Author's Note: borderline M-rating for this chapter

We put that down there for Alan's knees.

Ellie's insane words echoed in Alan's mind as he found his shirt and did up the buttons. His hands were shaking from adrenaline. Terror. Embarrassment. Shame. All of the above.

Of all the things to say to her son, the boy who Alan had first met as an infant and only twice again in the last twenty years. He'd been Uncle Alan to Ethan, the man his mother talked about as an old friend until their relationship had been renewed after the Biosyn fiasco. Alan was still trying to prove himself to Ellie's kids, to show them that he was worthy of being with their mother and of being a part of their lives. Charlie had been so easy to win over. Ethan was a different story.

Charlie had always been a gregarious kid. Loved playing with dinosaurs and roaring, then as he got older, he was charismatic and charming and full of laughter. He had been about twenty when Ellie and Mark finally called it quits, old enough to see the fractures in his parents' marriage and to see the benefit of them living lives apart. And he remembered Uncle Alan the Dinosaur Man from his childhood and welcomed him with open arms.

Ethan, on the other hand, had always been quiet. Shy, really. Never cold or standoffish. Alan never worried that Ethan didn't like him or didn't approve. He just never had an opportunity to get close with Ethan. He wasn't close to Charlie either, but Charlie didn't make Alan uneasy the way Ethan did. Alan just didn't have a good read on Ethan. He didn't know him.

And now Ethan had walked into their home for the first time with his pregnant girlfriend, amidst changes in travel plans and having just finished finals at Northwestern and all the uncertainty that Hailey's situation brought, and instead of seeing his mother and her fiancé enjoying a quiet evening at home like middle-aged people are supposed to, he'd seen… God, Alan could hardly even put the words together in his own head, he was so mortified.

He hadn't gone to bed yet, and Ellie was up getting a glass of water. They flirted a little in the kitchen, talking about how it was the last night for a while when they'd be all alone in the house, and one thing led to another. Alan had hoisted her up onto the kitchen counter while they kissed, and Ellie's hands roamed over his head and neck and shoulders. She undid the buttons of his shirt and yanked it out of the jeans he was still wearing. He kissed down her neck and peeled the thin straps of her nightgown off her shoulders until the garment pooled at her waist. Ellie grabbed a dishtowel off the counter and handed it to him.

"I think you're gonna need that," she said.

"I'll get there, honey," he teased. This was not the first time they'd had a tryst in the kitchen, and Alan had already learned that the tile floors were murder on his knees. They'd figured out that a rolled-up dishtowel did the trick. Ellie kept a washcloth in the shower for the same purpose.

By that point, Ellie had thrown Alan's shirt on the floor, and her fingernails dug into his shoulders as he moved his mouth down her neck and to her breasts. Her gasps and moans filled his senses until the horrified "No!" interrupted them.

The fact that Ethan had walked into their home for the first time to see his mother's tits in Alan's mouth was probably traumatizing for everyone involved. And Ellie certainly hadn't made it any better with her comment about the dishtowel. Ethan and Hailey were twenty. They knew what she meant.

Alan heard Ellie's voice as she showed the kids to their room on the ground floor. Worried that anyone would come back towards the kitchen and find him, Alan panicked and went to hide in the wine cellar.

It wasn't actually a cellar. There weren't stairs down to a basement or anything. Apparently they didn't have basements or cellars in California too often because of the earthquake risks. But it seemed that most of the various valleys throughout California were winegrowing regions of varying quality, so it was not unusual for a big custom house like this one to have a temperature-controlled pantry for wine storage. Alan called it a wine cellar because wine pantry sounded stupid.

He stood there, trying to calm himself down, and gazed around at the racks and racks of wine he'd so carefully organized. Ellie had teased him about it, saying that he was a scientist, so of course he liked to have things catalogued and arranged in a perfect, logical manner. Maybe she was right. But unlike thirty years ago when they'd been involved for the first time, Alan Grant was more than just a 'cheap beer in the desert' kind of guy. Well, he still was, since nothing hit the spot in the red dirt of Utah on a scorching summer day than an ice-cold Corona, but his palate had become a bit more sophisticated over the years. His books had sold well, he made good money from universities and various lecture circuits. But Alan had never really paid much attention to how much money he'd actually accumulated over the years, not having any real reason to spend it. Until he discovered wine. Good wine. And he'd approached wine the same way he'd approached dinosaurs when he first got interested in paleontology: with fascination, excitement, and hyperfixation. If the scheduling for the courses had worked out with his teaching schedule about six years ago, he probably would have gotten certified as a sommelier. Instead, he'd amassed a respectable collection and a deep love of wine. And he'd used his money on the wine and on buying this property for his retirement.

Alan had no interest in opening a bottle or drinking anything at the moment. He just wanted to hide and calm down and go to bed as soon as it was safe. But being in the wine cellar was strangely calming. With a heavy sigh, he leaned against a wine barrel that was used as a little side table for putting glasses or bottles or whatever else.

Though it was hardly helpful to think about the barrel right now, since last month, Ellie had surprised him in the wine cellar wearing a short pink silk robe with nothing underneath, and he'd sat her up on that barrel and knelt in front of her—using his own discarded shirt under his knees—and kissed up and down each of her inner thighs before burying his mouth between her legs.

There was probably some crude, possessive reason behind it that Ellie the feminist would scold him for, but Alan had always loved going down on her. When they were young—well, when she was young and he was younger—it had been a point of great pride for him when she'd told him that no man had ever brought her to orgasm so quick. And now that they were older, she'd told him after their first time that the feeling of his beard on her like that was the best thing she'd ever experienced. So Alan had hardly let a week go by without putting his beard and lips and tongue to very good use.

Alan closed his eyes and remembered what it felt like, standing against this very barrel with Ellie's legs wrapped around him as he thrust inside her. Their moans and groans of pleasure bouncing off the walls of the confined space. Sex in the air probably didn't affect the wine still in the bottles, but it was an interesting thought.

"There you are!"

His eyes snapped open when Ellie came through the door. It briefly crossed his mind that a man his age shouldn't have to quell an erection twice in one evening, but he pushed that thought aside. "Ethan and Hailey all settled in for the night?" Alan asked.

She looked at him with a fond but exasperated expression. "You don't need to hide in here. We're all adults."

Alan glared at her. "Ellie," he warned.

But Ellie just gave a soft giggle and pulled at his arm to lead him out of the wine cellar. "It's fine, Alan. We'll deal with everything in the morning. Come to bed."

He wrapped an arm around her waist and closed the door behind him with his free hand. She was right. It would be fine, they'd figure it out in the morning. And Alan didn't have to face anyone or anything right now. It would be better after they all got a good night's sleep.