A Shot With You (Bourbon Brothers) Page 15

  The fingers of his other hand were between her legs, just around her opening, sliding back, rubbing over the outside of her back passage, and forward again. Not knowing exactly where he was going kept her unbalanced, distracting her from the orgasm that was trying to build.

  “Shhhh, I’ve got you,” he murmured, and she laid her head back, closed her eyes, and just felt. He was her anchor, keeping her safely in place even as he penetrated her defenses.

  Just like that, without any buildup of straining, clenching muscles, she came.

  Long and slow, rocking waves of pleasure soared from between her legs to her spine, along her limbs, and into her brain before pulsing back and starting again.

  Over and over she came, until finally, she had to push Brandon’s head away, lest she die.

  Grinning, he kissed the inside of her thigh, then asked, “You okay?”

  “I think so,” she thought she answered. “Not sure I can reciprocate at the moment, though.”

  “That’s okay,” he said, reaching for a condom. “Can you just lay there and enjoy?”

  “Huh? I thought that’s what I had been doing.”

  He had the condom on and lifted her legs. Kneeling on the bed, he pushed himself inside her. His solid presence sliding into her, touching parts of her that she thought should be numb by now.

  But that was not so.

  As he slowly stroked inside of her, she began to move with him.

  “No,” she finally responded. “I can’t just lay here.”

  “Well, if you insist…”

  …

  What he’d thought had been a light doze must have been actual sleep, because when dawn broke, Brandon opened his eyes and wasn’t nearly as exhausted as he would have expected of someone who’d been making love all night long. He lay on his back, and Lesa snuggled into the crook of his shoulder, head on his chest, one hand idly stroking his skin.

  “I really mean it this time. I’m never going to move again,” she muttered.

  “Yeah. Me, too.” After a minute, he said, “I wonder if I could convince one of the dogs to bring my phone in so I can call the family and tender my resignation.”

  “What would you tell them?”

  “I’ve discovered a new religion and am going to devote my life to worshiping at the altar of Lesa.” He imagined the look on their faces if he did that. Brandon. He who always showed up to work early and stayed late, becoming a sex slave to a goddess.

  “I like the idea of you on your knees,” she said after a second, snuggling closer.

  “This boat could be the church. With a congregation of one.”

  He thought he felt a slight shudder run through her, but then she laughed and said, “That’s quite a change from the workaholic I met a few days ago.”

  “What? You don’t think it would be hard work to keep you supplied with sex and devotion day in and day out?” He realized he was edging further from lighthearted post-coital banter to heavy relationship discussion—something she’d made clear was not on her radar.

  Silence.

  Yep, he’d gone too far.

  One of the dogs whined pointedly and scratched at the door.

  “Okay, girls.” He groaned, rolling upright and searching for his pants. “I’m gonna take the dogs for their morning constitutional. You want anything while I’m up?”

  “Are you going by the marina store?”

  “I can.”

  “Maybe some coffee?” She didn’t sound like she was going to stay awake to drink it, but he’d get it for her.

  “You got it.” He stood and zipped and buttoned and then slid into his flip flops. “Come on, girls,” he told them, opening the door to two grinning, panting beasts.

  The morning was cool and still carried a hint of moisture. Maybe it would rain more. He wouldn’t be devastated to have to stay inside all day with Lesa, though she seemed restless in the houseboat—unless they were naked. Then she was every bit the free-spirited soul he’d come to appreciate. She’d really gotten to him, in spite of his best efforts.

  In many ways, she reminded him of his early days with Suzanne—she’d been assertive in bed, too. But that was all an act, he knew. Lesa had already told him she was going to recommend that her father sign with Blue Mountain, so she couldn’t possibly want anything from him but him. At least for as long as it lasted. He’d finally met a woman who’d gotten past his defenses, and she was bound and determined to move on as soon as possible.

  Well, there was still a contract to sign with her father, and surely there would be opportunities for them to see each other in the future. Depending on how well the deal with the tequileria worked out, he might need to travel to Mexico a lot in the future, and he bet he could manage to show up whenever Lesa just happened to be visiting her father.

  Mabel pulled Brandon’s left arm in the direction of the marina store, while Maude tugged the other direction, toward the grassy area next to the boat ramp.

  “Business first, ladies,” he told them, giving in to Maude’s preferences.

  Funny. Brandon didn’t feel at all divided about being here with Lesa right now. Every other time he’d been here, he could take it for about a day, then he fired up his laptop to check in with Blue Mountain. He had no desire to do that right now. He just wanted to get Lesa’s coffee, go back to the boat, and crawl under the sheets with her.

  Leading the dogs to the marina store, he saw that the Closed sign was still turned out. Oh well. They could come back later for coffee.

  …

  After Brandon left, Lesa dozed for about thirty seconds, her mind wandering to the previous night. Wow. They had really rocked each other’s worlds. It scared her how easily she could get used to this.

  She allowed herself a brief fantasy of a life with Brandon. Marriage. A house. A baby. Just like his parents and just like hers.

  Opening her eyes, she looked at their tiny stateroom. There was about a foot between the bed and the wall on one side, and no space at all on the others. Yeesh. How could anyone spend an entire vacation here? Twenty-four hours and she was ready to climb the walls—which didn’t have far to go to close in on her.

  Her fantasy was overwhelmed by memories of her parents. Her mother in that bed for years while Papa worked his behind off to pay for the hospital bills, while Lesa spent those same years taking care of Mama. Her entire childhood. Papa telling her that family takes care of family—he had to work, so she had to help Mama.

  No, she wasn’t going to let history repeat itself. As appealing as Brandon was, he was a family man with a distillery. There was no doubt in her mind he would never give that up. She was not ever going to get stuck taking care of anyone—parents, children, or dogs while her husband worked eighty-hour weeks.

  Her phone buzzed. With a sigh, she felt around on the floor until she found it.

  “Hola, Papa,” she said.

  “Lesa, where are you?”

  “I’m…in Kentucky. Where else would I be?” She pulled on one of Brandon’s T-shirts and began making the bed.

  “I received a contract from Blue Mountain.”

  A frisson of excitement ran through her. Yes. This was what she’d been hoping for. Waiting for. Help for PZ and her ticket to freedom. “Did you sign it?”

  “I did not. The terms are unacceptable.”

  Oh, no. “Why? What’s wrong?” She had to find a way to fix this, to make it happen.

  “He wants too much for what he’s giving us.”

  “Well, Papa, he’s got to make a living, too,” she pointed out. The bed made, she moved into the kitchen and started to fill the sink to wash the few dishes they’d used.

  He let loose with a string of curses that turned the air blue.

  “Papa, I really think you should take this. Give it a year, like they suggest, and see how next year’s tequila turns out. Then we’ll know if it’s worth it.” She scrubbed a plastic promotional cup so hard that the logo, for whatever company gave it away, began to come off.


  “I’m not going to sign anything unless we get a better deal. That’s what you’re there for, isn’t it? To make sure that our interests are taken care of.”

  What? She thought she was here to make sure everything was on the up-and-up, and she’d done that. What was he suggesting? She thought about spending another year at Pequeño Zarigüeya, running tours for people who were only interested in free samples of the final product, and her heart clenched.

  Not happening.

  She had to make sure this went through. She rinsed the cup and put it on the drainer, reaching for another. “Okay, Papa, don’t worry. I’ll find a way.”

  A noise drew her attention away from the sink. Brandon and the dogs stood just inside the sliding door. Oh, hell. What had he heard?

  …

  Brandon had only caught the tail end of her conversation—“Está bien, papá, voy a encontrar una manera.” He thought she was telling Papa she’d go do something tomorrow, but his Spanish was shaky at best.

  The expression on her face when she saw him standing behind her, however, told him that her conversation wasn’t something she’d wanted him to overhear.

  The recently melted crystals of ice that had encased his heart for so long began to gather in his gut.

  Fucking Suzanne, all over again. No, he wasn’t going to go there. He was just paranoid because Lesa had been a little distant earlier when he’d made a joke about long-term stuff.

  She smiled, holding her hand up, mimicking drinking and raising her eyebrows at him in question. “Hey, Papa. Te llamaré más tarde. Yo también te amo.” She pushed a button and put the phone down on the counter. She stared at it for a moment before looking at Brandon.

  “No coffee?” she asked, twisting the fingers of her right hand with her left. She was nervous.

  Damn.

  “The marina shop was still closed. What did your dad want?” No point in getting unhinged. There wasn’t really anything she could steal at this point, was there? He was Brandon Morgan, steely calm marketing executive—not the naive kid who let a woman take advantage of him.

  She waved his question away. “Oh, nothing. Just checking in.”

  “Okay.” Until he knew what was going on, he’d play along. Maybe he was wrong. God, he hoped he was wrong. Carlos should have gotten his proposal by now, but Lesa didn’t mention that.

  She smiled and sashayed over to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. The heat of her body was simultaneously arousing and irritating. This wasn’t the action of a woman with her lover, it felt like a woman on a mission. “What did you have in mind for today?” she asked.

  He had the sensation of waiting for the sky to fall, so he opted for his comfort zone. Work.

  “Actually,” he told her, “I hate to say this, but I think we need to head back to Blue Mountain. I checked my email a little bit ago.” He held up his phone to show her that he’d taken it with him to walk the dogs. “And it turns out there are a few things I need to take care of.”

  “Okay,” she said a little too brightly. She let him go and began gathering their things.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lesa stayed quiet most of the way home from the lake. She’d been tempted to suggest another cruise. Avoid reality for another few hours—days, even. But something had changed when Brandon returned from his walk. She knew, from the way that he kept checking his phone, that he was anxious to get to Blue Mountain and get his hands into his real life.

  That was fine. She needed to get back and have some time to figure out what to do to convince Papa to take the barrel deal. She’d felt claustrophobic on the houseboat without Brandon that morning—the weather, the tiny rooms, hell, even the wallpaper reminded her of being trapped in a life she didn’t want. But after she’d hung up from talking to Papa, the whole world felt a little too tight. She had no idea what he expected her to do to make this deal acceptable to him.

  Her mind and heart were full of Brandon Morgan. The hours she’d spent here with him—having a little vacation in the middle of her obligations, making him laugh, seeing him take off the mantle of responsibility he wore like one of his ever-present Blue Mountain polo shirts—she was all jumbled up about it. He made her feel things…

  She’d never considered making room in her life for a man, especially not one who was so…permanent. She was going to travel the world and take care of no one but herself. No responsibilities, no pressure.

  It didn’t matter, anyway. There was no way he’d ask her to stick around, even if she were so inclined. He’d been talking with post-orgasmic endorphins running around his brain earlier this morning, and then he’d gone all workaholic on her, reminding her why she wanted out of the distillery life to begin with.

  She’d tried to talk to him for a while on the drive back. Asked questions about business—what more could a guy like Brandon want to talk about than work? But he was monosyllabic, so she gave up.

  As the car turned up the long drive toward the big log house on the hill, her heart gave a lonely lurch.

  The weight of impending doom that Lesa had felt building all the way from Lake Cumberland was justified when she spied Papa sitting in a rocking chair next to Brandon’s grandpa on the front porch of their log home.

  “Oh, mierda!” All of the air in her body got stuck and she gasped like an axolotl out of water.

  “What?” Brandon had been watching where he was going, but now slowed and looked where Lesa’s attention was drawn. “Is that—is that your dad?”

  “Yep.”

  “What the hell? You didn’t tell me he was here when he called this morning.” He pulled around the house.

  “I didn’t know!” What was he up to? “Papa hasn’t left Pequeño Zarigüeya in…in forever.”

  “Huh.” Brandon shot her an unfathomable glance.

  “With my luck, he got Tia Rita to do some Mexican crystal ball gazing and found out we went off the mountain alone.” Leave it to Papa to find a way to keep her in check.

  “Ah.” He seemed to ponder that for a moment, then shook his head at some internal thought and smiled. “Do you suppose he’ll believe me if I tell him we stayed in separate houseboats?” He scratched his jaw.

  “Sure. And I’ll tell him I got this beard burn from letting the dogs kiss me.”

  Brandon looked at her carefully. She knew he would see her chapped lips—who knew that so much kissing was hard on your mouth?—and the rash that had yet to fade from this morning’s glorious make-out session.

  God only knew what she’d look like trying to walk up the stairs to the porch. She hadn’t had that much sex in…ever, and she’d used muscles she didn’t know she had.

  “Well,” he said, “I can always pretend you ditched me for some cigarette-boat-owning show-off from Tennessee or something, as long as I don’t take off my shorts and share the scratches on my ass.”

  Lesa snorted, and finally, finally, the tension that had grown between them over the past few hours eased.

  “Okay,” she said, taking in a monster yoga breath and letting it back out. “I’m an adult. I’m allowed to get naked with anyone I choose.”

  Was that a growl coming from Brandon’s side of the car? It was. He tried to cover it with a cough, but she’d definitely heard something. She tried not to smile with pleasure. She was going to miss the hell out of him when she was off in the middle of wherever she wanted to be doing her thing. She could admit that much without compromising her life plans.

  As though reading her mind, Maude stuck her head over the back of the seat and laid it on Lesa’s shoulder with a sigh.

  She reached for the door handle to face Papa’s music, but before she could get it open, Brandon grabbed her other hand.

  “Hey.”

  She turned to face him, trying to recover the light mood, but he was sober-faced, searching her face for…what? Something she couldn’t give him, she was afraid.

  “I had a good time. Thanks for coming with me.” He rolled his eyes. “I mean—well, yeah
. Thanks.”

  “Me, too,” she said, and meant it. Both ways. “I know I may never see you again after this week, but I want you to know how much I enjoyed being with you.“

  “Lesa!” Papa pulled the door open before she realized that he’d come down from the porch.

  “What’s going on, Papa?” Lesa asked. “Is everything okay?”

  “I don’t know,” Papa said, eyeing Brandon. “I have some…questions. About the proposal.”

  “Okay,” Brandon said. “Ask away.”

  “Perhaps you would care to get into the house first?” Papa suggested.

  Brandon looked as though he wanted to protest, but then shrugged and carried their bags up the stairs.

  “What is it, Papa? Why are you really here?”

  Her father scowled. “I was worried when you told me that we should take this deal without giving me any solid reasons. I can see from the look in your eye that you are starry-eyed for this Brandon. You can’t have a rational opinion.”

  “I can, too!” She didn’t bother to deny that she was, at least temporarily, over the moon for Brandon Morgan.

  “Tell me why you are so sure that he is reliable. I will not let my only daughter be hypnotized by lust into telling me things that she wants to be true.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Papa. Everything that man does is for his family’s business!”

  Papa’s eyes flared. “Exactly why he won’t be fair. You need to make sure that what he does is for our business!”

  “You mean you want me to try to…influence him to change his offer?” Lesa couldn’t believe she was being asked to do this.

  His eyes softened. “Our Pequeño Zarigüeya is all we have left of your mother. I am not willing to spend so much of our money on a risky proposition.”

  “What is the offer?” Maybe she could…what?

  “He is only willing to give us half of his barrels and wants full market price up front.”

  “And what do you want?”

  “You mean, what do we want? This is for Pequeño Zarigüeya.”

  “Sure.” She tried not to scream with frustration. Any time she’d suggested that she didn’t want anything to do with the tequileria in the future, he completely ignored her.