“I believe your dress is beyond saving,” Achille said, a slight breathiness to his deep voice. I checked out my dress, and, sure enough, it was now sodden with red grape juice up to my waist. The once-white material had become transparent due to the wetness of the juice.
As I flicked my head up in embarrassment, a drop of grape juice splashed from the barrel to spray the side of my neck. And then everything happened at once. I cried out in surprise. Achille’s hands released mine, moving to my waist. And he lowered his mouth to my neck, his soft lips stilling on my skin as they kissed away the sweet, rolling drop of juice.
I felt as though I was in a dream, a surreal out-of-body experience where Achille’s mouth was on me. I could feel his breath ghosting down my skin and his hard chest pressed flush against mine. I wanted this dream to be real. I wanted to be in Achille’s warm embrace. I wanted him to want me enough to drop his guard and let me in.
I wanted him to want me, period.
Then when a low groan sailed into my ears, and I felt the soft swipe of a tongue lapping at the spilled juice, I knew I wasn’t lost in a fantasy. I was here. In the barn . . . wrapped tightly in Achille’s arms.
His mouth was on my neck.
He was against me, body against body . . . feeling exactly like I knew it would: perfect, like we had always been.
Achille’s lips suddenly stilled against my skin. His hands tightened on my waist, then he slowly withdrew his head, stopping just inches in front of my face. His pupils were dilated, the black nearly eclipsing the blue, as his wary, shocked eyes fixed upon my face. Heat filled his cheeks, and his mouth worked as if he wanted to speak but could find no words to say. His breathing was heavy; mine had stopped altogether.
I stared.
He stared.
The air between us crackled with tension.
I wasn’t sure who moved first. Like the last time we had been this close, something pulled us together, an unexplainable attraction that seized our minds and our hearts and our souls. One moment I was transfixed by his eyes, the next, Achille’s mouth was fused with my own, his soft lips against mine, his large hands in my hair.
My hands landed on his back, my fingers clawing at his naked skin, trying to pull him even closer. I needed him closer than he was, needed to feel him against me, within me, taking me. It was irrational and wrong, but I couldn’t persuade myself to stop.
My fingernails scraped along the flesh of his back, and Achille hissed into my mouth, followed by a deep groan. His hands tightened in my hair, and he plunged his tongue forward to meet mine. The taste of him exploded on my taste buds—fruity and sweet with just the faintest hint of wine.
This time it was me who moaned, heat surging through my veins and muscles and bones. I felt on fire, dancing on the precipice of something I wasn’t sure I could come back from. But, like anything addictive, I took and I took until my lips were bruised and my desire was raw.
I broke away to recapture my lost breath. Achille’s lips didn’t stop, traveling over my cheeks, down my neck and along the top of my chest. My head tipped back, eyes rolling shut as he seared me with his touch, setting fire to my blood.
My hands traveled to his arms, then up into his hair. Achille’s nose ran up my neck until his forehead pressed against my own. “Caresa,” he murmured in a slow, graveled tone. “I feel you inside me. Here and here and here.” His hands moved to his head, his mouth, his heart.
I should have stopped it. I knew I should have stopped it. But I moved closer, pressing my breasts to his chest, breathless as he hissed and let out a groan.
And that was all it took.
That was all it took to break the shy, retiring winemaker into a soul untamed. Achille reached down and took hold of the bottom of my thighs, lifting me until my legs wrapped around his waist. My already ruined dress split at the back, but I didn’t care. All I cared about was the man whose neck my arms were wrapped around, the warm skin searing its blazing heat through mine, and the lips that were joined against my own—wanting me, needing me, taking me—just like I craved.
I closed my eyes as we urgently explored each other’s mouths, as if time were a fragile hourglass, the sand taunting us, stealing away this moment, reminding us that our hearts could not entwine.
Achille stepped out of the crushing barrel and carried me into the heavy sheet of rain outside. The water was a cooling balm as it fell from the stormy sky above, drenching us, yet our lips still did not part.
We could not be separated . . .
. . . not even for a moment.
Achille’s feet sloshed on the flooding ground, and the remaining sounds of Andrea Bocelli’s hypnotizing voice sailed away into the distance as he carried me into his house.
I pulled my head back with a gasp, blinking as my mascara rolled down my cheeks. Achille’s lips were reddened from my smeared lipstick, his eyes dancing with light. He clearly didn’t care what I looked like. In that second, I couldn’t care either. Our movements were rough and raw and fumbled . . . we were tangled, chaotic perfection, a frantic, flawless mess.
The fire was roaring, basking the small living room in burnt orange and yellow and red. The wood crackled and split, and its earthy smell filled every inch of the air.
Achille’s eyes met my own, and for a brief, suspended moment we simply stared at each other. I drank in his beauty as he did my own. No words were spoken, yet we communicated with ease.
His parted lips told me he wanted me. His flushed cheeks told me he hungered for me. But his open, honest gaze told me he needed me more than air.
“Yes,” I whispered. It was all that needed to be said.
Achille took me from the living room, down a small hallway and into a bedroom. The entire time, I ran my hands through his thick, black, wet hair and over his stubbled cheeks and tensed neck. I had to touch him.
I could not let him go, not even for a single second.
He was a drug I could not forego. I lusted for the hit of his taste, the high from the heat of his body.
Achille stopped before a simple wooden-framed full-size bed. The room was sparse but for the bed and a nightstand. An oil-burning lamp sat in the window, a curiously old-fashioned light, yet perfectly suited to this cottage. The warm glow cast a golden sunset hue over the room, the slightly open window allowing the pitter-patter of rain to be our serenade.
I could hear his heart pounding next to mine. Then, in a move that made my legs tremble and an intense lightness fill my chest, Achille ran the back of his finger so painstakingly slowly down my cheek that it brought tears to my eyes. He was cherishing me . . . memorizing me. He was worshiping me as though I were the answer to his prayers.
In that moment, he felt like the answer to all of mine.
His hands drifted from the tops of my shoulders to the nape of my neck. He unzipped my dress. Cool air kissed my damp skin as the ruined material slid delicately from my body. I did not move my eyes from Achille’s the whole time. So, when my dress slipped to the floor, pooling at my feet, and my white lace bra and panties were exposed to his naked gaze, I witnessed it all—the burning desire filling every part of his beautiful face, his clenching jaw and flushed skin as he dropped his eyes to study my bared body.
A moan slipped through my lips, my eyelashes fluttering to a close, as his fingers wandered along the crests of my breasts. The feel of him touching me so closely, of having Achille Marchesi caressing me just as reverently as he nurtured his wine, was the headiest of sensations.
I opened my eyes, lids heavy, as warmth built at my core. Achille reached down to unfasten the front clasp of my bra. With a soft tug, the bra joined the dress at my feet.
My nipples ached as my damp skin was exposed to the warming air. Achille cupped my flesh in his hands, and a hiss ripped from his throat. I moaned at the feel of him touching me so intimately. He stepped closer and pressed the bare skin of his chest against me.
The sensation was almost too much to bear. Every cell in my body roared to life, a mighty ache in my chest pulling me further and further against Achille, yet yearning to get closer still. He molded me to him like a second skin. His hands on my back trapped me in their grip, his cheek running along my cheek, his earthy musk warming my skin.
Our lips fell back together, and all the tenderness ebbed away, along with any worries I had that this act between us was wrong.
His tongue slipped along mine. Our hands roved and branded, clawing at one another with a desperate urgency; no more patience remained. My hands moved down his hard abdominals, feeling them flex and twitch, before landing on the waistband of his jeans. My fingers trembled as they unsnapped the button and pulled down the zipper, brushing down over his hardness.