Page 2 of Sigh of Relief

“Unfortunately not. They’re visiting from up north.” She untied his robe, pushed it off his shoulders, then turned her back and moved in front of him. Taking the hint, Archer notched his dick against her crack over the soft leather and slid an arm around her waist, pulling her close and dipping his hand just inside her waistband, teasing and tempting.

While keeping his gaze locked on the mesmerizing couple. Watching the power continue to flow back and forth between them.

How the man shifted between crop and feather, making his partner moan. How the woman tugged the chain in response and made him hiss and groan. How they each knew exactly what the other liked, how much the other could take. No punishment in the acts, no dominance or submission, only laughter and love.

Archer’s heart pounded. He wanted that—someday.

He wasn’t quite ready for it yet, though.

Today, he—and Bea—wanted something else. And they were both ready for it, Bea writhing in his arms, close to coming from teasing and watching alone, close to making him do the same. He nipped at her earlobe and thrust his hips, rutting against her behind. “How about that hard fucking I promised you?”

She didn’t need to be asked twice. Taking him by the hand again, she tugged him off the wall and toward the hallway.

Before turning the corner, Archer glanced over his shoulder one last time, wanting one last glimpse of perfection.

Of the future he wanted—someday.

And met a heated brown gaze that seared him to his core.

That made his heart skip, then pound harder.

Whether he ever saw the man again, Archer knew those dark eyes would haunt his fantasies forever.

Chapter Two

September 2024

Archer poked around Noah and Ezra’s kitchen, hunting for leftovers while hiding from the party outside. Pickings were slim in the happy couple’s fridge, Noah having catered this year’s crush party from the restaurant kitchen.

And maybe also from the food truck—Meat & Cake—Archer had passed on his way up from the winery building.

Sadly, he found no meat, no cake, nor any of Noah’s award-winning bites inside. Archer debated braving the crowd outside or making do with the stale baguette and suspect cheese in his cabin. His grumbling stomach decided for him, the hours spent fighting a temperamental destemmer leaving him more famished than antisocial. And besides, their visitors seemed distracted enough by whatever ear-splitting punk rock music was playing and by the servers filling their glasses with more wine.

Was the food truck there to take them home? Archer idly wondered as he checked out the buffet table under the vine-covered trellis. He kept his head down, his chin lowered, not making eye contact with anyone, no one the wiser that the vineyard manager and head winemaker was among them. After a grueling harvest, he just wanted to eat his weight in hors d’oeuvres, then sleep for days before he had to start worrying about his fermentation to-do list.

He snagged a couple of pork sliders, added stuffed squash blossoms and honeyed figs to his plate, then nearly tripped over his own two feet at the end of the table where, among the open bottles of wine, sat a sweating ice bucket of beer bottles.

Anger simmered. Who the fuck brought beer to a winery’s crush party? Relief, however, turned down the heat, a bigger part of him wanting to find the person who’d brought the beer and thank them. After two weeks harvesting and crushing grapes, entire days when must was all Archer had smelled, the last thing he wanted to drink tonight was vino. He grabbed the last bottle of imperial stout and moseyed to a lounge chair in an out-of-the-way corner.

He munched and sipped and eyed the crowd again. This was their second harvest party since Ezra and Rosin Hospitality had purchased La Montagna Nebbiosa. Last year’s party was smaller. Mostly RH folks, locals they’d connected with, and wine club members who’d stuck with them through the transition. Those same people were back this year, plus another group who all seemed to know each other and who all seemed to gravitate around a posh-looking redhead and his insanely tall, insanely attractive husband, judging by their complementary rings.

Archer was trying to sort where he recognized the giant hottie from when a petite, gray-haired spitfire he knew all too well slipped out of the crowd and sashayed toward him.

“This is a harvest party,” Annaliese said. “And you have a beer in your hand. What kind of winemaker are you?” The twitch of her bright red lips belied her mock offense.

“One who’s tired of his wine this week.” He held up the bottle. “Have you tried this stuff? It’s amazing.”

“The tall silver fox over there . . .” Al pointed toward a different hottie on the dance floor, then tapped the bottle label with the same finger. “He owns the brewery.”

Tempting. Sinewy muscles, hard angles, a hint of ink under his short sleeves. A fantasy unspooled in Archer’s head—the tattooed fox holding him down, fucking him hard, then offering him a cold brew after. Almost as good as the cigarettes he’d given up after Ezra’s heart attack. “He single?”

“Absolutely not.” Al’s emphatic reply was punctuated by a dark-haired, dark-eyed man in a BoSox tee plastering himself to the brewery owner’s back, an arm thrown over his shoulder and around his front.

Matching rings again. Shame.

“Thought by now you might be taken too,” Al said, as she propped a hip on the arm of his lounge chair.

“This again?” he said, cutting her a side-eye. She’d been on his case ever since she’d found her own perfect match last year—the second of her lifetime.