by Liz Crowe
With a moan, Erik broke the kiss, put his hands on either side of Dustin’s head and stared at him, his breath coming in fast, angry puffs. Dustin reached for Erik’s belt, eased it open, had it sprung and his zipper halfway down before Erik put a large palm over his, stopping him.
“No,” he croaked. ”Answer my goddamned question. Why are you here?”
Dustin stepped back, shoved his hands in his pockets. “Um, sorry.” He cleared his throat. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
Erik closed the gap between them. The gloom between the tall vats of beer deepened. The feel of Dustin’s hand on his face made him angry. “Don’t.”
“Why not?” Dustin’s low, growly voice set his nerves on fire.
“Because,” Erik choked out, bringing his lips within millimeters of Dustin’s, the musky scent of lust spinning in his brain. “You are in very real danger of starting something I’m gonna finish. Right here. Right now.” He yanked Dustin’s face to his. “If you don’t want that,” he muttered, between running his tongue over Erik’s slightly trembling lips, “you’d better back away.”
Erik heard the sounds of the brewery shutting down for the night. More lights flickered off, plunging them into darkness. Dustin sighed. “I can’t do this.”
“Ja, so step away from me, Dustin. You don’t know…” Erik swallowed. “I mean, you should know, Helena. I mean, we, Helena and I we’re—a—”
Dustin barked out an ugly laugh, interrupting him. “Of course you are. Jesus.” He ran a hand through his hair. Erik stayed silent. What could he say anyway? The guy was married, and had effectively cut both Erik and Helena off with that somewhat impromptu but life-altering move.
“I moved out,” Dustin said as if reading his mind. “I wanted to come and tell you. Tell you both. It’s over. It never started really. She’s not who I wanted and I let her and my mother manipulate me into when I was reeling from Helena leaving. And ignoring me for so long.”
Erik stared at his friend. “She’s upstairs in the office. Go. Talk to her. You both owe each other a fucking discussion.”
Dustin shook his head, started to back away. “No. I’m not here to make up with her.”
“Excuse me but that is bullshit.” Erik crossed his arms and shoved the ugly jealousy away. Helena was not his, she never had been.
“It may be. But it’s true. Tell her I came by if you want. Or not. Enjoy the ride with her Erik. I know I did.” He started to turn but Erik had had enough. A sudden surge of anger and anticipated loss propelled him across the short distance, made him grab Dustin’s arm and spin him around, shove him up against the wall.
“You are the most lame-ass motherfucker on the planet, Prufrock. You don’t deserve her. But I’m gonna give you one more shot. Then all bets are off. Get up the steps to that office. Talk to her. Tell her how you feel.”
“Why?” Dustin pushed him away. “She’s the one who won’t talk, remember.”
“She will. Because I’ll tell her to. C’mon. It’s time to get this shit back together again. The way it belongs.”
Erik had no idea if he could make it happen but he was damned if wasn’t going to try. Even it meant he was the third wheel again. The people he loved were miserable without each other and it was within his power at this moment to shove them together into a room and make them talk.
Chapter Twenty-One
Footsteps sounded outside her door, hard to miss on the metal walkway, followed by a loud knock. “What?” she called out.
Erik opened the door, Dustin on his heels. She gulped and turned away.
”Go away.”
“Helena.” Dustin’s rough voice seared her nerve endings. She shook her head. But he kept talking. “I’m sorry.”
She whirled on him, unable to stop herself. “Sorry for what, Dustin? For letting your mother railroad you into marrying Valerie? For giving up on the brewery, nearly letting it collapse under its own weight? For pretending you don’t care? Or for living a lie?”
He leaned on the door frame, seemingly unfazed by her barbed questions. His tall body stayed relaxed, his face calm. She worried her lower lip. As he let her spin the anger out, reach its logical conclusion, then wait while she climbed down off the ledge herself. Just like he always did. Something about this pissed her off even more.
“You do not get to stand there and pretend all this time hasn’t passed since you’ve talked to me.” Her throat was tight, making her voice high and stressed.
He frowned, walked toward her, making her gasp when he gripped her arm and glared at her. “I tried talking to you. I called, texted, emailed—shit, I stood outside your goddamned door all night once. Or has your selective memory erased that?”
She started to speak but he put a finger over her mouth. “No. You didn’t want to talk then. You just packed up your shit and fucking left me, remember? No explanation, no nothing. So I moved on. Yeah, I got married but guess what? I nearly screwed that up too. Took a perfectly nice woman and ruined nearly two years of her life with my obsessive asshole-ish bullshit. But I stopped. Moved out of her house and she’s better off. Me, on the other hand? I am perfectly miserable because the one woman on the planet I want is a stubborn, self-centered bitch.”
Her hand stung and his face reddened, the loud smack of skin on skin echoing around the giant office. She glared at him. “Well, I have news for you. The one woman on the planet you want to please will never, ever be happy with you. Her name is Virginia Prufrock and she took me to lunch a couple of years ago and informed me you were already with Valerie. And tried to give me a huge check. Yes, money, Dustin. The woman tried to pay me to leave you. So you and Valerie could be together.”
Erik gasped behind her. But she kept her eyes on Dustin, hand still raised from her blow to his face. He grabbed it, held her wrist tight. “And you actually believed her? After all we had been through, had done, you let thirty minutes over a limp country club salad with a woman you hated convince you that you couldn’t trust me?”
Her ears rang. “I…”
“No.” He let go of her, dropped her hand as though it were a poisonous snake and turned away. “You are the one with the problem, Helena. Not me. That giant fucking chip on your shoulder finally got to feel justified, didn’t it? The evil rich bitches conspiring to ruin the poor little poverty-stricken girl’s life? You got to feel all righteous about those lame-ass justifications you gave me over and over again for not marrying me?” He pointed at Erik. “And him? What is he to you now? A way to keep flagellating yourself? Reminding yourself of what we almost, but not quite, had?”
Her head pounded. She dropped into the large leather chair, face in her hands. She sensed him near, could feel his presence as if they’d not had two years apart. She stood and pushed him back. “Get out of my office,” she croaked. “Both of you. Just leave me alone.”
She moved to the bank of windows and tried not to faint, willing them away. When she turned, they were gone.
*
Erik couldn’t catch his breath. He went through the motions of the beer dinner doing his usual commentary, making recommendations about pairings and other bullshit, the chill coming from Helena’s side of the pub palpable. On the other hand, his whole body still buzzed from the encounter with Dustin and Helena. He held the bridge of his nose, willing the pressure out of his skull.
“What’s that?” He looked down at the woman apparently asking him another question about his background. She smiled at him in a way that indicated she’d like to know more about the background of what lay behind his zipper.
He suppressed a groan of frustration and launched into the same old story. It wasn’t that he minded telling it. It was that, at this particular moment, he would rather be talking to Helena, alone. He glanced at her, admired the sexy curve of her waist, the delectable swell of her hips. Clearing his throat, he excused himself behind the bar. His damn cock hardened at the thought of her. But more alarming was the ache in his heart. He knew he loved her. And owed it to
her to come out and say it. But after that scene in the office he knew that Dustin loved her just as much, still. And he had no idea how to fix any of it anymore.
“Hey, Erik!”
He nodded a greeting and got pulled into yet another beer conversation. Usually his favorite topic without a doubt—just not today. He glanced across the room, locked eyes with Helena before she looked away.
Helena tried like hell to avoid him. Knew she had to keep her distance, that he deserved her cold shoulder for trying to force her and Dustin’s confrontation. But found herself drawn to him like a magnet, beyond her control. By the time the last table had been cleared, they sat shoulder to shoulder at the bar sharing coffee and one-hundred-year-old Scotch.
“God, my throat is killing me.” Her face flushed when she realized her clumsy use of words. “Oh hell, you know what I mean.” Her throat was dry and scratchy. She put her head on Erik’s shoulder. She shouldn’t be this comfortable with him. The man remained utterly incapable of giving her anything but his body. But their usual familiarity came with a new undercurrent of awkward she didn’t have the energy to deal with tonight. She needed him as a friend, as a lover, but mostly as a companion—the man who was helping her save the brewery from Dustin’s forced neglect. The thought of losing that made her nearly blind with agony.
“Relax.” Erik put an arm around her and his lips hit her ear, his German accent doing its usual song and dance on her libido. She clenched her thighs together.
“How do you know I’m not?” She leaned away from him, until he pulled her close again.
“Because you never change. And I’m sorry that Dustin’s mother did that but you know he’s right.”
He bit her earlobe as if he were seducing and not saying things she did not want to hear. Of course he was right. Dustin was always right. And she’d let that very chip on her shoulder grow to such proportions it had become a giant wall between her and the man she loved.
If it were any other day, any other night than the one where she’d been confronted with such a shitty reality, she knew she and Erik would be heading back to her house, no questions asked. But now, she had no idea what to do or say around him. She put her palm on his thigh, felt the muscles bunched there and tried not to squeeze, to encourage like she normally would. He scooted forward, the way he had when they’d connected in Denver last year, bringing his crotch closer to her touch.
She had to end it. Her heart ached, and her eyes burned with the memory of the two men together. She had to release him. Let him live the life he deserved. The one that did not involve her, or her already wounded heart.
She leaned into his ear, whispered a set of words for the final time. “I’m going up to my office.”
“I’m going up to my office. Need to wrap some stuff up.” It was a little code they shared. “Up to my office” from her lips usually meant “get up here and fuck me” to his body. And today had been no exception.
He had no reason to think the fantasies dancing around in his head lately had any hope of seeing the light of real day. He, Dustin and Helena, back together, the erotic images would—should—remain that. Fantasy. His cock slammed against his zipper, making him wince.
He watched her go, admiring for the millionth time the sway of her lush hips, the way her long hair swept her shoulders. He licked his lips, finished his coffee and leapt off the bar stool.
He smiled, remembering the first time she’d used the code. He’d been outside in the hall, studying the expansion blueprints when she’d looked out of her door, crooked a finger and beckoned him inside. She had been gloriously naked behind the door and he’d fucked her over the desk, twice, as the brewery shut down for the night under their gaze. Dear God, she was insatiable. And he loved that about her. Among other things—like her voice, her smile, and her passion for the business he adored.
And now? They were at a turning point. The moment Dustin had confronted her and she had rejected him, the flash of realization he’d had terrified him. And damned if he wasn’t frozen to the spot, unsure how to proceed, until he heard the words, I’m going up to my office.
He grabbed his phone and tapped out one of the hardest messages of his life to Dustin. “She’s upstairs. This is your last chance.”
*
Helena shuffled papers around, pretended not to listen for the sound of Erik’s work boots on the metal stairs up to the offices above the brewery floor. She had used their code on purpose. And planned to give him what they both wanted—a perfect physical release. Then she would let him go.
Her body thrummed with a strange energy. Her brain kept up the loop of Erik and Dustin—Dustin and Erik—she’d seen the day before. Unwilling to admit exactly how that had affected her, she sat down before the turmoil of the situation she found herself in became too overwhelming to contemplate any longer. She’d had everything once. And now? She’d thrown a perfectly good life away with both hands, with an embarrassing childish enthusiasm and Dustin had finally called her on it.
She ignored the soft knock at the door. When she looked up to find the deep green eyes of Dustin Prufrock staring at her from the doorway she truly wasn’t surprised. She took a deep breath and nodded at him.
He rubbed his head, seemingly nervous. “Um, Helena, we need to talk.”
“You think?” She turned from him, kept her eyes trained on the wall of glass separating her office from the rest of the large company.
“Yeah, I do.” He parked himself against the work top, arms crossed, obviously entrenched until she acknowledged whatever they could possibly say to each other. Her body tingled. And his proximity did not help. “But first, I have to know something and I expect an honest answer. Look at me.”
She nodded, trying to fight the familiar drowning sensation she used to get when he would pin her with his stare. “The baby. Did you…I mean…”
She gulped and grabbed his hand, guilt nearly making her ill with anger at herself. “No, Dustin. There was no baby. False alarm. I should have told you.”
He ran a shaking hand down his face and she noticed how gaunt he’d gotten. His jeans and button-down shirt hung on him. Relief and sadness poured off him in nearly visible waves. Unable to resist, she put a hand to his face. He grabbed it and pulled her close so fast she yelped. “Thank God,” he muttered into her hair.
She disentangled herself, uncomfortable with how much she wanted him back all of a sudden. Convinced she could live without him, she’d come back to this job, jumped into bed with Erik and had come close to even dumping him in an attempt to regain some control over her life.
Dustin put his hands in his pockets but stayed slumped on the work table. “I’m such a mess.” He shrugged. “Sorry. I won’t bother you again.” He rose and walked straight into her personal space, pulling her close. “After one more kiss.”
Before she could protest, he slanted lips over hers and the incredible, perfect familiarity of his body against hers made her gasp and clutch him. He parted her lips, slid his hands down her back and she met him halfway in a tongue-tangling, teeth-clicking urgency that made every inch of her skin burn with need. The urgency to feel his flesh against hers, to regain the intense connection they’d shared, made her pull her lips away and yank his shirt open, sending buttons flying around the room. “That’s not gonna cut it for me, Dustin,” she said, lust making her voice low and rough.
He grinned and her entire world came back into focus. “Good. Me neither.” He yanked her close again, shoving her skirt up and putting his palm against her sex. But he stared at her, put his other hand along her cheek. “I’m not interested in some kind of mercy fuck, Helena. So don’t kid yourself. We do this, and all bets are off.”
Her scalp tingled at his words. “No mercy about it, Prufrock,” she whispered as she slid his zipper down.
Dustin had never felt more complete the moment his lips touched hers. Although he had convinced himself to stay away, to let Helena and Erik have their own lives, in the end he’d let his heart le
ad. He had to. He’d wasted too many years listening to the practical voice in his head. It had denied him happiness and he was done with that. Even if she rejected him again, he had to try once more.
And now, this split second of time, between the “should I kiss her?” and the “hell yes, what are you waiting for?” he felt like his old self. The happy Dustin, the one who owned and ran a brewery with the woman he loved by his side and even with an amazing third. Erik, with his passionate, artistic, temperamental self, who completed them like nothing else. He sighed into her neck, yanked her shirt over her head, maneuvering them over to the large desk where they’d done this very thing so many times.
She tasted just like he remembered and he groaned against her nipple as she leaned back on the desk’s surface, propping one heel-clad shoe on the chair. He had not had sex for nearly six months, after telling Valerie he didn’t love her and refused to live the charade any longer. She’d cried, fumed, pouted and even called his mother. And that had convinced him he was right. But the lack of outlet for a guy used to getting laid on a regular basis made him pant and grunt when she fisted his cock. “It’s not gonna take long for me, baby. I…I’m sorry. Oh God,” he moaned when she tried to unbutton his shirt then settled for ripping it off him.
“No, I’m sorry, Dustin,” she whispered between kisses as he slid into the perfect glove of her body in a long, deep stroke making them both sigh with satisfaction at the same time. “I’m so sorry for not loving you like you deserved.”
He thrust in deeper, his brain on fire with need. She gripped his shoulders and bent one leg up against his chest, giving him an even better angle. Her voice coiled around in his brain like smoke. “I love you, Dustin. I never stopped loving you and I should have trusted you. I…oh yes,” she hissed as he pounded into her hard, nearly blind with it and the climax roared up his spine, exploding across his vision. Now he knew why they called it fireworks.
