Sweetheart

by Sarah Mayberry

  Larry gave this announcement the respect it deserved, hunching over to lick her belly.

  “Fine. Just don’t mess it up too much, okay? And no butt sniffing when Haley comes. No one with two legs is into that.”

  The I’m-just-checking-you-out butt sniff was a firm part of Larry’s getting-to-know-you repertoire, but I could do without her undermining me this evening. Based on the deeply innocent look she gave me after my warning, I figured I was going to have to be on the alert rather than rely on her discretion.

  We usually only worked a half-day on Saturdays, so once Sam and I had dealt with maintenance on the roasters and packing machine and completed a bunch of other chores, we were free to live our lives. He headed off to meet some friends for a trail ride, I headed for the supermarket where I spent a small fortune on the best local bacon I could find, along with a wedge of crumbly parmesan and a carton of organic cream. In the wine section, I added a bottle of Australian Pinot Grigio to my supplies. My last destination was the local ice cream parlor, where I grabbed a pint each of burnt fig and honeycomb and salted caramel peanut butter.

  It wasn’t until I was putting all my groceries away at home that it hit me that I hadn’t been this amped about a date in a long time. In fact, the last time I’d felt this much anticipation about spending time with a woman, she had been Jess Elliot.

  Don’t go there, man.

  I listened to the voice in my head and went to change into my running gear. Maybe if I burned off some of my nervous energy, I wouldn’t make too much of a fool of myself tonight.

  A guy can hope, right?

  24

  Haley

  I was so eager to get to Beck’s place I arrived ten minutes early and had to do a slow drive around the streets of Montpelier to kill time. I engaged in a mental pep talk as I drove, encouraging myself to play it cool and enjoy the moment for what it was without getting too caught up in what might happen next.

  I had, of course, already spent a large portion of my day fretting about that, because when the worry hamster in my brain started running on its wheel, it liked to go for it.

  I really, really, really liked Beck. A lot. All signs seemed to indicate he felt the same way about me—although, to be fair, he might just be very engaged by the hot sex we kept having.

  If my gut was right, if he was as taken with me as I was with him, then at some point we were going to run headfirst into the problem of my sister. I’d already very cleverly established that bringing up her name was a complete vibe killer, but just because I wasn’t game to talk about her, didn’t mean the problem of Jess was going to disappear. She was my sister. She would always be a part of my life; there was no avoiding that.

  Beck clearly had baggage with her. The size of the baggage was a mystery to me, and I wasn’t sure how to address it or my sister in general because of how weird I’d made it last time.

  There were so many unknowns, I felt like I was playing blind-man’s bluff, fumbling around with no idea of what obstacles might lie in my way.

  My gaze caught on the clock on city hall, and I realized I’d gotten so lost in the maze of my thoughts that I was now running late. Muttering under my breath, I headed for Beck’s place. I parked beside his van in the driveway and made my way to the front entrance, a bottle of wine cold in my hand.

  I knocked and ten seconds later Beck opened the door. He looked so good standing there in the frame of the doorway, all big and burly and blond, I lost the power of speech for a moment.

  “Hey. Come in,” he said, gesturing for me to step over the threshold.

  I followed him inside, still drinking in the sight of him. He was wearing a blue and black plaid shirt and soft-looking, worn jeans with a pair of very dark brown boots. His cheeks were a little stubbly, as though he’d forgotten to shave that morning, and his hair was still wet from the shower.

  In short, he looked utterly, overwhelmingly hot and the vocabulary center of my brain was so discombobulated I still couldn’t find any words. I settled for thrusting the bottle of wine at him like a complete rube.

  “Thanks,” he said, shooting me a surprised look.

  “It’s wine,” I said.

  “It is.” His mouth twitched a little, and I knew he was trying not to laugh at me.

  Doing so well here, Haley. Really knocking it out of the park.

  It was crazy I was this nervous around him when he’d already done so many deeply intimate things to my body. There was a very solid chance he was going to do more intimate things to me tonight, too, so it wasn’t as though there was much uncertainty about how our evening would end.

  I was too worked up, that was the problem. So much for my self-administered pep talk.

  “Come on in to the apartment and meet Larry,” Beck said.

  “Sounds good,” I said, wincing at how bright and chirpy I sounded.

  Beck’s mouth twitched again, and he led me down a short corridor. After passing his office and the packing room, we walked through a doorway into a large space that ran the full width of the building. Two big metal machines were spaced along the far wall, while pallets piled high with burlap coffee sacks filled a corner.

  “Are these the roasters?” I asked, forgetting to be nervous for a second as I went to examine the large circular tray attached to the front of one of the machines.

  “Yep, these are our babies,” Beck said. “That’s the cooling tray. Beans go in there, and once we get past first crack, and we’re happy with the roast, we pour them out here to cool.” He pointed to a large hopper on top of the machine, then to the tray.

  “First crack is when the beans open up in the heat, right?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Bang on the money.”

  “I did some googling,” I admitted. “But Google didn’t tell me how you know when you’ve got first crack?”

  “You can hear it. Like popcorn. And smell it, too. When you first start to roast, it smells more like baking bread, a sort of cereal smell. Then the beans start to caramelize and you can smell the sweetness. That usually means you’re about to hit first crack.”

  The space was scrupulously clean, and the delicious smell I’d noted the other day in the packing room was stronger here, a mixture of the baked bread scent and caramelized sweetness he’d just described.

  “So this is where the magic happens,” I said.

  Beck pointed to a door in the far wall. “That’s where the magic happens.”

  “What’s through there?” I asked, eager to learn more.

  “My apartment,” Beck said, his face poker-straight.

  I rolled my eyes but rewarded him with a laugh. “Okay. I walked into that one.”

  “You sure did.”

  He crossed to the door and I followed him into his apartment, twitching with curiosity to see where he lived.

  We entered into a large, high-ceilinged space with wooden floors. To the right was a big sectional couch made from some kind of textured, natural-looking fabric. In front of it was a TV on a low wooden console that had been made from a couple of transformed pallets. A coffee table sat in front of the couch, also made from pallets. The kitchen ran along the rear wall beneath a couple of windows, a compact galley-style setup, with white tiled counter tops and cabinets that looked as though they dated back to the forties.

  I turned to check out the left side of the space in time to see a long-legged black dog emerge from behind a carved timber room divider.

  “This is Larry,” Beck said. “Come say hi to Haley.”

  I couldn’t help smiling as Larry trotted obediently toward me, her brown eyes curious. She was entirely black except for her feet and a white blaze on her chest, with a longish snout with a spray of hair around her nose and perky, velvety-looking ears.

  “Hello there, you good girl,” I said, offering her the back of my hand to smell.

  Larry leaned forward a little to sniff me, then wagged her tail and gave me a little lick, which I took to be a sign of acceptance.

  �
��She’s a sweetie,” I said.

  “She has her moments,” Beck said, but the glance he gave his dog was full of affection.

  I set my bag down on the couch and looked around again.

  “This is really nice,” I said, envying the sense of space created by the high ceilings.

  “It’s convenient, and it means I can keep my overhead low, keep plowing everything into the business.”

  I was about to respond when I felt a firm nudge near my backside and glanced over my shoulder to find Larry’s nose in my butt.

  “Hello again,” I said, torn between embarrassment and amusement.

  “Holy crap, Larry. Couldn’t you even wait five minutes?” Beck snapped his fingers to call his dog off.

  He looked so chagrined I couldn’t help laughing.

  “I'm sorry. We had a conversation about this particular piece of anti-social behavior this morning and she knows it’s not cool.”

  Larry stood between us, her gaze going from me to Beck and back again, her tongue lolling, tail lashing the air happily.

  “Seems like she really took that to heart,” I said.

  “On the couch. Now.” Beck pointed toward the sectional.

  Larry trotted off, leaping up to sprawl across the cushions.

  “So where do you sit?” I asked, amused by how much room a medium-sized dog could take up when she put her mind to it.

  “Sometimes Larry lets me have a corner. If I’m nice to her.”

  “I’ll try to stay on her good side, then.”

  Beck glanced down at the wine I’d brought and a brief frown creased his forehead.

  “I wasn’t sure what we were having and the guy in the store said this was good with almost anything,” I said.

  “Where’d you go? Hunger Mountain Co-op?”

  “How did you know?” I asked, surprised.

  Beck stepped over to the fridge and retrieved a familiar bottle.

  “We bought the same wine,” I said, getting the joke.

  “From the same manager, I’m thinking, since I got the same spiel.”

  We both laughed and any residual tension I’d been holding melted away.

  “If it sucks, we can go back and complain together,” I said.

  “Let’s give it a shot.”

  He opened the wine and poured two glasses, handing mine over. We both took an experimental sip.

  “I’m tasting wine. I think there’s a top note of wine in there, too. And maybe a little wine on the palate afterwards?” I said.

  “Definitely,” Beck said, taking another mouthful and swirling it around his mouth ostentatiously, sucking his cheeks in and out and generally looking ridiculous. “Pretty sure the grapes were picked on a Friday by a redheaded man with big feet and a bad gambling habit.”

  “Insightful,” I said.

  “It’s what I do,” Beck said with a casual shrug.

  We both smiled at each other.

  “Come sit,” Beck said, directing me toward a table for two tucked against the wall in the kitchen.

  I sank into a seat and took a mouthful of wine as Beck opened the fridge and started pulling out ingredients.

  “Dinner won’t be long. Hope you like pasta.”

  “I love pasta.”

  Maybe it was my imagination, but he looked relieved. “Good to hear. We’re having carbonara.”

  I made a happy sound. “Yum. Even better. My favorite.”

  “Mine, too.”

  We did the goofy-smiling-at-each-other thing again, then he grabbed a frypan from the open shelf above the stovetop. I saw he already had a pot of water boiling and I watched as he dropped in a package of spaghetti.

  “Okay, dinner is ten minutes away.” He glanced at me. “How was your day? Did you work?”

  “I don’t do weekends, just weekdays.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Audrey and Zara like to handle the weekend shifts together.”

  “They make a pretty good team. You like working there?”

  “I love it.”

  We talked about the Bean for a few minutes, then I asked about his business, and by the time he was sliding two bowls of pasta onto the table we’d moved on to travel. The next half hour passed easily, punctuated by lots of laughter. The pasta was delicious, the wine crisp and fresh, and every time I looked across the table, Beck was watching me with his beautiful blue-green eyes and I knew he was enjoying himself as much as I was.

  Dessert was two types of ice cream, both of which left me wanting to lick my bowl. Afterward, I insisted on helping Beck clean up.

  “For that, you get an extra glass of wine,” he said.

  “I probably shouldn’t, I’m driving,” I said automatically.

  Beck paused. “Or you could stay the night. Up to you.”

  My heart gave a little leap at his casual invitation. Which was probably good grounds for not staying the night, given I was trying to keep my cool.

  “Oh. Okay, then. In that case, I’ll have another wine.”

  Beck poured us both another glass, and we moved to the couch, rousting Larry from her king-of-the-hill position and claiming a corner for ourselves. Beck started the movie, then rested his arm along the back of the couch behind my shoulders.

  I tried to concentrate on the screen as the opening credits gave way to the first scenes, but I was far too aware of how close he was and how good he smelled to really focus on anything else. His big body radiated heat, and I kept remembering how amazing he looked without his shirt. And how talented he was with his hands. And mouth.

  “Fuck it,” Beck said suddenly, reaching for the remote and switching off the TV.

  Then he pulled me onto his lap and kissed me. I opened my mouth to him eagerly, squirming around until I was straddling him, his erection a welcome pressure between my thighs.

  Beck’s hands slid under my top, framing my ribcage briefly before reaching around to undo my bra. I felt it go loose and lifted my arms so he could pull it and my top off all at once. His gaze swept over my breasts, a small smile curving his lips.

  “Have I mentioned how pretty these are?” he asked, cupping me with both hands before leaning forward to tongue first one nipple, then the other.

  “I believe you did, but feel free to elaborate further,” I said, unashamedly breathless.

  It got pretty crazy after that. After teasing my nipples mercilessly, Beck nudged my panties aside and gave me my first climax with his clever fingers. Then he carried me over to the bed and proceeded to prove that yesterday’s excellent oral-sex technique had not been a fluke. I was boneless afterward, but that didn’t stop me from treating him to a good tongue-lashing, too.

  I was all about equality.

  By the time we got to the main event, we were both warm and damp and ready and the feel of his lovely cock sliding inside me was nearly enough to set me off again all on its own. His arms braced on either side of me, Beck moved slowly, stretching each withdrawal out, taking his time to fill me again. I curled my fingers into the taut muscles of his ass and spread my thighs as wide as I could, desperate to have all of him inside me. I was just starting to spiral out of control when he lifted my left leg to his shoulder, and the increased friction pushed me over the top.

  Beck watched me lose it, his gaze avid as he absorbed every detail of me at my most mindless and vulnerable. As always, watching me get off got him off and it wasn’t long before he came, his body taut and shuddering against mine, his breath a hot rush against my neck.

  He rolled to his side afterward, and we both stared at the ceiling, utterly spent. After a couple of minutes he stirred and disappeared through a doorway to what I assumed was the bathroom.

  That was when I had a strong sense of being watched, and I propped myself up on my elbows to find Larry sitting next to the room divider, her brown eyes glued to me with a disturbing intensity.

  “Hey, Larry,” I said uncertainly, reaching for the sheet and dragging it over my breasts.

  I had the dis
tinct feeling Larry did not approve of all the moaning, panting, and vocalizing that had been going on for the last little while.

  Beck appeared in the doorway and immediately noted his dog’s urgent stare.

  “No. You go sleep on your own bed. I paid a fortune for it.” He pointed to a fancy dog bed in the corner.

  It had clearly never seen an occupant, which helped me understand what the staring was all about.

  “I’m sleeping on her side, aren’t I?”

  Beck looked sheepish. “I swear she used to sleep in her own bed, but ever since I moved in here, she’s claimed the other side. I’ve tried kicking her out but she always sneaks back up while I’m sleeping.”

  “Is she going to do that all night?” I asked.

  Even though I wasn’t looking at her, I could feel Larry boring a hole into the side of my head with her laser-like focus.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t had anyone stay over since we’ve lived here.”

  Not gonna lie, I kind of loved hearing that.

  “Have you got a T-shirt I can sleep in?” I asked.

  Beck looked a little bemused. “Sure. There’s a spare toothbrush in the bathroom if you want it, too.”

  “Perfect,” I said, climbing out of bed.

  In the bathroom, I took care of business and then spotted the toothbrush Beck had thoughtfully left for me on the sink. I brushed my teeth and used my finger to fix my smudged eye makeup, then I returned to the bedroom.

  “Gray or white?” Beck asked, a T-shirt in each hand.

  “Gray,” I said, and he handed me a well-worn shirt that felt buttery-soft in my hands. It was so large when I put it on that we both laughed.

  “Okay, that’s enough of that, or I’ll get a complex,” I said.

  We got back into bed, and I scooted over so Beck and I were predominantly on his side.

  “Okay, Larry, have at it,” I said.

  I didn’t have to ask twice. Beck’s dog leapt onto the bed as though she’d been propelled by a cannon and proceeded to spin in a circle, pawing at the duvet fussily. After a second or two she reversed directions before plopping down, her back pressing against my leg.