Chapter 13 Snapper
SNAPPER
At the top of the stairs, I set her down outside her bedroom door. She swayed, and I put my hands on her waist to steady her. Even now, after everything she’d just told me, after she’d let me in, I had to be sure.
“You okay with this?”
She pulled my mouth back to hers. The kiss was slower this time, deeper, and when I stared into them, her eyes were clear. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
Inside her room, I took in the details I’d never seen before. Books stacked on the nightstand—technical volumes about viticulture mixed with travel guides for places she’d never visited but said she wanted to. A quilt, probably from her grandmother, that looked handmade, was draped across the bed.
She stood beside it, twisting her hands together.
I stepped closer and cupped her face. “We can stop anytime.”
“I don’t want to stop.” Her hands rested on my chest. “I want this. I want you.”
She reached for the hem of my shirt, and I helped her pull it over my head. Her hands explored my chest, her fingers tracing muscle and the rope-burn scar on my ribs from a tussle with a steer a few years ago. When she reached my shoulder, her touch gentled.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not right now.” I caught her hand and kissed her palm. “Right now, I don’t feel anything but you.”
I found the buttons of her shirt and worked them slowly, watching her face flush as each one came free.
When I pushed it off her shoulders, I saw what I’d imagined for years—tan lines from working in the vineyard, her shoulders darker than the pale skin below.
Freckles scattered across her collarbone like someone had splattered wine across marble.
“You’re so damn beautiful,” I said, tracing the line where sun-kissed skin met pale.
More clothes came off. Then I unzipped her jeans covered with faint purple stains that wouldn’t wash out completely. Her hands were callused from the pruning shears, and her cuticles were also stained despite scrubbing.
I lay her on the bed and followed her down, settling my weight carefully over her. The first touch of skin to skin made us both gasp.
I kissed her deeply, taking my time. My hands learned her body—the dip of her waist, the curve of her hip, the softness of her breasts. When I traced my thumb across her nipple and felt it harden, she arched beneath me.
“Snapper, please—”
“I’ve got you.” I kissed down her neck, across her collarbone, and lower. When I took her nipple in my mouth, her fingers tightened in my hair and she made a sound that shot straight to my cock.
Now, I had her beneath me, trusting me with her body after trusting me with her truth, and I was going to make damn sure she never regretted it.
My mouth continued making its way down her stomach, feeling her muscles jump under my lips. When I settled between her thighs, she tensed.
“Relax, sweetheart. Let me take care of you.”
I put my mouth on her, and her hips lifted off the bed. I took my time, learning what made her moan, what made her hands fist in the sheets, what made her say my name. When she came against my tongue, I memorized the taste of her.
I moved up her body, kissing her deeply so she could taste herself on my lips. Her hands were frantic, pulling at my shoulders, trying to get me closer.
“I need you,” she gasped. “Please, I need—”
After rolling on the condom I’d taken from my wallet and set on the bedside table, I positioned myself and pushed inside her slowly. We both froze at the sensation—her hot and tight around me, me stretching her, filling her. Perfect.
When she moved her hips, I was lost.
We found a rhythm, like we’d been doing this for years instead of minutes.
Her legs wrapped around my waist, and I laced my fingers through hers, pinning her hands beside her head.
I watched her face—the way her lips parted the deeper I went, the flush spreading down her neck, the small crease between her brows when I changed the angle.
“Look at me,” I said when her eyes started to drift closed. “I want to see you.”
She held my gaze. No walls. No barriers.
I reached between us and touched her where we were joined. Her back arched, and she shattered, her body clenching around me in waves.
The sensation sent me over right after her. I buried my face in her neck and came hard, holding her.
I managed to roll to my back before my arms gave out and I crushed her with my weight. Her head rested on my chest and my fingers traced patterns up and down her spine.
“I never thought it could be like that,” she whispered.
I tilted her face up. “Like what?”
“Safe and intense at the same time. Like coming home and jumping off a cliff.”
I kissed her softly. “That’s what it felt like for me too.”
She settled against my chest again, resting her hand over my heart.
Soon, we both drifted to sleep.
When I woke, her eyes were open and her brow furrowed.
“Talk to me, Saffron.”
When she shook her head, I crawled on top of her, using my arms to hold my weight. “Tell me what’s going on?”
Her eyes bored into mine. “What if the wine doesn’t work?”
“It will.”
“But what if it doesn’t? What if we do everything right, and it’s still not good enough?” Her fingers traced circles on my arms. “What if December comes, and we open those tanks, and it’s…ordinary?”
I rolled to my side and brought her with me so her body was stretched on top of mine. “Then we’ll figure something else out.”
“There is nothing else, Snapper. This is it. This is the only chance.”
“Saff.” I reached up and cupped her cheek so she had to look at me. “You’re borrowing trouble. Right now, we’ve got everything we need. That’s enough.”
She was quiet for several seconds. “I keep thinking about the journal entry. How they agreed to split the formula. ‘What we created can never be made again.’ What if they were right?”
“Or what if something happened we’ll never know about or understand that kept them from making it again? Sometimes, the only thing stopping us from fixing a problem is our own stubbornness.”
She huffed but smiled. “Are you saying I’m stubborn?”
“I’m saying you come by it honest.” I kissed her forehead. “But at least now, you’ve got backup.”
“Yeah. I do.” She settled against me again. “Thank you. For staying. For listening. For not trying to fix everything the second I told you about the foreclosure.”
“You don’t need me to fix it. You need me to help you fix it. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
“Yeah. One makes you feel weak. The other makes you stronger.”
Her breathing evened out, and the tension in her body slowly released.
“Try to sleep,” I murmured.
“Will you stay?”
“All night. I’m not going anywhere.”
She relaxed against me, and within minutes, she was asleep with her head on my chest and her body flush with mine. I couldn’t imagine a better feeling in the world, other than being inside of her. There’d be plenty of time for that later. For the rest of our lives if I had anything to say about it.
I stayed awake longer, staring at the ceiling. Eventually, I drifted off too.
The alarm at five AM jolted us both awake. Saffron stirred and groaned in protest, then she stilled.
She rolled to face me. “Hi,” she whispered.
“Hi, yourself.”
“You stayed.”
“Told you I would.”
She kissed me, soft and slow, but when she leaned away, I saw the question in her eyes—did last night change things between us?
I kissed her back, deeper this time. Yeah, everything had changed. For the better.
“We need to pick today,” she said against my mouth.
“I know.”
“So we should—”
I tightened my arms around her. “Five more minutes.”
She settled into me with a sigh. “Five more minutes.”
They stretched into ten, then fifteen. Neither of us wanted to move.
She got up first. “I really do need to shower. The crew will be waiting.”
“Go ahead. I’ll make coffee.”
“You don’t know where anything is.”
“I have mad skills as a hunter and gatherer, sweetheart, which means I can sniff out coffee anywhere.”
She rolled her eyes, smiled, and climbed out of bed. I watched her walk to the bathroom, appreciating every curve and line of her body that I now knew intimately.
She paused in the doorway and looked back at me. “You could join me.”
“If I do that, we’ll never make it to the vineyard.”
Her laugh echoed off the bathroom tiles as she disappeared inside. A minute later, I heard the water start.
I forced myself out of bed, put on my jeans, and headed downstairs. The coffeemaker sat on the counter next to the sink. I found grounds in the freezer and filters in the same cabinet as the cups.
While the coffee brewed, I looked around.
There was mail stacked on the table and a calendar on the wall that had harvest dates marked in red, but I noticed the ink was smudged in places, like she’d erased and rewritten dates multiple times.
There was a photo on the refrigerator of Saffron and Felicity, probably from five years ago, both of them laughing at something outside the frame.
The kitchen window looked out over the Zinfandel vines we’d harvested yesterday, now stripped of fruit.
When the coffeemaker beeped, I poured two mugs and carried them upstairs.
She was just coming out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, hair damp and smelling like citrus and honey. She took the mug I offered and sipped, then smiled.
“Perfect. Thank you.”
She set it down, then kissed me. “Your turn to shower. I’ll get dressed and check the weather.”
I kissed her forehead and went into the bathroom. The small space still smelled like her—not just her shampoo, but something else, something that was purely Saffron. I showered quickly, knowing daylight was fast approaching, then dressed in yesterday’s clothes.
When I came downstairs, she was in the kitchen, wearing clean jeans and a Los Caballeros T-shirt I recognized as one of mine from a harvest party two years ago. Seeing her in it made my chest tight.
“That looks better on you than it ever did on me,” I said.
She glanced down. “Oh. I forgot I had this. I can change—”
“Don’t you dare.” I put my arms around her and ran my hands down her back. “I like seeing you in my clothes. It means you’re mine.”
“Possessive much?”
“When it comes to you? Yeah.”
She rose up on her toes and kissed me, and I could taste coffee and toothpaste and home.
She stepped away and grabbed her phone from the counter. “I checked the forecast. Clear today and tomorrow, but there’s a system coming in on Saturday. Rain.”
“How much?”
“Enough to make a mess if we’re still picking.” She opened the weather app and showed me. “Looks like it’ll hit late afternoon. We need everything off the vines and into the tanks by then.”
“It’ll happen.”
“If nothing goes wrong.”
“When does anything go wrong during harvest?” I deadpanned.
That got a genuine laugh from her. “Fair point.”
I took out my phone and texted my brothers, making sure the crew was on schedule. A response came back immediately from Bit, saying they’d already gotten started.
“Should we leave now?” she asked.
“In a sec.” I kissed her one more time, then grabbed my keys and phone and headed for the door.
Outside, the October morning was cool and clear, the kind of day that made you grateful to be alive and working in wine country. I opened the passenger door of my truck, and she climbed in, then I got behind the wheel.
Saffron sat beside me and reached over to put her hand in mine.
“Nervous?” I asked as we got close.
“Terrified,” she admitted. “But in a good way. Maybe.”
I glanced at her and smiled. “That’s honest.”
“I’m trying to be.” She squeezed my hand. “About everything.”
“I know you are.”
I drove through the gates of Los Caballeros just as the sun broke over the eastern hills, turning the vineyard rows to gold. Like Bit had said, the crew was already there—trucks were lined up, bins were stacked and ready, and Cru was checking his clipboard.
I put the truck in park and looked at Saffron. “Ready?”
She studied me—this man who’d been her friend for years, who’d become her lover last night, who was now helping her fight to save everything that mattered.
“Ready.”
As I climbed out of the truck and went around to open her door, a feeling of foreboding settled in my gut like none I’d ever felt before. I just prayed it had nothing to do with the grapes we were about to pick or the wine that Saffron’s family’s future depended on.