Bitter Wine, Sweet Kiss

ew bottle. The scent of aged Merlot filled the cellar-oak, berries,

ith the shape of a man

he storm's afterglow. His shirt clung to him, damp from rain or swea

r voice sharp but low. "But y

linch. "I d

e the silence y

supposed to be a cold move, a deliberate snub. But she felt t

inking about you,"

ritten a damn poem ab

y, pulling a weathered notebo

She stepped back, wine glass still in hand, watching him

ed the

," he said. "I could spend the rest of my life w

in her throat. "And you t

maybe t

aught. The air between them shifted. Her resistance wav

the gl

ssion but not without w

as a collision. Of hate and

other gripping her waist like he was afraid she'd vanish again

ou," she

id. "But do you

dn't a

the house, where the fire was still warm,