Southern Sinner (North Carolina Highlands 3)

“Same way you learned to play tambourine. Or blackjack.” He smirks, one corner of his mouth kicking up. “If you got it, you got it.”

I roll my eyes, even as my torso lights up at his unique combination of cocky and cute. I look at his chest, at the smattering of hair in the center growing back from a recent shave.

“Tonight I realized something,” he continues, smirk fading.

“That your family is awesome and you should’ve come back sooner?”

“You only think that because they’re not your family. No, I realized I’m definitely not in love with Emma anymore.”

This time it’s my heart that dips. I need to pee already—last thing I need is to get a UTI on the first night of what will probably be the sexiest weekend of my life—but I can’t seem to make myself move.

This is how you get in over your head.

“That was fast,” I say, holding the jamb in a death grip.

“When you know, you know.”

“Lots of dad-isms happening in this conversation.”

“I knew I didn’t have it bad for her anymore. I didn’t think about her like I used to. But yeah, the certainty of knowing I’m really and truly done there is surprisingly . . . certain?”

There’s a flutter in my chest, and I laugh. “That’s awesome news. It’ll make convincing Samuel that much easier.”

“I thought he bought it tonight, don’t you?”

“Hank, it’s a real pleasure being your pretend girlfriend, and I think it showed—how much fun we had together.”

He gets this look in his eyes. Not hazy, exactly. But sweet. “Some of it felt pretty damn real to me.”

“Of course some of it’s real,” I say quickly. “We’re friends, aren’t we? And friends are good to each other. That, I’m not faking.”

“Friends. Yeah. I like that,” he says.

Although it sounds like he doesn’t like it very much at all. Or maybe that’s just me.

Chapter Thirteen

Hank

Stevie isn’t the least bit nervous as she puts the finishing touches on her tasting table the next afternoon.

Dressed in tall black boots and an elegant wrap coat, she drops menus at each place setting, stopping to adjust a glass’s position or switch a place card. She’s got this light in her eyes, and a pep in her step, that makes her glow.

Could also have something to do with the pair of orgasms I gave her this morning. One before coffee, slow and snuggly in bed. And one after. Hot and fast on the floor of my formal living room.

I’m determined to fuck Stevie in every room in my house before she leaves on Monday.

She said we were friends last night. That should’ve made me happy. Wasn’t I just bitching about how lonely I was? But her brushing off my comment about how real our connection is beginning to feel by saying it’s friendship bummed me out. Maybe because that’s what makes this whole thing refreshingly different—the authenticity of it. Ironic, yeah. But the intensity of our connection is night and day compared to the connection I thought I had with Emma. I’m starting to see how I made a mountain out of a molehill there. I wanted to hit it off with her so, so badly. Hell, I wanted to hit it off with anyone. I was desperate in a way I shouldn’t have been, and maybe that’s why I tried to force a round peg into a square hole.

This—me and Stevie—it doesn’t feel like that. At all. It’s easy and fun and fiery.

Still, I made some promises last night, and I’m gonna stick to ’em.

For now.

Folding the last of Lady Luck Brewhouse’s butter-soft sweatshirts—in true Stevie style, she brought only beautifully branded, high-quality merchandise—I catch her with a hand on her hip.

“What else can I do?”

Pausing, she scans the table of shirts and stickers and koozies and rewards me with the kind of smile that makes the skin around her eyes crinkle. Pressing a quick kiss to my lips, she says, “Nothing. Thank you so much for your help. And for inviting me to do a tasting up here in the first place. Everything looks insanely great, probably because this might be the most beautiful place on Earth.”

We’re in the Stag Pavilion. It’s Blue Mountain Resort’s indoor-outdoor event venue. Essentially an open-air cabin, it’s got soaring ceilings, a massive fireplace, and room for a seated dinner for a hundred.

Today, though, we’re doing an intimate tasting for five: Stevie and me, of course, plus Samuel and Emma, the farm’s food and wine directors, respectively, and Beau. Milly had a large farm table placed in front of the fireplace, and Milly being Milly, she took the liberty of decorating it with bouquets of white hydrangea and gerbera daisies. I see she’s thrown in some tablecloths and heirloom silverware too. There are candles in mercury glass votives and gleaming china, also in shades of white and green.