A Taste of You (Bourbon Brothers)

by Teri Anne Stanley

  Oh hell. She hadn’t thought this far ahead. She was wearing a sports bra. Which was hard to pull on and off when it was dry. Soaking wet and sticking to her skin and in the back seat of a truck? Well, at least they weren’t in a Mini Cooper.

  Nick cleared his throat.

  She opted for her jeans. The button came open with barely a flick of her thumb.

  Nick’s hands clenched on his thighs and his breath came faster.

  The windows were fogged up now, and the rain continued to beat futilely against the roof.

  Her hands shook as she tried to pull the zipper down, but the wet metal didn’t want to cooperate. Finally, the tab was down. Taking one side in each hand, she began to pull them open. Over her lower belly. Lifting her hips, the fabric went farther. To her thighs. Where it stopped. Something about wet denim made it want to stick to itself, and to her legs. She began to fight, to pull one leg up and push the material down with the other foot, but then was even more wadded up than before.

  She snorted. “Omigod, if this isn’t the sexiest strip tease ever, I don’t know what is.”

  But Nick didn’t seem to mind, though he was laughing, too. He leaned over to grab her leg and pull it toward himself. “Here, let me help.”

  Finally, her sodden jeans were in a heap on the floor, soaking into everything underneath them. And Nick was leaning over her, pulling her closer, running his hands from her shoulders to her hips and back again.

  “Your turn,” she said, but she was touching him now, too. She traced her fingers over his chest, teasing his sharp nipples, scratching through the line of hair that led to his zipper. “Do you need some help?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He scooted his hips forward a little so she could get to his fly. She fought the button this time, but the zipper went easier, revealing plain white underwear.

  “Ooh, tighty-whities.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’d have put on a thong if I’d thought I’d be getting lucky today.”

  How did this guy make her both laugh and need to press her thighs together at the same time?

  His erection pushed the fabric forward, outlining the size and shape of him, making her mouth water. She reached a tentative hand toward him, reveling in the gasp he released when she caressed him.

  He moved then, arching his hips up and shoving the jeans and underwear down. She could have sworn she heard a boing echoing through her head. But she didn’t have time to look—or touch—more because he pulled her beneath him, his hips between her thighs.

  Oh, but then she didn’t need to look or touch, because she felt. Felt the way the ridge on the underside of his cock pressed against her, forcing the fabric of her underwear into her crease, rubbing over her swollen tissues.

  She barely had time to register that before one hand was at her chest, pulling the elastic fabric of her sports bra up to release her throbbing breasts. His mouth covered one nipple while his other hand squeezed the other.

  She was left to do nothing but clutch at the back of his head and arch against him.

  He released her breast and slid a hand between their bodies, fingers finding her center and caressing her, making her brain short circuit. “Jesus, baby. You’re so fucking hot. I gotta have you now, but I wanna make you come for me first. Can you come like this?” He nipped at her breast again.

  Between the tugging at her nipple and his fingers rubbing against her clit, she was close. Very close.

  “Come on baby, let me feel you. Let me hear you.”

  And like that she did. She came against his hand, pulsing and arching and crying out his name while he held her tightly, murmuring to her about how good she was, how hot, how fucking sexy.

  She began to relax slightly, still quivering and feeling aftershocks, but she needed to get him inside her.

  “Do you have a condom?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Yeah I do. I—”

  The front door of the truck swung open and a gust of wind carried in about four gallons of rain. “Hey! You guys okay in—” The head that appeared, retreated so fast Eve was barely able to tell it belonged to Mason. “Um, sorry,” he said from outside the still open door. “I’ll just—”

  “Shut the fucking door!” Nick scrambled up and off of Eve as it slammed shut, grabbing his sodden T-shirt and trying to stretch it to cover her as she covered herself with her hands. “I can’t fucking believe this.”

  “I forgot my drill!” came a muffled shout from outside. “Do you have it in there? And can you hurry? It’s raining out here!”

  Chapter Ten

  “Are you sure you don’t want to—”

  “No.” Nick softened the terse refusal with a smile, and a “We gotta get you in somethin’ dry and warm before you crystallize.”

  “I’m not asking just for you, you know,” Eve huffed from the passenger seat, where she sat huddled, arms wrapped around her knees, teeth chattering.

  Yes, he would very much like to go somewhere and finish what they’d started back in that muddy field, but with Mason’s arrival had come some much needed common sense.

  He had no business screwing this woman in the back seat of a pickup truck. She deserved clean sheets, candlelight, and roses. She deserved someone better than him, but he wasn’t so noble that he was willing to walk away just yet.

  That thought gave him pause. He was the walk away guy. He never promised tomorrow to his employers, much less his lovers. And here he was looking forward to more time with Eve. Not that he had any illusions there was a future for them.

  Hell, he was an alcoholic and she lived at a distillery, which was her life. She was a forever kind of a girl, one who lived with a planner in her hand and her phone in the other, taking care of everyone and everything, and he couldn’t promise he’d be sober tomorrow, much less be a faithful and reliable boyfriend.

  Not that she’d want him, even if he were so inclined. Back to that distillery thing again. She was a Bluegrass princess and he was the son of a deadbeat drunk.

  “What are you thinking about right now?” she asked, her head on her knees turned toward him. She’d put his soggy T-shirt on, but had left her wet jeans in the back seat, and her slim legs were folded up inside his shirt for warmth. Her short dark hair was starting to dry, curling slightly and sticking up in places.

  “I’m thinking about how I’m going to get that wood to your place tomorrow,” he lied. He was thinking about stopping the truck and taking her up on her suggestion in spite of his good intentions.

  “How are you going to do it?”

  Slow, and long, and— Oh. She meant get the lumber. “I’m going to have to get the tires pumped up on my dad’s old trailer. Mason will help me load it.”

  “With the exception of his surprise visit back there, you seem really glad to see him again,” she commented.

  “Yeah. I didn’t realize how much I missed him.”

  “How long had it been?”

  “Five years.” He traced the outline of the coin he kept in his front left pocket. “Five years, three months, and six days.” Shit. He hadn’t meant to be that specific.

  “It seems weird to me that you took off without staying in touch with him.”

  “I kind of left in a hurry, and then I got busy…”

  “Must have been some job you started.”

  He barked out a laugh. It had been a job all right. A major undertaking. But he wasn’t going to tell her about needing to leave to get sober. About the shitty rehab he’d signed himself into and still hadn’t completely paid off. She would feel sorry for him. She’d know he was in a dangerous place at Blue Mountain, and while she probably wouldn’t fire him, she’d definitely worry. And he’d worried enough people in his life. More, realistically, selfishly, he wanted this—thing—between them to continue for a little longer. She’d definitely cool off toward him if she knew everything there was to know.

  The setting sun was starting to shine through the clouds as the truck turned onto the Blue Mountain property
. Eve’s mom’s house had a driveway full of cars.

  “Oh shit,” Eve said. “I forgot tonight was Open Barrel Night.”

  “Open Barrel?”

  “That’s the event we’re hosting when the tasting center’s finished as part of the David and Jamie McGrath Foundation for about fifteen different organizations. Mom was always doing fundraisers for each one, which was exhausting—for all of us. So rather than cut anything out, this year she’s coordinating a big conglomerate event for all the groups to participate in. They invite however many people they want to come and sell the tickets themselves and spend a lot of money on food, liquor, and entertainment—which Blue Mountain provides—hence, the open barrel—and then they divide the proceeds. Tonight’s her last organizing night before the big event.”

  “That’s pretty cool.” His impression of Lorena softened. She was mean, but at least she had a reason to be a pain in the ass about getting the tasting center finished. Except now he was inclined to help Eve shoulder the weight of the obligation to get the job done on time.

  No pressure.

  A crowd of people stood on Lorena’s porch holding glasses and chatting. A few sent curious glances at his big rumbling truck.

  He looked at the woman sitting in the front seat of his truck, disheveled and wearing nothing but her underwear and his oversize, torn, wet T-shirt. She held her soggy jeans in a plastic grocery bag, and her boots sat on the floorboard.

  The driveway between his truck and her garage-top apartment was filled with Lincolns, BMWs, and Cadillacs.

  “How are we going to get you into your apartment without anyone seeing you?” he asked. “Do you want me to take you to your sister’s place?” Allie, he knew, lived across the main street, out of sight of their mother and her friends.

  “Nah. She’s already seen me. Hi, Mom!” she said, waving to the straight-backed woman who’d come to the top of the porch steps to see who was lingering at the end of her driveway.

  “Ohhhkay.”

  Eve turned and shot him a grin. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”

  And she was out of the truck. Walking across the driveway in her bare feet, carrying her boots and bag of wet clothes, wearing his T-shirt. Which had rucked up in the back and was tucked into the back of her thong, baring her ass to his sight. She shot him a look over her shoulder, grinned, and untucked it right before she’d gotten far enough that the people on the porch—and her mother—could see her ass.

  But damn. The view he got was surely enough to keep him awake all night.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  Five minutes past eight. About four more than the two minutes Eve had given her mother before she came knocking on her door to find out why her oldest daughter was marching mostly naked across the driveway.

  “Come in,” she called from the bathroom, where she’d rinsed off the last vestiges of mud and grass from her outdoor adventure and was now dropping a sundress over her clean body.

  “It’s just me.” Allie pushed the door open and padded across the room to flop on Eve’s couch, an Ikea treasure.

  “I was expecting Mother.” Eve came into her tiny combination living room/kitchen and took a couple of bottles of water from the fridge. She tossed one to Allie and opened the other, leaning back on the counter.

  “Yeah, she sent me. I think it would have been too obvious that she was disturbed if she excused herself from the pre-shindig shindig to come over and interrogate you herself.”

  “Interrogate?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me, sister.” Allie produced a bag of M&M’s from somewhere and tore it open. She tipped it into her mouth. “What’s the deal with Hottie Mc Carpenterson? And why were you doing the walk of shame up the driveway in the middle of the evening?”

  “It wasn’t a walk of shame,” Eve protested.

  “Really?”

  “Really.” Unfortunately.

  “So then, what’s that on your neck if it’s not a hickey?”

  “Oh no!” Eve automatically put a hand to her throat to feel for—

  “Ha-ha! Gotcha.” Allie rubbed her belly, smugness oozing from her pores. “I thought you were going to help him tear down a barn.”

  “I did.” She was going to stop there, but in the face of her sister’s knowing stare, she crumbled. “We did. Tear down the barn. And then it started to rain.”

  “So you took off your wet clothes and then borrowed his equally wet shirt because…reasons. Makes sense.”

  And to Allie, that would make sense. But not for her. Not for Eve, who planned out every aspect of her life. Who had only ever had sex with two men, and it had taken months and many carefully planned dates before she even got to second base with them.

  “You work fast. I can’t believe you already got him through your homeland security high risk background check,” Allie commented.

  “Ha-ha.”

  “Well. You have to admit, you do usually schedule things pretty carefully with the guys you get involved with.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m not sure what’s come over me.”

  Allie smirked. “I do. It’s called testosterone poisoning. It floats through the air with pheromones, into your sinuses, and travels to your tootie. And you can’t get rid of it. It occasionally has permanent consequences.” With that, she pointed at her burgeoning belly.

  “Waugh!” Eve shrieked and threw her arms over her head. “Get it out! Get it out!”

  Allie cracked up. “Chill. He seems like a nice guy.”

  Eve straightened and nodded. “Yeah. He is. I like him. But seriously, I just met him, he lives in Knoxville in real life, and he’s got…I dunno. Some kind of…darkness or something.” She wanted to know what that was about, but reminded herself that he wasn’t here for long. He wasn’t hers to keep, and he wouldn’t appreciate her pushing the issue.

  “I thought he seemed really easygoing when I met him the other day,” Allie observed.

  “He is. But it’s like…like a mask—no, that’s not right. He really is easygoing. But he’s hiding something, or hiding from something, maybe.” Something about why he’d left Kentucky for Tennessee. What had happened to him here before he left? She suspected it had something to do with his parents, but maybe that was just her own projections—her issues were about her alcoholic father—surely everyone else’s were, too.

  “We’re all hiding things, though, aren’t we?”

  “Not me! I’m a totally open book.”

  “Really?” Allie’s eyebrow rose. “You’ve told him that you sucked your thumb until you were in the fourth grade?”

  Sixth, actually, though she appreciated Allie didn’t remember that whole issue as well as Eve…and their mother…did.

  “You also don’t have to give the rest of your life to this place,” Allie said.

  Eve froze. “What are you talking about?”

  “I know you hate this job.”

  “No! What are you talking about? I’m good at this job.”

  “You are. But I think there are days when you’d rather be anywhere but here.”

  Was that true? She’d had moments now and then where she wished for more than the problem solver role she’d slid into so easily at both work and home, but did she hate it? Maybe in her darkest, loneliest nights, she admitted it wasn’t everything she wanted, but hate—that was a strong word.

  “He seems to be good for you. Getting you out of your comfort zone.”

  “How so?”

  “When was the last time you walked nearly naked down the driveway in front of two dozen of Mother’s friends?”

  “Good point.” She was starting to loosen her tight grip on herself, wasn’t she? Was that a good thing? “Anyway. Not to change the subject,” Eve said, “but Mother sent you up here to find out why I was frolicking naked with Nick while I was supposed to be here serving mini hot dogs, right?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Tell her we got stuck in the thunderstorm, and that’s why I was late and semi-naked, and I’ll b
e down as soon as I put on some makeup.” She picked up her bag and rooted for her organizer.

  “Cool.” Allie didn’t get up.

  “Anything else?”

  “Have you been to a meeting lately?”

  Eve sighed. Al-Anon. The twelve-step support group she and her sister had started attending when they’d reached high school and realized their father was an alcoholic. It helped them both practice letting go of the idea that they could fix other people—not just the alcoholic in their lives, but other loved ones like Lorena, who was fragile and holding onto her illusions of a perfect life so tightly. Well, it helped Allie stop trying to fix their mother.

  No, it helped Eve, too. She was no longer trying to fix her mother. She was still running around trying to make sure Lorena’s path was clear of obstacles.

  “I went two weeks ago. You?”

  “I’ve been so busy…but I should go again soon. Let me know next time you’re going, we’ll ride together?”

  “Sure.” She’d been busy, too. Which was when she really needed to get in there and hear the message most.

  Allie heaved to her feet. “Okey dokey.” When she reached the door, she turned and said, “You might want to put some of that Burt’s Bees lip balm on. Your mouth looks like you’ve been eating raspberries—and you’re allergic to them.”

  When the door shut, Eve ran to the bathroom to check herself in the mirror. Damn. No hickey, thank God, but she did look like she’d been well and thoroughly kissed.

  Maybe soon she’d be well and thoroughly…you know’ed. Nick Baker might not be planning to stay in the area long, and Eve might be the plan-it-out-to-the-minute-detail girl, but she was beginning to think she might be able to tuck her organizer into her purse for a couple of hours and take a chance—see what happened if she hung around the carpenter for a while longer. He didn’t seem to mind her company.

  She shot herself a grin in the mirror and then started digging through her makeup drawer.

  Mason was lounging on the porch when Nick pulled his truck up to his dad’s house.

  “What are you doing here?” He grabbed his muddy boots from the back seat and picked his barefoot way across the gravel driveway to the steps.