Sweet as Honey (Aster Valley 2)

Sam reached out and cupped my cheek gently with one of his hands before squatting down so he was on my level. His thumb brushed lightly across the remnants of the scrape from my driveway tumble the night before. He moved his mouth next to my ear, and I almost straight-up fainted onto the floor of the diner.

He smelled like pine and lemons… mint, maybe, from his morning toothpaste. I wanted to inhale every single scrap of his scent I could get my nose on. Chaya stared in shock while my dick strangled itself in my jeans.

“Can I swing by your place later?” he asked softly against the shell of my ear. “This town seems to have eyes and ears everywhere, and I’d like to talk to you in private.”

I turned my cheek against his, feeling the soft scrape of his whiskers. I let my eyes close for a second, just enough to savor the feel of his warm, bristly skin against mine.

“Uh-huh,” I breathed.

As he pulled away from me, I swore I felt his lips brush against my cheek. My heart felt like it was going to thunder into outer space.

Chaya’s eyes were wide and her lips made an o shape.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Sam said calmly to Chaya. How he could remain so relaxed after that little interlude was beyond me. I felt like the entire universe had just cracked and shifted like a brand-new Rubik’s cube. All the colors had been nice and tidy before but now they were mixed-up and jumbled. It would be impossible to get them put right again.

As he walked away, Chaya’s eyes moved over to land on me like dual interrogation lamps. “That is the hottest man I think I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”

I nodded numbly because it was true.

“And he practically made love to your face,” she added.

I nodded again.

She patted her chest. “Jesus. I might need a little one-on-one time with my vibrator after that.”

Pretty sure I was still nodding. She wasn’t the only one.

“And he’s friends with Mikey and Tiller?”

I swallowed. “Yuh-huh. He does construction for them.” Or something. My brain wasn’t quite all the way back online yet.

She snorted and reached out a hand to snap her fingers in front of my face. “Babe. Focus. I have to leave in like ten minutes, and I can’t do that until you’ve downloaded everything into my drive. Got me?”

“That sounds dirty.”

Now she was the one nodding. “Exactly. So now why don’t you tell me why you’re going to a B&B with Barney Balderson when that blond muscle beast over there wants to make bumblebee babies with you?”

I buried my face in my hands with a groan. “First of all, I’m not going to a B&B with Barney. I told you, we’re broken up. Secondly, Sam does not want to make… whatever with me. He’s just worried about me since he saw me getting bullied. I’m clearly the kind of guy who can’t handle things himself. He feels sorry for me.”

“Mm,” she said, leaning back again with a thinking look on her face. “So why is he whispering sweet nothings in your ear?”

“He’s not. He just asked if he could talk to me in private. He probably wants to make sure I follow through on filing a witness statement against Patrick.”

“He’d be right. But are you going to do it? You know I have your back, for whatever that’s worth.”

I bit my lip nervously. That note was still fresh in my mind, and I knew if I pushed Sheriff Stanner to arrest his own nephew, things would go from bad to worse.

“Thank you. I think if he asks me to be a witness to the bike crash, I’ll have to do it. Patrick will definitely retaliate.” I thought again about how to beef up my home security. Maybe I could temporarily close the shop here in town and stay home until the whole thing blew over. I had plenty of work to do on the farm, and I could send my internet orders from home.

“If he does construction, maybe he can help fix your driveway gate,” she suggested, as if reading my mind. “Might as well make himself useful if he expects you to put yourself at risk for his sake.”

I glared at her. “Obviously he doesn’t know I’d be putting myself at risk. And I’m certainly not going to tell him that. I’ll just give the witness report and suffer the consequences. I owe it to him for stopping to help me. Besides, he’s a friend of Mikey and Tiller’s. I don’t want things to get awkward with them if I refused to make a report.”

And hopefully that was true. Sam might not believe me, considering I’d told him Patrick had it out for me. Maybe there was a way for me to downplay the whole thing like it was no big deal. I’d talk to him about it when he came to my place.