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Nine

“Oh, no, Seth. No, no, no!” Jillian held up both hands in combination denial and horror. “You are not going to open all those bottles.”

“Backing down?”

After growing up with brothers, Jillian could pick a taunt a country mile away. Even when delivered in a deceptively soft and silky tone. She lifted her chin. “I’m trying to stop you doing something completely crazy.”

Seth gathered up the half dozen bottles he’d selected from the mind-blowing collection in his cellar and tilted his head toward the stairs. “After you…Chicken little.”

Jillian only moved to narrow her eyes. “I won’t let you waste thousands of dollars on testing my palate.”

“This—” he lifted the bottles of red gold in his hands “—didn’t cost me a dime.”

“Be that as it may, they’re worth big money. I won’t let you open them.”

Amusement flickered over his face. “How do you plan to stop me? Are you going to confiscate my corkscrew?”

She threw her hands in the air and marched to the stairs. “Your wine. Your money. Your loss.”

“No,” he said softly as she brushed past him. “Not my loss.”

A stinging retort in the making, Jillian paused on the bottom step and looked over her shoulder and into his eyes. Not a glimmer of laughter remained in their deep, dark depths. Only heat and a stunning predatory intent. The breath caught in her lungs, caught and hitched and shifted her mood from foot-stomping aggravation to heart-thumping awareness in one stalled second.

“And on the crazy front—” He leaned in close and shocked her with an open-mouthed kiss to the back of her neck. “Too late.”

By using very specific instructions—left, right, up, up again—she managed to coax her legs into carrying her up the steep staircase.

Too late? Oh, yes, much too late to stop the slide into complete sensual thrall with this man.

Crazy? Oh, yes, crazy to know without a backward glance that he watched her, all the way up those stairs and into his huge open-plan living area, every step of the way. That knowledge emanated from the base of her back and shivered up the length of her spine. Then, like the spill of wine from an upset glass, it spread through her body in red ripples of heat.

Crazy, too, that his watchful intensity no longer made her uncomfortable. All through that wonderful dinner she’d felt his attention with a mixture of quiet nerves and deep self-awareness and secret delight. It had been so long since she’d been on a first date that she’d forgotten the thrill of anticipation.

The not knowing how the night might end.

Well, she still didn’t know. She had come home with him, but this was a family home, shared with a daughter and a housekeeper. She had no reason to believe there’d be anything beyond the wine-tasting test, no grounds for the weird sense of their aloneness as she watched Seth deposit bottles and corkscrew and glasses on a low glass table.

No reason, either, for the leap of her pulse as he reached up to slide his loosened bow tie from his neck. In the taxi they’d shared on the drive back to Napa, he’d shed his jacket and untied the tie. “Feels like I’m trussed and bound,” he’d said.

But now—

“What are you doing?” she asked, her stomach jumping with nerves as he stretched the length of fabric between his hands and started toward her.

“You did say a blind tasting?”

“Yes, but—”

“This is your blindfold.” He stopped in front of her. “If you still want to do this.”

“Yes, I just—” Her gaze skittered toward the staircase and back. “What if someone comes downstairs?”

“Rachel is sleeping over at Rosa’s. We’re all alone.”

Jillian’s pulse raced. Was she ready for this? For being alone with this man and doing all the things he’d told her he wanted to do with her? She sucked in a slow breath. One step at a time, she told herself, starting with the tasting test. This she could do. Blindfolded, she would be better able to concentrate on the wine and not on Seth with his crisp white shirtsleeves and dark male aura.

With an accepting shrug, she turned around. Her belly swam with nerves and anticipation as he moved close behind her and covered her eyes with the slice of black silk.

Oh, how wrong could one girl be?

Instead of blocking him out, the darkness intensified Seth’s nearness. The tie carried his scent—nothing artificial, just earthy, sexy man. And he stood so close that their bodies brushed with charges of electric friction as he worked to fasten the tie.

The task seemed to be taking an extraordinarily long time, between the slippery fabric with its undulating widths and his big hands trying not to catch her flyaway curls in the knot. Her chest constricted, tight with the knowledge that he would take the same care of her, with her, in his bed.

Oh, yes, she could do this. In the dark, with her senses filled with Seth, anything was possible. Anything, except standing here passively while he fiddled and diddled…

“To get the wide part over my eyes, you need to tie it here—” she found his fingers and moved them to her temple “—instead of at the back.”

“Right.”

The word was low and thick; his breath fanned the side of her face; her body gravitated toward the source of heat. Could he be any slower? Any more of a tease?

“Stand still,” he growled. “I’m nearly done.”

Yes, and so am I, she almost growled back. But then his big hands were on her bare shoulders, turning her to face him. “Can you see me?”

I can feel you, smell you, all but taste you in my blood, but…

She shook her head. “No.”

His grip on her shoulders tightened for one long, dizzy moment when she thought he might bend down and kiss her—please, yes!—but then his hands dropped away. “Do you want to sit down?”

“Standing’s fine.” I think.

A low grunt of acknowledgment and he moved away. To the table, she imagined, to the expensive bottles of pinot that waited. A dozen thick, thudding heartbeats later she heard the distinctive suctioning sound of decorking, and that jarred her out of her sensual stupor.

“Please, just start with the one.” She pressed her hands together in entreaty. “I can’t stand to see you waste those.”

No answer, except a clunk—metal corkscrew against glass?—and the liquid slush of pouring. Then the sense of movement, the whisper of fabric, the shift of air, the scent of man in her nostrils.

The sweet tremble of desire deep in her belly.

He pressed a glass into her hand. Wine, Jillian thought, as her fingers folded around the stem, grounding her in a familiar world.

“We’ll start with one,” he said. “Seeing as you asked so nicely.”

Jillian smiled her thanks, for that consideration and for the several steps he took back out of her space. Now she could at least try to concentrate on the wine. Normally she would have let it breathe, but this wasn’t normal. She swirled the wine in her glass, wished she could—

“You need help getting the glass to your mouth?”

“I’m sure I can find my mouth, even in the dark,” she said, surprising herself with her prim tone. She swirled some more. “Since this beauty hasn’t breathed sufficiently, I’m helping release the aroma.” She lifted the glass, surprising herself again, this time with the steadiness of her hand. “And holding it to the light to check the color.”

His low smoky laughter slid through her. “Would you like me to do the honors, seeing as you’re at a disadvantage?”

“Please.”

He didn’t touch her, but she felt his nearness, the nudge to the base of her glass, lifting and tilting it for his inspection.

“Well?” she prompted. “What color do you see?”

“Red.”

Laughter exploded from her throat, laughter and backed-up breath and tension. A whole big barrel full of tension. “You don’t want to try for a more specific description? Like, which shade of red?”

“Like your dress.” Fingertips brushed over the one shoulder strap. “Pinot noir.”

The soft touch shivered through her skin, and the weight of his words echoed through her memory chords. Frowning, she searched for the time he’d said those words in that exact tone. In the tasting room. Yes. “That afternoon with the Red Hat ladies, you described my mood as pinot noir. What did you mean?”

“If you were a wine, that would’ve been my pick. That day, pinot noir.”

“And other days?”

“A cool white, a summer sparkly, a bold red. But as I said, I don’t know wines. Only what I like.”

Jillian pictured the hitch of his shoulders, felt a similar hitch in the region of her heart. He’d really seen that many facets of her personality?

“You’re a bit like a blind tasting.” He fingered the blindfold at her temple. “I never know what’s in store.”

Oh, my.

“So, we’ve established you’re holding a pinot noir,” he said, steering her attention back to the glass that remained steady in her hand. Amazing given the fine tremor in her blood and her flesh. “What else?”

She swirled that glass, the familiar, the anchor, but her senses were jarred, her perception askew. Amazing that he hadn’t completely floored her with those seemingly casual comments. Amazing that she hadn’t seen this coming, given how often he’d slayed her in these past few weeks.

This…wow, she did not know what to call it, did not want to put a name to it. Deeper than infatuation, richer than lust, scarier than sexual fascination. And, blast it, she liked him.

Momentarily rattled, she stuck her nose in the glass and sniffed deeply. Again, until the aromas filled her senses and drove out the disturbing sense that she’d strapped herself into a roller coaster. She sipped and tasted until her world rocked back on its axis. Safe and steady again, she felt the texture in her mouth, chewed on the flavors, and her confidence skyrocketed as the complex layers revealed themselves.

Too easy. This wine she would pick through a head cold. In the middle of a roller coaster ride.

“This is the ninety-nine,” she declared with a satisfied smile. “The nose is knock-your-socks-off intense—a distinctive personality you can’t mistake. Earthy and brooding. Robust. There’s a bigger structure, more complex than the ninety-eight, but still the Casinelli mouthfeel.”

No confirmation needed, she knew she was right. That knowledge danced through her like a cocky Travolta two-step.

“If you were a wine—” she lifted the glass in a smiling salute “—then this one is you.”

“An expensive pinot?” he asked after a thick beat of pause. “Are you sure about that?”

Was she? That day in the tasting room, he’d struck her as a big, bold, full-bodied cabernet. Other days he seemed so centered and together and confident, like a perfectly balanced Shiraz. Tonight at that dinner, the smoky chocolate notes of a merlot.

She moistened her lips as the possibilities shivered through her body. Too tempting, this chance to compare and contrast, with her senses primed by black silk and one of the valley’s finest wines. “Perhaps my call was premature. Perhaps I do need to reassess.”

Silence, when she’d expected a teasing comeback. Silence that ached in her breasts and tightened in her nipples as she felt him move closer, felt him take the glass from her hand. Oh, no. Her humming senses, her aroused body, her soaring confidence all took immediate umbrage.

If she was doing this, she was doing it.

Before he could react, she ducked under his arm and around behind him, using his big, solid body to anchor herself in the darkness. Her hands were on his sides, just below his waist and spanning the fine sleek fabrics of his shirt and pants.

Through both, his body heat scorched.

Jillian inhaled deeply, for strength and to control a sudden attack of lightheadedness. Then she commenced her analysis. “Appearance is tough to call, given I can’t see a thing, but I’m guessing this is a big red.” She slid both hands higher and spread them against his back. “Surprisingly fine texture, although…”

It was only his shirt, and she wanted to feel skin.

Emboldened by the dark, by the guise of the “wine-tasting” experiment, and by the way he stood still and compliant beneath her hands, she fisted her fingers in the fabric and tugged it clear of his trousers. Using her hands on his body for guidance, she worked her way around to the front and started unfastening.

“What are you doing?” he asked, low and throaty.

“The first step is opening the bottle. Letting it breathe.” With a side of his open shirt in each hand, she leaned in until her nose all but touched his throat. “Aroma is the most important part.”

“Why is that?” Deep, close, his voice seemed to rumble from his chest. Fortuitous that she didn’t need to think to answer because Jillian had ceased thinking. Now she operated on senses, on a purely visceral level.

“A good wine has its own distinct aroma. Very recognizable.” Like Seth, she decided. She would recognize him anywhere, purely by her body’s reaction to his scent. She breathed deeply, her senses so heightened by his nearness that they quivered. “The nose picks up so much more than the palate, so while the aromas are still in your nose, you take your first sip.”

She thought about tasting the hot skin of his neck, right there where she had sniffed, but at the last second suffered an attack of temerity. Instead, she stretched up on her toes and tasted his mouth. A slow sip from his lips that stirred her blood like the first juice from the presses.

“White pepper, a little heat,” she whispered. “Rich, velvety mouthfeel.”

“Mouthfeel. Is that what it sounds like?”

“Mmm.” She rubbed her lips against his, purred somewhere deep inside, then ducked back for another slow taste. “It’s all about how the…wine…feels in your mouth. As opposed to body, which is the weight on your tongue.”

She stroked his bottom lip with her tongue, and that was it. No more games, no more teasing, no more lessons in the art of wine. Strong, bold, assertive, he took her face in his hands and her mouth with his tongue. Just a meeting of mouths and bodies and a desire that shuddered through them both. She couldn’t get enough of his kiss, of his hands on her face, in her hair, and—thank you, finally!—on her body.

Even when that first swell of fever abated and the mating of their mouths turned less frantic, less carnal, she could not stop kissing him. She nibbled at his lips, along the whiskery harshness of his jaw and dipped down to the vulnerable spot at the base of his throat where life beat hard and fast.

No shyness now, when she nuzzled the hair-rough texture of his chest and licked one hardened nipple. His hands fisted in her hair and he muttered a caution about slowing down, something that urged her to, yes, slow it down and savor every moment before it slipped away. She slid her hands up and inside the sleeves of his shirt, peeling away each side until she could curl her fingers around the smooth, hot skin of his biceps.

A work of art, those muscles, to be explored and appreciated by hands and mouth and tongue.

Vaguely, his gravelly sound of frustration registered and she knew that his fastened cuffs had caught on his hands, holding him captive to his own shirt and her exploring mouth. Empowered, she smiled against his skin and carried on…until a loud bump and a low curse and the clink of glass against glass brought her head up.

Blinking, she realized the blindfold was gone—when had that happened?—and that he’d backed into the table. In another time, another mood, the situation might have struck a funny note, but now the only chords twanging were off-tune and awkward and terrifyingly serious.

Terrifying enough to rock her back on her new two-inch ruby-red heels as she broke an intense moment of eye contact. She waved a hand at his predicament. “Here, let me help.”

Surprisingly, he accepted, and she managed to fumble the cuffs undone and his hands free and it struck her hard—fist in chest, hard—exactly what she’d been doing.

Tasting him, undressing him, seducing him.

And now what?

They faced each other, hotly aware that the next step had to be taken, honestly, without the camouflage of darkness and the teasing game of tasting. Jillian’s heart pounded. Her tongue, she feared, had fused to the roof of her mouth and her knees started to wobble. She sank down onto the leather sofa and picked up the glass that had rolled to the floor—the empty one, thankfully—and sat it back on the table. Next to the open bottle of ninety-nine Casinelli pinot noir.

That she picked up, too, a solid prop for her nervous hands and a topic to get her tongue unstuck and working again. “So, I did get the ninety-nine right.”

“Was there any doubt?”

“No.”

Her heart bounded when his black pants moved into her line of vision. Right in front on her. He reached down, took the bottle from her hand and carefully placed it on the table. “Now it’s my turn.”

She looked up and her eyes snagged first on his thighs. Because they were so close and broad and imposing. Because she didn’t want to stare higher, where those pants jutted with his arousal.

Okay, so she had looked. She had noticed. How could she not?

Heat flushed her cheeks, her breasts, between her thighs. “Your turn?” she managed to ask.

“To taste you.”

Her gaze rose all the way to his face, and she knew that he knew exactly where she’d been looking. Even before he added, “Unless you hadn’t finished.”

Was he inviting her to continue tasting him? As she’d done with his chest and his mouth?

Hazed with heat, her gaze dropped back to his pants. Her hands itched and her whole body surged with illicit excitement, but Lord, no, she couldn’t. Not now that the blindfold was gone. And she knew this was her moment of truth, honesty time. He wanted to taste her, like he’d told her that day at the cottage.

“It was easy in the dark, but now I’m trembling inside.” She pressed a hand to her churning belly. “All those things you said you wanted to do…”

“I didn’t mean to scare—”

“No, that’s not why I’m trembling.”

“Then, what?”

She inhaled, slow and deep. “I’m afraid that I won’t be what you’re expecting. I’m afraid that I’ll disappoint you.”

That I’ll be caught short again, inadequate, not brave enough, strong enough or smart enough.

For a long drawn-out time he just stared at her. Then, with a low sound—frustration? denial? disgust?—he reached down and pulled her to her feet. “That’s not about to happen, sweetheart.”

“How can you know that?”

“I know,” he said, straight and direct. “You just had a straight view of your effect on me. You should know, too.”

Oh, yes. She’d seen. And now she looked into his eyes and saw the honesty, the rawness, the restraint, and the nervous fluttering of her belly steadied. A little. “Yes, I know.”

“And?”

“Okay,” she said on a long breath. “Are we going upstairs? To your bedroom?”

“You’re sure?”

No. Her heart pounded. She moistened her lips. “Yes.”

Fire sparked in his eyes, caught in her blood. Towing her by the hand, he started toward the stairs. Then, with a low sound of impatience, turned and doubled back.

“What?” she asked, her head spinning with the enormity of what was about to happen and with the speed of his turnabout.

He picked up the bottle of wine. The opened ninety-nine. “This,” he said in answer to her question. “You said you couldn’t stand waste.”

Ten

In that moment of uncertainty, she’d handed Seth the perfect out. The opportunity to put a clamp on his body’s demands, to listen instead to his instincts, to his gut, to every cautionary inner voice that urged him to take a giant step back. To say, I don’t believe you are sure, so let’s rethink this whole sex thing and the risks involved.

He thought about it for a split second, but he couldn’t do it.

The passion had him by the throat long before she turned him hard and wanting with her tasting game. And then she went and looked at him with all that insecurity quavering in her big green eyes. Damn her for blindsiding him with the power of his need—not for physical release, not to fulfill his fantasies, but to obliterate that vulnerability from her face and her soul.

And damn himself for not having the strength to say no.

As he shouldered open the door to his bedroom, his grip on the bottle tightened. The wine, his reminder that this was about the sensual experience. About driving her as wild as she had driven him downstairs. Only more so.

Because she thought she might disappoint him.

Yeah, right, and tomorrow hell might freeze over.

Seth led her right over by his bed before he let go of her hand. He deposited the wine on his bedside table, turned on the lamp, and kicked himself for ignoring an earlier compulsion to buy candles. He hadn’t because…well, it had felt too cocky, too contrived, too much like a planned seduction scene.

“You didn’t bring glasses,” she pointed out.

He turned around and the visual of her in his bedroom slammed through his body. Forget the candles. She might find the darkness easier, but he wanted to see every shift in her expression, to watch every shudder of her body when he proved she was no letdown.

Forget the candles, and forget the glasses—

“We don’t need them.”

“Oh? Then, how…what…?” She stopped, swallowed, flapped a hand toward the wine. “You said you weren’t going to waste it.”

“I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to taste it. On your body.”

Oh, yeah, that’s why he wanted light. To see those big eyes widen and that mouth soften and the sweep of her tongue as she wet her lips. To watch her nipples press hard against the silky red fabric, as if her imagination had been let loose in a very erotic playground.

“I told you it was my turn,” he said softly, as he moved toward her. “My turn to tease you and to taste you.”

“Payback?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

A pulse beat in her throat, like the nervous flutter of wings.

“Downstairs you said it was easier in the dark. Would you like the blindfold again?”

Her nostrils flared as she drew a breath. “I…no. I want to see you.”

Deep in her eyes Seth saw the knowledge of all she wanted to see, the heat, the excitement, the directness. His body bucked in reaction as he thought about her watching him, watching his hands on her naked skin, his mouth on her body as it arched beneath him. Him burying himself deep in her body.

“Good.” Low and gruff, almost a bark. He touched her hair, threaded a silken curl behind her ear, needing the softness to soothe the savage edge to his need. “I want you to know it’s me.”

“I would know you, Seth, even in the dark.”

Too intense, too much, too soon. He needed to remember that this could only be about satisfaction, about pleasure—that’s all it could be, this one time, this one night. Not the tightness in his chest, the urge to bury his face in her throat and hold her close against his pounding heart.

Hell, but he needed to lighten the mood, to get back to that teasing of downstairs. He stroked his thumb across her cheek, touched her bottom lip. “Ahh, but then you’re the master taster who picks any wine blind.”

“Not any,” she whispered, her breath warm against his hand. “Only distinctive ones.”

“You never did get back to me on whether I’m a distinctive pinot or a rough red.”

She almost smiled. “Maybe you’re one of a kind.”

“Seth Bennedict. Vintage sixty-seven.” He tapped a couple of fingertips to his bare chest and that was a bad move, teasing-wise. The smile fled as her gaze dropped and touched his bare chest with the same velvet stroke as her tongue.

Hot, wet, arousing all over again.

And then she was looking into his eyes and everything she’d done, every way she’d touched him, ached in his groin. So much for light, so much for teasing. Raw primal desire gripped him so hard he could barely breathe.

“Please, can you kiss me?” she asked, and his mouth was on hers before she stopped asking. He struggled to contain the kiss, especially when she parted her lips and welcomed his mouth with a throaty moan that fed the fierceness in his blood.

Quick and desperate, her hands slid around his neck and tangled in his hair. His hands slid down the warmth of her bare back to cup her buttocks and pull her in close. Soft against hard, need against need, she moved against him in the same rhythm as the kiss.

Lust billowed as he gathered the silky folds of her dress in one hand, dragging it higher at the back, all the way up until his hands were on bare flesh. Curved around warm, tight bare buttocks. That ended the hungry kiss and drove the gathering tension from his lungs in a gust of stunned surprise.

Either she’d elected to go commando—unlikely—or the lady wore a thong.

“Who would have thought?” His voice thickened with arousal as he traced the midline of her underwear with his thumb. “Do you wear these under those riding pants? The ones you spray paint on?”

She laughed low in her throat, the sound of silky skin and sexy underwear and pure, raw, howling stimulation. “When I’m out riding I’m not worried about visible panty lines,” she told him. “Usually.”

Okay, she was killing him.

Seth eased away, let the dress flow back over her bare skin, indulged himself by touching her back, her shoulders, the elegant arc of her collarbone. He needed to slow down, get a grip. He’d promised no disappointment; he’d promised payback; he intended to deliver on both counts.

Which meant that he had to intercept her hands when they reached for him. He held them trapped in his, squeezed them a little when she struggled to free herself. “Oh, no. This is where I get my revenge.”

“There’s no need for—”

“Yeah, there is. You have no idea how much pain you caused me downstairs.” He put her hands away, arranged them primly by her sides. “Turnabout is fair.”

“For it to be fair—” her voice hitched as he unfastened the first of two buttons at her shoulder “—you would need to be blindfolded.”

“Not going to happen.” The second button slid free and she grabbed for the dress and held it to her breasts. “I want to see you.” His eyes held hers as he coaxed her fingers from the dress, as he slowly enticed her arms away and the dress slithered to the floor and pooled around her feet like a silken spill of pinot noir. “I want to see all of you, Jillian.”

He waited. He didn’t look—much—not until acquiescence glimmered in her eyes. Pink traced her cheekbones with shyness but she lifted her chin and when he asked her to turn around—his voice nothing but a husky, parched rasp—she did.

And, God, she was even more magnificent than he’d imagined. A proud, slender, straight-spined goddess, standing there in her pool of ruby satin wearing nothing but a thong and a blush. He stood statue still, needing to fill his eyes and his mind with the image, but she started to tremble—he saw it in the arms she still held extended at her sides—and that earlier note of vulnerability, of uncertainty, sucker punched his memory.

“Hey.” He moved in close and folded her in his arms, her back against his front, and held her until the trembling eased. He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was, to tell her anything more meaningful than “hey,” but voice and words were lost in the sensations rushing through him, too many and too swift to pin down and name.

Too many and too swift and too troubling to name.

So he kissed her temple, her brow, the bridge of her nose, but when he nuzzled her cheek and the side of her neck, she made a low, achy sound in her throat and moved against him, restlessly, reflexively.

Maybe he’d read that deep shudder all wrong. Maybe he’d read that flush of pink in her cheeks wrong, too. Maybe they weren’t signs of nervousness but of intense, female arousal.

Again, she made that throaty purring noise and it shot straight to his sex. The weird, tender sensation in his chest hardened too, releasing him, relieving him, reassuring him that this would be all right.

Gently he nipped at her earlobe and she stretched her neck and rolled her head to the side, giving him better access to that sexy bite-me neck. What could he do when she asked, silently, but ever so nicely? He sucked her skin against his teeth, marking her with primitive possessiveness and not caring. Not when she arched her back and pressed the swell of her naked breasts against his arms. Not when she rolled her hips and stirred him to steel-hard pain.

Who was supposed to be torturing whom, here?

Slowly, deliberately, he unfolded his arms. Ran his hands all the way down her arms as he set them at her sides again.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice as husky-edged as his mood.

“Kissing you.” And he did, starting at the back of her neck and moving all the way down her spine, dropping to his knees when he had to, kissing all the way over the firm curve of her bottom and down the backs of her thighs. “Kissing you and tasting you.”

With hands wrapped around her thighs, he held her steady when she trembled and threatened to buckle, shushed her when she tried to object.

“I’ve wanted to do this for so long.” To run his hands the length of those mile-long legs, to press his mouth to the backs of her knees, to ease her legs apart and nuzzle the soft yielding flesh of her inner thighs. “And this.”

The sound of his breathing, of his need, raged in his ears as he turned her in his hands and peeled away the skimpy panties. Naked. He had her naked as the day she was born and he couldn’t stop looking. Even when her hand shifted in an attempt to cover herself.

Those long, elegant fingers hovered over the core of her femininity, and that was about the most erotic thing he’d ever seen. That and his hand, his fingers, touching hers, and—with the gentlest pressure—easing their conjoined touch lower, deeper, dipping between her legs.