Maisie’s broken finger throbbed as she set the empty keg aside when her phone beeped. She needed painkillers. Pronto. She looked at the screen, unsurprised to find Clara checking in. How did it go?
Maisie texted back with her uninjured fingers. You tell me. Clara would have been stalking social media all night, making sure Maisie didn’t screw things up. Even Maisie was still waiting for the bomb to drop. It always dropped.
Big thumbs up on social media. Amelia’s giveaway idea rocked. Buzz looks good.
Maisie sighed, a weight on her chest that she hadn’t realized had been there lifting. Great. Event seemed to go well. People were happy.
I see that all over social media. But you know what I’m seeing more than that?
Maisie winced. “Hopefully something good,” she muttered to herself.
Clara’s text popped up. People posing with you for photographs. You make everyone feel like they’re your friend. Be proud of that, Maisie. Good job tonight.
Warmth carried through her, and she fought the tears welling in her eyes. Not being a disappointment felt…good. For two years now, she’d struggled. Every single day she tried to do the right thing for the brewery, but somehow seemed to fail. This time belonged to her, and maybe…just maybe…this was all finally going to work out. With the help of Hayes, of course. She texted back: I am proud. Thanks. I couldn’t have done any of this without Hayes. He’s been awesome too.
Clara responded, Thank him for me too. Keep it up. You’re rocking this! Love you.
Love you too. Sweet dreams.
With this new sudden lightness in her chest, Maisie drew in a long, easy breath, tucking her phone back in her pocket.
“You look happy.”
She glanced back at Hayes, taking in the strength of him, the solidness of his character. God, those eyes damn near melted her panties off. He stepped closer, bringing all that power into her space. “I take it you’ve heard good news.”
She nodded, clearing her throat, placing herself firmly back into the friend zone. “Clara’s happy with everything that’s being shared on social media.”
His smile was totally Hayes. Undoubtedly supportive and sexy as hell. “That is good news.”
“It is,” she agreed. “Only two more to go, then I can actually breathe again.”
Hayes took another step closer, the air infusing with his scent, a mix between the Colorado countryside and the first taste of spring. Her breath hitched, cheeks warmed, and his mouth twitched up at the corners in response. There, so close, he dipped his chin, bringing his gaze down to hers. “You were very good tonight. These festivals are right in your wheelhouse.”
This close to him, she became fully aware of the little space between them. That if she took a step and lifted her chin, her lips would meet his. “That might be true, if you didn’t do all the heavy lifting.”
He gave her his easy smile. “There’s nothing wrong with needing help. I don’t think even Clara would have objections about that.”
Probably not, but Maisie didn’t want help. Clara and Amelia didn’t need any. Maisie had something to prove, and by the end of this, she hoped she would prove it. Not only to her sisters, but to Pops too. She shrugged, not letting her ego get the best of her. “I guess you’re right.”
Her doubts clearly played out on her face as his reply was immediate. “It’s going to be all right, Maisie. We’ll see this through. Get this done.”
The stableness of Hayes was so damn sexy. So was the trust between them, and even their solid friendship. She never had that with any other man before. Hayes knew her, fully, all the good, all the bad, all the broken and the healed. Her belly fluttered, heat pooling low in her body. Her gaze shifted to his lips, and she licked hers, wondering how he tasted. How he kissed. Was he soft and gentle? Or did he take charge? Maybe both? And why was she even thinking about this?
She quickly looked away, moving out of his space and to the front of the booth to pack up the remaining swag.
Behind her, Hayes cleared his throat. “What else do you need me to do here?”
She refused to lift her gaze. He’d see the lust there. She’d see his lust, and then what would happen? “This last keg and the jockey box can go out to the trailer. It shouldn’t take long after that to take apart all this, and then we can hit the road. The motel is a good twenty minutes from here…” Then a thought—a slightly terrifying one—hit her.
At her silence, Hayes asked, “Problem?”
Confident that the lust was now snuffed out, she faced him. “I’m so sorry, I just realized I never called to get another room booked for you. There’s probably not one available with the festival in town.”
Something devilishly naughty crossed Hayes’s expression. “One room is fine. I know how to keep my hands to myself.”
The desire she thought she’d controlled slammed into her, forcing her to squeeze her thighs together at the steady pulsating there. Hayes’s attention went straight to her thighs, and when he lifted his gaze again, those eyes of his were dark. Her mouth begged to open and say, What if I don’t want you to keep your hands to yourself? Instead, she laughed awkwardly. “Right. Okay, well, let’s get all this packed up and get on our way. I’m exhausted.”
“Sounds like a good plan.” Hayes’s forearms flexed in ways that should have been illegal as he grabbed the empty keg and jockey box. He had a lot going for him. Albeit, it’d been a long time since she’d seen him with his shirt off, but his forearms had grown bigger and harder since he’d worked at the horse farm. She was not immune to the effect those muscles caused. “Be back in a few,” he finished.
She nodded, holding it together by taking a deep breath. The joke was cruel—she finally found a man who made her want and want bad, and made her feel and feel hard, and by appearances, he felt the same way, but he had yet to make a move. And she was too confused by it all to make the move herself. Would they complicate things? Was it wrong they felt this way?
Her heart told her no. Laurel would want them to be happy, especially if that happiness was found in each other. But Maisie’s head was all kinds of messy. Because if it was okay for them to be together, and if Hayes was feeling the heat between them too, why hadn’t he made a move?
Tonight, he seemed…jealous. It didn’t take much to realize he didn’t want her dating anyone. But then if he was jealous, why wasn’t he speaking up? Hayes wasn’t a quiet guy. Or a shy guy. A man who didn’t take what he wanted. The more she thought on it, the more she realized, maybe she simply wanted him so much she made herself believe he wanted her. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d gotten something so wrong.
Determined not to let herself get distracted from what mattered now—the beer festivals—she began untying the backdrop and taking it down. Focused on her task, she was startled when a low voice sounded very close behind her. “Hey.”
She whirled around, finding the guy with the charming smile. He stood close enough that she could smell beer and cigarettes on his breath. “Hey.” A slight chill shivered over her as she looked for Hayes. He was still gone, and when she looked back into the dark, glazed brown eyes in front of her, she got the feeling this guy had waited for exactly that. She slid away from him and settled in front of her booth.
The guy followed her. His voice was low, seductive. “You should ditch that guy and we can go somewhere.”
“Thanks, but no. It’s been a long day.” She scanned the area again, finding most of the booths had packed up and left, only a few stranglers on the other side, like her, who worked at their own speeds.
The guy stepped even closer now. Too close. “Ah, come on, sexy,” he purred. “You’d have a fun time, I promise.”
She noticed his crew of guys were moving in their direction, and suddenly, what seemed like flirting became something different. Coldness crawled up her spine like an icy spider. “Listen, it was nice to meet you, and thanks for the interest in the beer, but in case you can’t take the hint, I’m not interested.”
She winced against the brutal hold. “Ow. Let—”
His hand was ripped away and the guy suddenly went soaring, landing on his ass. Hard.
She jerked her gaze to Hayes, his feet planted wide, his stance at the ready. His snarl was nothing she’d ever heard from him before. “Does that help you understand she’s not fucking interested?”
Maisie blinked. Blood poured from the guy’s nose. “Fuck,” he growled, cupping his face. “You broke my fucking nose.”
Another blink, and the guy’s friends were rushing over. Maisie took in Hayes’s corded neck, the lifting of shoulders as if readying for a fight. “Do not even think about it,” she said, pointing at him. “There is only one of you and four of them.”
Hayes’s gaze flared. “I’d say I’m sorry I’m not going to listen to you, but we both know I’m not.”
Then he charged into the group of angry, drunk men.
5
“That was stupid,” Maisie said, dabbing the small cut under Hayes’s right eye. He sat on the end of one of the double beds in the Durango Lodge, the budget-friendly motel with mountain views. Silence was a hard find. The water gurgled within the pipes and half-heard conversations spilled in from people passing by the door. But the place was clean, and the television worked.
Another dab of the cloth had Hayes fighting a flinch. That small cut was the only evidence of the fight that hadn’t lasted long. Nor was it a fair fight, and Hayes knew that when he charged forward. Being a trained cop, in both self-defense and some martial arts, he allowed himself one punch to the bastard who’d put his hands on Maisie. The others in the group he’d taken down easily since they all were drunk. Security had swarmed in quickly, kicking everyone out, including him and Maisie. His only regret: he hoped Clara didn’t get wind of it. But protecting Maisie, defending her, he didn’t regret that.
Maisie removed the cloth and said firmly to him, “For future reference, I really don’t need you guarding me and going all Captain America on assholes.”
He chuckled. “Captain America?”
Using the soft washcloth, she dabbed again and gave him that cute smile back. “You flattened their asses like some Marvel character. Seriously, where did you learn how to fight like that?”
She thought he kicked ass. Fine by him. But… “One, none of them knew how to fight. Two, they were all drunk. Three, they’re cowards. It was hardly a fight.” He pointed to his cheek. “That was a sucker punch.”
She made a noise in the back of her throat and continued to dab the wound.
Hayes liked this. Her attention. It had been so long since a woman had taken care of him. He’d forgotten how nice the sweet touch of a woman felt. To not have to exist alone. To have someone else to depend on. Yeah, he liked that.
“I’ve got no doubt you can handle yourself,” he explained, “but that doesn’t mean that when some dickhead puts his hands on you and you flinch in pain, I won’t fix it.”
Her smile stopped Hayes’s world from turning. The softness of it, the affection, all the things he couldn’t even name. For months now, he’d been fighting his desire for her. Right here, right now, he wondered what she’d do if he didn’t.
Would she run?
Would she kiss him back?
“Well, thank you for looking out of for me,” she eventually said, pulling the cloth away. His hand gripped her wrist before his brain caught up to him. The moment his fingers tightened around her warm skin, her cheeks flushed deep, and she visibly swallowed before continuing, “Thank you for being here. For helping me with the festivals.”
And there, in the depths of her eyes, he found his answer. She’d kiss him back; he was sure of it. “You don’t have to thank me, Maisie. I want to be here.” He slowly dragged his fingers along her wrist, assessing, but not before feeling the hammering of her pulse beneath his fingers.
Heat flooded his groin. “Besides,” he said, hearing the need in his own voice, “it felt good to unleash some tension on someone who actually deserved it.”
Her hooded eyes lifted to his. “You, tense? Never.”
He scanned over her pouty lips before lifting his eyes to hers. “Hilarious.”
She gave him that cute smile before setting the washcloth on the dresser and grabbing the ointment from the first aid kit she kept in the trailer. She dabbed the ointment onto the wound. He wanted to do the right thing, to say the right thing every step of the way with her, but his gaze fell to her parted lips and he hungered to feel that pouty mouth against his. For a few seconds, there weren’t muffled voices through the door, there was only them and the sweet way Maisie tilted his head up. “There.” She examined the wound then smiled at him. “All better.”
He wasn’t sure if it was the heat pulsating between them, or the realization he made tonight, but he didn’t want to stop where things were going with them. He didn’t want her looking for another guy. He wanted her looking at him. Only him. He reached for her hand and felt her go still as he threaded his fingers with hers, pulled in by something he could no longer control. “You take such good care of me, Maisie.” He glanced up into her eyes, finding them soft and warm. “I’ve never thanked you for that. Told you how much I appreciate everything you've done for me.”
Her chest rose and fell with her heavy breaths. “You don’t need to thank me.”
“No?” He stroked his thumb over the back of her hand, heat flooding him at the way her lips fell open, begging for his kiss. “You never expect anything back, do you? No matter how much of yourself you give.”
Her parted lips shut and opened again with her shudder as he kept stroking his thumb across her skin. Under her fierce stare, he allowed the desire he felt for her to flood him, to finally show her right where his head was at. “I didn’t like seeing that guy put his hands on you. I wanted to hurt him.”
Her gaze held his intimately. “I’d say you achieved that.”
He looked down at their held hands, watched his thumb slide back and forth over her creamy skin. “I don’t think I’d like to see any man put his hands on you.”
“Okay…” she said softly, obviously trying to understand where he was going with this.
He closed his fingers in hers and looked up. “We never asked for this, you and me. Never expected any of this.”
“No, we didn’t,” she agreed softly.
Wanting her to feel something good in a world that had made them both feel pain, he cupped her face. She leaned into his touch, her hair falling on the side of her face, her teeth nibbling on her bottom lip. “I’m tired of not acting on the way you look me.”
“How do I look at you?” she rasped.
“Like you want me to kiss you.”
Her breath hitched, the only response he needed.
He wasn’t wondering if this was a mistake, he was only thinking that he couldn’t run from this anymore. Tonight, he’d seen enough. He didn’t want another man anywhere near her. That was the one truth in front of him. He couldn’t look away anymore. “I’m tired of fighting this, and I suspect you are too.”
She didn’t ask what he meant; she simply licked her lips, readying them for him.
He stroked her soft skin. “Fighting what’s been brewing here for months.” He caught the heated surprise in her eyes, but every guard was down. They weren’t just friends, but something more. Something that was hungry and urgent, that demanded to be fed. He fought back a moan, his cock hardening to steel as he slid a hand across her hip, pulling her in between his legs, needing her closer. “Only question is whether it’s time to act on it or not.”
He expected a response. But the one she gave surprised him. She cupped his face and brought her lips to his.
Maisie knew with the soft press of her mouth against Hayes’s that they were stepping into dangerous new territory, but there was no way in hell she planned to stop. And when Hayes threaded his
fingers into her hair and gave a low growl from his throat, there was no turning back. She’d wanted this. Wanted him. She climbed onto his lap, his hard length resting between her thighs, promising her the pleasure she’d craved for months. His lips traveled to her neck, his heavy breathing brushing across her ear. She unabashedly ground herself against him, needing more, wanting all of him. A moan spilled from her when his free hand came to her hip, his strong fingers guiding her faster, harder against him, like they were teenagers, scared to take it to that next base, but fiercely determined to get each other off.
But she wasn’t a nervous teenager. And neither was he.
Hayes grabbed her tank top and pulled it over her head. With a flick of his fingers, her bra followed, and his callused fingers took her breast. His tongue stroked her nipple before his lips sealed on the taut bud. Her head spun in a thousand directions, asking a million questions, but falling into the pleasure of the moment too…until he lifted his head. His gaze met hers. She was afraid he was going to stop, but she found solidness there, strength. Lost in the swirling whiskey depths of his eyes, she remembered she knew this man. Knew all the good things. Probably knew most of the bad. She never dreamed he’d look at her this way, with hot obsession. His dark eyes yanked her out of her head and into this new space they created together, the hot need pulsating between them. She realized why he hesitated now and what exactly he waited for.
Her permission.
Not wanting to wait a second longer, she grabbed his T-shirt. He had it over his head before she could even lift it up fully. His arms wrapped around her then and he flipped their positions like she weighed nothing at all, hovering over her.
Sassy Blonde: USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR Page 7