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around a woman. But you’re not just any woman,are you?” He studies me with those hypnotic eyes of his and I feel myself falling further and further under his spell. “You’re a woman with a body made for sin and a mind full of delicate sensibilities.”
    â€œI don’t have delicate sensibilities.”
    â€œI’d bet my life that you do.”
    â€œWell then maybe I don’t want to have them while I’m
here
.” And I don’t. I don’t want to be the same old Weatherly. The same old cautious, self-sacrificing Weatherly I’ve always been. This might be the last time in my life I’ll have a chance to be who I want to be, to do what I want to do. I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste it.
    I reach for Tag’s glasses, pulling them off so that I can see his swirling silver eyes. Even in the light, the pupils are dilated.
    His expression isn’t playful anymore. He watches me with all the seriousness in the world.
    â€œDo you want to be a risk-taker, Weatherly?” he asks, his voice as dark and deep as the kiss and the merlot grapes. “Do you
really
want me to push you?”
    My insides quiver. I nod, afraid that my voice will tremble with the last little bit of uncertainty that I’m hanging on to.
    â€œStarting now?”
    I nod again, my pulse picking up the pace.
    Slowly, purposefully, his eyes never leaving mine, Tag raises his hand to my left shoulder. He slips one finger under the strap of my tank top and starts to ease it down my arm. I’m immediately uncomfortable, my instincts telling me to stop him, to cover myself. They remind me that we are out in the open and that I hardly know him. They tell me to stop him.
    But his eyes tell me not to. They dare me to hold still and let him push me.
    So I do.
    Tag repeats the movement with my bra strap, tugging it down my arm until my breast sits in the cup like my flesh is being offered to him on the half-shell.
    He drags his finger along the strap until he meets the lace of the cup. His eyes are still holding mine, daring me, pushing me. And then he pulls. One short, sharp pull that forces the material over the stiff peak of my nipple.
    I gasp, responding to the action itself, the sensation of air and sun on my bare breast, the eroticism of what he’s doing, out in the open, all the while watching me. We stare at each other as he brushes his thumb over me, each stroke resonating in my sex as though he’s touching me there. Like I want him to. God, how I want him to.
    Then Tag drops his gaze. I can almost feel it the instant it clicks to a stop on my nipple. My muscles tense, my blood boils, and the hiss of air through his teeth only exacerbates it.
    He leans forward just enough to capture the tip between his lips, laving it with his tongue in a chaste way that makes me ache even deeper. I want to grab his head and force myself into his mouth, but I dare not. We are
still
out in the open and I am
still
trying to shake my sensibilities.
    So I let him torture me with soft, slow circles and light, short licks until he lifts his head and rights my bra and tank. “Very good, fair Weatherly,” he murmurs, licking his lips. “
Very
good.”
    â€œI told you,” I tell him breathlessly, more than a little proud of myself.
    â€œYou did. But I’m not nearly finished with you,” he states, reaching behind me and revving the engine. The grin that slides across his lips is pure wickedness. “Better hold on tight.”
    I realize with a shrill squeal, when he guns the accelerator and we take off flying back up the path, that he meant it literally and figuratively.

EIGHT
    Tag
    It’s ironic that this woman, this woman who’s been raised in the world that I so deeply resent, would be the one who makes me feel free from it. At least temporarily. We hate it for different reasons, of course, but I think that we can forget about it in the same way—by