The woman seated on the other side of the desk was trying to distract me from my work. I leaned a little closer to the outdated computer monitor as if the change in position would help me ignore the noisy sounds she made while she ate lunch. Despite plenty of room elsewhere on the farm, including the employee picnic bench, she’d been spending most of her lunch breaks with me in the vineyard office. I didn’t mind; I loved that she wanted to spend more time with me, especially considering the rocky start we had, but Lucia tended to eat with gusto, smacking noises and all.

I made a disgruntled noise before removing my blue blocker glasses. “Babe, I’m trying to finish this email to our wine club members.”

Lucia’s eating noises abruptly stopped. “Sorry,” she apologized with a grimace. “Am I being too loud?”

She appeared genuinely repentant rather than offended. The sheepish look, like she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, made her look younger than usual. A rigid routine of sunscreen and wide-brimmed hats to shield her skin from the worst of the UV damage already gave her a more youthful appearance. It was hard to stay annoyed with someone who was so in tune and mindful of my own emotions. That sensitivity had been one of the reasons I’d fallen so hard and so quickly for Lucia Maria Santiago despite all of the road blocks we’d both set up along the way. But remarkably, we’d been able to overcome our differences and initial animosity to get to this place.

Another noisy slurping noise interrupted my mental musings. I glanced sharply across the desk. Lucia looked embarrassed by the loud noise. She wiped at her mouth with the sleeve of her denim shirt.

“Sorry. This pear is super ripe.”

“Can you and your super ripe pear get a room while I finish this email?” I sighed.

“I’ll be quiet,” she vowed. “Promise.”

I rolled my eyes a little before returning to my email. I mumbled the most recent sentences to myself to get back on track. My fingers click-clacked on the ancient keyboard that was yellowed with age. I’d been bugging Lucia for updated office equipment, but she insisted that if it wasn’t broken, that I’d survive. Normally I would have pouted to get my way, but that would only result in her reminding me that as a wine collective, all of our profits went back to the employees—not new tech that I used once a month. It was a pretty humbling and convincing argument.

I read and re-read my email before I was satisfied it contained no typos or confusing language. We’d only recently kickstarted the wine club, so I wanted to make sure everything was perfect for its launch. I’d made enough mistakes—all very harmless, but no less embarrassing—during my first few months as the vineyard’s owner. Now as an employee and no longer the person signing the paychecks, I wanted to do everything right the first time. As Lucia had once said to me, I didn’t want people to think I was getting lazy now that I was sleeping with the boss.

I realized then that said boss was being remarkably quiet. I looked over the computer screen to where Lucia still sat.

“What are you doing?”

Lucia sat in her usual chair, but with her head tilted all the way back. The pear she’d been noisily slurping earlier was perched in her mouth like a golf ball on a tee.

“I’m being quiet,” Lucia garbled around the half-eaten pear.

I clicked the send button on my email and shut off the computer monitor. “No, I mean, why are you sitting there like a pig with an apple in its mouth?”

Lucia remained in the same awkward position, her back straight, but with her head leaned back. “I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just call me a pig.”

I stood from my office chair and rounded the desk. I carefully plucked the green pear from Lucia’s open mouth and took a bite of my own. Sweet juice squirted into my mouth, and I immediately wiped at my lips with the back of my hand to keep from making a mess. “You’re right,” I remarked around the bite. “It is juicy.”

I sucked at the tips of my fingers to remove any lingering, sticky residue. I was acutely aware of Lucia’s stare as she regarded me from her chair. I felt her dark eyes sweep down my form before she licked her lips, slow and with purpose.

“Come here.” Her voice had become a low rasp, deeper than her usual smoky register.

I kept my distance. “Why?” I asked. Suspicion crept into my tone.

“I’m still hungry.”

Lucia stood from her chair in a single, fluid motion. Her hands touched my hips first before her palms ran up my sides, rounded my breasts, and then swept up my loose hair.

I looked toward the closed office door. I wasn’t sure who had closed it—Lucia or myself—or even when the door had been shut in the first place. “Lucia, your dad … and Natalie … are just outside.”

“Then you’ll have to keep quiet.”

The fingers that had woven into my hair perceptibly tightened before Lucia pulled me in for a bruising, urgent kiss. Her tongue swept across the front of my teeth before I eagerly sucked her into my mouth. I could taste the sugary juice from the shared pear, but I knew she tasted even sweeter elsewhere.

Her kisses dropped to my neck. I pulled my long hair out of the way to grant her easier access. My knees threatened to buckle each time her teeth scraped against my skin.

I sighed and leaned into the more aggressive touch. "Fuck, Lucia."

"Shhh …" she hushed me, a reminder of the probable audience who might overhear us through the flimsy particleboard door.

A desperate whimper vibrated in my throat. I hated limitations. I was supremely mindful of our place and situation, but I was forty years old; hadn't I earned the right to scream if I wanted to?

"Should I stop?" she posed. She nuzzled her nose against me and licked at the hollow of my throat. "We haven't really started; I could leave right now."

I tightened my grip on the front of her denim work shirt, which was all the answer she required.

Her fingers found the top button of my jeans and then the zipper; she tugged hard, pulling the heavy material past my hips and halfway down my thighs. My underwear had no choice but to follow. She sucked her middle and forefinger into her mouth, although I doubted I would require the extra lubrication. One hand went to the top of my shoulder as if to steady me while the other penetrated between my thighs. I felt her fingers bump against my exposed clit before they sought my willing and waiting entrance.

I gasped sharply, but hopefully quietly, when her fingers entered me. First to one set of knuckles and then the next. The hand that had gently rested on my shoulder now pressed against me. I inelegantly shuffled backwards with my jeans trapped around my knees until my naked backside bumped against the office desk.

Lucia leaned into me, and her mouth reconnected with mine just in time to swallow my next moan. Her fingers bottomed out and she roughly swiped the pad of her thumb across my clit. I groaned into her open mouth, desperate to reciprocate her touch, but selfish enough to sit back and enjoy whatever she intended for my body.

Lucia dropped to her knees while her fingers remained inside of me. A mantra, a chant, formed in my mind as my unfocused gaze wandered above Lucia's head: The office door has no lock. The office door has no lock. The office door has no fucking lock. She licked hard against my clit and all other thoughts flew from my brain.

Her fingers began to move inside of me while her lips remained latched around my clit. I clawed my short fingernails across her back, although with her thick button-up shirt I had no way of knowing if she could feel me.

When I failed to choke back another breathy gasp, Lucia returned to her feet. She removed her fingers from my unsatisfied sex, and I partly worried my lack of discretion would cause her to stop altogether.

A peculiar look crossed her features. "Do you need help staying quiet, jefa?"

Even though I was no longer the vineyard's owner, and our roles had reversed, Lucia had a habit of returning to old habits in moments precisely like this.

"M-maybe," I stammered.

She stood between my parted thighs—parted as far as the jeans and underwear hanging around my knees would allow. She hovered two fingers—the same two fingers that had so recently been inside of me—in front of my mouth. She touched the tips of her fingers against my lower lip. I poked out my tongue and licked across her fingertips, tasting my arousal on her.

I tentatively sucked her fingers deeper into my mouth and kept my eyes trained on her features. I watched her nostrils flare. I observed the way she bit her lower lip. I caught her hard swallow and the way she worked the muscles in her throat. We both needed a proper fuck—no barriers, no limitations, and no clothes—but now was not the time. We'd have to be satisfied with whatever moments we could sneak into the workday.

Lucia withdrew her fingers from my mouth and returned them to my overheated and neglected sex. She stroked me up and down, manipulating my clit with each passage of her fingers. I sighed with some satisfaction when her fingers entered me once again. I gripped the edges of the desk when those fingers began to pick up pace. Over my own heavy breaths, I could hear the tiny squeak of the desk's metal legs scratching against the flimsy area rug and the solid concrete floor below. If she kept this up, she was going to fuck me clear across the office.

I tightened my fingers around the desk's edges again, not to hold on, but as something to distract me from calling out her name and every colorful curse word I knew.

Lucia leaned in close, the rhythm and pace of her fingers never slowing. I could smell the fabric softener we shared from using the same downtown laundry. I could smell her fragrant deodorant as she worked up a sweat unusual for a late November afternoon. She kissed me again, and I was happy for the opportunity to groan into her mouth.

I pulled away from her kiss, but only for much needed air. "You feel so good," came my whispered praise. I dropped my grip on the desk to cradle the sides of her face instead. "You're fucking me so good, baby."

Lucia's eyes shuttered from the gentle touch. "I want you to sit on my face," she quietly growled against my mouth. "I want your juices dripping down my throat like that pear. I want your cum spilling down my chin," she told me, her voice pitching up. "I want to lick you clean."

My nostrils flared and I wordlessly nodded, unable to do much else.

"Rub your clit," she told me.

My hand dropped between my thighs and I unabashedly rubbed the sensitive nub as if my life depended on it.

"Oh shit," I choked out.

"Cum for me, June," came her quiet instructions. "I want everyone to know what I do to you."

My hips bucked frenetically against our combined efforts. Another gasp and unsuccessful attempt to muffle the obvious evidence of our activities had me careening over the edge.

"Cumming--fuck! I'm cumming!" I bit down on my lower lip to cut short any additional telling noises, although I suspected it was already too late for that.

My breath came in short, ragged bursts as I continued to come down. Lucia pressed soft, adoring kisses to my now sweaty forehead.

"Jesus," I breathed out. "I don't know how you expect me to go back to work after that."

Lucia grinned, clearly proud of her ability to unravel me so efficiently. "So no more afternoon orgasms? Is that what you're saying?"

I grabbed onto her sturdy forearm and squeezed. "Don't you dare," I scolded. "I may stop showing up for work if that happened."

I hopped off of the desk, which was noticeably in a different location than before, and began to pull up my underwear and jeans to their own original position.

"Dinner tonight?" I proposed. I didn't worry about sounding too eager or clingy. We were well beyond that level of coyishness.

"Three nights in a row?" Lucia clucked. "Aunt Clara is gonna think I like your cooking better than hers," she warned.

Dinner, or at least time together beyond working hours, was nearly an every evening occurrence since I'd returned to Calistoga. Lucia still slept most nights back in her childhood bedroom, however, in Rolando's house, adjacent to the vineyard's property line. When I'd returned to work at the vineyard, Lucia had moved back in with her father and Aunt Clare. I felt guilty for making her relocate after she'd just set-up an independent space in the farmhouse, but neither of us had wanted to rush things or put too much pressure on our nascent relationship by moving in together so soon.

The farmhouse had plenty of space and extra bedrooms, but I wanted Lucia as my girlfriend, not a roommate with whom I had sex. She'd promised me she didn't mind moving back in with her family, and I'd chosen to take her at her word. When the time was right, I trusted we would have that conversation to take the next step in our relationship and move in together. I wanted to see her every day, and not just at work. I wanted to wake up next to her every morning, but I could be patient. This was new, uncharted territory for both of us.

"I wouldn't want to upset Clara," I chuckled. "Maybe you could come over for dessert afterwards? Maybe something with pear?" I tried to tease.

I doubted I would be able to shake the visual of me sitting on her face any time soon.

Lucia's features suddenly become serious. "You don't have to share. You can have all of me," she said.

"Oh, that-that sounds nice," I managed to sputter.

Lucia was generally economical with her words. She was reasonable and frugal when it came to the business of the vineyard. But when it came our relationship, I'd found her to be unexpectedly open, transparent, and honest. It was a side to her that I was still getting used to.

She pressed her lips solidly against mine, not quite chaste, but also signaling that she had to go. "Dinner, dessert, and a movie," she decided. "I'll bring the DVD."

+ + +

Without the assistance of a mirror, I had no way to tell if my skin was flushed or even the status of my hair. I couldn't hide out in the vineyard office until the end of the workday, however. I took a shallow breath and walked beyond the sanctuary of the private office. The barn was largely empty, all of the full-time employees elsewhere on the property. Only our tasting room manager, Natalie, remained.

I touched uncertain fingers to my hair as I crossed the length of the barn to join her at the bar area. When I'd first come into ownership of the winery, our tasting room was little more than a few pieces of mismatched furniture and a makeshift bar that had been constructed from old oak barrels. Under Lucia's leadership, more money and resources had been allocated to the tasting room, giving Natalie a guest-reception area anyone would be proud of.

"Hey, Natalie," I greeted as I walked closer. "Need help setting up for tours?"

Natalie paused her prep work—mostly setting up clean glassware and carafes of water at each station—long enough to appraise me.

"So I guess the Will-They or Won't-They storyline has run its course?" she remarked.

I shook my head, not sure to what she was referring. "What do you mean?"

Natalie unobtrusively pointed in the direction of the open office door. "We, uh, we heard."

Apparently we hadn't been as quiet as I'd thought.

I could feel my cheeks burning. "Who's we?"

Natalie offered me a sympathetic smile. "I've never seen Rolando move so quickly. Once the noises started, he bolted straight out of here."

I covered my face with my hands. "Oh my God."

Even though we hadn't exactly been caught in the act, it was still horrifying to know that Lucia's father had heard us having sex. He may have suspected as much the early morning he'd shown up at the farmhouse to tell me the Jefferson's vineyard was on fire and Lucia's truck was still parked in front of my house because she'd spent the night, but now he basically had irrefutable evidence about the intimate nature of our relationship.

"You don't need to worry about Rolando," Natalie assured me. "Worry about me."

I looked up from my hands. "You?"

"If you break her heart," she smiled sweetly, "I know where you live."

THE END

(for now!)