“I woke you as soon as everything was arranged. Waking you up earlier wouldn’t have done anything but given you more time to worry.”
“No offense, but it looks like there’s a lot to worry about.”
He presses a kiss to my temple. “We’ll be fine. Now move.” He points to the helicopter that’s waiting on the helipad, rotors whirring. “Michael will have trouble flying that thing if the smoke gets any thicker.”
That’s all it takes to get me moving, running full out toward the chopper despite my sore muscles and aching lungs.
Within minutes we’re airborne, flying straight up through the smoke to where the air is a little clearer. “Why Napa?” I ask Ethan, after we’re out of the worst of it.
“Because I have a vineyard there I thought you might like to see.”
“A vineyard? You own a vineyard?” I don’t know why that shocks me so much. The man owns a lot, after all. But still. A vineyard? It sounds so decadent and lovely, all at the same time.
Ethan laughs and pulls me into his side. “I own several vineyards, actually. But only one in Napa.”
“Several. Where are the others?”
“Italy. France. Mexico.”
“Of course. Because why wouldn’t you have vineyards all over the world?”
He laughs. “Exactly. Why wouldn’t I?”
I shoot him a dirty look. “You don’t actually want me to answer that, do you?”
“Not even a little bit. This one is my favorite, though.”
That gets my attention. From the beginning, things have been so intense between Ethan and me that I forget there’s still so much I don’t know about him. So much that I want to know. “Why is this one your favorite?”
“Because it makes my favorite pinot noir. And because it was my first.”
“Ahhh, you never forget your first.”
Ethan’s face goes dark and sensual at that, and I can’t stop my breath from hitching in my throat. “What—” My voice cracks, so I clear my throat, try again. It’s hard, though, when Ethan’s looking at me like he wants to devour me right here in the helicopter. “What’s that look for?”
He runs a rough thumb back and forth over my lips. “I like that I was your first. It wouldn’t matter if I wasn’t, wouldn’t make what I feel for you any less overwhelming. But still, I like knowing that I’m your first … and I plan to be your last, as well.”
My stomach jumps unpleasantly. “Technically, you weren’t—”
He stops me with a look. “I was your first in any way that matters. Brandon is a fucking animal and he got nothing of you. What he took—” He breaks off, shakes his head. “What he took has nothing to do with what we have, with what we are to each other.”
Tears bloom in my eyes at the sweetness—and the intensity—of his words. “I love you,” I tell him when I can finally find my voice again.
“I love you more.”
Chapter Nineteen
“It’s a vineyard. A real, honest to God vineyard.”
“That’s what I told you.”
We’ve just landed at Ethan’s place at Napa and I’m standing behind the main house, on top of a huge hill that looks down upon acres and acres of grapevines.
“Yeah, but I thought you meant you had a few grapes.”
He shrugs, raises his hands in a self-deprecating gesture as he nods toward the grapevines. “I have more than a few grapes.”
“I can see that now. You also have trucks and grape pickers and a tasting room. And wine-making … stuff. You have a vineyard.”