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Still scoping out the space, she laid her coat over the back of his slate–gray couch, put her hands on her hips, and inhaled a deep breath. The move stretched her soft cardigan enough that her buttons deserved hazard–duty pay.
And he thought he’d been hard before. There were forests with less wood than he sported in his jeans right now.
“I don’t want to freak you out, but I have paperwork for you.” She nodded toward her tan leather satchel she’d set on the floor. “But let’s talk about what’s going on at the brewery first.”
Everything hard behind his zipper started to deflate. Nothing like a little bad–news reality to get rid of a raging hard–on. Someone with insider–level knowledge of the Sweet Salvation Brewery was behind the trouble. He knew it like he knew the smell of fresh hops.
“I need a beer for this.” He rubbed his forehead. “Want one?” He crossed the open great room to the kitchen and opened the fridge.
“Sure, thanks.”
He reached past the recently released Sweet Proposal Ale and grabbed two unlabeled, brown long–neck bottles. Watching Natalie unpack a notebook and three pens from her bag, he popped the caps and strolled over to the couch.
He set the bottles on the refurbished pallet coffee table next to her stuff. “Something I’m working on.”
“For the brewers invitational?” She picked it up and took a long, slow drink. Her eyes closed and she savored the dark brew.
Sean’s mouth went dry and he sat down beside her. “Yep. A stout.”
“This is good.” She held up the bottle in a toast.
“But not great.” He’d been working on the recipe for months. The dark stout’s flavoring emphasized the slightly sour notes produced by the dry–roasted malt and burnt–caramel bitterness, but it was missing something. What that thing was, he didn’t have a fucking clue.
Natalie took a second swig and then her pink tongue darted out to capture a dot of creamy foam from her lip. “I don’t know, I might argue with you on that point.”
He couldn’t look away from her full lips and imagining how they’d taste. “You argue about everything.”
“Only when I’m right.” She winked playfully and twisted on the couch to face him, bringing her knee in contact with his.
Heat, tension, and something he didn’t want to define strung his body tight. “You ever wrong?”
“It’s been known to happen.” Her thumb traced around the bottle’s opening as slowly and deliberately as she toyed with her necklace.
Her pink lips were so kissable, so inviting, so damn close and getting closer with every inch he leaned toward her.
“Sean.” She whispered his name as her eyelids began to drop and her mouth to open. She set her beer down on the coffee table with a hard clank—and foam rushed up the bottle’s neck like a geyser and poured across the table. “Shit.”
Sean grabbed the collar of his T–shirt behind his neck and yanked it over his head so he could use it as a towel to stop the flow of beer before it ran off the edge and onto the floor. He sopped up the suds, gathered the material into a ball, and hustled it over to the kitchen, where he dropped it with a wet thud into the stainless–steel sink.
Natalie sat as still as a statue on his couch, her eyes round with surprise and a flush turning her cheeks pink. “I’m sorry…I…uh…”
Only then did Sean realize he was now standing shirtless in front of his boss, the woman who he shouldn’t give two rats’ asses about but still wanted to impress.
You, Duvin, are doing a real fucking bang–up job of that.
Natalie refused to down the rest of her beer in one gulp, no matter how badly she wanted to relieve the hundred–year drought in her mouth.
Sean wasn’t the first man she’d seen shirtless in all his Apollo–like glory and, God willing, he wouldn’t be the last. Still, the sight of his six pack and hard pecs wouldn’t be something she’d forget anytime soon and, for once, she couldn’t think of a damn thing to say.
They just stared at each other, heat as potent as anything they brewed up at the Sweet Salvation Brewery nuking the air between them.
Look away, Natalie. Look away!
But she didn’t. Even blinking became a crime against nature. She took in his broad, well–defined shoulders, the thick muscles curving his biceps, and the trail of dark hair that traveled from his bellybutton to behind the top button of his low–slung jeans. Her bra tightened, the unlined lace chaffing her hard nipples, and a honey–thick river of desire flowed through her veins until her heart pounded like a kettledrum in her ears.
“I’ll be right back.” Sean spun on his heel, his rubber–soled work boots squeaking against the polished wood floor, and took off up the metal staircase leading to the loft.
He was gone before the first embarrassed flush bloomed in her cheeks, but once it did, the sun paled in comparison to the heat making her face pulse. Her fingers flew across the pearl necklace in time with her rushed heartbeat, and her eyes darted around Sean’s house.
