by Avery Flynn
He slipped his fingers beneath the hem of her red sweater, raising the soft material until he had to relinquish the taste of her creamy skin so he could pull her sweater off. With the tip of his finger, he followed the trail of pale peach freckles across her collarbone and over the upper swells of her breasts, a wave of goose bumps following in his finger’s wake.
When his finger disappeared into the deep valley of her cleavage encased in a lacy black bra, Miranda closed her eyes and dropped her head back, her hair cascading down to the polished wood table. It had been so long since he’d seen her like this—warm, inviting, devastating in her willingness to go after what she wanted wholeheartedly. The unfinished business between them snapped from the past to the present, and he meant to finish it here and now.
Her tempting nipples pushed against the flimsy, see-through material, begging to be touched. He dropped his head, licked the lace covering her hard nub, then blew against the damp spot, eliciting another throaty moan that grabbed him by the balls and squeezed. “What do you want, Miranda?”
“You know what I want.”
Loving the breathy quality to her voice because it meant she was just as far gone as he was, Logan traced a circle around her nipple. He could see she wanted him, but he needed to hear it. “Tell me.”
“This.” Miranda raised her blue-eyed gaze to him, reached behind her, and undid her bra. The black lace fell from her skin, revealing two of the most perfect tits he’d ever seen. The sound of her amused chuckle told him she hadn’t missed the effect. “Please.”
It was all the answer he needed. Dropping his mouth to her heated flesh, he traced the outline of her light pink nipple before flicking it with his tongue and switching his attention to her other breast.
“God, yes,” she whispered as she writhed against him.
His hand dipped between them to the button of her jeans. It flicked open with only the slightest pressure, and as he lowered the zipper, she moaned his name, anticipation and agony heavy in each syllable. Desperate to touch her, but hampered by the angle, he slid his thumb into her lace panties and caressed her slick folds.
“Damn, you feel good.” He pressed lightly on the nub, and her thighs tensed as she arched into him. “So hot and wet for me.”
“It’s been so long, I’m sure just about anyone would get me like this.” She rocked against him, twisting her hips to increase the friction.
“You’re a lousy liar.” Withdrawing his thumb, despite her regretful moan, he used it to trace a wet line across her nipple, then licked the sweet juice away. Greedy for more, he sucked her other nipple into his mouth, tugging on the nub as she squirmed beneath him and moaned.
“Enough.” She shoved at his shoulders, pushing him back, and hopped off the table.
Dazed by her sudden rejection, his mind went blank. But then she reached for his shirt, yanking it out of his pants. She made fast work of his zipper and had her hand wrapped around his aching hard length before his slacks dropped to his ankles.
He nearly came just from the contact of her cool fingers on his overheated flesh. “Miranda.”
“Oh no, you’ve been torturing me.” Sinking down to her knees, she raised her blue-eyed gaze to him. “Now it’s my turn.”
The exquisite torment of her tongue hurt so good he couldn’t stop the low groan from escaping. She followed the move by wrapping her lips around the crown and engulfing him, then pulling back and starting the process again. When he thought it couldn’t get better, she took him again deep into her hot mouth. Looking down and seeing her glistening lips wrapped around him amped up the tingling sensation in his balls. She gazed up at him with wide blue eyes. If he didn’t stop her now, he’d lose control. There was no way he’d do that before he sent her over the edge.
He stepped back, the cool air in the bank vault crisp against his throbbing dick, and pulled her into a standing position. “Do you have a condom?”
“No.” Miranda, her face flush with need, reached down with shaking fingers and unzipped her knee-high boots before kicking them off with urgency. “But there are other options.” She hooked her fingers in her jeans and slid them over her round hips and down her long legs. Naked except for a pair of black lace underwear that showed almost as much as it hid, she eliminated the space between them. Her deft fingers loosened his tie and unfastened the buttons on his shirt.
“Do you want me, Logan?” She spread his shirt wide and pushed it off his arms. The striped button-up shirt fluttered to the floor.
“You have no idea how badly.” Hooking his fingers into the tiny elastic band of her panties, he pulled her forward until his hardness brushed against the damp lace.
He lowered his head and moved his hands around to cup her full ass, just as desperate to give her release as he was to find his own. The buzz of the intercom sounded before his lips even touched hers.
He and Miranda jumped apart.
“Excuse me, Mr. Martin.” Sharlene paused. “Your appointment is here… The developers, and Mr. Hampton needs to access his safe deposit box.”
Reality crashed down like a brick wall. Remembering his home training, he pushed the talk button to respond, praying he didn’t sound like a man who had just lost his mind—which he was. “We’ll be out in just a minute, Sharlene.”
Miranda stood a foot away, her chest heaving, her blue eyes drained of passion and a bright pink blush staining her cheeks. “Oh, my God.”
“It’s okay, the door is a foot thick. No one could hear us.” He grabbed his slacks off the floor and pulled them on.
She hadn’t started to put on her clothes, was instead clutching them to her magnificent breasts. “That doesn’t matter, they’ll all assume.”
True. The Salvation gossip hotline circuits must have overloaded the minute he’d closed the vault door. Nothing to be done about that.
“They would have assumed it whether we had done…” He waved his hand in the air. “…this or not.”
Miranda arched an eyebrow and shot him a saucy grin. “And do you get frisky in the bank vault on a regular basis?”
“No.” He laughed. “But you’re a Sweet, and it’s not like your family is known for common sense.”
The second the words were out, Logan knew he’d just put his foot so deep in his mouth it would give him indigestion for a week. Her body, so soft beneath his touch a moment before, turned rigid. His stomach turned into a lead weight, and his pulse went wild.
“And you’re a Martin. We couldn’t have the town thinking you’d gone slumming. Again.” Sarcasm dripped from her voice as she snapped her bra shut and shoved her sweater over her head. “Well, don’t worry, I’ll set the gossips straight.”
Regret, the most merciless of vises, tightened his lungs. Hurting her feelings had been the last thing he’d wanted. He stuffed his shirttails into his pants and put his tie back in place. “Miranda, I didn’t mean––”
“For this to happen.” She pulled on her jeans and snapped them closed. “That makes two of us.”
She rammed her feet into her boots and zipped them up before his muddled brain could figure out what to say to fix this, because whatever this was it went beyond the bet.
“Miranda…” Crossing to her, he fumbled for whatever words would make it right. “There will be talk…”
“Do you even know what it was like for me in this town after Mr. Cooper found us parked out by his barn after I’d lost my virginity to you? Oh, they laughed about how boys will be boys when it came to you, but I had a scarlet A tattooed on my forehead. It didn’t matter that I had a full scholarship to an Ivy League school. It didn’t matter that I had plans for my future. All the small-minded gossips in this town could say was here was another crazy Sweet trying to trap a good man into marriage. And you never said one word to defend me. Not. One. Why do you think this is the first time I’ve set foot in Salvation since high school graduation?
” She sucked in a ragged breath, her gaze steady but bright with emotion. “Believe me, no one wants what just happened to come to light any less than I do—not even you—and I’d appreciate it if you just keep your mouth shut about the whole thing.”
Guilt twisted him. He’d heard the talk, but he’d been too young, too cocky, and too fucking dumb to do the right thing at the time by speaking up and telling everyone to shut the hell up. Now, she wanted his silence. He couldn’t give her the brewery, but he could at least give her that.
She reached up and straightened his tie, her fingers lingering on his chest. Hurt—old and new—shimmered in her eyes, and he wished he could take back everything after the intercom went off. He nearly vocalized the wish, but Miranda blinked the emotion away before circling around him and heading to the door. She paused, her long fingers wrapped around the door handle and her back to him. “Are you ready?”
His chest pinched. To have Miranda walk out the door? Absolutely not. “Yeah.”
She straightened her shoulders and tilted her chin higher, then pulled open the door.
Chapter Nine
Riled up in more ways than one, Miranda stomped down the brewery’s hallway, wanting nothing more than to get lost in a pile of work so she could forget about Logan and the itch he’d caused that still needed to be scratched. But when she swung the door open to her small office, she found her sister sitting behind the desk, clacking away at her keyboard.
“You look like you’ve been up to no good.” Natalie pushed her glasses up the bridge of her pert nose. “Do tell.”
Miranda flopped down into the guest chair. “You don’t want to know.”
Her sister leaned forward. “Don’t make me call Olivia. You’ll know she’ll have the truth pulled out of you in about three seconds flat.”
“Logan Martin.” Specifically his lips and hands and fingers and six-pack abs so beautiful they deserved their own billboard.
“Oh shit.” A divot of worry carved itself into her sister’s forehead. “Did you kill him?”
“Worse. I kissed him.” And she wanted to do it again. God, what was wrong with her?
Natalie gasped, and her cheeks turned pinker than her pastel cardigan. “Did you have sex with him?”
Miranda squirmed in her seat. “Almost.” What she wouldn’t give to have finished what they’d started. At least then she would have the orgasm afterglow to go with the mental palm to her head for messing around with he-who-should-not-be-touched.
“Where?”
Now it was Miranda’s turn to blush. “In the bank vault.”
Natalie’s eyes rounded, but she didn’t say a word. Instead, she picked up the phone, fast-dialed a number, and then clicked on speaker phone.
The other person on the line picked up and said, “Olivia Sweet, Hargrove Public Relations.”
Natalie crossed her arms and leaned back in the chair. “You will not believe what your sister just did.”
“What’s wrong with your voice? Am I on speaker? You know I hate being on speakerphone.”
Natalie rolled her eyes. “It’s necessary, Miranda’s right here.”
“Hey Manda, what did you do? Try to make Nattie wear a jewel tone?”
“No, she became…intimate with Logan Martin.” Natalie paused and raised her palm to her throat, covering her pearl necklace. “In the Martin Bank and Trust bank vault.”
“Go get you some, you kinky girl. Does he still have a great ass? My God, his body was lickity-lick good.”
Truth be told, his ass was even better now than when he was a high school quarterback. Damn, she’d gone to games just to admire the way his football pants had molded to his butt. “I did not have sex with him.”
“Too bad, that boy is fine.”
“Olivia, you’re not helping.” Natalie let out an exasperated huff. “Don’t you remember what happened the last time she was with him?”
“Loosen up and live a little. Logan’s hot. Anyway, high school was eons ago.”
Embarrassment ate its way through Miranda’s belly. This conversation was not what she needed right now. “Again, I didn’t sleep with him, and I’m not planning to ever get close enough to talk to him again.”
“Smart move.” Natalie nodded her head emphatically.
Olivia snorted. “Chicken shit move.”
“Please, can we please talk about something else? Like the brewery we own that’s falling apart around us.”
“Sean is rebuilding the loading dock.” Natalie smoothed her already tightly clipped-back hair. “I tried to get him to walk me through the brewery process, but I couldn’t get more than three words out of him.”
“Don’t take it personally, he’s just the quiet type,” said Miranda.
“You probably scared him off with your charts and graphs and pearls,” Olivia countered. “You’re still wearing the pearls, aren’t you, June Cleaver?”
“Oh shut up, Olivia,” Natalie said. “However, he did confirm that we’re all set for brewing. Now we just need buyers.”
“I have a handful lined up, but we really need to get the Boot Scoot Boogie to start carrying our beer.”
The biggest honky-tonk in three counties, the Boot Scoot Boogie was a draw for country musicians from up and comers to headliners. The place was packed from Wednesday’s Ladies Night to Sunday’s last call and had plenty of bar traffic during the rest of the week. Getting them to carry Sweet Salvation Brewery beer could make or break the brewery.
“Sounds like you two are on it. Carry on, ladies. I’ll be there as soon as I can get some time off.”
“When are you going to be able to make it home?” Miranda asked.
“When did Salvation become home, Manda?” Olivia laughed. “Don’t start drinking the crazy Kool-Aid now. We’re flipping this brewery to DeBoer Financial so you get that big corner office, not getting sucked back into the loony world of Salvation.”
Had she called it home? She had. What the hell was that about? “Slip of the tongue, but we could use some of your PR genius, Olivia.”
“I have a couple of weeks’ worth of vacation stored up. Let me see what I can work out.”
“Let us know. It’s been too long.” Eight months to be exact. Sure, they were on the phone with each other a million times a week, but there was nothing as good as being together. Nothing.
“Damn straight. Look, I have to get into a meeting before the boss notices I’m late.”
“Talk to you soon.” Miranda and Natalie chimed in together.
“Will do. Oh, and Manda? Go have some dirty, nasty smexy times with Salvation’s version of Prince Charming.” Olivia hung up before Miranda had a chance to respond. That was happening a lot to her lately.
Grocery shopping equated to the seventh circle of hell for Logan, especially after he’d caught two old biddies in the produce aisle whispering about what had happened between him and Miranda in the vault. Damn his promise to Miranda to keep his mouth shut, and damn the people in Salvation who couldn’t leave well enough alone.
“You gonna crush that box of Crunchy Yum Yums or put’em in your buggy?” Ruby Sue leaned against her shopping cart.
Logan tossed the mangled box in with the mound of frozen foods in his cart.
“Probably the healthiest thing in there, and that’s a sad fact.” She jerked her chin toward the top shelf. “Now grab the store-brand granola off the top shelf for me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” On autopilot, he swiped the blue-and-white box and handed it to her.
At that moment, the squeaky wheels of another cart pulled his attention away from Ruby Sue. Miranda halted at the opposite end of the aisle, a flush creeping up from her low-neck green T-shirt. She’d pulled back her hair, wore skin-skimming yoga pants, and had a startled look on her face. His heart sped up and for a few precious seconds, the world slowed down, and a kind of hope l
ightened his shoulders, but then she spun the cart around and quick-stepped it out of the aisle.
The stark reality of the situation weighed his shoulders down like an anvil. Even if the brewery didn’t exist, she was still the woman he couldn’t have no matter how much he wanted her. And he had to admit, even if just to himself, that he wanted her—always had wanted her. Sometimes being a Martin sucked giant hairy balls.
“Look.” Ruby Sue poked him in the arm with a surprisingly strong jab. “If an old lady knows anything, it’s that fate loves to spit in the eye of idiots who think they have everything figured out.”
Still staring at the empty spot where Miranda had been, he shook his head and turned his attention back to Ruby Sue. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Course you don’t.” She winked a rheumy eye at him. “Why would you? Idiot men.”
The old woman shuffled down the aisle, leaving him to wonder what in the hell was going on with his life.
Logan bit into a grilled cheese sandwich stuffed with bacon and jalapeños and leaned back against The Kitchen Sink’s vinyl booth to enjoy the punch of spice mixed with smoky bacon and gooey cheese. Getting lost in a bottle had never been much of a draw for Logan, but the bliss produced by an artery-clogging shot of comfort food got him every time.
“That stuff is going to kill you.” Hud sliced into a baked chicken breast surrounded by steamed broccoli.
“At least I’ll die happy. That shit…” Logan nodded at his friend’s plate, “is just depressing.”
Hud shrugged his wide shoulders. It had been more than a decade since they’d played ball together, but the burly mechanic looked like he’d just stepped off the field. “I like eating healthy.”
“Uh-huh. That’s why you eat lunch here every day?” Logan took another oversized bite of his sandwich. “Has nothing to do with a certain waitress?”
Hud’s gaze locked on his plate. “No way.”
Ellen, the waitress in question, stopped by the table, their ticket already torn off and ready to be slapped on the table. “Anything else?”