I felt him smile against my skin. "Wouldn't say I'm popular in either quarter."

"My God. You crashed the reception, didn't you?"

"Honey, half the people here crashed the reception." He traced one of the straps that held my dress up, and my stomach gave an excited leap.

"Are you in the oil business? Or ranching?"

"Oil," he said. "Why'd you ask?"

"You're built like a roughneck."

A laugh rustled in his chest. "I've stacked my share of drill pipe," he admitted. His breath was soft and hot against my hair. "So . . . you ever go out with a blue-collar guy? I bet not. Rich girl like you . . . you'd stick with your own kind, wouldn't you?"

"You're wearing a nice tux for a blue-collar guy," I countered. "Armani?"

"Even roughnecks get to dress up now and then." He braced his hands on either side of me, lightly gripping the edge of the table. "What's this for?"

I leaned back to preserve the small but crucial distance between our bodies. "The tasting table?"

"Yeah."

"It's for uncorking and decanting. We keep wine accessories in the drawers. Also white cloths to drape over the top, so you can judge the color of the wine."

"I've never been to a wine tasting before. How do you do it?"

I stared at the outline of his head, now dimly visible in the heavy shadows. "You hold the glass by the stem, and you stick your nose right into the bowl and breathe in the scent."

"In my case, that's a considerable amount of nose."

I couldn't resist touching him then, my fingers stealing up to his face, investigating the assertive line of his nose. I touched the crook near the bridge. "How did you break it?" I asked in a hushed voice.

His warm lips slid over the heel of my hand. "That's one of the stories I only tell when I'm drinking something a lot stronger than wine."

"Oh." I pulled my hand away. "Sorry."

" Don't be sorry. I wouldn't mind telling you someday."

Doggedly I steered the conversation back on course. "When you take a sip of wine, you hold it in your mouth. There's a place in the back of your mouth that leads to smell receptors in your nasal cavity. It's called retro-olfaction."

" Interesting." He paused. "So after you taste and smell the wine, you spit out in a bucket, right?"

" I'd rather swallow than spit."

As the double meaning of the words occurred to me, I flushed hard enough I was certain he could see it in the darkness. Mercifully he didn't comment, although I heard the flick of amusement in his voice. "Thanks for the pointers."

" You're welcome. We should go now. You leave first."

"Okay."

But neither of us moved.

And then his hands found my hips, skimming upward, a callus on his finger catching at the fragile fabric of my dress. I was aware of every shift of his weight, the subtle movements of bone and heavy muscle. The sound of his breathing was electrifying.

The long, work-roughened hands didn't stop until he was cradling my face with a tenderness that made my throat tight. His mouth sought mine, all hot silk and sweetness. But for all the gentleness of the kiss, there was something so raw about it that by the time he drew back, my nerves were pleasure-stung and unbearably alive. A whimper emerged from my throat, the sound embarrassing me, but there was no controlling it. No controlling anything.

I reached up to hold on to his heavy wrists, mostly to keep from toppling over. My knees were shot. I had never felt anything so explosive, or insidious. The world had shrunk to this small wine-scented room, two bodies in the darkness, the ache of desire for someone I could never have. He moved his mouth to my ear, and I felt the moist heat of his breath, and I leaned against him in a daze.

"Listen, honey," he whispered. "There've only been a couple times in my life when something felt so good I didn't give a damn about the consequences." His lips slid over my forehead, my nose, my trembling eyelids. "Go tell Nick you're not feeling well, and come away with me. Right now. There's a strawberry moon out tonight. We'll go somewhere and find a patch of soft grass, and share a bottle of champagne. And I'll drive you to Galveston to watch the sun rise over the bay."

I was amazed. Men never propositioned me like that. And I never would have thought to be so insanely tempted. "I can't. That's crazy."

His lips caught at mine in a gently biting kiss. "Maybe it's crazy not to."

I squirmed and pushed back from him until I'd managed to put some distance between us. "I have a boyfriend," I said shakily. "I don't know why I just . . . I don't know why I let that happen. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. At least, not for that." His footsteps came closer, and I tensed. "What you should really he sorry for," he continued, "is that for the rest of my life, I'll have to avoid wine cellars to keep from thinking about you."

"Why?" I asked, woeful and shamed "Was kissing me that bad?"

A devil-soft whisper. "No, sweet heart. It was that good." And he left first, while I leaned against the tasting table with raggedy balance.

I went back out into the clamor and stole away to the grand staircase leading to the second-floor bedrooms. Liberty was waiting for me in the room Gage had occupied in childhood. I had barged in there a thousand times, wanting attention from the one person who always seemed to have time for me. I must have been a royal pain, chattering to him while he did his homework, dragging in my broken toys for him to fix. But Gage had tolerated it with what was, in retrospect, remarkable patience.