He read over the beer’s ingredients, the fermenting time and temp, even the music he’d been listening to while brewing. There was something missing in this beer, but he couldn’t quite figure out what.
Closing his eyes to heighten the sensitivity of his palate, Ethan tipped the bottle to his lips, took a full drink, and let the beer linger on his tongue as Coldplay’s Ghost Stories album played in the background. He swirled the cool liquid in his mouth, focusing on every hint, pang, and nuance of flavor while evaluating balance. Finally, he swallowed, and he hummed with the smooth slide of this beauty down his throat.
Ethan had discovered an erotic element to drinking any good beer. The way it teased the desire for more with seductive flavor. Lured the drinker deeper with a hint of spice or fruit or funky hops. Then there was the whole mouth feel—cool on the first touch, warming as it rolled intimately over every surface of the mouth, circling and swirling and tantalizing the tongue, then finally quenching a craving as it coated his throat.
Once again, thoughts of the beer vanished as memories of Delaney overtook every brain cell. With his eyes still closed, he saw her as she’d been that night—naked, her hair down, her eyes filled with lust as she locked gazes with him and took his cock deep into her mouth.
A sharp stab of desire burned through his belly and groin, and his cock hardened the way it always did when he thought of her in his bed. Of the way her creamy skin contrasted with his navy sheets. Of the way her auburn strands felt like silk fanned out on his belly.
So erotic. So sexual. So passionate. She was everything he’d ever fantasized—but better. So much better. She was also funny. And smart. And feisty. And strong. And sweet. And the way she saw the good in him regardless of the bad she’d seen in his family showed more strength of character than his entire family had, put together.
He sighed, but it came out as a moan. God he wanted her. Wanted her so bad his entire body ached. And this was exactly what he tried to avoid. Exactly why he stuck with one-night stands. Because he didn’t want a woman in his head all the time—the way Delaney had taken up residence.
When that zing of desire came up, he just had to keep reminding himself that he didn’t want any kind of attachment. This lingering craving for Delaney would fade.
“Dammit.” Now he co
uldn’t focus on his beer. He pushed from the chair, and after three of his triple ales, his head swam for a second.
The buzz was nice. It helped him put all the stress in his life into perspective. It helped him let most of it go. But his lowered inhibitions had him thinking about going next door and finding out why Delaney continued to burn lights into the early morning hours.
Instead of seeking out trouble, he repositioned his erection and turned to his kettle to stir his mash.
A knock on the window of his front door surprised him. He barely had time to look that way when the door opened and Delaney stepped in.
Surprise and excitement stung the pit of his stomach but vanished the second her intensity registered. With her hands curled into fists at her sides, she met his gaze directly with a look he couldn’t quite figure out.
“Hey.” He covered the kettle, checked the temperature again, and made sure the steelhead pump was recycling the wort the way it should. Then he deliberately settled himself into a false casual front, as if he hadn’t been obsessed with the thought of her. As if she hadn’t been invading his every conscious and unconscious moment. As if he didn’t really care one way or the other whether or not she was into a quickie on his workbench. “I was just thinking about you.”
When he refocused on Delaney, she was taking in the space. Her gaze swept over the warehouse from the painted cement floor to the open rafters, skipped over the grain mill and the mashing tun, roamed the boiling kettles and the fermenting tanks, and took in his digital control station and bottling corner.
Ethan’s desire would never fade if she kept dropping in on him looking like that. She wore camo fatigue shorts, a black tank top, and the same worn leather boots he’d seen her in during the inspection. And he was damn sure she was the only woman on the planet who could make that outfit look so hot. But her scrutiny made his belly jump and churn, as if she could see right into his cheating heart and the way he coveted her liquor license.
“Nice setup,” she said, refocusing on him. Ethan was working up a justification for the equipment when she crossed her arms and asked, “Why did you drop out of UC Berkeley?”
His stomach fell.
She must have been talking with people around town for this to come up. And Ethan didn’t need to think about all the damn mistakes he’d made. Especially not when he’d been hoping she’d come here because she’d missed him the way he’d missed her. Because she wanted him the same way he wanted her.
“It doesn’t matter.” Disappointment swam in his gut, and he returned to the mash, lifting the cover to stir. “That was a long time ago.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He replaced the metal cover a little too hard. “Maybe I don’t want to give you an answer.”
“I need to know.”
“Why?”
“Because if I’m the reason you pulled out of school, if what happened at the bar changed the direction of your life . . .”
She paused, her face pressed into a pained frown. Her fingers gripped and released her biceps, and she kept shifting her weight. Her distress tangled his mind and his heart into knots, leaving him uneasy and confused.
“Then what?” he asked the hypothetical question to make the point that it was unanswerable. He knew because he’d done the what-ifs thousands of times and come to the same conclusion. “None of that matters now.”
“Of course it matters.” She threw her arms wide. “It’s your life. You lost everything you wanted because of one stupid fight that didn’t have anything to do with you.”
“It didn’t have anything to do with you either, so forget about it.”