The Ashtons: Jillian, Eli & Charlotte. Bronwyn Jameson

although Seth didn’t bother checking—chimed silver against crystal until the cacophony of conversations and the loud, hammering pulse in his head and between his legs dimmed to a low hum. Amazing. All these other people in the restaurant—at the same table, even—and his focus had narrowed to one. For how long they’d been immersed in their own sensual vacuum, he had no clue.

      He turned now, pretended to listen as his friend formally launched Casinelli’s 2001 pinot noir. Robert kept it short and sweet, ending with “let the wine speak for itself.” Much applause then a hundred-odd enophiles reached for their glasses.

      Seth watched Jillian go through the motions. Nose in glass, the long inhalation, the longer moment of reflection before she lifted the glass to her mouth. She took her first taste and her eyes drifted shut as she held it in her mouth. The heat of her rapt expression, the subtle movement of her throat as she swallowed, the ruby sheen on her lips: they all combined to create a moment of near-violent longing in Seth.

      To generate such passion, to watch those lips part so softly, to see that same rapture when his mouth was on her, tasting her, driving her wild with pleasure.

      “As good as anticipated?” he asked, and his voice sounded about how his body felt. Hot, gruff, hard.

      “Mmm, better, although that may be partly due to anticipation. ” She sipped again, contemplated, her eyes focused somewhere deep within herself. “Silkier than last year. Big hit of fruit. Rich cherries, some raspberry. And there’s a floral note that reminds me of the ninety-seven.”

      Seth picked up his own glass, sniffed. “You can tell the vintages apart?”

      “I’ve scored a hundred percent on blind horizontals and verticals.” She frowned. “Does that sound conceited?”

      “It sounds…interesting.” And erotic. Jillian, blindfolded and horizontal.

      “Interesting in what way?”

      He smiled slowly as the idea took form. “Interesting, as in, would you like to prove it?”

      She looked up from her glass, a stillness in her eyes, her face, her body. “How?”

      “I have a pretty decent collection.”

      “Of pinots? Of Sophia’s pinots? How?”

      Seth shrugged. “I told you the Neumanns were friends.”

      “And, what, they just send over a bottle each Christmas?” Her gaze swung toward their hosts and back at him. She coughed out a strangled laugh. “They do, don’t they? They actually send you bottles as gifts.”

      What could he say? She was right.

      Slowly, disbelievingly, she shook her head. “And you made out as if you were a complete philistine. You encouraged me to rabbit on about pinot noirs and about Sophia’s wine.”

      “I have the wines. Doesn’t mean I know a blessed thing about them.”

      She didn’t look convinced.

      “It’s a cliché, but I know what I like to drink and that’s my only interest in wine.”

       Apart from this fantasy of licking the stuff from your body.

      “So.” He turned the glass through his fingers. “Are you up for the challenge?”

      “A blind tasting of Casinelli pinots? You’re kidding, aren’t you?”

      “You told me not to mess with you over these wines.”

      She moistened her lips. “When?”

      “Tonight.”

      Seth savored the spun-out moment as he waited for her answer, the anticipation, the expectation, the certainty of what she would say.

      “Okay.”