Guns vs Hoses - Friday Fight Club

Today at Nine Naughty Novelists it's Friday Fight Club - and my hero from You Really Got Me, Chief Jason Holloway, is facing off against Captain Jeb Stone, from Desperately Seeking Fireman by Jennifer Bernard.

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Here's a short snippet featuring the wine tasting scene Jason talks about:

He descended to his kitchen and returned with two beers. He handed her one and slid back into bed, propping pillows behind them, one arm around her. Keeping the conversation carefully off his past, they talked about his house, his neighbor, the weather. When he pressed kisses over her skin anywhere he could reach, her shoulder, the side of her neck, breathing in her scent, she giggled.

It was a sound he hadn’t heard enough of from her. He liked it. He tipped her chin up. “What’s so funny?”

She slanted a grin at him over her shoulder. “Your mouth is cold. And the beers reminded me of an old joke.”

He lifted one eyebrow, smiling back at her, delighted by her amusement.

“How you impress a woman,” she continued. “By complimenting her, kissing her, cuddling her. Send her flowers, hold her, wine her and dine her.”

“Uh huh.” He waited.

“And how you impress a man is―show up naked…with beer.”

He laughed. “Hmm. Works for me.”

Her eyes widened. “Hey. I have a case of wine in the trunk of my car.”

He grinned and stroked a strand of hair off her face. “Why do you have a case of wine in your trunk?”

“I don’t even remember now. But I’ll go get a bottle. It’s a really nice Cabernet Franc. I can give you a wine tasting lesson. Naked.” She shot him a sexy smile as he watched her roll out of bed and reach for her clothes.

He loved that idea.

“Don’t get dressed,” he said, following her out of bed. “I’ll go get the wine.”

So she grabbed his shirt instead of her own clothes and he stepped into a pair of loose sweat pants. In his shirt, big and loose on her slender frame, her hair tangled around her shoulders, lips kiss-swollen and eyes smudgy, she looked so goddamn sexy he wanted to tackle her and throw her back onto the bed and tie her up forever. Instead, he led the way down to his kitchen where her purse sat on the counter. She handed him the keys to her car with a smile and waited at the door as he retrieved the bottle.

He held it up as he came back into the kitchen. “I don’t have wine, but I do have wine glasses.” He opened the cupboard and pulled out two stemmed glasses.

“A corkscrew?” she asked, peeling off the wrapping on the top of the bottle. He pulled that out of a drawer too, and she handed the wine to him.

He let her pour the wine into the glasses, a deep ruby-plum color. She gave the glass a small, expert swirl, held it to her nose, then sipped it.

“You’re not going to spit it out, are you?” he asked. He didn’t know much about wine, but seemed to remember that tasting wine didn’t involve swallowing it.

“No, I’m not going to spit it out.” She gave him a flirty smile. “I’d rather swallow than spit.”

Jesus, Kendall Vioget had just made a dirty joke, with enough innuendo that his balls tightened. Nice.