Real Men Will (Donovan Brothers Brewery 3)

“I still don’t understand. What was it with me?”

Shaking her head, Beth let her eyes drift down to his wide chest. “It was good. Wasn’t it?”

When he didn’t answer, she got a little nervous. When he still didn’t answer, she forced herself to meet his eyes. He looked shocked. “Yes,” he finally said. “It was good. Of course it was. For me, certainly.”

God, she hoped he wasn’t just being polite. “It was good,” she repeated, as if she needed to convince him. “And simple. And easy.”

“Easy?” His eyebrows rose at that.

There was no way to explain that, so Beth didn’t try. “Tonight, I was wishing I could have that again. And then I realized I could. Or I could try, anyway.”

He took another drink, watching her with wary eyes. “We agreed that it was too complicated.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

His eyes traveled down again, as if he were pondering the simplicity of taking off her dress and fucking her. Her body tingled with awareness. “I thought you were pissed off,” he said.

“I was. I am. And I don’t trust you. I won’t ever trust you.”

His mouth flattened.

“But you never told anyone about me, did you?”

“No. Never.”

“So you lied. And it hurt. And…maybe you owe me.”

When he met her eyes, his gaze was dark and hot, and she knew he wanted this, too. “Owe you what?”

Beth let the power of the moment wash over her. “You owe me the right to know the name of the man who’s inside me. Don’t you?”

She’d thought she’d seen lust in his eyes before, but now it blazed like a fire. His jaw tightened to steel. Eric wanted inside her. Badly.

“And don’t you want to hear your own name?”

“Yes,” he growled, his teeth still clenched together.

The word shivered through her body, tightening her nipples. Beth took another sip of wine and started to walk past him. “You look more like an Eric, anyway,” she said.

His hand closed around her arm. “You said that before.”

He pulled her back until she was standing right in front of him, their bodies separated by only a few inches. She looked into his gray-blue eyes. “You do,” she whispered, and it was true. He would never be a Jamie. James, maybe. But Eric sounded clipped and cool. It suited him perfectly.

“Good,” he growled. He set his glass on the counter and took hers, as well. When he shaped his hand to her jaw, she thought he meant to kiss her, but he kept his distance. She held her breath as his other hand spread over her shoulder. “So you think I owe you?” he asked softly.

She nodded, but he wasn’t looking at her. His fingers were trailing slowly down, following the path of her neckline, and Eric watched his progress with vicious focus.

“Yes,” she breathed.

His fingertips dipped lower, pulling the soft fabric out of line. She felt his touch against the sensitive skin along the edge of her bra. His fingertips sneaked just under the silk, still slipping down. Beth shuddered and he looked up.

“I’ll give you anything you want,” he said.

Yes. That was what she wanted. Anything.

“What were you thinking about while you were out with this other man?”

She shook her head. His fingertips left her skin, but he followed the line of the fabric down lower still, all the way to her waist. She felt the slow friction of him pulling the tie that held her dress together.