Secret Blend (Bourbon Springs Book 1)

by Jennifer Bramseth

  “Well—”

  “Ever the diplomatic one, aren’t you? Won’t say a bad word about your fellow judge? That’s admirable, but it’s beyond me how you can stand sharing offices with that man,” Hannah continued.

  “It’s not been easy,” Rachel said truthfully, and felt her cheeks burn. She brought her mug of coffee to her lips, hoping to hide the blush.

  “Well, maybe I can help you out, girl,” Hannah joked, and picked up her own coffee cup. “Like I told you when I first thought of the idea—we’d be great officemates. In fact, I’m going to make sure we get that chance.” Hannah nodded and took a long sip of coffee.

  Rachel tried to pass off her worried distractedness as sleepiness during the uncomfortable meal. Several times during brunch Rachel came close to confessing about Brady, but managed to keep her mouth shut. She expected that the urge to tell Hannah would arise every time she was around her friend and that it would only get worse as time passed. But since Hannah was running for office, perhaps it would be easier for Rachel to keep her distance. Both work and the campaign would keep her busy. And, as Rachel had warned, as a sitting judge, she had to be careful not to appear she was overtly supporting her friend. She made sure to tell Hannah more than once that she could not properly attend her announcement. Hannah was disappointed, but understood.

  Finally, Rachel thanked Hannah for the treat and headed for Minnick’s Fine Foods and Beverages, the grocery store just south of downtown Bourbon Springs. Once there, Rachel saw Mira and also ran into Lila McNee, a native of Craig County who had returned to the area several months earlier after the recent deaths of both her husband and her parents. Lila had been a few years behind Rachel in school, but they were on the debate team together one year. Lila, a petite blonde with a pixie cut, looked older than Rachel remembered; Rachel expected that was due to so much grief at such a young age. Lila told Rachel she was looking for a job and had applied for an open position at the high school teaching history in the upcoming school year. Rachel promised Lila that she’d mention her application to Hannah and that hopefully Hannah would pass on the info to Josh. After Rachel parted with Lila, she hoped that she hadn’t promised too much. Under normal circumstances, Rachel would’ve told Hannah in person about Lila’s situation, but maybe under the current conditions an email would have to do.

  Rachel tried to move quickly through the store, but there were a lot of shoppers to slow her advance. She was anxious to get home and relax. And maybe call Brady. She checked her phone. Sure enough, and to her delight, she had a text from him.

  Miss you

  She stopped her cart and put her hand over her heart. It was the perfect thing to say. Short, sweet, true.

  Rachel texted him back.

  Yes :)

  Had brunch with Hannah

  Will call you

  Rachel slipped the phone into her purse, not wanting the distraction of getting into a long text exchange with Brady. She didn’t know how she would end it, and she knew that any more contact with him would only make her want to be with him.

  Immediately.

  Chapter 16

  Brady cringed as soon as he hit the send button.

  Miss you? What kind of lame sentiment was that?

  But that was his totally goofy first message to Rachel after the most wonderful night of his life. If he’d been completely truthful, he would’ve said I love you. But not yet, and definitely not in a text.

  Checking his phone as he sat in the grocery store parking lot, Brady was happy to see she’d texted back quickly, but wasn’t so pleased to learn that she’d been out with Hannah for brunch. He wondered what else Rachel had done in the few hours they’d been apart; had her experience the morning after they had spent their first night together been anything like his?

  When he’d left Rachel’s house in the wee hours, Brady thought he’d be tired most of the day.

  Wrong.

  He could not shake his sexbuzz.

  Brady had tried to sleep. Failed.

  He did his laundry. All of it.

  He cleaned his townhouse.

  Even after all that, he still had too much energy, so he went out and ran a few miles.

  A sense of weariness finally caught up with him, but he figured he needed to pick up a few staples before he completely crashed. He wasn’t sure he’d have any time during the week to do any shopping; he had a trial every day except Friday. Brady had cursed when he realized there might not be a night until the weekend when he could be with Rachel again. When he’d set those trials, he hadn’t given a second thought to how his evening might be eaten up if the cases went into the evenings.

  But now there was Rachel to occupy his nights, days, or whenever she’d have him. He wanted to be with her all the damn time.

  And if they could keep it a secret.

  After reading her text in his SUV, he happily loped into the store, took a cart, and began pulling items from the shelves. Brady’s fatigue increased as he progressed through the aisles, and by the time he got to the dairy case at the far end of the store, he was beat and ready to go home and collapse. But when turning around after grabbing a gallon of milk, he saw something that jolted him awake.

  Several yards away, along the freezer aisle and toward the front of the store, was Rachel.

  She was in another of those simple yet stylish dresses that fit her so well—although he’d never seen her in that particular shade of teal or whatever it was. Rachel opened the freezer case door, reached in, and began moving items around.

  She didn’t see him, and Brady watched her, mesmerized. Images and feelings and memories from only a few hours earlier began flooding into his mind.

  That’s the woman I spent the night with.

  That’s the woman I made come—how many times last night?

  That’s the woman I love.

  These thoughts burned into his brain and shot straight down, making him hard in seconds.

  Brady kept close to the cart as his arousal grew. He tried to creep away and get away from Rachel so he could get himself under control.

  Then he made the mistake of looking at her again.

  She was looking back, and there was no mistaking the message in her eyes.

  It was the same look she’d given him the moment she ripped off her towel.

  She was grinning, smirking, leering.

  He was being treated to Rachel’s come-hither look.

  Brady just wished they were in a place where he could accept the offer she was making.

  When Rachel turned and saw Brady, her heart skipped a few beats and she stopped breathing for a moment. Then the daydreaming session she’d put off for much too long that day began in earnest.

  He’s all hot and sweaty.

  Just like a few hours ago.

  Just like I want him to be.

  Rachel couldn’t suppress her smile as a combination of the things that had happened between them last night and the things she still wanted to happen between them—could they get together again as soon as that evening?—flitted into her mind.

  Brady returned her gaze and moved toward her.

  The tables turned.

  Her lustful thoughts gave way to the same feeling of panic she’d had when she thought Hannah was on to her. Could she hide how she felt about Brady now that they were in public together for the first time after making love?

  Rachel turned back to the freezer case and pretended to be very interested in the ice cream.

  “Excuse me,” she heard Brady say.

  With his cart beside hers, Brady reached around her on the left and toward the freezer door, his left forearm brushing hers. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she could feel the heat from his body coursing off him. She could also smell him. Her primal animal brain detected that same sweaty scent which had enveloped her in a haze of lust all night long, and she felt her pulse quicken.

  She moved forward with her cart and the freezer door swung open. But Brady didn’t get any ice cream
; he just stood there with the door open.

  “Aren’t you going to get anything?” Rachel said, pointing to the ice cream and other frozen treats.

  “Nope,” Brady said, shaking his head. “Just need to do is stand here.”

  Upon a glimpse of his shorts, she saw the reason for Brady’s sudden affinity for standing in a freezer and pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh.

  “Maybe you should go in the back of the store,” she suggested. “I think they have the big freezers back there.”

  “I’d rather stay here,” he said in a low voice. “The view’s better.” Brady’s eyes raked over Rachel’s body.

  “I’m pretty sure you’ve seen an even better one.”

  “Indeed I have,” he said. “And recently. Very recently.”

  “And would you like to see that view again?” she asked. She saw him swallow and knew she’d gotten the better of him.

  He leaned forward and whispered. “I happen to know that if we weren’t in the middle of the grocery store, Judge Richards, I’d be looking at that view right this very minute.”

  She sucked in a breath but soon recovered. “I would think,” she said, “that you’d be doing more than simply looking, Judge Craft.” She put a finger to her chin and looked up. “How do I put this? I think you’d be enjoying. But I’m not talking about merely the view.”

  He moved closer to her.

  “If I had you back where we were—” he looked at his watch “—eight hours ago, Judge Richards, we’d both be enjoying ourselves. I’d certainly enjoy the view of you writhing under me again as I—”

  “Judge Richards, Judge Craft,” said a voice from nearby.

  Brady and Rachel fell away from each other and looked to see the Commonwealth Attorney, Eleanor Giles, standing and staring at them.

  Brady’s former boss didn’t look happy. She was a short woman in her early fifties with short white hair, and everyone invariably used the same word to describe her: stern. She’d been the Commonwealth Attorney in Craig County for fifteen years and had never had aspirations beyond being a prosecutor.

  “Oh, hello, Eleanor,” Brady said, and released the freezer door.

  In greeting them, Rachel noticed that Eleanor seemed to be warmer toward her than Brady.

  “Good to see you both,” she finally said, and started to leave. “Oh, Brady—I mean, Judge Craft—may I come see you in the morning?”

  “Of course. I have a trial, so catch me early.”

  “I’ll be there,” she said. Eleanor gave one last look at Rachel and left them alone.

  “What do you think she wants?” Rachel asked once Eleanor was out of earshot.

  “Not sure, but something’s not right with her.” Brady pursed his lips, but then shrugged, and they were alone once more. “But who cares? Where were we?”

  “I distinctly remember you had just used the word writhing before Eleanor interrupted us,” Rachel said, smiling broadly.

  “So do I need to give you any further explanation as to exactly what I think we’d be doing right now if we were alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Say what?” he asked. “Not the answer I was expecting, Judge Richards.”

  Rachel leaned toward him. “I’m not interested in an explanation, Judge Craft. I want a demonstration. Tonight.”

  He grinned. “Anything to help further your understanding.”

  Rachel couldn’t keep up her seductive and silly façade. She wanted him. She wanted to touch him, to be held by him. “Brady…” she whispered.

  “When and where?” he asked, also abandoning the joking tone.

  “I think my place is safer than yours.” He agreed and told her he’d be there around ten. “That late?” she asked. “Why?”

  “It will be dark by that time, and hopefully no one will see me drive out of town, nor see my SUV at your place.”

  “Oh, yeah—the hiding thing,” she said sadly.

  “Your idea, Rach,” he reminded her.

  “And you agreed,” she reminded him.

  He nodded. “I know. And I know you’re right about it—the hiding thing, as I guess we’re going to call it.”

  She certainly hoped she was right. Because if she was wrong, Hannah was going to kill her and neuter him.

  Before they parted, Rachel promised to tell him that evening about her meeting with Hannah, but hoped she would remember. Rachel expected that the moment Brady walked through her door that they’d be all over each other since conversation would not be the purpose of Brady’s visit.

  Arriving at Rachel’s house shortly before ten that night, Brady parked his SUV in the garage and entered the house through the door to the kitchen.

  Actually, he didn’t enter the house so much as get yanked into it.

  As soon as the garage door rattled shut, Rachel flung back the kitchen door, pulled Brady to her by the collar of his polo shirt, and began kissing him before he could even manage to say hello. She heard him make no complaint about the welcome she had bestowed upon him, and eagerly led him to her bedroom where she dropped her robe to reveal nothing but a pair of panties upon her person.

  “Why the panties?” he asked, stripping off his shirt and shorts. “Why bother?”

  “Take another look, your honor. It’s those pink ones. You told me you wanted the chance to take them off me,” she teased. “But I’ll do it instead if you prefer,” she said, slipping her thumbs under the elastic over her hips.

  Before he could remove his boxers, he grabbed her hands.

  “Don’t you dare,” he said, staring down at her and favoring Rachel with a look that made her shiver.

  Brady gently pulled her hands away from her body, slipped his own around her waist, and kissed her. She moaned as he pulled her close, his palms sliding around to her back, then under her panties and to her ass where his thumbs gently stroked her skin. Gasping and craving the feel of his naked body beneath her own hands, she broke from him.

  “You’re wearing too many clothes.” Rachel moved her fingers to his waist to divest him of his boxers, but he swatted them away and shook his head.

  “You first.”

  At the top of her hipbones, Brady hooked both of his thumbs into the elastic of her tiny undies and began to slowly—very slowly—pull them down. Rachel gave a little start as he moved his lips from her mouth to her neck, and then to a breast. She sighed happily as he slowly sucked one nipple, then the other until he suddenly detached his mouth with a deliberately loud pop, causing Rachel to laugh, and removed his hands from her hips.

  “I still seem to have my panties on, Judge Craft.”

  He broke into an expression somewhere between anticipation and leering, and it left Rachel breathless. She already knew that look. He was about to do something that would make her squirm, scream, or come. Hopefully it would be all three, in that order, if last night had been any indication as to Brady’s abilities to be sensually creative and attentive.

  After gently kissing her on the lips, he marked a trail of light kisses from her chin to the delicate space between her breasts and then dropped to his knees and ringed her belly button with more kisses. She put her hands on his wide shoulders to steady herself as Brady followed the kisses by drawing circles around her navel with his tongue.

  She whispered his name pleadingly and tried to move to the bed, but he put his hands on the backs of her thighs and held her in place. Moving his head to Rachel’s hip, Brady dragged his tongue across her lower tummy where the waistband of her panties edged her skin. She shuddered, and he returned his hands to her hips, perhaps remembering how weak she had become in the pool the prior evening. Rachel threw her head back and whimpered as Brady’s tongue traveled from one side of her body to the other, his tongue not once leaving her skin during the journey.

  Then Rachel felt something sharp nipping at her right hip. Not expecting the sensation, she jerked a little and then looked down to see Brady grabbing the edge of her panties in his teeth.

  �
�Is that what you meant about peeling them off of me?”

  He responded with a growl, and she saw the white flash of his teeth as he bit the edge of her panties.

  With tortuous deliberateness, Brady pulled down the panties using his teeth and fingertips. As the undies slid lower and lower, he kissed the newly-exposed skin he left in his wake before moving on. So it continued along her hips and the tops of her thighs, until the little pink knickers fell from her body and dropped to the floor around her ankles. Brady planted his chin on Rachel’s lower belly and smiled up at her while his hands stroked the back of her legs. With a groan, Rachel once more tried to get to the bed.

  He shook his head. “Not yet.”

  Brady removed his left hand from her leg and brought it to her wet folds, making Rachel clutch his shoulders as she began to tilt backwards. He teased her clit with his thumb as his finger slowly moved back and forth along her wetness.

  Too slowly.

  “Brady, I can’t…”

  “Yes, you can. Let me do this for you, Rachel.”

  He dropped his finger from her center, making her whimper, then gently moved her folds apart and brought his mouth to her warm, wet core. Rachel moved her feet apart, pulled his head to her, and buried her fingers into his hair.

  “Brady…oh…oh, God…”

  The sweep of his tongue repeatedly across her clit combined with his gentle sucking soon brought her close to the edge, and when Brady moved a finger inside her, Rachel’s legs buckled and she collapsed. Catching her, he deposited her on the edge of the bed, spread her legs, and resumed his position on his knees.

  “Much better access,” he whispered before returning his tongue to her wetness.

  Rachel wanted to grasp the back of his head again and grind against it, but he had already left her weak and listless. Instead, she flung her arms to her sides and clawed at the comforter, balling it into knots under her hands. Brady moved his tongue back and forth along her lips, leaving Rachel in a state somewhere between bliss and torture. He gripped her hips with one hand to steady her as he continued his ministrations with his tongue while simultaneously moving a finger inside her. With just a few more flicks of his tongue and thrust of his finger, she came, her back and hips jerking upward as she cried out his name.