Chapter 7

The air in the wine cellar was cool, clinging to my skin like a second layer of silk, but the heat radiating from his chest was the only thing that mattered. I woke slowly, the kind of waking that happens when sleep is so deep it feels like falling back into it. The first thing I registered was the weight of his arm, heavy and solid, draped across my waist, pinning me to him. The second was the rhythmic rise and fall of his breathing, right against the shell of my ear. I didn’t open my eyes immediately. I let the moment stretch, savoring the reality that this wasn’t a fever dream, wasn’t the frantic, desperate coupling we had just finished in the back of the town car as the city lights blurred into streaks of neon and shadow. It was morning. The light filtering down through the high, arched windows of the tasting room was muted, gray and soft, dancing with dust motes that drifted like tiny stars above the rows of ancient oak barrels. I shifted slightly, and he stirred. A low, rumbling sound vibrated in his throat, a possessive hum that sent a jolt of electricity straight