My fingers wrapped carefully around the long stem of my glass of chilled white wine, I stared into the cool liquid as if it could reveal my future. What I really wanted it to do was hide my past, but I figured that was just going to take time and strength. Sometimes…sometimes guys are jerks, y’know?

Enough. Tonight is so not about wallowing in old frustrations, old guilt, old heartache. Tonight is about music and wine and this gorgeous little grey dress and silver sandals with a heel that’s almost-too-high. It’s about losing my soul to the blues, to the brushes on the snare and the wail and strum of the guitars, to the throb of the bass…mmm, the bass…

Ok, so it helped that the bassist was sex in blue jeans. You know the type. Broad shoulders, corded muscle down the arms, long thick fingers. That narrow waist tapered into those jeans that hung low on his hips, under a black polo shirt. His feet tapped with the rhythm in those black Pumas as those fingers - God just think what those fingers could do - those fingers plucked out a walking line of notes that resonated through my core.

I closed my eyes and let myself drift through the last bars of whatever they were playing, carried on the harmonies of the guitar and vocals, finding myself borne along by the emotions that sang so clearly through the music. Love and loss and hardship, cheating women and cheating cards and Fate. And Fate would have it that I opened my eyes as the last notes hung in the air to find myself lost in the deepest pair of navy blue eyes I had ever seen. I lost my breath. He just grinned, like it was no big thing, and skipped those thick steel strings right on into the next tune. When he finally glanced away, I finally inhaled, and slipped through the crowd to step outside for some cooler, clearer air.

The blues followed me out onto the patio where the wait staff had propped open the doors - airflow and traffic flow, I guessed. At least the music cared enough to follow me...but stop. Again, not going there tonight, not going back.

A waitress touched my shoulder lightly, trying not to startle me. Maybe I covered the little jump, maybe not, but her smile was bright and friendly, and a little knowing, as she handed me a new glass of wine - red this time, and warm. Just the scent off the glass held a hint of cinnamon and currant. She must have read my confusion on my face, since she chuckled as she explained it was "compliments of our handsome bassist, and he does indeed send his compliments." So he had noticed, and taken an interest.

The waitress winked as she glanced over my blonde waves, my generous breasts and the dress and long tan legs and the heels, and tossed back "You can have mine, too" over her shoulder as she sauntered back inside.

Trust me, I know a saunter when I see one, and hers was flawless.

A new song played through the open doors, instrumental and bass-heavy, running deep and skimming along the melody to sink back down into those slow, sensuous depths.

I leaned on the rail and took a sip of the wine. Spicy, deep, velvety on the tongue. I wondered if he would taste the same, and shivered. There was a steady swell and ebb to the tune that made my body throb with it. The cool night air on my skin and the sparkle of stars in the sky just pushed at me as the music built, as I imagined his hands on me, in me, stroking and pushing me higher until I fell from the peak of the song.

My muscles clenched tight as the orgasm hit me out of nowhere, my breath coming in gasps and my eyes flying open to focus on absolutely nothing. The music and the pleasure rolled through my body, synonymous and demanding and fulfilling. No idea how I stayed on my feet, how I didn't snap the wine glass in my hand. I took another swallow automatically.

The image of myself on my knees wearing just those strappy high-heeled sandals, looking up at the heat in those dark eyes as I swallowed his last drops, lodged itself in my brain.

I stared, shaking with aftershocks, into the midnight red of the wine and tried to focus on the music again, only to find that the band had stopped and there was only the white noise of the bar crowd over tinny jukebox tracks.

Maybe I was expecting it, subconsciously, but I didn't jump at all when I felt him behind me and watched him place his hands on the railing next to mine, his whole body surrounding me. Those strong hands and long fingers couldn't belong to anyone else, and somehow the voice suddenly murmuring in my ear couldn't either. Deep and dark and warm and soft, like his eyes, like the wine. His lips brushing my neck sent electricity sparking through me all over again. I shuddered against him.

I turned in his arms. He told me his name, and I told him mine. His hand on my hip pulled me against the long, thick hardness hidden in those jeans. Guess the music got to him too…or he got to the music. You know he got to me. His fingers traced down my arm and took the wine glass, tipping one more swallow gracefully into my mouth before he finished the glass and set it aside.

Wherever we were going, I sure as hell hoped it was gonna be a short trip. Or maybe a long one. I guess I didn't really care. I just wanted to feel his eyes caressing me that way, like whirlwinds of static shocks chasing themselves over my skin.

I stared at his hand on the gate for half a minute, nodding without really hearing whatever he was saying, just to agree with his voice. It didn't matter, he had all my attention, if I wasn’t really listening. His fingers grazed my lower back and sent heat swirling through my core, and I stepped out through the gate.