by Lauren Layne
Riley tried to tell herself it was the alcohol, but she knew it wasn’t just the whisky.
It was Sam and the way he looked in his layered T-shirts and perfect-fitting jeans and messy man hair. It was the way his eyes lit up when he talked about stills and casks, and the way he managed to make the word fermentation sound sexy.
It was the way he’d taken her to this run-down hole-in-the-wall, with its beat-up wood bar and slightly crotchety staff and worn bar stools. There was no foie gras, no weird berry compote, no fancy cocktails … just whisky, and a handful of pub-food options if you wanted them.
It was completely different from anyplace she’d been with a man in the past several years, and she loved it.
“Whisky has just as many nuances as wine, just not as many varietals,” Sam said, taking the glass back from her. He tilted it, watching the way the amber liquid slid along the side of the glass. “That’s part of what I’d like to change. I’m all for bourbon being bourbon, and Irish whisky being Irish whisky, plus rye and all the rest of them, but there’s room for something modern. Something new that tastes good without having all the rules.”
“And that’s what you’re doing?” she prodded, keeping her voice soothing but not condescending, as though talking to a skittish colt. He was weird when it came to his accomplishments with ROON. As though he didn’t know how to accept praise or success.
Or, and this was haunting, as though he didn’t deserve it.
As expected, his mouth pressed into a firm line. “ROON doesn’t fit into any of the classic whisky profiles. It’s whisky, sure, but it’s not distilled in bourbon country, so it can’t be bourbon. It’s not from Scotland, so it can’t be Scotch—”
She interrupted his barrage of things his product wasn’t. “So what is it? What’s your vision?”
He lifted a shoulder. Took another sip of whatever it was his bartender friend had poured. “Making something for the average but discerning drinker, I guess. Something without pretense. In the same way the wine world is slowly accepting bottles with screw tops, I want the whisky world to accept something that’s simply whisky. No subtype needed. Just ROON whisky. No judgment if you want to drink it neat, or in a Manhattan, or with fucking prune juice. I can’t stand those liquor connoisseurs who jump down your throat for adding an ice cube to a fifteen-year-old whatever. Fuck that. Drink what tastes good.”
As a reward for him speaking bluntly for once, she told him the unvarnished truth. He needed a little positive reinforcement. “You know, if we weren’t so solidly in the friend zone these days, I’d tell you that your passion about your company is kind of sexy.”
Sam didn’t miss a beat at the flirtatious turn. “Sweetie, if we weren’t so solidly in the friend zone, we’d be drinking my whisky naked in bed, not someone else’s whisky in a bar.”
Riley’s mouth went dry, and she reached for her water glass, wondering just how inappropriate it would be to dump it over her head in an effort to keep from jumping his bones in public.
His tone had been flippant, but the mental image he’d created had all of her nerves tingling.
This wasn’t going according to plan. She was supposed to have a couple of casual buddy-buddy beers with him and the rest of the gang and then head home with nothing more than a cuff on the shoulder and a “thanks for the favor.”
Instead she’d left with him. Alone.
She hadn’t checked her phone since they’d left the Irish pub, because she knew what she’d find there. A slew of text messages from her friends, ranging from pep talk to lecture.
Julie: Go get some already.
Grace: The tiger stalks her prey—go get him. PS: I know you’re new at this, but you know not to forget the condom. Right?
Emma: Code Red! This was not the plan …
And it was Emma’s text that she was dreading the most because she knew that out of the four of them, Emma was the most rational about this kind of thing. Once upon a time, that dubious honor had gone to Grace, but then Grace had gone and snared a jet-setting ladies’ man, and her loins and brain had turned to sex-addled mush.
A transition that had Riley simmering with jealousy.
She wanted that kind of hormone-driven awareness. Wanted the glow of morning sex and the soreness of rough sex and the soul satisfaction of meaningful sex.
All of which she was pretty sure were simmering just beneath the surface of the man next to her.
The question was how to get beneath the layers of resistance. And God knew she wasn’t up for another rejection.
“I should go,” she said quietly.
“Wisely avoiding my bait, I see,” he teased.
She rolled her eyes and slid off the stool as she fished some cash out of her wallet. “Puhlease,” she said. “Even if I wanted to bite, we’d both know the ‘bait’ would get snatched back at the last moment. You talk a good game, but—”
His fingers wrapped around her wrist, and for a second she thought he was going to acknowledge what was between them. But when her eyes flew to his, he merely nodded in the direction of the money in her hand as he pulled out his own wallet. “Put that away. I’ve got this.”
She shrugged, knowing Sam well enough to see that it wasn’t up for debate. She put her wallet away.
“Walk me to the subway?” she asked, not quite ready to see the evening end.
He pulled out several bills and gave a wave at his friend, who was at the end of the almost-empty bar flirting with a pixie-cut blonde. “What would Liam do?”
Like any overprotective big brother, Liam would have marched her all the way to her front door while giving a complimentary lecture on how loose-fitting clothes were all the rage and was she sure she didn’t want to become a nun?
But Riley wasn’t at all sure she wanted Sam to walk her to her front door. Not when her brain was all addled with whisky, and the high of winning the game, and the intoxicating awareness of a man who was supposed to be off-limits.
“Ehhhh—”
“Exactly,” he said, knowing Liam as well as she did. “If I’m relegated to a brotherly role, this will be a door-to-door excursion, McKenna. I won’t be able to look your mother in the face at dinner next week if I let you get wooed by some creep on the subway.”
“Yeah, because the New York subway system is where all women search for eligible men. And while you and my mother are having this little chat, are you going to mention you were the last creep to woo me?”
He glanced down at her as he held the bar door for her. “Wooed, huh? What happened to that oh-we’re-all-wrong-for-each-other-and-it-was-awkward-and-icky talk?”
Riley shivered a little feeling the unexpected chill in the air and didn’t object when he slid the jacket he’d been carrying over her shoulders. It smelled like leather and soap and Sam.
Riley thought about her response as she let him hail a cab, noting how different it was from her last date, in which her companion had cowered under an awning while she’d stood in the rain.
“Let’s just say I had a moment of weakness,” she said as he held open the taxi door for her. “I thought you were more than merely tolerable to look at.”
He slid into the cab next to her. For a second Riley considered sitting in the middle of the seat just to feel him against her, but she didn’t want to risk putting him on edge. Not when he seemed relaxed around her for the first time in weeks. Actually, make that years. Hell, had they ever been relaxed around each other? Truly?
But sitting on opposite sides of the car did nothing to ease the awareness that had been steadily growing over the course of the evening. Only the tension was different this time. It lacked the usual resentment. As though they both recognized the attraction and were on the verge of accepting it.
On the verge of doing something about it.
Oh, Emma. Don’t kill me.
“Tolerable, huh?”
Her eyes snapped back to his. “What?”
“You said my looks were merely tolerable.”
&n
bsp; She shrugged and gestured a finger over his flat stomach. “Well, duh. Because clearly you’re letting yourself go.”
His eyes bored into hers as he turned to face her more fully. “You didn’t seem to think so last week.”
“Last week, I was under the misassumption that there was something other than friendship between us.”
Sam’s eyes never left hers. “Isn’t there?”
She knew what he was doing. He was putting the ball in her court, making her take the first big steps. Uh-uh, Compton. I’m done being the hunter. You want me, you come get me.
Riley turned her head to look out the window, letting her silence say it all. I’m not playing.
They rode the rest of the way in not-quite-companionable silence, both aware that a decision awaited them but neither quite ready to take that step.
Riley paid the cabdriver and they walked up the cracked sidewalk to the door of her apartment building.
Still they said nothing, and the longer they remained silent, the more the air seemed to simmer around them. Riley knew full well that she should leave him here at the front door, where they were still in plain view of the smattering of people on the sidewalk. But when she wordlessly unlocked the main door, he silently followed.
And then they were outside her apartment door and it was definitely time to say goodbye before one or both of them did something they’d likely regret in the morning.
Or rather … Sam would regret it, and Riley would then hate that she’d become little more than an “oops” in his black book.
“You are officially relieved of brotherly duty,” she said quietly, trying for a cheeky smile. “This is about the point where Liam would leave me, probably to find some leggy blonde in a Village bar.”
Tell me you’re not going to go find some leggy blonde.
Sam said nothing, his face an unreadable mask.
“Well … night,” she said, hating him for making her feel awkward. Hating herself for so desperately wanting a man who didn’t want her enough to act on it.
He nodded once, continuing to stare at her with hot eyes, and she turned away before she could beg him, just once, to forget about her last name. To forget about whatever idiotic nonsense kept him from reaching for her.
Then he was reaching for her, turning her toward him even as he walked her back against the door, pinning her there with his body.
His eyes locked on hers for a heartbeat before his mouth moved over hers, a little roughly as his lips pushed hers apart. Riley’s purse dropped noisily to the ground, and she started to put her hands around his neck, only to have him grab her wrists, pinning them above her head as he continued his relentless assault on her mouth.
It was the kiss of a man who was done depriving himself—a man who’d take what he wanted, consequences be damned. Riley let him take what he wanted.
“Keys,” he said against her ear before his lips moved down her neck.
Keys? She could barely remember her name, but when he released her hands, they were definitely not holding the keys she’d had minutes earlier.
She bent over to pick them up, relieved when her hands didn’t shake as she fit the key into the lock.
This was it. Sex. Making love. Hell, it didn’t matter what she called it. She was finally going to figure out what all the fuss was about.
And then her hands did shake. Oh God. What if she was bad at it?
Sam was on her again the second the door closed behind them, his mouth sliding up her neck, his hands moving over her hips, but despite the fact that he felt good—really good—she couldn’t concentrate.
Why was it so hard to breathe?
Come on, McKenna. Get your freaking head in the game.
She could do this.
She hadn’t just read all the best tips and tricks—she’d written them. There was no woman as well versed in sex in all of New York than Riley McKenna.
But she was book-smart about sex. Not street-smart.
Riley had always figured she’d fake her way through the first time—relying on others’ experiences rather than her own.
But this was Sam. He’d held her when she cried over the death of her grandma, bailed her out of trouble more times than she could count, and listened to her in the sort of intent way that made her feel important.
Faking in any way with him felt wrong.
His hands went to the hem of her shirt, sliding behind to palm her warm back. She arched against him instinctively, but when his fingers found the back clasp of her bra, she stilled.
Her hands clawed at his shoulders. “Wait.”
Sam froze.
He pulled back to look at her, and she braced herself for exasperation, but there was only patient concern as his eyes searched hers. And then, as if sensing she needed some extra nudge to reassure her to trust him, he gently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Tell me.”
She knew then—knew that he was the right one. Knew that he was the one and only reason she’d never wanted anyone else to touch her.
“Riley?”
“I’m kind of new at this.”
His brow furrowed and he shook his head slightly to show he didn’t understand.
She tried again, gesturing between their two bodies. “This.”
“Making out against the door?” he asked, clearly still struggling to follow.
She took a deep breath. “More like … new at what comes out after the making out.”
After all, it wasn’t like she hadn’t kissed guys over the past years, it had just never been interesting enough to get to the next stage.
Sam took a half step back, and Riley moved around him to go to the fridge. She almost grabbed an open bottle of pinot grigio for courage but reached for the water pitcher instead.
“I don’t think I’m following,” Sam said, his eyes never leaving her as she poured a glass of water that she didn’t drink.
You only wish you weren’t following.
She put her palms flat on the table and gave it to him straight, no bullshit. “I haven’t had sex since I was twenty.”
No reaction. Not even a blink.
“And I think I was pretty bad at it,” she said, because if she was going to drop bombs, she might as well be efficient and drop them all at once.
“You’re twenty-eight,” he said after a painfully long silence.
“Correct.”
“You’re telling me you haven’t had sex in eight years?”
She let her silence answer for her.
He ran a hand over the back of his neck, wordlessly taking the glass of water she’d poured for herself and drinking it himself in three gulps as he watched her.
“Okay. Why?” he asked finally.
Riley had been prepared for him to accuse her of lying and to insist that there was no way she could be a sex columnist without sex.
Instead there was complete trust, albeit slight confusion, on his face.
She shrugged her shoulders a little. “No good reason, actually. No traumatic event that had me fearing intimacy. No crippling emotional issues.” Save for the fact that I might be halfway in love with you, and no other man compares.
But Riley was no dummy. There were some things you simply didn’t say to a gun-shy commitment-phobe like Sam.
“I just never felt … it,” she finished, feeling almost unbearably lame.
“But you have done it once, right? I mean, you’re not—”
“Not a virgin, no,” she rushed to reassure him. “No weird rituals or ripping of hymen to be expected.”
Sam winced. “Christ.”
“So does this … change things?” she asked, hoping her voice sounded like that of a sophisticated woman whose revelation was no more consequential than I take cream in my coffee.
“Who was it?” Sam asked, apparently not finished with the talking portion of the evening.
“Dan.”
Sam groaned. “The dork from college?”
“He wasn’t a dork,” she said, her
embarrassment starting to slide into exasperation. “And we were dating for, like, nine months, so quit giving me that you-hussy look.”
“No wonder you decided you didn’t like it,” Sam muttered. “I doubt that guy knew his dick from his Xbox controller.”
Riley opened her mouth to argue but then closed it. Dan had played a lot of videogames.
But this wasn’t exactly the way she had envisioned the conversation. Not like there was any best-case scenario, but she certainly hadn’t imagined it would devolve into a discussion of a boy she rarely thought about.
“Never mind,” she muttered, irritated with herself for driving away all the sexiness of the moment. Irritated with him for letting her.
“Uh-uh,” he said, moving slowly toward her. “No never mind.” He gave her time to back away, and his eyes seemed to glow in satisfaction when she stayed.
Sam stopped just inches from her before he gently wrapped his fingers around her long ponytail, tipping her head back so she had no choice but to meet his questioning gaze head-on.
“This article for Stiletto—the personal one—that’s why you want to end your dry spell?”
She shook her head. “It was only the catalyst. Not the reason.”
“What’s the reason?”
She looked away, wondering how much to reveal. She decided to play it safe.
“I want—I want to experience it.”
“Experience …?”
“Sam!”
“Riley. Say it.”
“Sex! I want to have sex, because, well … because. Unless I’ve been lying for the past several years in my articles, it’s supposed to feel good. Great. Whatever.”
“Oh, it’s not whatever,” he said, his voice going low as his fingers tightened in her hair. “Not with me.”
“Yeah?” she asked, moving closer until her breast brushed against his chest. “Because all I’ve seen is a guy who chickened out the first time and freaked out the second time.”
“I’m not freaked out. But that was quite the bomb you just dropped on me. Here I was trying to figure out if I had any moves that you hadn’t already seen and analyzed, and now I find out you haven’t seen any. I don’t know which is more pressure.”