Best Man...with Benefits

As they were leaving, the British woman caught sight of her wine coolers and raved about them so much—even picking one up and carrying it to the window so she could see how the sun streamed through the panes of colored glass—that her husband gave in and pulled out his credit card.

Sharon caught sight of the transaction and walked over to tell them that Lauren was the artist. Of course they raved some more and the woman even asked Lauren to autograph the little card that went with the cooler.

“Lauren created that window for us,” Sharon told them, indicating the stained-glass creation. It depicted the Leonato family crest surrounded by grapes and foliage in big, bold colors. The window might not be what she’d have created without their input, but that was the thing with commissions. You had to give the customer what they wanted.

Yes, she thought as she waved them away, today had been a good day.

A minivan pulled up and out piled twelve older people. Leonato was listed on a few wine tours and they often got groups coming through.

She and Sharon exchanged a look and Lauren reached for the bread crisps they kept in bowls on the counter. The idea was to use the crisps to cleanse the palate between wines, but they’d found from experience that the tour bus groups usually feasted on them as if they hadn’t been fed for days.

This group was no exception. They sampled their wine and emptied all the bread bowls while either listening to her descriptions of the various wines, or pretending to. The tour guide, Michael, added information about the region and then reminded them to make use of the restrooms as it would be more than an hour until their next stop.

The group made some modest purchases and took a few photos.

Lauren waved the last of them off and then began refilling all the bowls.

Her skin prickled suddenly and she glanced up.

Jackson had just walked through the door.

For a second, she thought this was just another one of the sexual fantasies that had plagued her over the past week. He looked so good. His dark brown hair that had felt so thick and luscious when she ran her fingers through it had the shiny look of a recent washing. He wore a beat-up leather jacket, a black T-shirt that hugged his torso the way she longed to, and jeans that molded to his strong thighs.

He walked over and sat on one of the bar stools in front of her. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi.” A million thoughts jumbled together in her head, ranging from What the hell are you doing here? to Do me, now. She didn’t voice any of them, though, and simply stared at him.

“I took an afternoon off,” he said. “Thought I’d taste some wine.”

Wine tasting. Of course. That was where they were. In a wine-tasting room. “You came to the right place,” she managed. She put the bag of snacks away and was suddenly thankful that her spiel was so practiced she could describe each of the Leonato wines in her sleep.

She handed him the menu. “Welcome to Leonato,” she said.

“Thank you.”

She knew she should launch into her standard speech about the winery and each of the wines, but she didn’t have it in her. She said, “Take a look at our wines and let me know what you’d like to try.”

He didn’t even open the handsome leather folder with the Leonato coat of arms emblazoned in gold on the front of it. He gazed at her face. “What do you like?”

She felt hot and cold flashes dance over her skin. What did she like? Who knew better than he did? In one night he’d brought her more pleasure than she’d experienced with anyone before.

She felt like telling him in exact detail exactly what she liked in case he might have forgotten in the past seven days. She felt like begging him to take her somewhere and do every one of those things to her until she could get some relief from the wanting.

Instead, she pulled herself together and said, “My favorite wine is our cabernet sauvignon from 2011. It won some awards. Normally, we don’t sample that one, but we opened a bottle earlier, if you’d like to try it.”

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