I didn’t wait for him. “Right. So why all the space? Why not add in a few high tables without chairs and maybe a little display area to sell wine paraphernalia? Is this place even open? Where’s the pourer?”
“Hmm.” Austin finally joined me, leaning against the counter as a woman with a pinched face and an air of smug importance drifted up to the counter. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes, and her failure to recognize or acknowledge Austin meant she was probably new to the area. Even non-magical people knew the scary, standoffish bar owner of the Paddy Wagon.
“Welcome.” She laid her hand, her pink nails perfectly rounded, on a cream-colored piece of paper to my right. Several similar menus lay across the stretch of counter. “We have two options for tastings. The regular flight, where you can choose five wines, is ten dollars, and the reserve tasting is fifteen dollars. If you buy two bottles or more, the tasting fee is waived. Which would you prefer?”
I glanced at Austin. “What’s happening here? Are we doing a wine tour? Because if this is your way of getting me out of meetings with Edgar, then we just became best friends.”
He smiled, pulling one of the papers closer. “It’s up to you. What do you want, the reserve tasting? One of each?”
I nodded at the woman. “One of each. If we’re going to do this thing, we’ll do it right.”
Her deadpan stare said she didn’t appreciate my nonchalant humor. “Would you like to start with white?”
As Austin looked on, I chose a wine from each list. She sniffed and turned to grab the bottles from the coolers at the far right.
“Out of all the winery options, you chose this one, huh?” I asked, tapping my fingers against the counter. “Oh, this town carries Pabst Blue Ribbon, doesn’t it? My father likes Pabst. If I don’t have it, he’ll just send my mom looking for it.”
“Of all the tasting rooms on this strip, this one gets the least foot traffic,” Austin said as the woman screwed off a cap. The other had a cork, and she set to work. “The tasting room is upscale, though, and the operations at the winery look good.”
“You’ve been to the winery? Are you sizing up your competition or something?”
“No. I’m looking to buy it.”
The needle screeched off the spinning record in my mind. “What’s that now?”
Glasses clinked as the woman placed them in front of us. She explained the wines as she poured, but I wasn’t listening.
“You’re thinking of buying a winery?” I whispered as soon as she drifted away.
“Yes.” He swirled the contents in his glass and lifted it to sip. I watched his lips press against the glass, my mind struggling to compute the enormity of what he was saying versus the easy, unconcerned quality of his tone.
“How do you have that kind of money? I mean…” I blinked a couple of times and shook my head. “Sorry, that was rude, but… To buy a winery, you’re talking millions. Right?”
His face scrunched up. He held out the glass for me. “It’s tart.”
I took it without comment and sipped, not prepared.
“Oh, man.” I lowered the glass to the counter, my right eye shutting of its own volition and my mouth puckering at the sourness. “That wine is intense, and not in a drinkable sort of way.”
“I’m from a long line of alphas,” he said, as though that explained something.
I lifted my glass and swirled good and proper, running the liquid around the glass to get as much oxygen in there as possible. It would help the flavor, and this place needed all the help it could get. I didn’t remember it being this bad. Or maybe it was just the pick I’d made for Austin. I raised the glass and took a cautious sip.
“Ugh.” I coughed a bit as my face twisted involuntarily. “It wasn’t just the first one. This one is intense, too.” I pushed the glass his way. “What does being from a line of alphas have to do with buying a winery?”
“Can we have the next samples, please?” Austin asked the woman, and though the phrase seemed like a polite request, his tone conveyed a command for obedience. He pointed to the ones he wanted, two reds. The woman’s previous methodical, unhurried gliding fell away, and she quickly got to work opening the next bottles.
“I’m assuming you don’t care what ends up in your glass?” he asked me, his voice back to calm and breezy.
“I do, but in this case I’m not sure it’ll really matter.” I lowered my voice. “I don’t remember the wine being this bad.”
“I think that’s the root of the problem, right there.” He nodded and glanced out the window at the shining day beyond, as though contemplating the meaning of the universe.
“Also, should we be saying ‘alpha’ in public? I know you don’t care, but…”
He turned back to me. “To properly run a territory, an alpha needs to invest in local businesses, to have a personal say and stake in the local economy. To help sway the decisions that are made for the benefit of the people. If the territory prospers, the alpha typically prospers. If the territory suffers, so does the alpha. Does that make sense? And yes, we can say ‘alpha’ and ‘territory’ because those are words that Janes and Dicks know, even if they don’t quite understand them in the way we’re using them.”
“So you’re from a long line of prosperous alphas?” I surmised, eyeing the glass of red now sitting in front of me. I wasn’t so sure about day drinking at this establishment. It might be more painful than pleasurable.
“That’ll be all for now,” Austin told the woman as she opened her mouth to give her spiel about the wines. Under his steady gaze, her eyes tightened, creasing at the corners.
“Of course.” She turned, busying herself with wiping down dustless bottles.
“Maybe lighten up a little,” I murmured, swirling the contents of the glass. “You’re going to give the woman a complex.”
“If it pleases milady.”
His tone was light and teasing, his eyes sparkling and bright. I couldn’t look away, my heart speeding up at the raw intensity I saw lurking just beneath the surface. The world around us seemed to slow, and then it dropped away entirely—his focus applied solely to me, and mine to him. Heat blistered through me before pooling down low, pounding. Aching. Manifesting from those suddenly intense, beautiful cobalt-blue eyes.
“I never did take you on that perfect date we talked about,” he said softly, his sweet breath dusting my lashes.
Only then did I realize I’d leaned toward him. I found myself remembering the feel of his palm on my side. On my back. I loved the way he always gently steered me into the path of safety when we walked somewhere together. I loved that he was always respectfully aware of me and the world around me. It felt like being pampered for some reason. Like he was freeing me from all of life’s little trials.
“Okay, then.” I let out a deep breath and tore my gaze away from his. With effort, I turned to face my glass. “Yup.” I was just saying words to fill the silence. It wasn’t even an uncomfortable silence, which somehow made things worse. This guy needed to come with an emergency brake.
I probably needed to start dating again. Sure, I hadn’t sealed the deal with the handsome gargoyle who’d spent a short time at Ivy House, but that didn’t mean I should stop trying. I needed to end the dry spell before I embarrassed myself and leaned any closer to Austin.
“Drunk already?” I heard the laughter in his words.
“You’re as bad as Niamh. I’ve had, like, two sips. No, I am not drunk already.”
“So you’ve just taken to voicing your thoughts on the regular now?”
I froze, my eyes wide. “What? Why?” I asked, flustered. “What did I say?”
His dark chuckle brought on a rush of embarrassment that likely showed on my face. I’d clearly voiced the bit about the dry spell. Dang Ivy House for having a personality and seeming like a real person—I constantly talked to her, out loud, and clearly the practice had carried over into the parts of my life where I’d do better to keep my thoughts and feelings bottled up.
Not that I hadn’t always had a propensity to think out loud, but I usually had a better grip on myself when in public.
“I am from a long line of prosperous alphas, yes. On my mother’s side,” he said, then tried his newest pour of wine, wincing with the effort. “I’m a trust fund baby at this point, since I’ve done very little for myself. So far. The money’s been sitting there, collecting interest, waiting for me to rise to my potential.”
“What if you never did?”
“My brother’s kids will get everything when I die. If I don’t use it, they’ll be set for life, even if something happens to my brother’s territory. If I can create and run a prosperous territory, they’ll get even more. Can’t lose.”
“Oh cra—” I’d taken a sip of the new wine while he was talking, the taste of this one setting off a party of awful in my mouth. I swung the glass his way, not wanting to suffer alone. “So now that you’ve claimed your title, you’re going to buy up some businesses?”
“Yes. It’s time for me to invest in the territory. I’ll also need to help more of our kind obtain seats of power. I need to build a pack from scratch. It would’ve been easier to move into a place already structured for our kind.” He shrugged. “I wanted a challenge—I got it.”
We received our next pours, and I eyed them dubiously. “Can I be in your pack? I promise I won’t bring Mr. Tom.”
When the silence stretched, I glanced over, only to be caught in his gravity and intensity. Desire moved within his gaze, unfurling a luscious and luxurious and horribly uncomfortable feeling within me. This wasn’t good. He was supposed to be off-limits. Permanently friend-zoned. Anything physical would ruin this easiness that we had. It would add strings neither of us wanted. No, a friend was all Austin Steele could ever be, mouth-watering smile and hypnotic stare be damned.