Sweet Bitter Honey

by Liz Crowe

  The kid grinned through a face covered in melted cheese and Ryan’s heart nearly burst open at the sight of him. He had never been given to overly emotional moments. But ever since he’d taken the small, mewling bundle from the doctor’s arms in South Carolina, he had to watch it or he’d be turning into an Oprah-watching, tear-spewing, emo-man.

  Lynette stood and took their empty plates. “Hit the showers, boys, I don’t have all night.”

  Ryan looked up, surprised.

  “What? I have a date later. After beer school, don’t worry.”

  “Oh, uh, sure.” Ryan plucked his son from the booster seat and carried the giggling kid to the bathroom, ignoring the small pulse of jealousy that threatened to make him say or even do something utterly stupid. He dropped Jamie into some bubbly water, washed his hair, sang his favorite bath time songs then scooped him out.

  “Daddy! I want to play more!” the boy protested loudly. But Ryan was on a mission.

  “Listen, son, I need to spend some time with Lynette, okay? We’re doing some beer stuff. I’m gonna read to you then put on Toy Story in your room. Does that work?”

  “I want Lynette to read to me. I want Lynette to live here all the time. Lynette!” the kid yelped, making Ryan wince.

  Lynette spoke from behind him. “Remember, Jamie, there’s no need to yell. You get more attention from people if you use a calm voice.” Her voice did anything but make Ryan calm. He pulled Jamie’s pj’s on him and mumbled something about walking the dog. He pushed past her, handing over the boy who wanted her so badly.

  “Daddy! Did we get a dog?” Jamie’s voice echoed in Ryan’s ears. He made his way to the kitchen, berating himself for having invited her over. He obviously had no self-control whatsoever. And he’d never in his life felt so conflicted.

  Cole still haunted his every dream. Visions of the man’s incredible form and handsome face covered by Ray-Bans, him yelling incoherently and beating on Ryan’s face, his pale body on the gurney while the EMTs tried to revive him—it was all a long, lusty nightmare Ryan truly wished he could get past.

  Given that they were about to become brothers-in-law, it seemed inevitable their paths would cross. But Ryan had gotten the message loud and clear. Cole wanted no part of him ever again, and if he did, Audrey seemed poised to pounce and keep him away. The whole steaming pile of shit was maddening, and he had only the guy staring back at him from the mirror to blame.

  But Lynette, with her smartass sense of humor, quick mind, gorgeous hair and pert figure—she was here, now, with him. He sensed that he had reverted to flirt mode, acknowledged his desire to seduce and keep her here tonight, away from whatever date she had. He placed his hands on the counter, counting backward from twenty. It helped.

  Then he spent some time lining up the beer bottles, organizing them into taste categories and noting he’d picked some pretty heavy-duty Belgians plus several Imperials and double alcohol brews. It didn’t matter. They’d only be tasting, he justified, pouring some pretzels in a bowl then locating a bunch of clear glasses.

  By the time she wandered back into the large kitchen, tucking her hair up into a messy bun on top of her head, he felt like he had a grip. He popped open a couple of classic India Pale Ales. “Okay. Sit. Taste and learn.”

  “You got it, Sensei,” she said, pulling out a notebook and pen.

  He held up the first glass, stared at it then launched into his ‘hop forward’ speech while she sipped and took notes. After an hour, they’d worked their way through the IPAs and were on to malt forward beers, like amber ales and their own Ypsi Brewing California Common.

  The more he drank, the more he wanted her. At one point, he had to grip his knees under the table to keep from reaching across the small distance between them and running his fingers down her neck and his thumb across her full lips while she tasted and kept writing in that stupid notebook.

  “So,” he said, his voice cracking with tension. She looked up. A tendril of springy red hair dropped out of the holder and slipped across her face. He reached out and tucked it away. She narrowed her eyes and leaned back just enough to let him know his touch was not welcomed. “Right, sorry. So, let’s move on to these.” He pulled the three Belgian beers he’d chosen closer, trying to cover his embarrassment. “We don’t do this style at Ypsi nor do I plan to.” He paused, pondering his one-time dream of crafting nothing but sour, crazy, off-the-wall ales.

  She put a hand on his, yanking him back to the present. He stared at her hand then up at her. Her eyes were full of concern. “You okay? How’s Cole?”

  “Oh, uh, he’s okay. I think.”

  Lynette nodded, munched a pretzel, never taking her eyes from his. He shifted, his skin and nerves reacting to her uncomfortable proximity. “I have to wonder how it will work.”

  “How what will work?” He poured them each a healthy sample of La Fin du Monde, one of the finest examples of a Belgian triple known to man. The cloudy yellow liquid was rich, layered and amazing. He drank it way too fast considering it was nine percent alcohol. Nervousness had the best of him, and that was annoying in the extreme. “You mean Quinn and Audrey? Well, if they don’t kill each other, I think they’ll make a fine couple.”

  “But how can they be together? She owns the company that distributes our brews in Michigan. Isn’t that some kind of, I don’t know, insider trading kind of a thing? And with Cole and you…well, hell, you guys are worse than a Lifetime movie. Whoops!” She nearly knocked over her glass of the beer and blushed. Ryan stared at her.

  She’s drunk and maybe more nervous than I am.

  He smiled and leaned forward on his elbow, missing the table by a good two inches. Which resulted in him smacking his chin on the hard wood surface. “Fuck!” he yelled, cupping his jaw while Lynette laughed so hard tears ran down her face.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lynette’s ears buzzed and her head spun. While she knew damn good and well she could thank the beers she’d been drinking for the last nearly two hours, she also had to admit that being here, with Ryan, having such a great time with him was turning her on, period. She had gone so long without a man’s touch, she’d moved beyond missing it. Kind of like when a person reached that point in a diet where they didn’t even really miss food anymore. Not a fun place to be, nor healthy, but there it was.

  Ryan stomped over to the freezer, grabbed a bag of frozen vegetables and put them under his chin. She snorted and tried to stop laughing but it was too much. He was so incredible—talented, funny, great with his son and sexier than any one man had a right to be. She had no business here. She had to leave.

  She stood when a burst of anxiety nearly split her in half. Tingling in places she had forgotten existed but for their daily functionalities, she was terrified and horny in equal measure.

  “I gotta go,” she said. Her hair kept falling out of its tie back so she gave up and yanked the flimsy band out so it tumbled around her shoulders. When she stood up and looked at Ryan, his mouth was literally hanging open. She grinned, slid her feet into her shoes and started for the kitchen door.

  “Wait,” he croaked. “Lynette. Don’t go.”

  She turned, knowing full well the effect she was having but unsure what to do about it. “I am not going to sleep with you, Ryan Shannon.” Her throat ached with a combination of fear at what was about to happen and worry that it might not.

  In a flash, he was in her personal space, his full lips inches from hers. She swallowed hard when he slid one hand up her arm and tangled the fingers of the other hand in her hair. He smelled boozy but she knew she did, too. “I’m not sleepy,” he whispered.

  The room did a slightly nauseating one-eighty when his lips met hers. She stood, frozen, let him part her lips with his tongue, but she couldn’t seem to move her arms. Her body wouldn’t cooperate and do the thing she knew she wanted to do—grab him, wrap herself around him. He broke away, his breathing ragged, cradling her face in his large hands. “I don’t know what it is about you. I’m
prepared to screw up a great working relationship right now, just to feel your skin against mine. In fact, if that doesn’t happen in the next few minutes, I may spontaneously combust.” He stepped away, hands on his hips, looking down at the floor.

  She backed up, stumbling when her backside met the countertop. Her thighs trembled and the pulse between her legs matched her heartbeat. She bit her lip. “But…” she said, knowing that with this man, complications would be the name of the game. “Cole.” She spoke softly, understanding and figuring this for just one more close shot at something special she would miss.

  He looked up at her, his gaze intense, then turned away. She walked around him and sat, raising the glass of La Fin du Monde. The end of the world indeed. “I applied for a marketing job with Ford,” she said between sips. “I have an interview next week.”

  Ryan dropped into the chair across from her and picked up his glass. “Well, I remember you once yelling at me that the beer job was just a stopgap. That you wanted to be in…how did you put it? Oh, yeah, ‘grown-up marketing’ someday.” He glowered at her.

  She matched his frown. “Well, anyway, I have huge student loans, and it’s not like you guys are paying me the big bucks.”

  “Good luck to you then, hot shot.” He raised his glass and knocked back the liquid in one gulp.

  He’s as nervous as I am.

  She put her glass down. “Tell me about Cole, Ryan. You probably need to get your head around how you feel about him. I’m a good listener. Talk to me.”

  He sighed and poured another small portion of the rich brew for them both. “There’s nothing to talk about. Cole is…damaged, wounded, in more ways than one. And I have no business even considering anything about him.”

  She frowned, sipping and forcing herself not to get distracted by the way his jaw clenched when he talked or by her extreme need to kiss him there, to taste his skin just once.

  “He’s Audrey’s brother. Did you know that?”

  She nodded.

  “Yeah, I guess everybody knows everything, don’t they?”

  She nodded again but stayed silent.

  “Well, he’s blind from an attack about ten days before he was slated to rotate back home from Iraq. His lover, Dan, was among the Marines killed that day.” He put his elbows on the table, hitting the mark this time. “About three months ago or so, I went to his and Audrey’s house for dinner. We, uh, ended up, you know.”

  “Fucking.”

  Yeah, I get it and the mental image I have of it is pretty hot.

  Lynette put her hand to her lips, hoping she hadn’t actually said those words, shocked to her very soul that she’d thought them.

  He cleared his throat, his face reddening. She let him continue. “So, after that, nothing really happened. No communication, not for my lack of trying, mind you. I ended up there again, the night Audrey and Quinn got engaged and found out she was pregnant. Jesus H., what a daytime drama, huh? I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”

  He got up to pace. Lynette leaned back in her seat, pulling one knee up to her chin, watched him move around the room with a casual grace, yet agitated beyond belief.

  “Quinn and Audrey left. And we went at it again. It was…” He stopped dead in his tracks and put his hands on the counter. They shook but his voice was without a tremble. “He was…is…amazing on so many levels. He’s strong and vulnerable at the same time. Incredibly smart and mature, but naïve and trusting. But he lost it that night. Woke up in a weird dream state and started hitting me. I mean, using the full force of his Marine-trained self into beating the shit out of me in his sleep.” Ryan touched his nose, which was still slightly crooked.

  “When he came to, or woke up or whatever, he had some kind of breakdown. I…I covered him up, tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen, so I left him alone. When I woke up on the couch, his dog was having a conniption fit. Cole had taken a bottle of painkillers and a fifth of bourbon into a full bathtub behind a locked door.” He turned and glared at her. “You heard enough yet, or should I go on?”

  Lynette got to her wobbly feet and put her arms around Ryan’s waist, holding him tight. He was stiff at first, resisting her, but then he seemed to crumple and grabbed on to her for dear life. Their lips met, tongues tangled. She wanted him so badly she was willing to overlook a crucial piece of his emotional pie—that he was in love with someone else.

  She leaned back as his lips found her neck, kissed there then stopped him when he started to reach under her shirt to her bra clasp. “No, hang on. I need to tell you something, too.”

  He cupped her ass, held her against the unmistakable press of his erection. “Seriously, Ryan,” she gasped when he reached up and grabbed her hair again, bringing a sharp edge of pain to the many sensations coursing through her.

  “If you tell me you’re a virgin, I won’t believe it,” he mumbled around her skin, licking, kissing, teasing her so much she thought she might orgasm without him even touching her below the waist. Her hips angled when a slow meltdown began in her lower belly, one she’d had no frame of reference for and that scared and thrilled her all at once.

  “No, but I am, I mean, sort of…” She threaded her fingers in his hair as he eased his hand up her shirt and flicked open her bra with one practiced twist of his fingers. “Like a born-again virgin. I mean, I haven’t had sex in so long I… Oh, Jesus,” she groaned when he leaned down to flick his tongue across her nipple. She didn’t even remember the shirt coming off. “I’m rusty at best. The guy I, um, well, I don’t even know if…shit…Ryan…and if it’s possible for a hymen to grow back due to general disuse…ah, God…yes.” She hissed, shivering almost uncontrollably by now. His lips, teeth and tongue were all over her breasts and nipples. He shoved his thigh between her legs, grabbing on to the counter to steady them.

  “You’re in great hands, sweetheart,” Ryan whispered. He popped her jeans button, unzipped her and had them down around her ankles in seconds. He put his foot on them, helping her step out. His mouth found hers again, kissing her so hard the room darkened around her. “Allow me to introduce you to the amazing, dangerous mystery of orgasm.” He grinned into her lips and Lynette let herself own a half second of sheer bliss—visions of their night together, with dinner, Jamie, the beers, all blending into a stupid little domestic fantasy. She shoved it out of her head.

  “Okay, I’m game.” She squealed when he picked her up and plunked her on the kitchen counter, shoving aside paper towel holders and other crap in his way. He kissed his way down her neck, to her breasts, sucking one nipple then the other so hard her back arched and she shook with the need for release. She put her fingers in his thick hair. “Just this once, you understand, because we both need it. No other reason.”

  “Nope, no other reason, but it’s gonna be epic. And I for one cannot wait to see just how redheaded you really are.” He grinned, holding her gaze while he stripped off her panties, leaving her totally naked on his kitchen counter.

  “You won’t be disappointed, I don’t think—Oh. My God…” She exhaled when he found his target between her legs. He kept his lips on hers, kissing, caressing her mouth, gentle and earnest and amazing, while continuing his fingers’ dance against her sex. He rubbed, then stroked, then slid some combination of fingers inside, stretching her and making her gasp.

  “Now, let’s see if I can’t find…oh yeah, there it is.” He went deep, pressing high up when his lips found her nipple again and his thumb kept contact with her clit. The combination made her cry out, slap a hand over her mouth in case it woke the kid. Her hips bucked toward him and her arms wrapped tight. He held on and stroked and sucked her until her every molecule seemed to shimmer, hover on the edge of something amazing.

  She finally gave in to it, groaning and clutching him, letting herself drop right into the abyss. She sighed and he held her tight, letting her ride out the climax as long as she wanted.

  “Christ almighty, Shannon. I think you should bottle that and sell it. Forge
t all this cascade hops, Bavarian malt crap.” She shivered when he pulled his fingers out of her, put them to his lips and sucked. She watched, elated, embarrassed, sated but wanting more. He put the fingers against her mouth and she stared into his eyes and tasted herself on his skin. “I’ve never…um…well, never mind. My turn,” she whispered, reaching down to unzip him and take his cock in her hand. It was hot, smooth, rock hard. The tip was soaking wet. “I want a taste.” She rubbed her thumb across it, making him shudder. He leaned his hands on either side of her. She put her fingers in her mouth, absolutely loving the salty male-ness of him.

  She’d not had much exposure to the male anatomy. And had very limited sexual experience. When the groping, equally ignorant boyfriend tried to go down on her, he’d been terrible at it, then insisted she suck his cock and she’d nearly thrown up gagging. It had done nothing but convince her the whole act was overrated. She’d gotten excellent grades, worked two jobs and dreamed about how her future doctor boyfriend would learn the right moves and use them on her while she turned into a domestic goddess and they lived happily ever after.

  Until right then, that moment, when she heard the most amazing and unlikely words coming from her mouth. “I need you inside me so badly I’m…I don’t want anything else. We can be friends. I know you love Cole, but please, dear God, fuck me right now.”

  He picked her up, kissing her the entire time. She wrapped herself around him. He walked them down the hall and into the room where she’d snooped around. He dropped her onto the bed, yanked his shirt off then fell down beside her, tugging her up and on top of him in one motion. “Okay, your redheaded wish is my command. But I want you to set the pace.” He grinned and pulled her down so his lips were level with her nipples. He teased, licked, sucked and bit down on her flesh, digging his fingers into her ass until she tossed her head back and came yet again in a rush of lusty energy, her clit grinding against his shaft. “Uh-huh. That is exactly what I’m talking about.”