A Shot With You (Bourbon Brothers)

by Teri Anne Stanley

  “Yep.” Brandon didn’t say anything else, just peered ahead into the darkness.

  “Um, okay.” Not only had she taken the world’s most intense post-coital nap that afternoon, and was still a bit groggy, but she was in a slight food coma, and might have missed a few steps, still… “Aren’t the dogs going to complain if we don’t go back and get them?”

  “Are you in a hurry to get to bed? I mean, it has been almost”—he checked the dashboard clock—“six hours since the last time we were naked, but if you’re really desperate, I’m sure we can pull off here somewhere…”

  She smacked his arm. “Don’t tease me. I might take you up on it.” Was she in a hurry to get to bed? With Brandon? Always. No, no, no. Not always. But definitely as often as possible while this new, exciting feeling lasted.

  “We’re going back to the boat in a bit. I just want to show you something first.”

  “I—”

  “Just enjoy the ride.”

  “Didn’t I drive you crazy enough on the way down here to cure you of this insane need to surprise me with wonders of nature?” she asked.

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you,” he agreed. “‘Brrrandon, where are we going? When are we going to get there? Why won’t you tell me?’” He did a pretty good imitation of her, she admitted. And she wasn’t as annoyed with him as she wanted to be.

  Mr. Amiable. He had some kind of friend-spell he cast on everyone. They’d eaten fried fish and potatoes with coleslaw at a local dive, and Brandon had charmed all of the other customers—locals, fishermen, and houseboating families alike. He’d even passed out miniature bottles of Blue Mountain’s newest bourbon, Dangerous Dave’s Eight Ball, to everyone over the age of twenty-one. Who traveled with samples of booze?

  Brandon Morgan, apparently.

  It was disturbing to Lesa how much he was growing on her.

  Maybe having sex with him hadn’t been the greatest idea she’d ever had.

  With the other guys she’d been with on her short vacations away from home, she’d spend a few days getting to know them, then if they meshed, spend a few more days together in bed, but after the second orgasm, she was usually looking for a way to say good-bye.

  She was—she counted, five? Six?—orgasms into this relationship, and she didn’t have any urge to— Oh, no. A relationship? No way. That was a long-timer’s word.

  She rolled the window down, needing some air.

  Based on his story about the barrel maker’s evil daughter, Brandon was someone who had relationships. And when those ended, he was devastated.

  Lesa was not that girl. She wasn’t the girlfriend type any more than she was a scheming two-timing thief. She wasn’t, right? She wasn’t planning to steal anything. She had already made up her mind to convince Papa to sign the deal with Blue Mountain, and there was no dirt to find here. Her conscience was clear, and soon, very soon, she would be relieved of her obligations to Papa and free to travel the world. She couldn’t wait. She was ready. Really.

  Her musing was interrupted when the car left the extreme darkness of the forested road for a dimly lit parking lot. “Here we go.”

  “Are we here?”

  “We are, indeed, here,” Brandon told Lesa. “And I think we’re just in time.”

  “For what?”

  He just looked at her.

  “Fine.” She huffed. “Let’s go see.”

  There were other cars in the lot, so whatever they were going to see, they weren’t the only ones. Here in the dark. In the middle of an ancient forest in God-Only-Knew-Where, Kentucky.

  As soon as she opened the car door, she recognized the roar of rushing water.

  “Is this a river?”

  “Yep.”

  “Do we need a flashlight?” she asked, as he came around the car and took her hand.

  “I don’t think so. The moon’s full.”

  And so it was. The earlier storm had left the area, leaving a mist in the low areas, the full moon playing hide and seek with a few remaining clouds. He led her along a paved path past a little building that could have been an office, or something, and through a park-like area. They followed another couple, who were talking and giggling ahead of them.

  After a couple hundred yards, the woods parted, and she glimpsed the river ahead rushing past them, falling over a rift in the earth dozens of feet high.

  “Wow,” she breathed.

  It was stunning. There was just enough light to see the water crashing and splashing its way from one level to another, swirling and pooling below before streaming away. Lesa would have loved to see the falls during the day, but the darkness gave the whole area an ethereal, fantastic aura.

  She shivered, overwhelmed by the unknown coming at them from upriver, imagined being swept along with the current, off to distant places. It was both scary and exhilarating.

  Brandon’s arm wrapped around her, pulling her close against his warm, strong body. Safe and secure, but also anchored. For tonight she would ignore the tied-down feeling that always came with those sorts of thoughts. This was too magical.

  “This is amazing,” she whispered. “Thank you for showing me.”

  “Just wait,” he told her. “This is cool, but—”

  “There it is!” Someone from another group of people shouted, followed by a collective “Oooh.”

  “What?” she asked. “What’s everyone seeing?”

  “Come on.” He pulled her along with him, moving away from the river and then back toward it, down a path that traveled over the cliff, approaching the river. She hadn’t noticed it before and apparently most of the people above didn’t know about it, because it was deserted.

  But once they were about halfway down, closer to the water, Brandon stopped. “There.” He pointed.

  In front of them, rising from the mist at the bottom of the waterfall, was an arc of light.

  “Dios mio! What is that?” Lesa breathed. She’d never seen anything like it in her life.

  “It’s a moonbow.”

  “Seriously?”

  “No kidding. There are supposedly only two in the world, or somethin’. You gotta have a full moon and the right conditions, but it’s just like a rainbow, except at night.”

  “Wow.” They were silent for a few moments, watching the mist play with the full moon to create such a wondrous phenomenon.

  Wrapped in Brandon’s arms, feeling his heart beat against her back, the movements of his chest when he breathed in and out, alive and so focused on her. There was a real connection here between this man and this place—his home—and he was including her in that.

  “Are you okay?” Brandon whispered. “You’re shaking.”

  Oh hell. She was shaking. Because she was crying. Thank God it was dark here. This—this feeling stuff wasn’t part of her plan. Keep your eyes on the prize. Faking a cough so she could wipe her face with the sleeve of her sweatshirt, she cleared her throat.

  “Yeah. I’m fine. Thanks for showing me this.” She unwrapped herself from his embrace. “Do you think we should get back to the girls? Your family will never forgive you if you have to reupholster the whole houseboat because they tore it up while we were gone.”

  She tried to ignore the puzzled look on Brandon’s face as he followed her back up to the main path and on to the car.

  …

  A couple of romantically inclined frogs sang from the shore opposite the dock as Brandon and Lesa walked along the wooden planks toward the houseboat. She’d slipped her hand into his after they parked the car, and he admitted to himself that it felt good. Right.

  “How you doin’?” He nodded to a familiar weekend resident walking a tiny pocket dog on a retractable leash. He’d have to wait a while to take Mabel and Maude for their evening constitutional.

  “Your girls would have that dog for a snack,” Lesa whispered, once they’d passed.

  “They’re actually terrified of him,” Brandon told her. “The first time they met, Rex set up such a racket that Maude ha
d an accident on the dock, and Mabel backed up so fast she fell in the water.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Yeah.” Brandon laughed at the memory. “They were only a few months old then, and Mabel’d never been swimming before, so I wound up diving in after her.”

  “Eww,” Lesa commented, looking down into the murky, oil-slicked water that lapped against the hulls of the boats. The water was clean and clear a few yards away from the docks, but the marina tended to collect all the nasty, floaty things and keep them close to the boats.

  “Yeah. I had to shower three times before I felt comfortable enough to sleep.”

  “So what do you do here at night when you’re not out on the lake?” Lesa asked.

  “I usually sleep,” he told her. “Not very exciting. Sometimes I read.“

  “Wow. You do live crazy, don’t you?”

  He nodded. “My parents and Justin used to stay up all night playing poker with the neighbors, but I’m not much of a gambler,” he told her.

  “Really? What were you playing for? Pretzels?”

  “Mmmm, usually M&M’s or Skittles,” he said. “But sometimes they use real nickels and dimes.”

  “Oh, dear,” she said drily. “I can understand why you’d be reluctant to gamble away your inheritance.”

  When she put it that way, it did sound dumb. “Even when I was little, I preferred to save my money instead of taking the risk of losing it.” He shrugged. “But I always had enough for an ice cream the next day. Justin was always broke because he’d lost his allowance.”

  “So you would wind up spending all of your money, because you’d feel bad for him and buy him an ice cream anyway, right?”

  “Maybe,” he laughed. He pondered that for a minute. “Am I that easy to read—you already know what a coward and sucker I am?”

  She bumped him with her shoulder. “You’re not a sucker, you’re generous. And you’re not a coward—you’re conservative. If you’d gambled, too, you might have lost, and neither one of you would have been able to buy ice cream.”

  Huh. He’d never thought of it that way.

  But in a lot of ways, he was still a big chicken. Because he was such a sucker. Or at least he had been, once. He thought about his father’s contention that he’d made enough amends for the situation with Suzanne. He might have helped Blue Mountain recover any financial hit they’d taken, but he wasn’t done proving—at least to himself—that he was an older, wiser Brandon.

  He looked at Lesa, glad that she was different. Yeah, she had her reasons for wanting to see Blue Mountain make a deal with her father’s distillery, but she wasn’t trying to finagle a special deal or steal company secrets.

  They’d reached the boat, and Brandon had to release her hand to dig out the keys. It rocked gently as Lesa stepped onto the deck and gave another lurch when he came aboard. The sound of the water against the pontoon and the creatures of the night, along with the damp boating-associated smells, gave him a warm feeling of home. Whether here at the lake, at Blue Mountain, or just driving between the two familiar places, he was right where he wanted to be.

  Having Lesa with him was— He stopped. Being with Lesa made it all that much better—or did being home make being with Lesa that much better? Or were the two things equal—

  “Hola, handsome. We going inside?”

  He shook his head and unlocked the sliding door to the cabin. Maude greeted them with a happy bark and wag and sat in a very convincing impression of a good dog. She must have—yep. The trash can contents were carefully spread across the galley floor. “Maude, dammit…”

  Mabel raised her head from her place on the couch and looked at them guiltily.

  “Mabel…” he warned.

  She reluctantly unfolded herself and slunk to the floor.

  “I’m gonna take you two out and let Rex get you.”

  Lesa laughed. “You take them out. I’ll clean up.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” he said. What he thought was, You can change into something more comfortable. Or nothing.

  She had moved within kissing distance, so he bent his head to hers and indulged in a little lip-to-lip libido resuscitation. Not that he needed it. He’d been on the edge of arousal all evening.

  He grabbed her backside and pulled her against his burgeoning erection. Turning with her, he pressed her against the sliding glass door.

  She slid her tongue over his bottom lip, taking a small nip, and then licking him again.

  He could do this forever. Kiss her like this, over and over. Although kissing led to touching. Which he was also willing to participate in. Sliding one hand under the hem of her top, he stroked the soft skin of her waist.

  Damn.

  “What the—” She pulled the phone from her pocket and glanced at the display.

  “Do you need to get that?” Rhetorical question, to him. If the phone chimed, he answered it.

  “It’s Papa. I’ll call him later.” She pushed a button to silence the phone and shoved it back in her pocket. Reaching up to fiddle with his collar, she said, “Where were we?”

  Mabel whined.

  With a sigh, Lesa pushed him away. “Go. And when you come back, I’ll challenge you to a Mexican game of chance.”

  He tilted his head at her. “Didn’t we just have a conversation about how I don’t like to gamble?” What did she have up her sleeve? The glint in her eye was decidedly devious.

  “I think you’ll like this game. It’s called ‘Poker el acto de denudarse.’”

  He tried to translate that in his head. “Is that strip poker?”

  She grinned. “It’s kind of a win-win game.”

  Boy howdy.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lesa had barely finished sweeping up the last of the potato chip bag the dogs had decimated before Brandon was back.

  “Wow. You must have had Rex scare the pee out of them to get their business done so fast,” she observed.

  He waited for the dogs to sit then unsnapped their leashes, giving each one an affectionate ear rub before straightening to hang the leads on a hook by the door. Such a good dog dad.

  Uh, no. No thinking about whether or not he’d be a good kid dad. Because he would be, but not to her kids. She’d decided long ago that she had no interest in having kids. Maybe because she’d not had much of a childhood herself, what with spending most of it taking care of her mother, instead of the other way around.

  So, she’d never make babies with this man. But she could pretend to be practicing. Because damn. The way his shoulders stretched that shirt, the long, strong arms, fingers, legs…

  “Are you checking me out?” The sexy eyes, smile…

  In two paces he was in front of her, his arms around her waist, hers around his neck. The very blood in her veins throbbed as he held her gaze and walked her backward. Down the hall. Toward the bedrooms.

  As he shut the door behind him, she was vaguely aware of a whining complaint from the hallway, but ignored it when he pushed her gently down on the bed.

  Kneeling in front of her, he pushed her legs apart and made room for his hips between them. The skin of her thighs tingled where his hands stroked, and she arched forward to make contact with his body.

  He kissed her, his lips finding hers, tongues tangling then moving to run his mouth along her neck again and again, until she could barely think from the need swamping her senses.

  While threading her fingers through his hair, the short silky strands tickled—a contrast to the firm grip of his hands on her.

  He gripped her waist, holding her just a few centimeters from being able to press her core against him, and she ached with the need to feel his erection.

  “Jesus, Lesa,” he murmured, breaking the kiss long enough to stare into her eyes.

  The emotion on his face was too much for her. Too honest.

  “I—” He started to speak, but she cut him off with action.

  Letting go of him, she pulled her top up and off, tossing it across th
e room in one motion.

  His eyes darkened when he looked at her lacy bra, and she felt her nipples rasp against the fabric. He made short work of the clasp and slid it from her shoulders, dipping to touch his tongue to first one breast, then the other. She moaned when he took her into his mouth, feeling a tug between her legs in time with his pulls.

  She tugged at his shirt, and he released her long enough to take it off, then leaned back in. But this time he put a hand on each shoulder and eased her down onto her back, running his fingers over her stomach and down to the waistband of her shorts. Her breath caught, and the movement allowed him to slip his fingers under the fabric.

  Oh, God. Her body was on fire. She lifted her head to watch him. He was totally focused on getting her pants off. His tongue was tucked between his teeth, and she prayed he wouldn’t bite it off before he used it on her.

  The zipper slid down under his hands, and she lifted her hips so he could slide them the rest of the way off, along with her panties. The air hitting her skin did nothing to cool her off. She automatically pressed her legs together to ease the ache in her core, wanting instead to just throw them apart and beg him to do her, for God’s sake.

  One big hand landed on her stomach, and the other slid between her knees, pushing them apart. He was completely absorbed in her body, and she loved it. Loved how he gave everything he had to whatever he was doing. He licked his lower lip, and she felt the rasp of his tongue as though he’d already used it on her.

  He approached slowly, his warm breath fanning her already hot tissues, soothing and adding to the ache at the same time like a million touches at once. He put his lips to her and explored every fold and nerve ending, around her entrance, just inside, then upward, around, and finally where she needed the most pressure, nearly sending her through the ceiling.

  And then he began to stroke.

  She managed to open her eyes enough to see him looking at her, holding her stare. The hand on her belly moved, stroking, and she put one of her own hands over it, holding on to him, because the tension rising inside her was about to be enough to carry her off this bed and out to sea.