by Jenna Sutton
“He does?” Beck asked, not bothering to hide his shock.
“Yes. He moved in with me a couple of years ago. He has early onset Alzheimer’s.” She stared into the fire. “His disease has progressed much faster than anyone expected. He doesn’t recognize anyone or anything. He requires round-the-clock care.”
Incredulous, Beck asked, “And you foot the bill for it?”
“Um-hum.”
He shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re willing to take care of him after he abandoned you. He should reap what he sowed.”
“He’s my dad,” she said, as if it were that simple.
“I wouldn’t lift a finger to help my mother.”
He wasn’t that softhearted or forgiving. Apparently, Ava Grace was.
She stared at him for several seconds, her eyes locked with his. “I think you would, Beck. You’d help her, not because she deserved it, but because you couldn’t live with yourself if you didn’t.”
Uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation, he placed the water next to his chair and rose. “Excuse me.”
As he approached the sliding door, Quinn called out to him. “Hey, Beck, can you grab some graham crackers from the pantry?”
Beck waved his hand in acknowledgement of Quinn’s request. Once he was inside the house, he made his way to the walk-in pantry hidden under the staircase. After flipping on the overhead light, he shut the door and leaned back against it.
Closing his eyes, he heard Ava Grace’s words echo in his head. You’d help her, not because she deserved it, but because you couldn’t live with yourself if you didn’t.
Ava Grace was right. If his mother came to him for help, and he turned her away, the guilt would crush him. He’d never be able to forgive himself.
But he hadn’t realized that truth until Ava Grace pointed it out. How did she understand him better than he understood himself?
He and Ava Grace had a lot more in common than he’d ever imagined. They’d both been abandoned in one way or another, and they both carried scars from it.
Suddenly, the door opened behind him. Grabbing hold of one of the wooden shelves, he managed to avoid falling backward.
“Oh!” Ava Grace’s raspy voice was an octave higher than usual. “I didn’t know you were in there!” She joined him in the pantry. “Did you find the graham crackers, handsome?”
He should have snapped, Don’t call me handsome. But the truth was, he liked it.
She stepped closer, and his eyes found a tiny smudge of chocolate at the corner of her mouth. He couldn’t seem to tear his gaze from it.
Her lips moved, and he heard her voice. His brain had stopped working, though, so he couldn’t comprehend her words. Suddenly, their bodies were touching, and their mouths were pressed together.
Had he kissed her? Or had she kissed him?
He froze, his eyes open and his hands clenched by his sides. Now he knew—her lips were even softer than they looked. They also were a little sticky from the marshmallow.
Her eyelids fluttered shut, her long lashes feathering over her cheeks. Her chest moved in a long, deep inhalation, and then she opened her mouth over his.
All the blood drained from his head, rushing straight toward his cock, and his vision blurred. Closing his eyes, he dug his fingers into her hips to steady himself. As her lips moved over his in a soft, slow caress, he opened his mouth too.
Underneath the dark chocolate and peppermint marshmallow from her s’more, he got his first taste of her. And now he knew—she tasted even better than she smelled. She was so fucking delicious every other woman he’d kissed was flavorless in comparison.
Tilting his head, he aligned their mouths so he could kiss her even deeper. With a breathy moan, she looped her arms around his neck and plastered herself against him. Her tongue swiped across his lower lip, and he eagerly sucked it into his mouth. She twirled her tongue around his, sending his heartbeat thundering in his ears like a stampede of wild horses.
As he sipped from her lips and stroked the interior of her mouth, he savored the wet slide of his tongue against hers. He fed her several kisses, and she devoured them, her mouth hungry and demanding.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he had to stop. He had to stop kissing her. Kissing Ava Grace was bad.
Bad. Bad. Bad.
But it feels so good.
Tugging her closer, he pressed his erection into her lower stomach. When that wasn’t enough, he hooked his arm under her round ass and lifted her those crucial inches so his cock nestled in the apex of her thighs.
He maneuvered her back against the shelves, and she did a little shimmy that rubbed his hard-on against the seam of her jeans. Stars burst behind his eyelids. As he rocked into her softness, tingles radiated from the base of his spine and spread throughout his body.
His lungs burned from lack of oxygen, but he couldn’t—wouldn’t—let go of her mouth. Finally, she pulled away with a gasp, panting heavily. While she struggled to catch her breath, he rested his forehead against hers and gulped in several lungfuls of air.
When his breathing evened out, he drew back so he could see her face. Her eyes gleamed with desire, her cheeks were rosy, and her luscious mouth was red and swollen. An alarm bell clanged in his head, and he jerked her arms from around his neck.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” he growled.
“Why not? I enjoyed it.” She gave his hard-on a pointed look before bringing her eyes back to his. “Looks like you did too.”
Nabbing the box of graham crackers from the shelf above her head, he vowed, “This is never going to happen again.”
As he walked away, he heard her murmur from behind him, “We’ll see.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Are you busy?” Gabe asked, hovering just inside Beck’s office.
“Of course not,” Beck answered without glancing away from the spreadsheet on his monitor. “You know I don’t do anything all day except look at porn and shop for shoes online.”
A husky giggle floated to his ears, and he jerked his head toward the sound, recognizing Ava Grace’s sexy laughter. She peeked out from behind Gabe, her glossy mouth stretched in a grin.
“Sounds like you’ve got your hands full,” she noted, her hazel eyes glinting with amusement.
He scowled, embarrassed by what he’d said and annoyed by the delight that rushed through him when he realized she was there. He wasn’t happy to see her, damn it. Just like he hadn’t been thinking about her almost non-stop since the s’mores party three nights ago.
Yeah, right.
“Do you know where Ellis is?” Gabe asked. “I can’t find him.”
“He’s supervising the corn delivery. Why?”
Gabe grimaced. “I need him to finish Ava Grace’s tour.”
“Why can’t you do it?”
“American Spirits Distribution rescheduled our call, and it starts in ten minutes.”
Beck knew Gabe couldn’t blow off that call. American Spirits Distribution was the largest alcohol distributor in the Southeast, and if Gabe could negotiate a deal, Trinity would be sold in thousands of stores across Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas.
Beck sighed. He didn’t want to spend time alone with Ava Grace, especially not after that kiss. But he couldn’t hand her off to Ellis. God only knew what the old goat would say or do if he got her alone.
And Beck couldn’t ask one of the other employees either. They were good at their jobs, but they didn’t know enough about Trinity to give Ava Grace a proper tour.
“I can come back later,” Ava Grace offered.
Knowing he had no other choice, he rose from his office chair. “No. I’ll finish your tour.”
Gabe patted Ava Grace on the shoulder. “I’ll see you later,” he said before sprinting off.
When Beck reached her side, he evaluated her outfit. She wore a cherry-red button-down shirt, a denim skirt, and red cowboy boots. The shirt was tied at her waist, exposing a sliver of her stomach
above the waistband of her skirt, which stopped mid-thigh.
She was so fucking gorgeous he wanted to throw back his head and howl. Instead, he said, “Jeans and a T-shirt.”
She tilted her head, and her braid swung over her shoulder. “What is the majority of your wardrobe?” she quipped, phrasing her response in Jeopardy! form.
He shook his head in exasperation. “The next time I see you in this building, you better be wearing jeans and a T-shirt.”
“At least I’m wearing boots instead of heels.”
“At least,” he echoed dryly.
He led the way out of the building, and she followed. “Thanks for taking time to show me around.”
“No need to thank me. I’m just glad you want to learn more about the distilling process.”
As they walked down the cracked sidewalk, she said, “Quinn told me that you named your company Trinity because of the river that flows through Northern California.”
He nodded. “The Trinity River is where miners found gold in 1845. But that’s not the only reason we named it Trinity. Trinity means three, and since there are three of us, it seemed appropriate.”
“I like the Trinity bottle … the little gold flecks in the glass.”
“That was Ren’s idea.”
As they passed warehouse number two, he asked, “How far did Gabe get in the tour?”
“He showed me the grain boilers, the fermentation tanks, and the copper-pot stills. Those are so cool, by the way. I can’t believe you shipped them all the way from Scotland.”
Her enthusiasm made him smile. “Our biggest still is fifteen feet tall. The one at Jonah Beck Distillery is thirty-five feet tall.”
“That’s huge!”
“Before we move on from the distilling process, I’m going to give you a quiz to see how well you understand it.”
She tossed him a big smile. “Ask me anything, Professor Beck. I might surprise you.”
She’d already surprised him. And he wasn’t sure he could survive any more surprises, especially if they were anything like the hot kiss she’d laid on him.
“What is alcohol proof and alcohol by volume?” he asked.
“Alcohol proof is a measure of how much alcohol is in an alcoholic beverage. Alcohol by volume is the percentage of alcohol based on total volume.”
“By law, bourbon cannot be distilled to more than 180 proof. How much is that alcohol by volume?”
“Ninety percent,” she answered promptly. “Alcohol by volume is always half of proof.”
“Here’s a hard one: what is the legal limit for bourbon when it goes into the barrel?”
She worried her lower lip between her teeth. “I know this. Just give me a second.” She snapped her fingers. “Got it: one hundred twenty-five proof or 62.5 percent alcohol.”
He nodded. “And what is that alcohol called?”
“High wine.”
“Good job. I give you an A+ on your quiz.”
Placing his hand on her lower back, he ushered her toward warehouse number three. His fingers touched silky skin instead of fabric, and he jerked his hand away before he was tempted to slip it under her shirt.
Once they were inside the warehouse, he led her past the stills and stopped when they reached a manual conveyor system with a couple of high-backed metal stools in front of it. Empty barrels rested on their sides on the steel grates, and several long hoses hung from the ceiling, the ends fitted with nozzles.
“This is the area I call the filling station. This is where we fill the barrels with high wine. We—”
“What’s goin’ on back here?”
Recognizing Ellis’s cantankerous voice, Beck groaned under his breath. This was going to be interesting.
“It’s just me, Ellis,” he called out.
Ellis stomped around the still. When he saw them, he came to an abrupt halt, his eyes widening. He gave Ava Grace the once-over, trailing his lascivious gaze from the top of her head to her feet and back up again.
Beck glared at Ellis, hoping he’d behave, but the older man didn’t even acknowledge his presence. He took off his baseball cap and smoothed the wild tufts of his gray hair as he walked toward her.
Gesturing toward Ellis, Beck said, “Ava Grace, I’d like you to meet Ellis Oglesby. He’s the most important guy in this entire place: the master distiller. Ellis, this is Ava Grace Landy.”
Ava Grace smiled and held out her right hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ellis.”
Ellis took her hand and raised it to his mouth. “The pleasure is all mine, Miz Landy,” he said before kissing the top of her hand.
She giggled, and Beck rolled his eyes. Old Ellis had made another conquest.
“What are y’all doin’ in here?” Ellis asked.
“Beck’s giving me a tour. He was showing me the filling station.”
“Did he tell you about the head, heart, and tail?” Ellis asked.
She shook her head. “No.”
“We put the heart of the spirit into these here barrels.”
“What’s the heart of the spirit?” she asked, looking back and forth between Beck and Ellis.
“The liquid that comes off the stills first is called the head, and it’s too strong,” Ellis explained. “The liquid that comes off last is called the tail, and it’s too weak. It’s the liquid that comes off in between—the heart of the spirit—that’s the right potency.”
“Head, heart, and tail,” Ava Grace repeated. “I’ll remember that. Thanks for telling me, Ellis.”
Ellis gave Beck a sideways glance. “Miz Landy, will you excuse us for a moment? I need to talk to this fella.”
Ellis scurried several feet away from Ava Grace, and Beck followed. The noise from the stills provided some privacy for their conversation, but she could still see them.
“What’s up?” Beck asked.
Ellis poked his gnarled finger into Beck’s chest. “Boy, you gotta get yourself some of that.”
Beck frowned in confusion. “Some of what?”
Ellis huffed. “Are you a goddamn fool?” He cocked his head toward Ava Grace. “Some of that.”
Beck laughed incredulously. “That’s what you wanted to talk to me about?” Ellis nodded emphatically, and Beck shook his head in disgust. “Jesus. I can’t believe you. I have a million fucking things to do, but I’m giving a tour instead. And now you’re wasting my time with bullshit. I should fire your scrawny ass and kick it all the way back to Kentucky.”
Beck took a step away from Ellis, but the old man’s hand shot out and grabbed his forearm in a claw-like grip. “Listen to me, Beck.”
Ellis had called him Beck. His mouth fell open in shock. Had hell frozen over? Were pigs flying?
“A ripe, juicy peach just fell from the tree and landed in your lap,” Ellis said urgently. “You’re hungry. Go ahead and take a bite.”
“Stop it,” Beck hissed, worried Ava Grace might overhear them. “She’s not a piece of fruit.”
But she probably is juicy, the devil inside him whispered.
Ellis reached into the pocket of his workpants and pressed something into Beck’s palm. “Here, take this.”
Beck looked down, and it took his brain a second to process the fact that Ellis had given him a condom. Praying Ava Grace wasn’t watching them, he grabbed Ellis’s hand and tried to return the little foil square.
“I don’t need it,” he growled, darting a glance toward her. Her gaze was locked on the two of them, her eyes wide and curious.
“Yes, you do.” Ellis closed his hand into a fist to prevent Beck from giving back the condom. “This is a rare opporpoonity.”
Beck squeezed the old man’s hand until it opened. Shoving the condom into Ellis’s palm, he said, “Get out of here before I douse you with high wine and light a match.”
Ellis jerked away from him. “I’m just trying to do you a favor, boy.”
Before Beck could respond, Ellis lunged forward and slipped the condom into Beck’s shirt pocket. He slappe
d his hand over it, fumbling to find the opening so he could pull out the foil packet.
Ellis dashed toward the stills, and as he passed Ava Grace, he gave her an exaggerated wink. Rounding the copper pots, he called out, “Enjoy your tour.” Then he hightailed it out of sight.
Ava Grace looked at Beck. “What was that about?”
Her eyes zeroed in on his hand, which was still pressed over his pocket. He hastily dropped it to his side. “Nothing. He just wanted to discuss…”
Peaches. Ripe, juicy peaches.
“Corn,” he finished. “He wanted to discuss corn.”
She smiled slowly. “Ellis is quite a character.”
“You have no idea,” he muttered.
Ava Grace slid into one of the chairs, and her tiny skirt hiked up. Saliva pooled in his mouth as he thought about the moist, pink flesh barely covered by that scrap of denim.
Ripe and juicy…
She crossed her legs, and suddenly, all he could think about was how it would feel to have those red cowboy boots dig into his ass as he thrust into her. His cock thickened, and he started to sweat.
The condom Ellis had given him burned a hole in his pocket, branding his chest, and he cursed under his breath. He needed to finish this tour and get as far away from Ava Grace as he could before he totally lost it.
“The rickhouse is the next stop. It’s just a few steps away.”
“What’s the rickhouse?”
“It’s where we store the barrels while the bourbon ages.”
Less than two minutes later, they stood inside the four-story rickhouse. Her gaze wandered around the dimly lit space.
“This is amazing,” she breathed. “How many barrels are in here?”
“About twelve thousand. Each barrel holds fifty-three gallons of bourbon.”
“It’s so quiet.”
“Unless we’re rolling barrels, no one is allowed in here.”
She wandered down one of the long rows, her ass swaying under her skirt. He followed, trying to keep his eyes above her waist. When she reached the end of the row, she turned to face him.
“It’s cold in here,” she murmured, chafing her palms up and down her arms. The motion lifted her shirt and revealed a smooth expanse of stomach. He imagined kneeling over her, working his cock in his fist, and then shooting cum all over that pale gold flesh.