#WipItUp – it started with a bottle of red

I’ve a new book, Indulge Me, out next week, so this week’s WipItUp is an ideal chance to share a smattering of words from it.

It’s the book I’ve been cooking for a while, and one that I’ve enjoyed researching the most. It rather stemmed from an unfortunate incident – my wedding anniversary. The man and I went out for a delicious meal and shared a bottle of ‘expensive’ red. I was a little tipsy, I confess, when we retired, but other than the floor shifting under foot a tad, I didn’t imagine I’d awake in the early hours violently sick and with a crippling migraine. You see, some reds, not all of them, set off the dreaded headache and nausea.

Returning home from out romantic night out (we had fun before the meal) I delved into a spot  of research, trying to elucidate what chemical could be blamed for triggering my reaction. This led to me becoming fascinated with wine tasting–could I discover what it was that poisoned me just with a sip or by smell?

Did I find the culprit? No. Instead, I wrote an erotic tale involving a wine taster and other erotic sensory abilities beyond taste and smell. If you like wine, you’ll be familiar with the grapes and regions, if not, it doesn’t matter, I haven’t written a wine tasting book!

The wine taster in the book, Saffron, has been invited to a tasting session in a wine cellar by Gideon, a restaurant sommelier. So far nothing unusual, until after she takes a bathroom break.

***

She hovered at the base of the stairs, then pushed the ajar door further open. A chair scraped on the stone floor and Gideon rose to greet her. On the table stood one bottle of wine, untouched and a pile of linen napkins, neatly folded. Everything else, the debris of their tasting session had been removed. What the hell did he have in mind?

He circled her a couple of times, closer each pass until he grazed her back with the palm of his hand. He stopped behind her and she bolted her feet to the ground, tempering her jelly legs while he inhaled with a long sniff of his nostrils.

“Nice,” he muttered. “Honey, almonds—sweetish, and a camomile with a touch of peppermint.”

She cleared her throat. “Thank you. My eau du parfum in a nutshell.”

“Sh.” He caressed her arms, stroking down from her shoulders to her elbows. “I want you to trust me. I’m going to go slow. If I freak you out, say stop and I will.”

Saffron opened her mouth to question the ‘freak me out’ element, but the words didn’t come. If he had a game in play, let him play it. The atmosphere between them had electrified, his body warmth heated the space, his firm hands calmed her with their repetitive stroking.

***

Here’s a blurb teaser:

She sees him once.

He’s standing across the wine cellar watching her when their eyes meet. Miles away from home in California’s Napa Valley, she’s caught in his gaze. Though, neither one speaks, for a moment the rest of the world falls away, and she sends him a smile.

 

Cover reveal will come soon, but for now, I’ve plenty of sexy pictures on my Pinterest page