by Flynn, Avery
Well, he hadn’t played that kind of guy when he was in Hollywood, and he sure wasn’t going to start now. Pulling his head out of his ass, he marched over to the front door and yanked it open.
Natalie stood shivering in the soft glow of his front porch light, hopping from foot to foot. “Thank God, I thought you were ditching me again.”
“Nope.” He stepped back so she could enter, feeling suddenly warmer despite the cold wind following her inside.
“Wow. This is not what I expected.” She completed a full circle in the middle of his great room. “Not at all.”
Sean looked around the converted firehouse, with its cavernous great room that flowed into the kitchen without any interior walls, and all he saw was work. He’d painstakingly finished the hardwood floors and filled in the brick’s mortar where time had chipped it away, but his mental to–do list went on for several pages.
She brushed her palm across the uneven, exposed brick walls. “These are awesome.”
Having seen her pristine, white, dirt–never–stood–a–chance office, he had a hard time believing the unfinished, raw house did anything other than give her the heebie–jeebies. “They’re the original firehouse walls. Same with the metal staircase that goes up to the loft.”
“But not the floors,” she mused.
Sean looked down at the still shiny hardwood floors. Each board represented the best money he’d ever spent on therapy—also the only money he’d ever spent on therapy. “I added them. It was just concrete before.”
“It’s beautiful.” She turned on the full force of her brighter–than–a–Klieg–stage–light smile. “But it’s missing something.”
“An air freshener,” he quipped.
“Nothing kills burned popcorn smell but time. I know that from personal experience.” She laughed. “No, you’re missing a fireman’s pole. This was the old East County Firehouse, right?”
“Yeah, Ruby Sue bought it at auction. I’m renting it from her. It never had a pole.”
“That’s too bad, I would have loved to have given it a try.”
Just the mental picture of Natalie sliding down the pole with her skirt flying up was enough material to fill the spank bank for a decade.
He clenched his jaw so tightly it made his temples ache. Down, boy. She’s your boss. The one who wants to change everything about the brewery. Plus she doesn’t even like you, let alone want to sleep with you.
His stubborn dick ignored the advice as he stood by the closed front door and watched her stroll around the open space, looking as if she fit right in.
Stopping next to the big–screen TV he never turned on, she shrugged off her puffy winter coat, revealing a pale–blue cardigan with a row of tiny buttons sparkling in the light. Sean jammed his hands into his jeans pockets to keep from reaching out for her.
He’d never understood the naughty librarian thing some guys had—not until he met Natalie Sweet.
All he wanted to do was unwrap her.
Still scoping out the space, she laid her coat over the back of his slate–gray couch, put her hands on her hips, and inhaled a deep breath. The move stretched her soft cardigan enough that her buttons deserved hazard–duty pay.
And he thought he’d been hard before. There were forests with less wood than he sported in his jeans right now.
“I don’t want to freak you out, but I have paperwork for you.” She nodded toward her tan leather satchel she’d set on the floor. “But let’s talk about what’s going on at the brewery first.”
Everything hard behind his zipper started to deflate. Nothing like a little bad–news reality to get rid of a raging hard–on. Someone with insider–level knowledge of the Sweet Salvation Brewery was behind the trouble. He knew it like he knew the smell of fresh hops.
“I need a beer for this.” He rubbed his forehead. “Want one?” He crossed the open great room to the kitchen and opened the fridge.
“Sure, thanks.”
He reached past the recently released Sweet Proposal Ale and grabbed two unlabeled, brown long–neck bottles. Watching Natalie unpack a notebook and three pens from her bag, he popped the caps and strolled over to the couch.
He set the bottles on the refurbished pallet coffee table next to her stuff. “Something I’m working on.”
“For the brewers invitational?” She picked it up and took a long, slow drink. Her eyes closed and she savored the dark brew.
Sean’s mouth went dry and he sat down beside her. “Yep. A stout.”
“This is good.” She held up the bottle in a toast.
“But not great.” He’d been working on the recipe for months. The dark stout’s flavoring emphasized the slightly sour notes produced by the dry–roasted malt and burnt–caramel bitterness, but it was missing something. What that thing was, he didn’t have a fucking clue.
Natalie took a second swig and then her pink tongue darted out to capture a dot of creamy foam from her lip. “I don’t know, I might argue with you on that point.”
He couldn’t look away from her full lips and imagining how they’d taste. “You argue about everything.”
“Only when I’m right.” She winked playfully and twisted on the couch to face him, bringing her knee in contact with his.
Heat, tension, and something he didn’t want to define strung his body tight. “You ever wrong?”
“It’s been known to happen.” Her thumb traced around the bottle’s opening as slowly and deliberately as she toyed with her necklace.
Her pink lips were so kissable, so inviting, so damn close and getting closer with every inch he leaned toward her.
“Sean.” She whispered his name as her eyelids began to drop and her mouth to open. She set her beer down on the coffee table with a hard clank—and foam rushed up the bottle’s neck like a geyser and poured across the table. “Shit.”
Sean grabbed the collar of his T–shirt behind his neck and yanked it over his head so he could use it as a towel to stop the flow of beer before it ran off the edge and onto the floor. He sopped up the suds, gathered the material into a ball, and hustled it over to the kitchen, where he dropped it with a wet thud into the stainless–steel sink.
Natalie sat as still as a statue on his couch, her eyes round with surprise and a flush turning her cheeks pink. “I’m sorry…I…uh…”
Only then did Sean realize he was now standing shirtless in front of his boss, the woman who he shouldn’t give two rats’ asses about but still wanted to impress.
You, Duvin, are doing a real fucking bang–up job of that.
Natalie refused to down the rest of her beer in one gulp, no matter how badly she wanted to relieve the hundred–year drought in her mouth.
Sean wasn’t the first man she’d seen shirtless in all his Apollo–like glory and, God willing, he wouldn’t be the last. Still, the sight of his six pack and hard pecs wouldn’t be something she’d forget anytime soon and, for once, she couldn’t think of a damn thing to say.
They just stared at each other, heat as potent as anything they brewed up at the Sweet Salvation Brewery nuking the air between them.
Look away, Natalie. Look away!
But she didn’t. Even blinking became a crime against nature. She took in his broad, well–defined shoulders, the thick muscles curving his biceps, and the trail of dark hair that traveled from his bellybutton to behind the top button of his low–slung jeans. Her bra tightened, the unlined lace chaffing her hard nipples, and a honey–thick river of desire flowed through her veins until her heart pounded like a kettledrum in her ears.
“I’ll be right back.” Sean spun on his heel, his rubber–soled work boots squeaking against the polished wood floor, and took off up the metal staircase leading to the loft.
He was gone before the first embarrassed flush bloomed in her cheeks, but once it did, the sun paled in comparison to the heat making her face pulse. Her fingers flew across the pearl necklace in time with her rushed heartbeat, and her eyes darted around Sean’s house.
The exposed bricks that should look worn and dirty instead seemed raw and unflinching. The unapologetic simplicity of the open–space design offered up a what–you–see–is–what–you–get vibe. Add to it the slate–gray, dusty–red, and wrought–iron color palette that didn’t have even a dab of compromise. All of it together was a testosterone palace screaming out at Natalie that she didn’t belong here.
Like she didn’t know that already.
She needed to ignore the giddy feeling in her stomach that started whenever she was near Sean and finish what she came here to do. Then she could get the hell away from Sean, his dude’s dude house, and his sinfully lick–o–licious abs.
Grabbing her red pen and her notebook, she blocked off a three–column chart, making the first column half the size of the other two. That felt better. Nothing like a little organization to ease the uncertainty of life. Across the top she wrote Date, Problem and Those Present. The knot at the base of her neck loosened, and she rolled her head from shoulder to shoulder.
Next, she took her green pen and filled in the appropriate information to the best of her knowledge. She’d need to wait for Sean to double–check the complete listing of who was present when each event took place, but she could at least get the basics down. Humming to herself, she filling in the orderly columns with her neat handwriting. Her blood pressure settled back into its normal level—right in time for Sean’s reappearance.
He hesitated at the base of the steps and her pulse did a quick jig. She tightened her grip on the green pen.
He’d put on a black Sweet Salvation Brewery shirt, covering up the miles of sinewy muscles—the memory of which would take an atom–splitting blast to dislodge from her brain.
“Sorry.” He ran his hands through his thick hair, pushing the waves away from his face and exposing the small scar above his eye—the same one that reminded her of something she couldn’t remember. The more she tried to bring the shimmery recollection into the light, the further it faded into the background.
“Sorry for what?” Being uber hot and utterly frustrating?
He shrugged. “I overreacted about the beer.”
“Don’t sweat it. The floors look amazing. If it was my house, I’d have probably taken off my shirt to save them too.” Oh my God! What was she saying? Change the subject, now, Natalie. “Soooo…” She drew out the word into several syllables while she fumbled for something to say. The notebook on the coffee table snagged her attention. “I made a chart so we could see if there was any overlap on people at each accident site.”
“Of course you did.” Sean crossed the room in a few long–legged strides and sat down beside her on the couch.
Having him so near turned her brain to mush again and she reached up for the comfort of her pearl necklace.
He wrapped his fingers around her hand, stopping her before her fingers reached their destination. “What’s the story with the necklace?”
“It’s a boring story.” She gulped over the lump that had formed in her throat. “You don’t want to hear it.”
“I do.” He squeezed her hand, his thumb grazing the top in a circular motion that eased the tension eating away at her.
Part of her wanted to touch each pearl twelve times. The other part wanted nothing more than to steal a little of Sean’s strength by continuing to hold his hand. Instead, she opted for sanity and slid her fingers from between his. She clasped her hands together in her lap, anchoring herself to reality. “So you know about my family, right?”
He nodded his head.
“Yeah, they aren’t your typical family. Running moonshine, stealing cattle, drunk and disorderly, public protests, and, according to rumor, my grandmother burned down the local Department of Motor Vehicles.” MeMaw had sworn six ways to Sunday that she hadn’t done it. The fire marshal determined an electrical short had started the blaze, but the good people of Salvation rarely remembered that part. “Plus my Uncle Julian lobbied Ruby Sue for years to add pot to her pecan pie. He said it was the only thing that could make it better. Like I said, not typical.”
“I’d call it…” Sean stared at the ceiling while he no doubt searched for the right euphemism for crazy. “Unique.”
“That’s one word for it.” She chuckled. “But if you were the kind of kid who made her first organizational chart in Crayola in pre–school, you’d understand how off–putting that kind of chaotic life could be. I had my first anxiety attack in middle school. I hyperventilated during the science fair when my dad got into a fight with the principal about the school canceling the drama program. Olivia was big into that and it wasn’t fair that they’d cut funding for no good reason.”
That night was seared into her brain. The embarrassment. The panic. The weight of all those judgmental eyes staring right at her. The incident had exposed a crack in her foundation that would only get worse.
Sean reached out and covered her white–knuckled hands. So grateful for the understanding, she almost broke apart but pulled back just in time.
Taking a deep breath, she continued. “My anxiety got worse from then on, but I had my sisters with me all the time. We were like the Three Musketeers, standing together against a town that didn’t much like our family and, by association, us.” It hadn’t been a fun time, but she’d survived. Foolishly, she’d thought the anxiety would disappear as soon as she left Salvation. “Then I went to college, far away from home and my sisters. Halfway through the first semester, I had an anxiety attack so bad I couldn’t leave my dorm room for two weeks. Long story short, Miranda found a therapist who came to see me. Without Dr. Kenning, I’m not sure I would have ever left that room on my own power.”
She slid a hand free of Sean’s comfort and ran her fingers across the necklace. “Dr. Kenning gave me the necklace at the end of my intensive therapy, as a sort of graduation gift. So now you know, I’m just as kooky as the rest of the Sweets.”
He squeezed her hand and leaned in close, resting his forehead against hers. “Normal is overrated.”
“Oh, but wouldn’t it be nice for a change?” She laughed, breaking the spell. An awkwardness seeped into her bones. Only a few people knew the story behind the necklace, and now Sean was one of them. That she’d opened up to him…well, it scared her. Maybe there really was more to him than she’d first thought.
She offered him a strained smile. “Enough about my mysterious necklace. We have a brewery to save.”
He raised an eyebrow at her forced cheer but seemed to play along. Her heart hiccuped in her chest. Damn.
He pulled out a sheaf of papers from the stack he carried. “I hit pay dirt in my office.”
She straightened in her seat. “What did you find?”
“The accident reports for the other incidents over the past two weeks.” A sheepish smile took over his normally taciturn expression. “They were at the bottom of the third pile I looked through.”
“Great.” She took the papers, careful to keep her fingers from brushing his—again. For her own self–preservation, she needed a safety bubble when it came to Sean O’Dell or she’d end up falling for him and that couldn’t happen. “Why don’t I check them out while you add who was around when each accident occurred into the chart.”
He picked up the blue pen and the notepad from the coffee table.
“Not that pen.” She grabbed his wrist and a warm tingling sensation danced across her skin, burning her in the best way. So much for her safety bubble. “Here.” She held out the green pen. “Use this one.” Her voice sounded off to her own ears.
“Why?”
“Because the blue one is for suspects only.” Surely he could see that, the logic was apparent. “Color coding allows you to take in information at only a glance. It’s very efficient.”
He raised an eyebrow and gave her the same look people on the subway gave to the guy wearing an aluminum hat and talking to his Hello Kitty watch.
She was about to launch into a mini–lecture about the many studies that had bee
n done on the subject when he dropped the blue pen and accepted the green one. She mentally did a happy dance. “Thanks.”
He gave her a questioning look. “For what?”
“For not making me feel weird.” About the reports, about her habits, about the beer, about pretty much everything that had most folks giving her the side eye.
“There’s plenty weird about you, but all in a good way.” He turned serious. “Point me in the direction of anyone who ever tells you different and I’ll knock sense into them.”
Unsure what to say when a flock of butterflies had taken flight in her stomach, she picked up the thick stack of accident reports, determined to get lost in the welcoming arms of data.
A half–hour later, she collapsed back against the cool leather of Sean’s couch. He relaxed beside her, his shoulder touching hers, the contact sending delightful shivers across her skin. His touch might—okay, did—distract her, but not enough to pull her completely away from the task at hand. Few things did. It was one of the things that had helped her become one of the top efficiency consultants in the country. She was always about the task at hand.
“Please tell me you’re seeing some overlap of employees in the chart because I have a big fat goose egg after going through the accident reports.”
Sean shook his head. “Some folks keep showing up, but we have a small staff, so it’s bound to happen.”
“Who do you have?” The answer was there, they just weren’t seeing it yet.
“Well, Billy was at the fermentation tank before it started leaking, but he just got ten stitches in the head from the nozzle valve switch.”
Billy was relatively new and still familiarizing himself with the ins and outs of the brewery. To say the goofy kid had a bad case of hero worship when it came to Sean was an understatement. Billy spent most of his time following the brewmaster around like a puppy dog hoping to hear “good boy” from its owner.
“I don’t buy it,” she said. “Who else?”
“Hailey, but she’s been with the brewery long before I ever got there, and your Uncle Julian always seemed to trust her more than anyone else.”