by Amy Andrews
Chapter Two
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There was silence for a moment or two during which Raf looked at her again with that little line between his brows like he was trying to figure her out.
“Faith?” Mercy murmured.
Faith looked at her friend. There was surprise on Mercy’s face at the vehement denial which only made Faith feel crappier. But she couldn’t explain the panic welling inside her when she looked at Raf. Her body was aware of him like she’d never been aware of another man and that scared the crap out of her. In just half an hour he’d made her want things – sunbathing at Bondi and waking up in a hotel on Times Square – she couldn’t have.
And that was just plain unsettling.
Things were fine the way they were. Sure, it hadn’t been the life that she’d dreamed for herself all those years ago at St. J’s and hooking up with her friends again had magnified that but she had responsibilities.
And when she looked at Rafael Quartermaine she wanted to throw them all away.
“You know what a traditionalist Pop is, Mercy,” she said defensively.
“And is he the only one?” Mercy asked gently.
“I – ” She opened her mouth to deny her friend’s suggestion but Pop had rubbed off on her over the years.
“Right.” Mercy nodded. “So, Raf’s beer?”
Faith glanced at him to find him watching her with that steady, aquamarine gaze. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to come across so harsh but – ”
“Wait,” Mercy said, reaching her hand across to Faith’s arm and giving it a squeeze. “Don’t say no. Not yet. Just promise me you’ll try and convince JP to listen to Raf’s pitch. That’s all you’re asking, right, Raf?”
“Absolutely,” Raf said with a nod. “If he doesn’t like it when I’m done then I’ll walk away.”
Yes. That’s what she was worried about. Almost as much as him staying.
“Please, Faith,” Mercy asked, squeezing her arm again. “For me? As a personal favor to me?”
Faith almost groaned at Mercy’s request. But she couldn’t refuse her either.
Would it really hurt to listen?
“Okay fine,” she conceded. But no way in Hell was she letting her father in on this until it was necessary. “You pitch to me, though. You convince me and I’ll convince him.”
“Deal.” Raf stuck out his hand quickly. A little too quickly for her liking.
Faith steeled herself as she took his hand this time – mentally girding herself against the mad spike in her pulse. She withdrew it after the most perfunctory of shakes. “How does tomorrow suit you?”
Best to just get it over and done with then she could relegate Raf into a neat little box labelled impossible and get on with her life.
Raf pulled out his phone. “I have appointments most of the day but I can be here by about…” His thumb swiped over the screen as he consulted his calendar. “Four o’clock?”
“Cool,” Mercy said. “Our girls’ night starts at five. You can meet Zel and Dawn.”
Faith glanced at her sharply. What the hell? She frowned at her friend who just smiled serenely back.
“Excellent.” Raf downed the rest of his beer. “Does that suit you, Faith?”
“Er…sure,” she said, reassembling her face to look less frowny as she addressed him. “I’ll give you half an hour.”
He grinned, apparently unconcerned by her frown or the time limit. “No worries.”
But Faith wasn’t so sure.
*
Raf was still thinking about Faith Sullivan the next afternoon as he stepped out of the shower and toweled off. He didn’t seem to be able to get her out of his head. He’d thought about her all day including the hour he’d spent at the Waldorf going over particulars with an Australian beer industry delegation who were holding a ball there in a month’s time.
He didn’t know why. She wasn’t his usual type. He tended to date leggy blondes, outdoorsy kind of women. Career women in their thirties who knew what they wanted and where they were going. Women who were open and confident and not looking for anything other than a distraction in their very busy lives.
Women who were out for a good time which he could more than provide.
But it hadn’t taken more than a minute in her company to know that Faith Sullivan was none of those things. Faith wasn’t a player. She was serious and steady and clearly very family orientated. She was confident but not around him. In fact he’d gotten the distinct impression that she’d been glad to see the back of him.
And yet…he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
It didn’t make much sense. But sometimes there wasn’t any rhyme or reason to attraction. It was chemical.
“Face it,” he said, wiping the steam off the bathroom mirror to reveal his reflection. “She didn’t fall at your feet. She’s a challenge.”
But the idea didn’t sit right and Raf dismissed it out of hand. He wasn’t some spoiled boy who wanted something just because it was denied to him. That shit was just juvenile.
No. It was the mysterious X factor that intrigued him and he sure as shit wanted to explore that a lot more.
Happy that he’d defined his interest in Faith Sullivan, he picked up a bottle of aftershave that a chick at the Macy’s counter had convinced him to buy yesterday and sprayed it on his throat. She’d written her number on the sales receipt. He’d planned on ringing it.
But not anymore.
Today he had a beer to sell.
And a woman to figure out.
*
Raf arrived at Sully’s with ten minutes to spare. With temps even colder than yesterday he’d decided to take a cab this time. He was pleased he had after he’d tipped the driver and stepped onto the sidewalk with his backpack into the frigid Brooklyn weather.
It was so cold his lungs hurt.
He hightailed it inside, pausing momentarily to let the warmth seep in. The three old codgers who’d greeted him the day before were in exactly the same spot. They nodded at him as he walked by heading straight for the fire. The bar was busier than yesterday with probably about a dozen patrons and he wondered absently how much busier it got after the neighborhood came alive again with returning workers.
“Afternoon,” a husky Brooklyn accent greeted him from the direction of the bar. “Didn’t chicken out, I see?” she said as he turned.
Raf wasn’t prepared for Faith to have the same impact as she did yesterday. There wasn’t anything different about her. She was in the same kind of blue jeans and black Sully’s t-shirt with that enticing beer slogan stamped across her breasts. Same crazy curls and no make-up. But if anything, her impact was greater.
He actually felt a bit of a kick to his gut.
“Did you think I would?” he laughed.
She shrugged and smiled. “I lived in hope.”
Raf sucked in a breath. Faith seemed more sure of herself today. He liked that. Although he’d also liked that he’d somehow managed to throw her yesterday as well.
He’d like that a lot.
“Okay to use the table over there?” she asked tipping her chin in the direction of the last booth.
“Sure,” he said, something about being alone with her in a booth, enticing. And not at all businesslike. “Do you mind if I prepare some things behind the bar first?”
She looked a little surprised but just shrugged. “Be my guest.” She pointed to the far door through which he could see a staircase. “Out through there, turn right. I’ll let you in.”
He made his way around the tables to the doorway and the corridor beyond. He turned right as a door opened ahead and Faith popped her head outside.
“Through here,” she said.
Raf followed her, stepping into the bar area. Faith spread her hands out with a little flourish. “As Mercy would say, mi casa es su casa.”
“Thank you,” he said with a grin. “Now why don’t you go and make yourself comfortable in the booth and I’ll be over soon?”
�
��Okay. Ask Megan,” she indicated the young blonde woman serving behind the bar further down, “if you need anything.”
Raf nodded but he’d brought all that was required in his backpack and given that he’d been working behind bars in one way or another since he was eighteen, he was more than familiar with the layout.
He set to work, pulling the wooden sampling paddle and eight large shot glasses out of his backpack and setting them down. Next he pulled out the six samples of lager he’d brought with him and filled the glasses. There was a small sticker on the bottom of each glass so he knew which beer was which. He filled the remaining two glasses with the two tap lagers and placed them into their slots in the paddle.
Raf glanced over at Faith as he picked it up. She was sitting in the corner of the booth, angled so one shoulder was propped against the wall, the other against the high back of the chair. Her legs were crossed under the table. The fingers of her right hand massaged the ride side of her neck as she slowly rocked her head from side to side. Her eyes were closed, her mouth was parted and her curls flopped around with the motion of her head.
She looked all kinds of sexy.
He had the sudden overwhelming urge to slide his hands over top of hers, take over, rub her neck and shoulders until she purred and her head fell onto his chest and she was leaning into him all soft and pliant.
Things stirred inside his underwear. Things that had no right to be stirring as he prepared to make the pitch of his life.
Crap. Not now. Down, boy.
*
“Long day?”
Faith’s eyes flew open, her pulse spiking. His blonde good looks filled her vision as surely as they’d filled her dreams all freaking night.
How long had he been standing there staring at her?
“I’m fine,” she said, her hand falling away.
She’d been on her feet since ten and run like a crazy thing with an unusually busy lunch crowd. Her father had joined her for a couple of hours until Megan had arrived which had been a help but her lack of sleep last night – entirely his fault – added to her exhaustion.
Faith’s gaze dropped to the sampling paddle. “We have a little taste testing, I see?”
He nodded, placing it on the table in front of her. “Yes. And if my lager’s not the best out of all of these then you can send me on my way.”
It was on the tip of Faith’s tongue to send him on his way now and save them both the hassle but he chose that moment to shrug out of his coat and unwind his scarf and Faith’s ability to think logically went straight out the window.
A suit. The man was wearing a suit.
Yesterday in his beat-up old Levis and Henley pushed up to his elbows he didn’t look like the business man he purported to be but today in a suit that clearly did not come from Kohl’s, he was every inch the businessman. It looked like it had been sewn at midnight by little elves just for him.
It was the type of suit that Ty wore to court. Dark grey, exquisite fabric, divine cut. Add to that a purple shirt and a pear-green tie that picked up the color of his eyes and magnified them tenfold. The jacket clung to his shoulders like a web and the trousers outlined the musculature of his thighs.
Faith stared, she couldn’t help herself. In fact she barely stopped herself from drooling. Did the man not realize what a huge effort it had taken her today to treat him just like another customer after her body’s mini meltdown yesterday? Especially when her subconscious had spun little fantasies starring him in her sleep last night? Fantasies that had woken her and driven her from her bed in the wee small hours to sketch his hands and forearms.
That had driven her to…touch herself.
Just looking at him in the cold light of day without blushing was an effort.
How was it possible that he looked even sexier in a suit?
He undid the button on his jacket as he slid into the booth opposite, completely invading her space. Yes, there was a table separating them but at the moment not even a football field would be enough.
He laid his hands on the table and looked at her, their gazes locking. “Thank you, Ms Sullivan, for seeing me today.”
Faith’s belly tightened at Raf in full businessman mode. His eyes were friendly, his shoulders were relaxed, his smile was easy, and confidence oozed from every pore. But there was a serious set to his jaw and a no nonsense streak to his tone that was just so freaking hot.
She dragged her gaze from the hypnotic pull of his, frightened she’d not only agree to his proposal before he said another word but surrender the entire freaking pub to him as well. Her eyes locked on his hands instead, the bulging veins just as fascinating today as they had been yesterday.
Faith suddenly wanted to sketch them again. Sketch all of him. In his suit. And out of it.
Oh crap. It was official. She had a serious case of lust for Raf Quartermaine.
His hands moved, snapping her out of inappropriate, rapidly devolving thoughts and her gaze followed them up as his fingers settled on the knot of his tie.
“Er…” she said as his hands loosened it, making short work of removing it altogether, the slide of fabric as he zipped it out from under his collar reverberating through muscles deep inside her, snapping them taut. “What are you doing?”
She hoped her voice actually wasn’t as squeaky and breathless as it sounded.
“You need a blindfold,” he said, the tie dangling over one finger as he calmly offered it to her. The tail brushed the table as he undid the top two buttons of his shirt with his other hand.
There were a lot of things Faith needed. Being blindfolded was not one of them. Even if being blindfolded by Raf was suddenly all she could think about.
Faith pulled herself back from the pear-green temptation before her, trying not to think about the symbolism of a man’s tie in a post-Christian Grey world.
And what exactly Raf could do with it.
“Thanks,” she said, clearing her voice of the annoying huskiness and her brain of the annoying images. If he could be all businesslike then so could she. “I’ll just shut my eyes.”
“It’s important to not be able to see the color of a beer before you taste it. There could be a subconscious bias.”
“I won’t peek.”
He wiggled his finger, the tie swishing back and forth a little. “With this on it won’t matter.”
She moved her gaze from the tie to lock with his. If he thought she was going to sit in the middle of Sully’s blindfolded and give him the advantage then he was dead wrong. She already felt excruciatingly vulnerable in his presence.
“You’ll have to make do.”
He dropped the tie on the table with a shrug. But she could see it there in her peripheral vision like a…threat.
Or a promise.
She should demand he put the damn thing away somewhere. Out of sight, out of mind. Because right now she wasn’t sure if she could concentrate on his pitch while she was imagining herself on his hotel bed buck naked, her hands bound behind her back with that tie.
He pulled a notepad and pen out of a backpack. The numbers one to eight were written vertically down the top page. He pushed it across to her side. “I want you to rank each beer out of ten.”
“Okay. But I can tell you right now, no lager is ever going to score a ten on the beer scale for me.”
“We’ll see.” A small smile played on his mouth. Some would have called it cocky. “Now…shut your eyes and put your hands on the table.”
Faith tried not to read anything into his words as her eyes closed. Any fantasies were no doubt in her head only. But it didn’t stop her brain going right back to that tie and being naked in his hotel room.
A cool nudge against her fingertips alerted her to the first glass being presented. “Number one,” he murmured.
Faith curled her fingers around it and downed the shot in two swallows. She grimaced as the flavor assaulted her tastebuds but was grateful to have something else to fill her senses other than a sudden waft of colog
ne that reminded her of sun and sand and surf.
Even if it was lager.
“Can I score now?”
There was a slight pause before he murmured, “Anytime you’re ready.”
His voice was deep and low with a note of something she couldn’t easily define. But her belly could, twisting hard in response. Faith opened her eyes slowly to find him looking at her mouth before lifting to lock gazes with her. She swallowed against the sudden constriction in her throat before breaking eye contact and scribbling a five on the page, her heart skipping, her hand trembling slightly.
She shut her eyes. “Next.”
He repeated the process seven more times. The highest Faith gave was a seven and a half. But the last beer was in a class all of its own and she just knew it was Raf’s. It was clean and mellow with a hint of something she couldn’t place. It was definitely a cut above.
Faith opened her eyes to find him looking at her again. She quirked an eyebrow. “I’m guessing that’s yours?”
He shrugged. “Why do you say that?”
Faith didn’t answer. Instead she picked up the pen and wrote the number nine. She glanced up at him, tapping the pen against the table before adding a decimal point and a five.
He whistled. “Nine point five.” He clutched his heart then grinned, animating his face from merely good-looking to breathtakingly sexy. “I feel privileged indeed.”
Faith grinned too, she was powerless to resist. “So you should,” she said throwing the pen on the table. “What’s that hint of something I can taste?”
“Ah,” he murmured. “You have a good nose too, I see.”
But he wasn’t looking at her nose. His gaze was fixed just a touch south and her mouth tingled in response. She wanted to lick her lips to ease the buzz but she instinctively knew that would be a very bad idea.
“We age it in old whiskey barrels,” he said after long moments.
Then he launched into a spiel about his fermentation process of which Faith understood about fifty percent but she knew one hundred percent she could listen to him talk forever. Who’d have thought bottom brewing yeast could be so damn sexy?
Next he produced some facts and figures about his market share and projected company sales and a bunch of other good numbers that he spoke about with such passion he had her head spinning and her libido well and truly locked, loaded and ready to rumble.