“Probably asked, doubtful she got it.” He took off his cap and ran his long fingers through his thick hair.
“Why?”
“Rumor is her family objected to the marriage.”
Juicy stuff, but not the right kind of information she was after, which was really starting to annoy her. Every problem had a solution, and with enough time, she’d find the one to who was sabotaging the brewery. The only question was, did she have the time? “Will Billy be back at work tomorrow?”
Sean shook his head. “Gave him the day off.”
“Okay, let’s plan on chatting with Hailey tomorrow. Maybe she saw something she didn’t realize was important at the time.” Natalie gathered her pens and her notebook and slid them into her bag. The crinkle of paper being crumpled reminded her of what else she’d brought with her. She took out the three pieces of paper. “I was going through the personnel files today and noticed your W–2 wasn’t in the file. I brought you another one you can fill out real quick.”
He drummed his fingers on the coffee table. “I’ll do it later.”
“Might as well get it over with.” She handed him a black pen. “Anyway, bringing it in tomorrow will give me an excuse to—”
Before she could even get the words “talk to Hailey” out, Sean’s lips came down on hers.
Desperation to get her to stop asking him to fill out the W–2 had pushed Sean into the kiss, but it was going to take a tow truck to pull him away. She tasted too good, felt too right, and moaned too sweetly for the realization that this was all wrong to pierce the lust fogging his better judgment.
She relaxed opened up beneath him, and tasting her was like getting a glimpse of heaven. But Sean wanted more than a view from the cheap seats. Without ever losing contact with her hungry mouth, he tangled his fingers into the knot of hair at the top of her head and found the metal clip holding it all in place. Gripping it between his forefinger and thumb, he slowly pulled it out of the light–brown mass. Her hair fell down in waves, overflowing his hands and falling past her shoulders to the small of her back. His hands followed the trail to the perfect rise of her ass that filled his hands.
All he wanted to do was get lost in Natalie. He’d carry her upstairs to his king–size bed, lay her down in the middle of his sheets, and lick every inch of her until she broke apart in his arms and cried out for mercy. Then he’d make her do it again.
He sucked the juicy fullness of her bottom lip into his mouth, lightly raking his teeth across the tender flesh. The woman he’d too often thought of as a thorn in his side shivered in his arms. The need to touch her everywhere steamrolled over any objections. He brought his hands around front to the tiny buttons on her sweater.
Deepening the kiss, he slid his tongue into her welcoming mouth just as his fingers closed on the button at the bottom of her cardigan and slipped it free. He followed the soft material north to the next fastened button, but she’d beat him to it.
“No,” he whispered against her mouth.
Her hands stilled, but her chest heaved. “Why?”
Removing the button from her grasp, he slipped it through the hole. “I have spent way too much time thinking about what it would be like to unbutton each one of these.”
Not satisfied to remain a passive partner, she snuck her hands under his T–shirt. “You think about that, huh?”
“Every damn day.” The woman had taken up residence in his thoughts the first day she arrived at the brewery with her clipboard. He was beyond fighting the attraction.
Her touch against his abs was the best kind of torture, and the bulge pushing against his zipper grew. How many times had he stroked himself while fantasizing about this exact moment? How many times had his balls tightened in anticipation? How many times had he finished alone but remained hungry for more—for the real thing? For only Natalie?
Three buttons down, two more to go. Torn between the release of going faster and the anticipation of taking it slow, he bought time by trailing his lips down the creamy column of her neck.
“And does thinking about it make you hard?” Her thumb, and only her thumb, rubbed up and down the length of his zipper.
The contact destroyed and rebuilt him with every stroke. “Like concrete.”
Her lips rested against his earlobe, close enough that moisture from her breath evaporated against his overheated skin. “Just because of a row of buttons?”
“No, because of what you keep hidden away from the world behind this conservative facade.” The last button was all that remained.
“What makes you think it’s an act?”
“Right now?” He slipped the last button free. The small amount of blood not concentrated in his dick pounded against his eardrums. “A whole lotta hope.”
“I’d say it’s time to test your hypothesis.”
He parted her cardigan, revealing the world’s most perfect tits, practically overflowing a deep–purple see–through lace bra. The top curve of her dusky–peach areolas peeked above the plunging cut of the bra, and her hard nipples pushed against the lacy prison. He slowly swept his thumb across a pointed tip. Her soft mewl of pleasure made him want to beat his chest caveman style and stake his claim.
Which was exactly why he had to stop. A man in hiding couldn’t afford to grow attached, not when he might have to get lost fast.