Chisholm Brothers 02 On Tap

by Donna Kauffman

  He wasn’t quite certain what a slam dunk was, but assumed it was a good thing. “I was just thinking that you have as much natural enthusiasm for your job as I do mine. I find that…intoxicating.”

  She flushed a little, but her smile widened. “Good. Then maybe you’re beginning to trust my judgment a little.” Their gazes caught, and held a little longer. Then she cleared her throat and made a vague gesture to the room behind her. “So, what is the next step? The casks?”

  He shook his head, but made no move to continue the tour. “That stage comes later. Much later.” He, on the other hand, wanted to come a great deal sooner. Bloody hell, but starting this up with her tonight of all nights, after the afternoon they’d shared, had been a daft idea.

  It was important to build the right foundation, handle these new feelings with care, and not to go blundering in, all rampaging libido and lustful urges. Perhaps he should have given himself a wee bit longer to cool off.

  He should have headed home hours ago, taken a long shower—or a quick dip in the icy cold burn—and crawled into bed with some ponderous historical treatise or other. Anything to get his mind off of Daisy MacDonnell for a long enough stretch that his rampaging…well, rampaging lots of things…calmed down.

  But he hadn’t gone home, had he? He’d invited her here instead. So now not only had she invaded his thoughts, she’d invaded his personal space as well. The space most important to him, anyway. He’d never be rid of her now—she’d linger on in his thoughts ad infinitum. He’d picture her smiling face, hear her laughter echoing through the cavernous room, for some time to come, wouldn’t he now?

  “Lead on,” she said brightly.

  Eyes dancing, mouth curved ever deliciously so…he didn’t want to be rid of her. In fact, he found himself craving quite the opposite.

  “Is something the matter?”

  “Loaded question, that,” he said, the words barely more than a murmur.

  She moved closer, so she could look up into his eyes. “I know this is a personal part of you and it means a lot to me that you’re sharing it with me. I’m just having a hard time switching off the other part.” She grinned. “Big shock, I know. But don’t think I don’t appreciate it on both levels—I do. I won’t burden you with the dozens of questions popping about in my head, honest. I’ll let you lead and just absorb as much as I can, but I’ll want to come back when I can spend more time, maybe talk to the people who work here, get a few testimonials, maybe from the locals, too, and—” She cut herself off and let out a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m stopping, right now. Promise.” She made a gesture as if she was zipping her lips. Which made his body twitch hard with the need to taste them again.

  She was so animated, so certain of herself. Of him. He grinned.

  “Wow,” she told him. “You should do that more often.”

  He frowned. “Do what?”

  “Grin. Flash those white teeth. It’s…” She merely blew out a breath and shook her head. “Lethalis the word that comes to mind.”

  “I smile. Don’t I?”

  She gave him a rather pitying look. “You’re quite serious, actually. But it’s part of your edge.” When he continued to frown, she bumped his elbow with hers. “Come on now, I didn’t mean to make you self-conscious about it. You smile, yes. But that grin…” She shook her hand as if to say “shew.” Then she reached up and pushed at the corners of his mouth with her fingertips. “It’s no’ so hard now, is it?” she said.

  His lips twitched.

  “See?” she said, in obvious delight.

  He impulsively captured her fingers before she could pull her hands away. “You’ve a horrible Scots accent, you know.”

  “Have I no’?” she said, proving his point, then laughing at herself.

  “I used to be better at that,” he said.

  “Well, yours might be a bit more on the proper side, but—”

  “There’s that word again.” He shook his head. “I’ve no doubt you’re right. But that’s no’ what I meant. I meant laughing at myself. You’re right—somewhere along the way I’ve allowed myself to become far too serious a man.”

  “Maybe you’ve had to be. I can’t claim to understand what it would be like to have the burden of my entire ancestry on my shoulders. I’ve only had to handle my own, and I didn’t do so well. Brodie has told me some of what you all face with your property and the family holdings.” She shook her head a little. “So I shouldn’t tease you like that, but that’s all it was, you know. Teasing.” She smiled a little, even as he held her fingers still in his grasp. “Something about you provokes me.”

  He smiled then, and lifted her fingers to his lips. “You’re like some kind of russet-haired pied piper, you know. You even have me believing in this modern virtual world. And I don’t care a bloody whit about it.”

  Stung slightly, she pulled back.

  “No,” he said instantly, tightening his grip, pulling her closer. “I didn’t mean it like that.” He hated that he’d dampened even a flicker of the excitement that lit up her face. “I meant that if you can make even a doubter like me think that the arduous process of distilling malted barley into whisky can be made to sound like some kind of magical and fascinating subject to anyone other than a Chisholm, so that someone would willingly spend their free time reading about it, then I have no doubts of your ability to convince these supposed flocks of Internet wanderers as well.”

  She stilled, even as the energy emanating from her very being seemed to crackle in the air between them. “So, you’re saying you’ll let me do it then?”

  He nodded. “Aye.” His hands were already on her, having tugged her close by the elbows. “I’ll allow you your access. You can hound my mashman and badger my still manager with your eager questions.” He was certain they’d find her intrusion into their busy schedule as charming and undeniably appealing as he did. And if they didn’t, well, they could answer to him.

  “Oh, Reese.” She flung her arms around his neck and hugged him. “Thank you. For trusting me.”

  He wrapped her in his arms, and couldn’t recall a moment in his life when he’d felt so…weightless. An odd word, but it was the one that floated through his mind. As if the worries of the world were lifted and all was right and in balance, at least for that space in time when she was beaming at him as she was now.

  “You won’t regret it,” she vowed. “I promise you that. We can sign a contingency contract based on traffic and hits-per-month, then—”

  He silenced her excited chatter with a kiss. It was well beyond him then to stop. She’d have to be the one to tell him he’d crossed a boundary, that she wanted their liaison to be a professional one only. Because he’d discovered in the past fortnight, and most definitely in the span of the last hour, that he wanted far, far more where Daisy was concerned.

  And though he’d certainly honor her wishes were that the case, he discovered something else about himself in that moment. All the parts of him that he’d invested in making Glenbuie whisky continue to be a success, for both family and the villagers, the drive he felt, the determination to succeed…was now being channeled in a wider direction, with some of it circling back to him, to his needs, his wants. He wanted Daisy MacDonnell. And by damned he was going to fight for this with the same energy he’d bring to bear on anything else that mattered to him And she already mattered.

  He wove his fingers through that glorious russet waterfall of hair and shifted her mouth so he could plunder it fully. She accepted him, allowed him in, with a satisfied groan that only served to wind him up further. “Daisy,” he murmured against her lips, breathing heavily as he ran the edges of his teeth along her jaw. The very taste of her made him voracious with hunger and need.

  “I know,” she said, her own breath coming in short gasps as her fingertips dug into his shoulders. “It’s crazy. But I don’t want to stop this. It’s different here. My whole life is different here. For the first time I feel like I do have a life. And—well, I wan
t you in it. And not just as a client. I’d—I’d even give up the whole Web site idea if—”

  “Nonsense. And maybe you need to think about this a different way. Thingsare different here. We can make time if we want to. But honestly? I dinnae want only one part of you. Who you are in here—” He tapped her forehead. “Your brilliant business mind, all that creativity, spark, and boundless energy for doing what you love, is also a part of who you are here.” He pressed two fingers over her heart. “I wouldn’t cheat myself by only wanting half of you.”

  Her eyes went a little glassy at that. “I never thought of it that way. I would have to say the same. About you. I can’t imagine only knowing you away from this. It’s the heart and soul of you.”

  He grabbed her fingers and kissed their tips. “I think perhaps I have a wee bit of room left over there.”

  She grinned again, and sniffled. “Yeah? Well, it’s quite possible I might as well.” She turned his hands and kissed his knuckles. “Maybe this balancing life stuff isn’t so hard as I’ve been making it out to be. Maybe I was trying too hard to separate it so completely. I don’t guess that would have really worked out.” She grinned. “I’m a complete package. All or nothing.”

  “I want all.” Then he swung her up in his arms, eliciting a squeal from her.

  “We’ll just have to make time away from our business parts.”

  He grinned. “Not a problem. I have a real thing for your personal parts, if ye havena’ noticed.”

  She giggled. “Well…it’s closing in on midnight, and here we stand, doing business. We’re a hopeless lot, the two of us, aren’t we?”

  “At the time, it seemed the only way I could have any part of you, so I selfishly took it. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have you here after hours because it was the only way I might get you all to myself again, even as nothing more than a business associate.” He was already striding from the room, kicking at the double doors and swinging them both through them.

  “I rather hope you don’t carry your other associates around like this. Or kiss them breathless, either.”

  That made him smile. “I make you breathless?”

  She laughed. “I know, the way I chatter on, that’s quite a feat.” She tightened her hold on his neck. “But yes,” she said more quietly, “yes, you do. And it’s bloomin’ wonderful.”

  She toyed with the edges of his hair, sending increasing ripples of arousal through him that threatened to undermine his ability to get her out of this building and off to where he wanted her most. In his bed. Beneath him.

  “I could walk, you know.”

  “I rather like having you in my arms,” he said, moving down the short hall now to the employees’ exit. “I feel as if I’ve waited centuries to get my hands on you, and I’d like as no’ to keep them on you as much as possible, if you dinnae mind.”

  She laid her head on his shoulder, pressed her lips to the side of his neck, right on his pulse. “No,” she murmured, kissing him again. “I dinnae mind, a’tall.”

  He stopped just short of the exit and turned her toward the wall, pinning her there so he could lift one hand to her head and tip her chin up to his. “Come here,” he told her. “I can’t wait another second to—” And he didn’t. His mouth found hers as if it had been its destination for years. She opened for him and he slid his tongue into her mouth, dueled with hers, then let her pull it deep and tight. As she pulled and suckled him, his hips moved of their own volition, pressing against her, the rigid length of his cock straining to be released, to be taken into her mouth just as his tongue had been, to be suckled just like that, in confines so tight and wet and—he growled and let her slip from his arms.

  He shifted her back to the wall and pulled her thighs over his hips, pinning her there so he could bury himself, as much as he could, between her thighs. Now she was moaning, squeezing him tightly between her legs, driving him bloody starkers.

  “Hold on,” he commanded, wrapping his arms around her and swinging her from the wall. He pushed open the door to the back lot, not bothering with the lights or the locks.

  “Where are you taking me?” She kissed the side of his neck, then teased him with a light bite along his pulse, then another on the lobe of his ear.

  “Not much farther than this parking lot if you dinnae stop what you’re doin’.”

  She laughed against his fevered skin. “You mean this?” She nibbled the lobe of his ear, then ran her tongue along the outer rim. Then she dropped kisses all along his jaw, interspersed with more teasing nibbles. “Or this.”

  “You enjoy teasing, do ye?”

  “Oh, aye, that I do,” she informed him, her accent just as lousy as ever, and driving him absolutely mad with it anyway.

  “Well,” he said, crossing the lot and climbing the hill just beyond it. “So do I. We’ll see how well ye like it then, when it’s my turn.”

  The short hill was rocky but there was a narrow path, one he’d walked so many times since he was a wee lad, he knew it even in the dark. The moon was close to full and cast the glen beyond in an unearthly glow. He could hear the babbling sounds now, of burn running over rocks. Ahead, on the other side of the stream, was the dark shadow of a stone croft.

  “What is this?” she asked, then squealed as he waded through calf-deep water without concern for clothing or leather shoes. “Reese!”

  “Now ye’ve seen the burn.”

  She laughed and tightened her hold as she tried to turn and look over her shoulder to where they were headed. “Where—”

  “This was the original legitimate distillery. Or a part of it, anyway, before my ancestors began building down below. We renovated it some time back, preserving it, thinking to add it to the tour, but I ended up renovating it again.”

  “Into what, an office?”

  He stepped up on the small porch and slipped a key from the frame over the door. “No,” he told her, pushing open the door. “As my home.”

  Chapter 8

  Reese slapped his hand on the wall as he kicked the door shut and a small lamp illuminated the room, filling it with a warm glow. Daisy had little time to notice the interior of Reese’s home, other than it was small, cozy. The main floor was one big room, much like a cabin, with a living area that opened up to a kitchen and dining area on the opposite side. A big potbellied stove was situated in the center of the room, where it could heat both living area and dining area. Beyond that, she saw little as he carried her straight to the spiral, wrought iron stairs that ascended to the upper floor at the far side of the room. “Hang on,” he told her.

  “Reese, your shoes. Your pants. You’re tracking water—”

  He silenced her with his mouth on hers, and she willingly sank into him. For a man who claimed to be all work and no play, he sure knew how to kiss. There was nothing tentative about the way he took her mouth, exploring, teasing, taking. He dueled with her tongue, coaxing her into his mouth, before sliding into hers. He groaned when she sucked on him, which made her squirm in his arms. Carnal images flashed through her mind, of exactly what she’d do as soon as she got him upstairs and naked. She wanted to make him growl, she wanted to make him buck his hips helplessly against her, she wanted to make him lose control.

  And then she wanted to let him do the same to her.

  The way things were going, she might not make it out of her clothes before climaxing. Wrapped around him as she was, she knew his body was lean and hard. Some parts more than others, she thought, tightening her thighs around him, pulling the rock-hard length of him closer to where she needed it most. She felt constricted by her clothes; so stuffy and hot, she wanted to claw them off. As he moved his attentions to the side of her neck, running his tongue along her pulse point, nipping her earlobe, then kissing her again, she wanted nothing more than to strip down and feel his mouth on every inch of her body, feel his skin brushing hers, tangle herself up with every lean, hard inch of him.

  They topped the stairs and he flipped on another small lamp,
but she didn’t look around—her gaze was solely on him. She’d never seen anyone look at her the way he was right at that moment. Need, desire, want, all so focused, so intent. She shivered in anticipation, so very glad she’d reached for what she wanted. If her goal was to find a life outside of work…well, she doubted she’d be thinking of anything work-related for the duration of the time he kept looking at her the way he was right then.

  “You’ll have the grand tour later if ye want,” he said, his voice roughened with need. “But no’ now. I can barely take my hands from you long enough to gi’ you yer balance.” His accent was more pronounced now, his voice gruffer and not remotely polite or stuffy. The intensity only served to heighten her need further.

  He shifted so she could unhook her legs and slide down his body, making them both groan a little. She wasn’t sure her legs would support her at this point, she was so close.