by Liz Crowe
How the hell can I face him now? She braced herself against the black and white tile as her tears mingled with the shower water. “Oh God, what have I done?”
“You’ve done nothing a healthy, beautiful woman wouldn’t do.” The soft voice made her scream and clutch the shower curtain around her naked self. Ross’ blue eyes gleamed. His grin stood out stark white against the red of his beard. “If she’s been pulled into a hallway and practically attacked.” He stood, arms crossed, watching her. She frowned at him as fury replaced fear.
“Get the hell out of here, Ross. Seriously. How did you—” He held up a key and stayed put. She clutched the shower curtain tighter, resisting her body’s purely chemical reaction to his presence. “Well, it won’t happen again, I assure you.” She flipped the water off and started to step out, reaching for a towel.
His voice stayed low. “I’m sorry. Truly. Sometimes I don’t think with the correct brain. Do you know what I mean?” She snorted. “But we had something once. Something I want to talk about with you.”
“Whatever. Get out. You had your fun.” She shouldered past him. She had no time for this. Wouldn’t allow it to happen. When he touched her bare, damp shoulder, she closed her eyes. “Get out.” She moved farther into the room, anything to get away from him before she did something utterly stupid. Like throw him down on the bed that dominated the small room like an omen and climb all over him.
He pulled a bottle from behind his back. She eyed one of her absolute favorite Imperial IPAs. The bastard. He grinned, cracked it open and poured some into a glass, holding it under his nose. “Mmm. Smells nice. Sure I can’t stay?”
She had to turn away so he wouldn’t see her smiling. The presumptuous asshole. “Yes, I’m sure. Ross, we can’t.” She dropped into a chair.
He poured a glass. She took it, letting the amazing, perfectly balanced hops and malt concoction ease her throat, allowed the alcohol to warm her from head to toe. She glared at the tall blond man taking up so much sexual energy in the room, the man who now sat casually propped up against the headboard, sipping his beer in silence.
Fine. Two could play at that game.
She let the unspoken words spin out between them, taking on a life of their own. Strangely enough, the silence seemed comfortable, which prompted her to speak. “Austin would have filled the room with mindless chatter just now.” She cocked her head and observed Ross. “I miss him so much.”
He looked at his empty glass. “Rumor has it he misses you too.”
“Whatever.” She suddenly needed to be alone. No matter the extreme temptation of the man lying on her bed.
“He wants you back.” Ross sat on the edge of the bed and reached over for her to refill his glass. “Rumor has it.”
“Not my problem.” She shifted in her seat, as exhaustion stole through her again. “I’m tired. Get out of my room.”
Suddenly, he stood, unzipped his jeans, stepped out of them, pulled his shirt over his head, and looked at her, in all his lip-smacking, knee-knocking, naked glory. “I came to talk. And we will talk, but first I need to finish what we started.”
She turned away. She wouldn’t be manipulated by him. “Ross, this is completely inappropriate, no matter what we think we want. This is not what we—”
Before she could finish, he had her on her feet, her towel still between them, mouth slanted over hers until she was lightheaded with the force of his kiss.
Oh, God. I can’t.
In spite of the inner reminders, she wrapped her arms around his neck, hooked a leg around his waist, and pulled them both down on the bed. Their teeth clicked together, tongues tangling with urgency. He ripped the towel from between them, and she tried not to whimper when he broke their kiss.
He loomed over her, that lovely, long shaft warm against her body. “I said earlier I wanted to taste you.”
She nodded, speechless.
He paid careful attention to each peaking nipple, aware on some level that he’d effectively sidetracked her attempt to have an actual discussion, but unwilling to stop him now. He had released his long hair and she threaded her fingers through it with a sigh of satisfaction.
“Mmm.” His throaty growl made her scalp tingle. He dipped his tongue into her navel, nuzzled the sparse bit of blonde that covered her mound, then crouched between her legs, focusing on her sex—but not touching, just…looking at it.
She shifted. “What? Is there a problem down there?” In her early, utterly numb weeks without Austin, she’d not only put on extra pounds, she’d let other things go, too. The Brazilian wax she’d gotten before heading to the festival made her nervous, worried it looked funny. Plus, she was about to orgasm under his gaze, he had her built up so.
“No. Everything is perfect. Touch yourself. Let me watch.”
She reached down and flicked her clit. She needed the release badly enough not to feel self-conscious as she rubbed faster and arched up on the bed. Wrapping both legs over his broad shoulders, she proceeded to make herself come, hard, pinching her own nipple, stroking her clit.
Ross’ breath came in harsh gasps along with hers as she rubbed herself to orgasm, the amazing erotic sensation of his nearness sending her over the edge. Once she’d calmed, she stretched her arms up, keeping her legs hooked over his shoulders.
As Ross watched Evelyn’s beautiful, amazing, lush body writhing and climaxing under his gaze, he struggled to maintain control. He’d been half in love with this woman for a year now. Her soft curves, sexy laugh, gorgeous blue eyes, beer-business savvy—she’d always turned him into a walking hard-on any time she’d been around.
When he’d caught sight of her in the lobby earlier, her face a mask of sadness and barely concealed fury when he’d shown up a day late, he’d known he had to act. He’d ducked behind a column then, not ready to face her. The compulsion to touch, kiss, treat her the way he knew his friend Austin had had pulsed so strong he’d had to bite it back.
Something about this day had felt right. So, he’d acted on it and now, nothing seemed more perfect in his universe than to have Evelyn Benedict—former fiancée of his good friend, and newly appointed head of the brewery where he’d be working—spread and ready for him. All those hours he’d spent staying away, giving her space, but always recalling her classic beauty, her smile, her lips—he’d done more fantasizing about her than he cared to admit.
That weekend this time last year, when they’d consummated an undeniable mutual attraction, stayed etched in his memory like a never-healing scar. He fully acknowledged it probably did him no good to obsess over her. But today, he’d fulfilled a long fantasy with this woman and would keep doing it the entire weekend if he had any say in it.
He groaned at the irony, lowering his face to her flesh to lap at the juices flowing down the inside of her thighs. His brain buzzed with sexual energy and tension. Making his way up, he captured her hard clit between his lips and sucked, forcing another ecstatic cry from her lips.
His cock jerked and leaked even more at the sound and smell of her. He closed his eyes but opened them when Austin’s dark stare appeared. The other man’s deep green gaze had always been mesmerizing when they were together. Ross pushed the memory aside as she shuddered, coating his lips with yet more of her delicious fluid.
He climbed up between her legs and captured her lips once more. Her moans suffused every inch of him, suffusing him with happiness than he’d felt in months. He grinned and flipped onto his back, bringing her with him, grabbing the condom he’d pulled from his pocket earlier, fumbling and clumsy in his eagerness. Damn things were no more comfortable than a dick girdle, but given how much he’d played around since he’d been with her, he wasn’t about to put her at any risk. She lifted her hips, poised herself above him, her lush breasts inches from his face.
“Please,” he choked out in a rough whisper. He ached to be inside her. The connection they’d shared in the bathroom wasn’t enough. The memory of her, with Austin, the three of them together, crash
ed around in his psyche. He gritted his teeth.
Ross wanted to fuck her silly, fall asleep with her in his arms, then wake and start all over again. He’d walked the planet for forty years, screwed countless women, a few men, and fallen hard for only two people.
As she lowered herself onto his cock, enveloping him, he sucked her nipple into his mouth, tugging on it, before he pushed her up, wanting that angle, needing to see her face.
“Please what?” She rocked against his body. He groaned at the sweet sensation of her glove-like grip on his shaft.
“Please. Do that.” He thrust up. “Please do exactly what you’re doing. Please don’t stop. Please fuck me. Please make me come.” She leaned down to flick the dark pink circles of his nipples with her sweet tongue, making him move faster.
“Hmm. Aren’t you the polite one?” She grinned and brought her face to his, her long blonde hair cascading around him. He cupped her neck, tugged her close. Her body held him, clutched tight again, milking him, pulling him toward the inevitable. At that moment, he saw him.
Austin.
Pictured him behind her, poised to, oh fuck. He thrust faster, harder, his fingers digging into her thighs.
“Ross!” she yelled. He groaned, letting her body take him over the edge while her pussy clutched and pulsed around him. He held her, blinking at the emotion flitting through his brain. When she lifted herself off and flopped down beside him, Ross’ breathing slowed, his body absorbing the climax and pushing him toward sleep.
But he couldn’t get the vision from his head. There had been a brief moment, when three had been a perfect number, at least for him. He would have gladly carried that relationship on forever. Something about both Austin and Evelyn had fulfilled him more than anything he’d ever experienced. But now, lying here with her, the new possibility of happiness emerged. One without Austin, granted, but one he now wanted, and was determined to keep.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Four months later
The mantra running through Ross’ brain resembled something like wrong, wrong, totally, completely wrong. Sweat dripped from his hair. His shoulders and biceps seized up from the brew day’s effort.
Strong odors of the wet barley grains from his latest concoction filled his nose, distracting him from the one thing he’d fought for the last month, ever since returning from Denver and admitting how ass over elbow in love he now was with Evelyn Benedict. It strangled him, kept him up nights with a bizarre combination of guilt and terror.
Terror she would figure out that she still loved Austin.
Because he knew she did.
He clenched his eyes shut and pictured her face the night before, when anxiety had worked its cold-shower magic on his dick. “Oh, honey, it’s okay,” she had soothed him, her lush body enveloping his. “I’m sorry. I mean, you always make sure I’m taken care of. Seems unfair.”
Ross had leapt from the bed and pulled his jeans on before stomping into her kitchen to slam some water and get a grip on himself. One of the best things about their relationship so far, besides the near constant mind-blowing sex they had in pretty much every corner of the brewery, the bar and her place, was her ability to leave him the hell alone when he needed to be left alone. Her understanding that his natural reticence about ‘feelings’ was part and parcel of Ross. But he figured it couldn’t last much longer, this patience.
They had progressed from random, illicit sex to sleepovers pretty quickly. The fact that whenever he woke up without her in his arms, he honestly felt unhappy alarmed him.
She’d followed him to the kitchen. The look in her eyes when he’d turned to face her held something he couldn’t place at first. He fully realized that they were in dangerous emotional territory. Years spent alone, staying aloof, even when faced with the extreme irony of their shared connection, were crashing in on him, making him want to do crazy shit, like buy her jewelry. Or, even more insane, make her pregnant.
He truly had gone around the bend.
“So, you gonna pout all night or come back to bed?”
He ran a hand down his face. “I should probably go home.” Absolutely the very last thing he wanted to do, of course. With a flash of self-awareness, he accepted that what he needed was for her to ask him to stay.
She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t let me keep you.”
Closing his eyes once more at the feel of her of soft, warm body against his, he heaved a deep sigh. If he let himself, he could love this woman. But something seemed off, and he knew it had to be his problem, not hers. Their relationship had been intensely physical from the beginning—something they both agreed they needed.
The night he’d been named Brewer of the Year, he’d given in to some sort of base urge, and their relationship ever since had been physically fulfilling. He smiled into her hair, pulled away, and tilted her face up to his. It truly did feel right to have her there in his arms.
If they were identical emotional cripples, so be it. They’d had the support they both needed in Austin. Perhaps without him they could forge a bridge with baby steps. And plenty of arguing, it would seem. Austin had been right about her on many levels, including the one about her always needing to be right. “Then again, maybe I won’t go.”
Evelyn lay awake in the early morning hours, watching Ross sleep, her body languid with satisfaction. He’d rallied—and then some—proving once again that he was better at physical than emotional. She sighed, brushing a strand of his hair back behind his ear. He stirred and opened his eyes, shocking her all over again with their brilliant sapphire hue.
“Morning.” He pulled her into his arms. “Want coffee?”
“Sure.” She followed him to the kitchen and sat, observing him as he moved around and made them breakfast. Ross had to be the most emotionally constipated man on the planet. But one she knew in her soul she could never live without.
What had begun as a purely physical release had become a phantom link to Austin and, she believed, held something much deeper. Every day that passed with Ross should have forced Austin to fade. But a maddening sensation of ever-present loss never really faded, leaving behind remorse and a gut-deep longing for him.
Was it possible to love two men equally?
It was something she had wondered once, then let go. But it was back, almost as strong as her need to see Austin again—to ask him the same thing.
Her fear that the Denver hookup had been just that had dissipated within twenty-four hours of their return as she’d settled into Austin’s old office above the brewery floor. The very first Monday she’d had a Skype conference with her ‘Brewer Twenty’, a group of fellow west Michigan breweries who compared notes on the expo and talked about the various challenges they all faced. By the time she’d fired up the computer and stood looking out into the darkened brewery from her office window, Ross had materialized and had his hands all over her, threaded in her hair, his amazing lips on her neck and shoulders.
“Shh,” he’d whispered. “Have your meeting. I have plenty to occupy me.” And he’d proceeded to fuck her silly, standing up from behind, forcing her to switch the Skype audio off.
Now that she had him near night and day lately, she would admit that she needed more.
She had Ross.
She wanted Austin, too.
And the whole mess could have been avoided if she herself had been willing to talk to Austin that horrible day.
Time, distance, and plenty of beer-fueled late-night tear-stained discussions with Melody after Evelyn had procured her own place to live had convinced her that Valerie had conspired with Virginia to ambush the man emotionally the same day Virginia told her off at lunch. The one time she’d allowed herself to listen to one of Austin’s late-night drunken voicemails had given her the first hint.
He’d lost his phone that day. Had wanted to call her after Valerie had done a subtle number on his nerves over lunch. The day he’d lost the phone had been the day Valerie had answered for him. She must have taken it.
&nb
sp; “You’re a stubborn cow,” Melody had said once she’d copped to this realization. “But I get it. I am, too. And besides, that Viking you’re fucking day and night ought to keep you plenty occupied.” She’d raised a dark eyebrow as she sipped the last of her beer.
One of the first hires Evelyn had made once her own employment contract was finalized—with Austin never making a personal appearance at any of the negotiation sessions—was Melody Rodriguez as the Fitz Pub manager. The woman had already instigated dramatic changes designed to drag that side of the business back into the black.
Evelyn would admit to some selfishness with the move. She wanted her friend around. Luckily, Melody was, hands-down, the best possible choice for manager. And they got to share a beer nearly every day before Evelyn headed home—their therapy sessions, they called them.
“This whole friends-with-benefits thing with Ross is nice, but it’s making me edgy and miss Austin more. The three of us should be here, working in the brewery together,” she said one evening, staring into her full glass of perfectly hopped amber liquid. She shoved it away, alarmed at the way her stomach churned at the smell.
“Hmm…well,” Melody said, staring over the bar, observing her staff at work. “Pretty much only you can do anything about that. Ross tried. Maybe it’s your turn to try.”
“No,” Evelyn. “No way. I am not about to beg Austin Fitzgerald for anything.” She got up and shouldered her purse. “Besides, my Viking is enough for me.”
“Don’t want it?” Melody indicated the full beer. Her phone buzzed across the bar. Evelyn snagged it before she could. “Hey!” her friend said.
Evelyn held up a hand and looked at the screen. Trent was calling. And once she let the call go to voicemail, she noted that Trent had called something like a dozen times in the last few hours, plus sent a half-dozen text messages. Frowning, she studied the increasingly frantic tone of the missives from the hunky older man who owned the beer store where she and Austin had had their first hookup.
