Enemies on Tap (Sweet Salvation Brewery 1)

“Hud split open my skull in middle school while we were swinging horseshoes at each other. One nicked me in the back of my head. It was like the Red Sea was parting my hair.”

Determined to resist the pull of attraction, she devoted her attention to cleaning along his hairline. Turning to get a better angle, she bobbled. His arm shot out to her waist, steadying her balance but throwing everything else out of whack. Suddenly, her lack of bra became more noticeable as her breasts grew heavy with want and her nipples tightened. The threadbare T-shirt left little protection from the lust licking its way across her skin.

“I probably could have used stitches that time, but I skipped it and survived. This isn’t nearly as much blood.” Logan circled his thumbs against her hips, neither pushing nor pulling, instead taunting with careful control.

“Why were you and Hud fighting?” The bleeding had slowed to barely a dribble, but she wasn’t ready to step out of his arms just yet. Truth be told, she wanted to sit astride him and see if the bulge in his pants felt as good as it looked.

“Who said we were fighting?” His brown eyes turned as dark as espresso, the irises expanding. “It was just good…” His hands slid higher on her hips, sneaking underneath her T-shirt’s hem. “…clean…” Stopping just above her yoga pants’ low waistline, his fingers caressed her lower back. “…fun.”

Her breath caught, and her body ached for his touch with such an overwhelming force that it scared her. Get ahold of yourself. He’s a Martin, and he’s sitting in your kitchen bleeding because you whacked him with a garden gnome. She needed space. Now.

“You hold this.” She pressed the cloth to his cut, slapping his hand on top of it and backing away from his touch. The knuckles on his right hand were bruised and swollen, but she didn’t have the fortitude to stick around to find out why. “I’ll go get the first aid kit.”

In the bathroom, she gave her flush-cheeked reflection a long, hard look. For the love of Pete, the man was injured and all she could think about was jumping his bones and riding him like a rented pony.

She hadn’t just drunk the Salvation Kool-Aid—she’d started to brew her own.

That was not good.

Not good at all.

She needed to bandage him up and get him the hell out before she forgot who he was?

?again. She grabbed the kit from under the sink and hurried back into the kitchen.

“Okay, I got the—what are you doing?”

A barefoot Logan stood at the sink, holding a yellow and green I heart NORML glass in one hand, the stained dishtowel tossed aside on the granite counter. “Getting a drink of water.”

“You should be sitting down.” The last thing he needed was to pass out, or whatever it was that people did after getting conked on the head with a garden gnome.

“It’s not that bad.” He put the glass under the running water. “It’s barely bleeding anymore.”

She threw out one arm and pointed toward the table. “Sit.”

He shut off the water and walked over to the chair facing out toward the rest of the kitchen.

She should run. Lock herself in the bathroom. But she didn’t.

Couldn’t.

Wouldn’t.

With exquisite slowness, he unbuttoned his light blue shirt, which had a small reddish-brown stain on the collar. Inch by inch, he revealed his broad chest and the happy trail that disappeared beneath his waistband.

The sight made Miranda’s tongue stick to the roof of her mouth, and her thighs quivered. Desperate to stick to the plan, she leaned against the doorframe to anchor herself to the here and now instead of the if and when and why nots.

He never lost eye contact as he shucked off the shirt and laid it across one of the empty chairs. God, he shouldn’t but he looked perfectly at home in the farmhouse kitchen. Big and brawny and sexy as all hell with his mahogany hair ruffled and the fuck-me-now pheromones coming off him in waves. She tried to remember he was an injured man. A very sexy injured man.

He sat down in a chair and spread his legs, drawing her gaze to the outline of his hard cock pressing against his pants. “I’m all yours.”

She pushed away from the doorway, holding the first aid kit in front of her like a shield. “Saying something like that is just the sort of thing to get our ancestors turning over in their graves.”

She sat down next to him, her leg so close to his that it brushed against his knee, sending a delicious shiver up her thigh that hit home in her core. She opened up the kit and laid out the rubbing alcohol, cotton pads, and butterfly bandage. She doused the pads with rubbing alcohol. “This is going to hurt.”

God, wasn’t that always the case when a Martin and a Sweet mixed company? Still, she was starting to believe the pain would be worth it—worth him.

Logan flinched once when the pad touched his skin, but he managed to stay still after that. “When did our families begin feuding?”