touch him again somewhere. The heat of his body is magnetic, and I’m no match against it.
“Nope. Just me. You like the plants?”
“I, um, yes…”
He unlocks the front door and pulls me through it. I barely have time to take in my surroundings, which are quaint and well-kept—tidy white kitchen to the right, stainless steel appliances, small, unfurnished living room to the left—before Ren leads me down a hall and pushes open the door to his bedroom.
I don’t know what I’m expecting. A college dorm room? Milk crates for furniture? Posters of hockey heroes taped to the walls?
All of my memories of Ren and his living style are rooted in ten years ago, when he rarely made his bed and left pads and jerseys strewn everywhere. This room is large and immaculate, with a king-sized bed in the center and matching rustic wood bedside tables. Each of them has a small stack of books on it next to a lamp.
“You’re a reader?”
“Yes.” He smiles. “You want me to read you a story?”
“I, um…” Before I can come up with a logical response to a question that’s probably laced with innuendo, Ren presses a quick kiss to my palm. Eyes never leaving my face, he squeezes my hand and leads me to the edge of the bed.
He holds up a finger. “Sit, please. I’ll be right back.” Then he disappears down the hall. Truman, who has been sitting at the foot of the bed, obediently trails after Ren, his nails skittering against the wood floors.
I feel like I’m not supposed to follow him, so I stay put and think about what I’m considering. Sex with Ren is a bad idea, no matter how tempting. Then again, maybe it will get him out of my system once and for all. The breakup sex we never had.
When I hear him rustling around in the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards and rattling dishes, I push down my ambivalence and scoot myself back on the bed to check out his books. On one side of the bed, I find a stack of performance-related sports books. No surprise. Ren has always been obsessive about understanding different kinds of training and the effects on fitness and performance.
On the other bedside table, however, I find three books of poetry—Emily Dickinson, Pablo Neruda, and E.E. Cummings. I flip open the Dickinson tome and find that several of the poems are earmarked. Interesting.
When I hear Ren’s footsteps approaching, I close the book and stash it back where it was. He catches me scooting back to the foot of the bed where he left me. Eyeing me with a quizzical look, he says nothing. Instead, he closes the door behind him and puts a tray down on the bed next to me.
“You still haven’t eaten much, and I don’t want you passing out on me from starvation. And maybe this will help your nerves.” He gestures to a corked bottle of wine and two glasses on the tray. Next to that sits a platter with crackers, three kinds of sliced cheeses, a bowl of pitted green olives, and a dish of dried fruit.
“I’m not nervous,” I lie.
“Right, okay.” He points to the strand of hair I’m twirling, and I immediately drop it. I hate that I have a “tell” and I hate more that he remembers it.
My stomach rumbles its approval as I take in the snacks. I push away the warm glow that rises in my chest at the sweetness of his gesture. He couldn’t know it, but the snack display is exactly the kind of thing I often eat for dinner when I’m alone at home and don’t feel like cooking. But I don’t tell him because this is a fling, and he doesn’t need to know me better than he does.
Putting a slice of cheese on a cracker, I nod. “Thank you.”
He watches me bite into the cracker, and I’m aware of the indelicate way a piece falls to my lap. He pops an olive into his mouth and hands me a glass of wine. We nibble and sip in silence for a few minutes, and I feel a pleasant numbness from the wine. I also feel a pang of regret. This is crazy. I should not be at my ex-boyfriend’s house for sex. Or…this is exactly where I should be. I can’t decide.
“If we do this…”
“Yes…” I’d smack the cocky grin right off his face if it weren’t so damn cute.
“It’s just a spur-of-the-moment thing. It doesn’t mean we’re friends again. It doesn’t mean we’re anything. Just one and done. We clear?”
He nods slowly. “Whatever you say.”
“That’s what I say. We’re not friends.”
He smirks again. “Fine.”
When I’ve finished my glass of wine, a bit of my caution slips away, though I still feel a little nervous and tense. Putting my glass on the tray, I meet Ren’s eyes. They’re just as molten brown and bottomless as I remember loving as a college sophomore when all I knew was that I wanted to stare at those eyes forever.
Now, I feel the heat and pull of him, but none of the emotions or promise of something more. I only feel the need for his body and what it can do to mine. There’s no question I want that.
Ren brings me to standing before putting the tray onto the floor. He returns to sit on the bed and guides me closer until I’m straddling his lap. I have all the power in this position, and it allows me to trust him, trust his intentions.
He wraps his hands into my ponytail and moves my face to angle our lips more perfectly. Our faces only inches apart, I meet Ren’s eyes, which are soft, molten brown. He cups the back of my head and inhales a long breath before shaking his head slowly and exhaling. “More beautiful than ever.”
I feel a flutter in my chest, and my thighs tighten around his. Ren’s lips barely brush against mine, but it feels like he’s lit a fuse. Urging my face closer with his hand, Ren deepens the kiss slowly, like honey dripping onto my tongue. My mouth reacts to him like it’s found a safe haven after years of useless wandering. It’s explosive, passionate, heated. So. Damn. Necessary.
Ren’s hands move to cup my ass as I grind against his erection. Our bodies have taken over completely, and I gratefully give my overworked brain a break. I just want to feel him.
Ren rolls me onto my back and hovers over me on his forearms. I’m still a little nervous, so I make a dumb joke. “Last chance to back out…”
“Not. Taking. It.” The low, sexy rasp of his voice sends a chill down my spine right before his lips lower to mine. They’re soft, insistent as he kisses me again like we have ten years to make up for. No hesitation, no light brush against my lips this time. He kisses like he owns me, and I both love it and hate it, so I bite down on his bottom lip.
His head jerks back and he meets my gaze, the recognition of a challenge in his eyes. He kisses me harder this time, not an apology for the past but an acknowledgment that this is passion without an ounce of love.
“Admit you like me,” he growls against my mouth.
“I like this,” I pant, cupping his erection and refusing to give him more.
My legs lock around his hips, and our mouths meld in a furious intensity we never used to have. Our tongues tangle and fuse as I shamelessly grind my hips against him, feeling his hard length right where I need the friction.
He rolls us so I’m on top of him and smacks me hard on the ass. Even through the fabric of my pants, I know it will leave a mark. A brand.
“Ouch.” I can’t wipe the smile from my face.
The wild, feral way we are with each other feels like a match of wills. A white-hot battle of passion that could easily eat us alive. More delicious than I’ve ever experienced.
“You like me,” he goads.
“Barely.”
My nails dig into his neck as he kisses me again, his tongue parting my lips and delving inside with a new fervor. We’re like a tornado of tongues and hands and skin as I shove his black Henley up so I can touch the hot skin over his hard abs. His tongue trails down my neck, and he lifts my shirt over my head before returning to the sensitive skin of my neck.
He kisses his way to my ear. I fling off my bra and roll us so I’m straddling him, moving against his erection exactly where I want the friction. Nothing coy about what I need from him.
His hands roam up my torso and cup my breasts, thumbs massaging my nipples until they’re achy and stiff. That takes all of about a second. It’s not at all the way we used to be as love-struck, innocent college kids. I feel claimed by Ren in a different way, appreciated as a grown woman. And I want him for what his body can give me. Only that.
Ren’s chest is broader, muscles more developed, abs more rippled and taut. His lats bulge as I run my hands up from his waist and marvel at how many pounds of muscle he’s put on since college. Every inch of him is taut and warm beneath my hands, and I can’t stop touching him as we continue kissing.
Ren kisses with more confidence, more authority. And when his tongue feathers over one breast and he exhales over the sensitive skin, my nipples respond in a way they never did back then. He’s just bigger, harder…more.
More muscular, more commanding. More of everything I want. I start nodding to myself because this is good, so very good. Exactly what I need to get me out of my head and make me stop thinking so much. But not just yet. Right now, I’m so in my head that I don’t realize I’m talking to myself. “Yes. So much better than yoga.”
Ren stops kissing me, holds my face a few inches away, and laughs. “Better than yoga?”
“Did I say that out loud?”
“Um, yeah. You did.” He shakes his head, chuckling.
“You do know that laughing in a person’s face isn’t a super-hot turn-on, right?”
“I could say the same when you’re all stiff and tense and comparing me to a workout class. Would you relax? Are you capable of that?”
“This is me relaxed,” I grit out.
“Wow. I’d hate to see what you’re like when you’re stressed.”
“Will you please just kiss me like you did a second ago? I promise you I’m relaxed.”
He flips me again onto my back and kisses me. Harder. Deeper. His lips taste like delicious, impulsive decisions, and I let out a long exhale and just feel . Ren’s mouth slides over my chin and down my throat. His fingers roll over my shoulders, my throat, my breasts, all begging for his touch. Then he pinches one nipple hard between his fingers before soothing the ache with his tongue. I feel myself melt into his body .
Our chemistry was good back in college, but it’s nothing compared to now. I’m panting, begging for more. And when he slides down my body and peels off my pants, every part of me begins to hum beneath his strong hands.
And his mouth.
I stiffen up again, ready to explain that it’s been a long time since someone’s gone down on me, but the words die in my throat as his tongue strokes slowly up my center, and I forget all about warning him that I might not be able to come this way. I stop thinking about anything at all except for how good this feels.
And that’s all it takes. A momentary separation between me and my brain. Now, all I feel is Ren touching me in places that I was pretty sure had gone dormant from lack of use. It takes me less than a minute for every pleasure center in my body to erupt at once.
For the first time in years, I relax.