“The sea shapes everything here,” I continue. “Even in the hottest summers. It cools the fruit, thickens the skins, and preserves acidity. You can taste it in the wine if you know where to look. That tension. That edge.”
His eyes widen, and I see…lust, arousal, and it shoots excitement through me as well.
“The way you talk aboutterroir,cara, is poetic.”
My pulse flutters.
Cara.
He’s called me that before, but it never felt intimate.
It does now.
I swirl what’s left in my glass as a way to ignore the heat pooling between my legs and the hope in my heart. “Bolgheri wouldn’t be Bolgheri without the sea—or Elba sitting there, reminding us that geography is never neutral.”
The night hums on around us, history and wind and vines braided together.
He leans and traces a thumb over my lips.
I freeze in time and space.
It’s just a tender brush of skin against skin, and yet, I want….
I stand up so quickly that my chair rattles. “Maybe…ah…it’s time for bed?”
Nico doesn’t object and starts to clear the table without being asked. He stacks plates neatly, like he’s nervous he’ll do it wrong, and that makes me smile.
“I can take care of this,” I tell him.
Maybe he can go away for a while so I can calm myself before I have to share a bed with him, which is scary and exciting.
“I want to,” he replies simply.
We move around each other in the kitchen with exaggerated politeness—passing, stopping, apologizing when there’s no need. At one point, our hands brush over the sink, and we both stop like we’ve been caught doing something scandalous.
“I’m sorry,” we say at the same time.
We laugh, and my chest loosens.
When everything is put away, there’s nothing left to delay the inevitable.
“So,” I say, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Bed.”
“Yes,” he agrees, a beat too quickly. Then, he adds, “I mean to sleep. Obviously.”
“Obviously.”
Silence stretches.
“This way.” I gesture vaguely and unnecessarily toward the hallway.
He took a shower in my bathroom. He already knows my house.
We walk side by side, not touching, as if the narrow corridor might combust if we do.
When we reach the bedroom, I flick on the lamp, suddenly very aware that this is my space. My bed. My quiet. The place where I’ve slept alone for years.
I tell him to use the bathroom first, and I go into theensuite attached to Alba’s room. There’s a spare toothbrush for me there, along with all her gazillion toiletries.
