by Maisey Yates
“Right, well, if he can’t lift it I’m not even going to try,” Ace said.
That brought her thoughts squarely back to Ace’s arms, and muscles, and general physicality. She had no trouble picturing him lifting heavy objects. His biceps shifting with the motion, his abs working to help support his back... Oh, his back muscles...
She blinked.
“I have the smaller things here up front,” Rebecca was saying now. “The curtains, the little knickknacks, and...that other thing you asked for.”
Immediately, Sierra’s curiosity was piqued. “Other thing?”
Ace rubbed the back of his neck, which she was starting to notice he did when he was nervous or uncomfortable. “Yeah,” he said. “The other...can I have it?” he asked Rebecca.
“Sure,” she said, her expression questioning. She turned and wandered back behind the counter, returning a second later with a small white box.
Ace took it from her, then turned to look at Sierra, a strange light in his dark eyes. “Can you come outside with me for a second?”
“Um...”
“Come on,” he said, his tone more insistent. Then he reached out and took her hand.
She really could get used to that.
They walked back out of the heavy, perfumed air and into the sharp coastal breeze, the air crisp and clear, hitting her with a greater impact after the sweet scent that had lingered in the store.
“This is for you,” he said, holding the box out to her.
She looked up and down the street, then stretched her hand out to take it. But he held tightly to it. “I thought it was for me,” she asked, holding on to one end while he held the other.
“It is. But I’m giving it to you.”
“Okay.”
“It’s not fancy-ass. I can’t afford a huge diamond. And I know this isn’t a typical marriage or engagement, but I still thought you should have something.”
Her heart was thundering in her ears, so hard she thought she might fall over. She was pretty sure she was getting an engagement ring on the main street of Copper Ridge, where even God paid closer attention to what was going on.
He opened the box and revealed a slim, rose-gold band with an iridescent, blush-colored round stone in the center. “It’s a sunstone,” he said. “Keeping with the way we’re doing up the brewery. With the fact that we’re making a life here in Copper Ridge. They pull these out of the dirt here. It’s as local as we are. Roots and all that. I thought you might like it.”
Sierra couldn’t say anything. She could only stare at the offered ring, her heart pounding somewhere up inside of her head. She hadn’t thought about this part. Hadn’t really thought about him giving her something. Making it official.
Of course, it was the next step. And soon, she wasn’t really sure how soon, they were going to stand in front of...people. She didn’t know what people because she wasn’t exactly on friendly terms with her mother and father at the moment, and they were going to make vows. And he was going to kiss her.
They were going to be together. When somebody mentioned his name, they would think of her. When somebody said her name, it wouldn’t be her whole big West family that people thought of, not first. It would be her husband, Ace Thompson.
Did that mean she would be Sierra Thompson? She supposed only if she wanted to be. Did she? Did she want to take this chance to grab hold of a new name and associate herself completely with the new life she was choosing?
She didn’t have an answer for that just now.
“Do you hate it?” he asked. “Are you going to just stand there and stare at it or...?”
“I don’t hate it,” she said, reaching out and taking hold of the box. “I... It just threw me into the deep end of the thinking pool, that’s all.”
“Well, that’s a relief. I didn’t think women usually frowned that deeply when they were presented with jewelry.”
“Well, you’re not exactly just presenting me with jewelry. That would imply that the obligation ended with putting it on. The entire point of this is... Show people that we are together. To be together. And it’s leading up to a wedding. So, I would say that it’s about the world’s most loaded piece of jewelry.”
“Do you still want to take it?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes. I do.”
Those words sent a shock of electricity down her spine. I do. They were the words she would be saying to him at the wedding. The words that would bind them together for life. Yes, divorce was a possibility. It was an option, but she wasn’t marrying him with that as a goal. She made that promise to herself then and there. She was going to do her best to make this work. To commit to making this family, making this future.
She looked at his face. A face that had—over the past month—become so familiar to her, and yet had managed not to lose any of its impact.
Hard planes and angles, the dark shadow where he let his beard get a little too long sometimes. Bitter chocolate eyes. His mouth, which she had a feeling she could kiss every day and never, ever feel like it was enough.
She’d never felt this way about anyone before. Uncovering that pure, golden truth had been more difficult than it should have been. But, now that she had, now she had gotten past the baby, the antagonism, the blinding physical attraction, she could see that there was something else there. Something completely new to her. Something she had a feeling was more valuable than all the rest.
He took the ring out of the box and slipped it onto her finger. “Perfect,” she said.
The word held a lot of weight, a lot of meaning that she couldn’t even put words to in her brain. She only knew that something in this moment was changing her. Rearranging her insides.
“Ace,” she said, looking down at the ring glittering on her finger.
“What?” he asked, his voice sounding thin.
“If you don’t want this... If you’re just doing it because you think it’s the right thing... Take the ring back now. Please.”
He shook his head. “There’s no other reason to do things. You do them because they’re right. Because they make the most sense. If you are doing that... I spent a lot of years doing things I knew were wrong. Behaving in a way that I knew I didn’t have to. I’ve just been stuck. Sure, I opened the bar, I am opening the brewery, but those are just the kind of things you do to make yourself believe you’re doing something. I was more of a man child at thirty-five than I ever was at twenty-five. This is the first real thing that’s happened to me in a long time. I’ve been coasting, Sierra. It’s easy to smile all the time, to be everybody’s friend when nobody really knows you at all. When you aren’t sharing anything. Do you know what I did the night of Connor Garrett’s barn raising?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“I went, I provided free alcohol. I danced with Liss, she rejected me. I went home alone and I got drunk out of my mind. Because if I don’t have a woman to go home with, then I have to spend the night with a bottle, because there has to be something there to distract me and make sure I never think too deeply. Well, you’re giving me something that I can think deeply about. Something that isn’t all pain and destruction.”
She realized, as he said that, it was the same for her. Sure, everything in front of them was huge, it was scary. But it was valuable. It was bigger than she was. Ever since the revelation about Jack she had been worried about herself. Worried about what all of that meant for her, what decisions she had to make to be a good person. What she would have to learn to survive away from the support—financially and otherwise—from her family.
And that mattered. It did. But it was also a lot like looking through a small hole in a wall and trying to see the broader world. It was all filtered through her needs, her concerns, herself.
Now she felt like she had stepped outside. But she was looking all around.
At every possibility, at every angle. Ace had been brought into her concerns. Her baby had been brought into it. Their marriage. Their future.
She felt...swollen with those concerns. She should feel heavy. And yet, somehow she felt lighter. Maybe because as immense as all these responsibilities were, she was confident that Ace was carrying them with her.
“Thank you,” she said, her words soft. “Thank you for giving me something so valuable.”
“Sunstones are pretty common, actually,” he said.
“Not the ring. Everything.”
“Everything? That’s a lot of things.” He took a step back from her, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
“Well, okay, maybe not everything in the entire world. I assume you don’t have a hand in quite that many things. But I think this is going to be okay. I think it might be better than okay.”
“I’ll take it.”
She let out a long slow breath, looking down at the ring again. “I suppose we’d better go get the stuff and take it over to the brewery.”
“I suppose we should.”
Okay, maybe as official proposals went it wasn’t the most romantic. But it had changed something for her. And that was all that mattered.
She was starting to look forward to the life she and Ace were going to have together. And from where she was standing, that was about all that mattered.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“I CAN’T BELIEVE this all came together so quickly,” Sierra said, taking a slow turn around the newly furnished dining room in Ace’s brewery.
“Well, it wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for you.” Ace leaned up against the bar, gripping the edge of the counter, the muscles in his forearms flexing with the movement. And she couldn’t help but take a good long moment to admire that.
The brewery was different than the bar. Much larger, much more upscale. And yet, it still looked like him. This sturdy, wooden furniture looked like the kind of thing he would put in his own house. And, the lace curtains weren’t exactly him, but, she liked to think they represented her invasion in his life.
And she kind of liked that stamp being visible here for everyone to see.
That thought made her heart do a little stumble and fall. But, she felt possessive of him, and there really wasn’t much point in denying that. Her reaction to Rebecca earlier was evidence of that. And, if that hadn’t proven it, then her reaction to the curtains certainly did.
She wanted everyone to know that Ace was in a different place. That they were building something together. Which wasn’t really fair, because like much of everything else in her life, Ace had built the brewery on his own, and she was getting a bit of undue ownership.
That made her frown.
“I didn’t really do that much,” she said.
“You did. I think I would have put uniform metal tables and chairs in here and not given any thought to what I can do to make it a bigger draw to the kind of people I want to bring in. But you had insight that I wouldn’t have had. And, you helped me exploit all of my past good deeds. Really, what’s the point of good deeds if you don’t get to exploit them later?”
“I have no idea. I’ve never done any,” she said, smiling broadly.
“That isn’t true. Don’t diminish yourself. There will always be people lining up ready to do it for you.”
She shook her head. “That hasn’t really been my experience. People have always been way nicer to me than I deserved. If you recall, you were the first person I ever apologized to. How on earth did I have friends?”
“You’re a delight?”
“I had money. So, now I’m going to have to be a whole lot nicer to people.”
He crossed the bar, moving toward her, reaching his hand out and brushing her cheekbone with his thumb. “You used to bounce a lot more, Sierra. Please tell me you didn’t stop because of me.”
She tried to force a smile. “What do you mean bounce?”
“From the moment I hired you, you were bouncing all over my bar. And I knew you were going to be a problem. Because I couldn’t look away from you. You were...undeniable. You still are. But you aren’t quite as bouncy.”
That made her frown. “I spent a lot of time not having much to worry about. And when all of that stuff about my dad came out I just kind of kept moving forward. I thought that maybe I could change everything around me and not meaningfully change myself. And then all this other stuff happened. It kind of piled on. But I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I have to change. There’s more weight to everything now, and I guess that makes it a little bit harder to bounce.” She looked up, meeting his gaze. “I think maybe I’m finally seeing the world a little more clearly. Seeing myself a little more clearly.”
“Do I make you unhappy?”
She shook her head. “I think in some ways I’m happier right now than I’ve ever been. But I’m sadder, too. A little more scared. But I’m not sure you can be certain that you’re happy if you don’t have anything to compare it with. I think... I think you need everything. I think you need your life to be full...to feel sad and bittersweet and scary to really understand happiness.”
His gaze grew intense, his other hand sliding up to cup her face, holding her steady as he leaned in, kissing her slowly, softly. She parted her lips, sighing as his tongue slid against hers. His kiss was familiar and new at the same time. It had been too long. And they had never really kissed like this. With his hands on her face, a slow exploration.
The first time had been so desperate. The second... Well, they had started out naked. They didn’t go slow. They didn’t seem to know how.
And, even now, from the first touch of his lips to hers, she wanted him. Needed him.
She wanted to strip his clothes off. Wanted to take things to the next level. But, at the same time she wanted this to last forever. The simple moment where only their lips were touching. Where she wasn’t so lost in what was happening between them that she couldn’t think.
Right now she was thinking. Moving her hands over his chest, feeling his heart thundering there. His flannel shirt separated her skin from his, but she could remember what it was like to feel him with no barriers between them. Could remember what it was like to touch his naked body.
Being with him for the first time, discovering him for the first time, had been incredible. But knowing what was beneath those clothes? Being well aware of the reward she had coming? It was even better.
She’d never, ever, felt such intense things for a man’s body before. She’d always liked men. Had been attracted to her previous boyfriends. But it wasn’t like this.
She wanted to build a shrine to him. To worship at the temple of Ace and his incredible body. She had never, ever felt this way about a man before. She wondered if anyone had. Or if right here in an unopened brewery in the small town of Copper Ridge, Oregon, she had discovered something no other woman had ever known before.
She let her fingertips trail down, skimming the buttons on his shirt, down to his belt, then lower. She traced the line of his hard cock through his jeans, a sharp, shocking thrill assaulting her as she did.
So much for going slow.
He released his hold on her face, wrapping his arms around her and deepening the kiss, pulling her whole body flush against his.
She wrapped her arms around him, sliding them down his back, down to cup his ass. He growled, the sound rumbling through him, rumbling through her. She loved that she affected him. That in all his infinite experience, even though she wasn’t the first woman to give him an orgasm, even though she wasn’t the first woman he’d been engaged to, even though she wasn’t even the woman he loved.
He had loved someone once. He didn’t love her.
But right now, that didn’t matter. Right now, he wanted her. She affected him. She’d made him shake back at his
house, she’d made him lose his control in the bar. She was making him growl here.
She was more than just lace curtains hanging in the brewery. He had changed her, altered the course of her entire life, altered the reason behind her heartbeat. Surely she had changed him, too.
She squeezed her eyes shut and kissed him deeper, held that thought close.
“Are you all locked up?” she asked, wrenching her lips from his, kissing his neck. Her mouth was hot, swollen from desire. Every damn part of her was hot and swollen with desire for him.
“Me personally? Or the brewery?” he asked, his voice strained.
“The brewery. I hope you aren’t locked up, I’m going to need to use you.”
He chuckled. “The door is locked. I, on the other hand, am open for your business, and pleasure.”
“Excellent.” She found his mouth again, kissing him until neither of them could catch their breath.
He wrapped his arms more tightly around her, lifting her up off the ground.
“You pick me up a lot,” she said, her voice hoarse.
“I can’t help it. You’re pickupable,” he said, not sounding sorry in the least.
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” he said, kissing the edge of her mouth, “that it takes a lot of restraint for me not to lift you into my arms at every opportunity.”
He walked her backward, toward the bar. “Does it?” she asked, sliding her hands upward to the back of his head, forking her fingers through his hair.
She adjusted her positioning, wrapping her legs around his waist as he carried her.
“Yes. But it’s a displacement activity,” he said.
“For?”
“You’re also very,” he said, tilting his head and biting the side of her neck, the scrape of his teeth over her skin raw and hot, “very, fuckable.”
It was a good thing he was holding on to her because if he hadn’t been she would have turned into a melted puddle of Sierra.
“Oh,” she said. “And you aren’t even drunk.”
He chuckled, and she pulled her head back to get a good look at his expression. A naughty smile curved his wicked lips and she felt heat pool between her thighs. “I don’t need to be drunk to say things like that. I mean it. I don’t see the point in holding it back.”
