Deliciously Smooth (Naked Brews #1)

by K. B. Jacobs

  I set the boxes and bags on the table, snatched a coffee that I’d specially ordered for Lake, and went through the doors to the brewery. Several of the guys looked up as I entered and gave me a friendly smile or wave. They were all used to seeing me around.

  “Whenever you find time for a break, there are donuts, coffee, and sausage biscuits out in the pub,” I told them.

  Warner had been walking through the brewing room, but he stopped mid-stride, turned around, and headed toward the glass door.

  Harlan snorted. “We all better go, or Warner will scarf it all down before we get out there. Take ten, everyone.”

  “Where’s Lake?” I asked.

  He nodded toward the packaging room. “Riding their asses back there. Maybe you should go save them and sweeten her mood.”

  I grinned and winked. “Challenge accepted.” I strode across the room, used to the noise and wet floors covering my boots with moisture.

  “Guys.” Lake ran a frustrated hand through her short hair as I pushed through the door of the packaging room. “I told you not to fucking mess with that machine. For some reason, it won’t work for anyone but me today.” She ducked under the mysterious piece of machinery. “And I don’t have the time to baby it right now,” she grumbled, her words hushed because she’d crawled under the machine.

  While she was out of sight, I nodded to the guys to head out and then walked over to where she’d crawled. Mmm. This gave me a very nice view of her round ass, sparking ideas about taking her from behind. Fuck, I couldn’t get enough of this girl, even though we’d snatched every moment we could the past few days.

  Something that was actually selfish of me since she was exhausted. When she got a break, I should let her sleep, not fuck her senseless. Never mind that she seemed just as desperate as me to hang on to every little moment we got. Catnaps weren’t going to suffice for much longer, which was part of the reason she was grumpy and yelling at the guys so much. She was working too hard, doing everything to save the brewery any way she could.

  After the door closed behind the guys, I ran my finger up her thigh and whispered, “Morning, gorgeous. I missed waking up to you in my bed this morning.”

  She gasped in a surprised breath that had my cock thickening. “Walsh?” From the dark under the machine, her grin beamed out at me. “What are you doing here so early?” Her eyes widened as if she just remembered the guys in the room.

  “It’s okay. I sent them out to the pub. I brought breakfast for everyone.”

  She scooted out from under the conveyor belt. “You did?” She sounded a little breathless when she stood, her eyes softening as she rose on her tiptoes and brushed her lips across my cheek.

  I inhaled her brisk scent that always reminded me of icy mornings at the edge of a field—snow and grains. Every time I got within six feet of her, I got a bit breathless myself.

  “Well, yeah,” I said, trying to cool down my libido. “It’s in my best interest to make sure everyone here is happy.”

  “Everyone?” She raised a brow in that flirtatious way of hers that always managed to get me going.

  “Don’t start.” I chuckled as I pulled her into my arms. “You’re exhausted and don’t have the energy to finish anything you start with me.”

  She pressed her hips into my erection, causing me to groan low. “Are you sure about that?”

  I tilted her head and claimed her lips hard and deep, putting every bit of my lust and desire for her into the kiss. She wrapped one arm around my neck. With the other, she began tugging at my shirt. When her nails scored the skin of my abdomen, a blaze of fire sizzled down to my cock.

  I had to stop this although my body was fully on board with her actions. I stepped back, panting.

  “Damn, Lake.” I licked my lips. I could taste her there, and I wanted to do more than that. Those silvery eyes of hers had turned navy blue with arousal. Her lips were wet and swollen. “You drive me crazy, you know that?”

  She grinned with feminine satisfaction. “Yeah, it goes both ways.” She winked, but her sauciness was negated with a big yawn. “Is that for me?” She nodded at the coffee cup I still held.

  “Yep, extra-large café mocha with extra whip and a dash of cinnamon.” I held it up for her, and she dove for it. “I also picked you up some of that cream cheese cinnamon bread from Em-Dash that you like so much, if you didn’t squish it by attacking me.” I reached inside the jacket and removed the small bakery box from the inside pocket. The box was only slightly mangled on one corner. I tilted my head at it with a grimace. “Maybe it’s not too bad.”

  “How did you get ahold of a piece of Val’s bread? She sells out every day by nine a.m., and Em-Dash doesn’t open for another half hour.”

  I shrugged. “Kali and Val like you. When I asked if I could come in early and get a piece since you were working so hard over here, they couldn’t say yes fast enough.”

  She opened the box and took a large sniff, closing her eyes as she groaned. “Oh my god, it’s still warm.”

  The look of bliss on her face made getting up at four thirty this morning worth it. I would do that for her every morning if it would always make her this happy.

  She opened her eyes and grinned. “But you can’t tell me those girls were willing to open early for me. No, I know you and how you operate at this point. You flashed that charming smile, sent them a couple of your smooth lines, and they couldn’t wait to do whatever it was you wanted. You don’t fool me, Walsh Thorne.”

  My chest tightened. She was right. She did know me—the real me even if that knowledge didn’t include my real name—and how it was all a very practiced, fake act. One I swore I was going to end soon.

  I’d planned on confessing all before then, but she was already under so much stress with the brewery and the twenty-four-hour shifts, there hadn’t been time.

  And the truth was... I was a selfish coward. I liked my time with her too much. I didn’t have the balls to tell her who I really was when I knew it would stop all those soft little touches and glances that made my heart clench every time she gave me one. But I needed to man up soon.

  Tonight. I’ll do it tonight.

  She brushed a kiss across the corner of my mouth. “I’ll give you a proper thanks later today. Do you want to wait around for me? We almost have this all caught up here, so we should be able to shut down in a few hours.”

  “Thank goodness.” I traced my thumb across the black shadow under her eye. “You need some sleep.”

  She waggled her eyebrows. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

  I laughed. “Yes, because that’s what it really will be. Now eat before the guys come back and you forget to do it. I’ll hang out in your office while you finish up.” She’d taught me lots over the last week about how the brewery lines worked, but when they were in rush mode like they were right then, my inexperience just slowed everything down. I’d been staying out of the way.

  “Thank you, Walsh.” She looked up at me fondly. “For breakfast and taking care of me. It’s been a long time since anyone’s done anything like that.”

  That was just wrong...and sad.

  “I like doing it.” My voice was low and gruff.

  I wanted to be there and do that job for the rest of my life. Too bad when she found out what a fraud I was, there’d be no way she’d let me.

  ***

  I dropped into Lake’s chair behind her desk and closed my eyes. Her office smelled like her, and for that moment, I just wanted to revel in that scent. I wasn’t one of those guys who ever got into candles or all that smelly stuff girls liked, but if someone could bottle Lake’s scent into candle form, I’d burn it every single day.

  That probably seemed creepy to the nth degree, but inhaling her essence settled me. It wasn’t sexual.

  It probably seemed contrary to logic, considering how much we fought, but I’d discovered something early on. For Lake, fighting was foreplay. She loved to have a good yelling disagreement and then go at it like
rabbits. I was always willing to comply because sex spurred on by anger with Lake was hotter than anything I’d ever experienced before.

  Afterward, when all I had left for muscles was goo, and I lay there, inhaling her scent that surrounded me, I felt at peace. There weren’t many times in my life when I’d ever truly felt that way.

  I opened my eyes, shaking my head. Enough poetic musing. I had work to do. I’d gone out to the truck to grab my leather messenger bag. Opening it, I grinned at the sight of the large glass jar and pulled it out.

  Lake always had a big jar of M&Ms on her desk. Melissa told me she only ate the red ones, and I’d seen the truth of it over the past several days. I had no idea why, but I’d spent a couple of hours last night, sorting through half a dozen bags of M&Ms to create a jar full of red candies—just for her. I slipped it into the bottom drawer of her desk for her to find later.

  As I did so, I noticed the financial ledger for the brewery. I pulled it out. This was exactly what I needed for some research I’d been doing.

  I’d read an article recently about small, specialty farming and how it was becoming more and more common. When Naked Brews had their issue with the missing stock, I began to wonder if that kind of setup could benefit them. The article had talked about restaurants and specialty cooking stores working in cooperation with small, locally owned farms to guarantee that the business would have the ingredients they needed when they needed them. It was a win/win for everyone. For the farmer, he was guaranteed there would be a demand for the crop he grew. For the business, they had the ingredients they needed, and for the customer, it ultimately meant lower prices because a middleman was cut out of the process.

  I just happened to know a farmer at the base of the mountains. The last couple of days, we’d been discussing the possibilities of switching his crops to hops and how much that would cost.

  Damian had already approved the idea.

  Two hours later, my eyes were crossing with all the numbers. Naked Brews was barely breaking even. Mistakes like the grain issue were costing them huge when it came to their bottom line. There were ways to streamline almost all their processes so it would work more efficiently in the long run, but it would take some upgrades to make that happen, and those would cost money.

  They desperately needed a new inventory system both for the brewery and the pub. I’d done the research. It would only take a few thousand dollars to do that, and they’d probably make twice that back in the first year of operation.

  I began jotting down the revised numbers and what it would take to modify the way that Naked Brews did business so they could do more and do it better. Almost all the changes would be paid off the first year, and the numbers for profit five years down the road were incredible. I had been extremely conservative with my estimates for growth, so these kinds of numbers were really exciting. This could change everything about Naked Brews’ bottom line.

  Damian was going to flip when he saw the possibilities. I couldn’t wait to call him.

  With this kind of growth, there might even be a place for me in the brewery. It was a fantasy, but I wanted to play a part in all this. I wanted to stand alongside Lake and cheer her on as she built the brewery to be all that it could be.

  With that in mind, I began sketching out the visions I’d had for changes in the building, the first involved remodeling that front door so visitors didn’t get drenched in snow. I envisioned a mudroom-type entrance where customers could stomp the mud and snow off their boots and hang their coats so they didn’t have to take them into the building with them if they didn’t want to.

  My ideas also changed the layout of the pub, turning it into a straight-forward tasting room for visitors while adding a more upscale restaurant built onto the side of the building. A larger, more formal space would benefit the town, too. It could be used for weddings and big parties. A true restaurant and catering option that would bring more income for Naked Brews’ bottom line.

  I just had to talk to Lake about it and convince her that change would be good. I shook my head. Fuck, I needed to remember why I was here. I was supposed to be facilitating a new and improved version of Naked Brews. This was about the beer Ice loved—not Lake.

  I dropped my head to my chest in defeat. By the end of all this, she would hate me one way or another, but the thought of crushing her dreams in the process was getting harder and harder to swallow. I thumbed my finger over the edge of a piece of paper poking out from under the ancient desk pad.

  Curiosity and a need for distraction made me pull it out. It was the entry form for the contest she and Emily had agreed she had to win to even have a chance at keeping the brewery.

  She’d entered Hops on Top. I scanned the entry. Why hadn’t she entered any of her other more distinctive beers, like the one she’d made for her dad or Smooth Moves? While I wasn’t an expert, everyone agreed those two brews and a few others that Lake had created stood apart from everything that anyone else was brewing.

  I lifted the desk blotter. Maybe there were more entries under there? Nope, this was the only one. And then I saw the entry fee on the application.

  Fuck. The entry fee wasn’t that high, but with Naked Brews’ bottom line where it was, even one entry was more than they could afford.

  But I had money and access to the brewery.

  I rushed over to the ancient Xerox and copied the entry. I had no idea what I planned to do, but I knew Lake needed to win that contest. She needed to stay in charge of Naked Brews. She needed to make the most of her dreams. To do that, she needed to win.

  I glanced down at the drawings I’d been playing with. Once she won, she would need these ideas. Instead of slipping them into my briefcase to send to Damian, I added them to the ledger.

  Lake needed to see the possibilities. She had to keep hold of her dreams.

  I needed her to be happy.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Lake

  “You guys go home and sleep.” I held open the door and high-fived my team as they shuffled out. “I don’t want to see any of your ugly faces until after lunch tomorrow.”

  Harlan was the last one out, and he gave me a squeeze around the shoulders as we left the brew room. “You did good, Lake. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s in how we handle them that we set ourselves apart.” He winked. “Your dad would be proud.”

  “Thanks, Harlan.”

  We both paused outside the office where Warner had his head stuck in the door, making gooey eyes at Melissa.

  “All right, baby face,” Harlan said, pulling Warner out of the office by his elbow. “Maybe try sweet talking the pretty girl after you’ve had a shower.”

  I covered a laugh with a cough and headed into the office where Melissa and Alex worked like busy little bees. “Warner and Melissa sittin’ in a tree.”

  “Very funny,” Melissa glared at me from behind the desk. “I don’t need anyone encouraging him. Warner is nice enough but not my type.”

  I closed my eyes and scrunched up my face in concentration. “Nope, I can’t picture him on the cover of a romance novel. He’s out.”

  “You’re just full of laughs this morning.” Alex stood up from where she had been hunched over Melissa’s shoulder. “I’m guessing someone got laid last night.”

  “Multiple times, thanks for asking.” I winked, smiling as if a five-ton weight had been lifted from my shoulders. The production schedule was back on track, our beer was doing well in the competition, and everything with Walsh was...amazing. “So what are you two working on?”

  Melissa picked up a few papers from the desk and handed them over to me. “Looks like lover boy has some really great ideas for Naked Brews.”

  I took the papers and flipped through sheet after sheet of roughly drawn layouts, productions schedules, and supply chains. It was like he already owned the business, making decisions and plans without one iota of input from me.

  It was hard to breathe through the pain and anger surging into my chest. He’d been doing this
, planning this, the entire time he’d been playing lip service and encouraging me at the brewery. I thought maybe he’d begun to see me as a viable manager. I’d obviously been wrong.

  “I have to go.” I grabbed my coat and bag and sprinted for the parking lot.

  Harlan was just pulling out and honked a goodbye, but I only nodded and kept walking until I was behind the wheel of my Bronco. I slung my bag in the passenger seat with Walsh’s carefully thought-out schemes inside and gunned the engine.

  The roads were clear, and I made it past the college and to the Astonian in only a few minutes, but that was long enough for the anger in my gut to build up steam. I grabbed the papers, ignoring my coat despite the freezing temps. I stormed inside the hotel, up the elevator, and banged on Walsh’s door.

  It opened to reveal Walsh in a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, his hair still damp from a shower. “Just who I wanted to see.”

  I shoved a hand into his chest to stop him from leaning in for a kiss and pushed him into the room. “We’ll see if you still feel that way in five minutes.”

  Walsh shut the door and turned around slowly, confusion crinkling his eyes. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “That depends.” I threw the papers at him, and they floated down over his head like thick sheets of snow. “Would you call going behind my back and making plans for the brewery that you want to steal from me wrong?”

  “That’s not what—”

  “Don’t you dare stand there and tell me that’s not what you were doing. What else would you call it?” I fisted my hands and spun away from him before I broke his nose. “You know, I almost thought for just a minute that you got it. That you understood just how much Naked Brews means to me.”

  I dashed at the hot angry tears threatening to spill onto my cheeks and turned back at him. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry. “I had this crazy idea that when you saw how hard I was willing to work, you would change your mind and walk away from the brewery. But I was wrong.”