Paradise Hops (8 page)

“Doesn’t matter. I think you need it. It’s one more thing you did well, I understand, and enjoyed. It made you happy, once. So I—”

“My happiness is not your responsibility.” She snapped, immediately sorry for the utter ludicrousness of that statement. “Sorry.” She muttered into her glass and the silence spun between them, unaddressed. He finished his water, rinsed the glass and put it in the dishwasher. Lori watched his little dance of neat-and-tidy, aggravation and emotion clogging her throat.
Lori, don’t be a bitch. This guy is special. He bought you a damn piano.

“I’m going for a run.” He stated without looking at her. “I say we go out for dinner.”

She didn’t speak, but he didn’t seem to require an answer. When she heard the front door close, sans the satisfaction of a nice hard slam, she winced as if he had thrown something. She sidled into the large room again, eyeing the beautiful piano from afar, then up close, running her hand across its smooth, shiny lid. She propped it up and admired the precision underneath, the rows of strings, hammers.

Feeling like a kid about to get busted for messing with something forbidden, she took a seat on the leather bench, adjusted it and put her palms on the closed lid. A tear hit the brown wood and shimmered, mocking her. The thing must have cost at least ten thousand dollars. Then she saw the word “Steinway.” Scratch that, thirty thousand. And he’d arranged to have it delivered in a day, without giving away a single clue.

I do not deserve him. I just don’t.

She placed her forehead against the wood, put her feet on the pedals and pressed, feeling the large instrument shift as she adjusted sound. Finally, hands shaking and fear clogging her brain, she uncovered the keys.

No.

Back in the kitchen in heartbeat, sipping another glass of wine, she stood in the doorway, watching the piano as if the damn thing had the capacity to leap across the room and attack her.
Get a grip, Lori
. Her fingers curled in, already sensing the delicate ivory. Her brain was slipping into the zone where she used to go as a girl, after her mother died and all she had of her was the piano they’d played together.

She set the glass down, marched over and sat. Arching her fingers over the keys, she found that, even after three years of not playing, her hands instinctively were in proper position. She’d made her father get rid of the piano in his house during the crazy months after coming home from the hospital. Her hysteria at that point spurred him to do anything she wanted just to keep her on an even keel. Images tumbled in on her, sensations, pain, terror, more pain, screaming—her own voice begging as Thad hurt every inch of her that he could. But she’d recovered. She’d even learned to enjoy her body again, thanks to Garrett. Why can’t that be the case with playing the piano?

Garrett slowed to a jog, then a walk, then stopped. He stood, hands on his waist, letting the cloud of anger clear in favor of endorphins and clarity. That fucking monster of a piano had cost him a fortune and part of him still believed it was worth every penny. He took a breath and made his way up the hill to his driveway, anticipation and dread growing with every step closer to the house.

He’d worked his entire life since he had turned sixteen and could drive, trying to instill order on everything that he could. And now, he’d made it. Two degrees, money in the bank, his own house, and the job he’d always wanted. The fact that he’d fallen head over heels for Lori Brockton seemed like a bonus, most days. He shook his head, shoving away the niggling voice that had risen lately. One that insisted he’d moved too fast, instituted too much control over her in his attempt to eliminate the horror she’d been through. Fury made his head pound as he hit the code for the door, fury at himself mostly for acting like an overprotective idiot.

The impulse to sort everything out for her, take her under his wing, protect her, overwhelmed him. He tried to balance it with giving her space, letting her stay over then leaving without any hint of when she might stay again, though that kind of randomness made him insane.

He hesitated before entering the cool recesses of the garage. Many days, the intensity of his feelings for her scared the shit out of him. On those days, usually after she’d pull a classic “I’m going to my house” all he wanted to do was fold her in his arms, hold her close, and watch her as she slept. He had to literally sit on his hands to keep from calling, texting, checking up on her. But she always got her fucking space.

He stopped, turned his head to the side and heard it. The most beautiful sound of an expensive piano played by talented hands. He smiled as he slipped off his shoes, then tiptoed into the kitchen for water. She kept playing, leaning in to the keyboard as if her life depended on it, obviously unaware of him, which suited Garrett. It gave him a chance to watch and to get unbelievably turned on by her body language, the way her eyes closed and she swayed. He was mesmerized by her fingers, alternately caressing, then pounding the black and white keys, by the flex of her thigh muscle as she worked the pedals.

His smile got bigger as she kept playing. After about ten minutes she stopped, seemingly in the middle of a piece, lifted her hands from the keys and clutched them together in her lap. He stayed quiet.

She rose from the bench, put the dark brown cover back over the ivories and then walked straight to him and kissed him so hard his head spun. Grasping her neck, twining his hands in her hair, he returned it in kind. He smelled her lust, felt it all over her, which made him groan and cup one full breast under her brewery T-shirt. She jerked his shirt over his head, lapped at his sweaty skin, ran her lips over his nipples, making his body zing in response. Before he could say a word, she’d dropped to her knees, pushed him back against the wall and had his shaft down her throat. She cupped his balls, sucking and swallowing him so fast he gasped.

He gripped her head with one hand, held himself up against the wall with the other, still not quite certain this was actually happening, but not about to argue over details. The orgasm shimmered on his horizon, making his spine buzz and his vision darken. She reached up with one hand, tugged at his nipple, pressing the button she’d discovered a few nights ago and he let it happen. Grunting and shoving his cock down her throat he came, hard. The moaning sounds she made as he filled her mouth intensified it, made him feel like he’d been coming for twenty minutes.

She released him, gave his still twitching shaft a last flick of her tongue and stood, kissing him again. Her body and arms were the only things holding him up at this point as a fresh rush of endorphins flooded his brain. He gripped her face, tasted himself on her lips, owned her mouth with his tongue. Finally, he broke away, breathless. “Holy shit. Remind me to get you a piano every day.”

She smiled, pulled his shorts up and braced herself against the wall with both hands. Her luscious lips just inches from his again, she whispered. “Thank you.” He wrapped his arms around her.

“I love you, Lori,” he stared into her eyes, surprised at his own words, yet willing her to say it back. She put her head on his shoulder. He realized he had become that guy—the one who always says I love you. Funny, he used to make fun of guys like that. No, not so funny, really. But he didn’t care. “I need a shower and dinner. Join me?” She nodded, took his hand and they did both, together.

Chapter Seven

Eli sat at his desk, dog at his feet, Beethoven pouring through the speakers. It was four-thirty in the morning on the first day of the last week he would get to see her. At least the way he liked—dressed to brew, wild curly hair pulled back, face clear of makeup, that annoying, yet incredibly sexy gleam in her eyes. She’d been all his and what had he done so far?

He had trained her—turned her into an absolute convert. Helped her discover her deep love for the brewing process from malty start to yeasty finish, humiliated her into remembering formulas, processes, crucial steps. He’d even made her shed angry tears more than once, forcing her to defend herself, and tricking her with questions designed to make her do just that.

He groaned and put his boot-clad feet up on the desk, sipping the dark caffeinated elixir that got him through the early morning funk. Hopster whined and tried to put his huge head under his master’s hand, but Eli shooed him away.

Somewhere along the way he’d managed to fall in deep, dark lust with the woman in spite of how utterly stupid that was. Something he’d had to address with a few girls he’d met since moving here, fucking them hard and long and making at least one of them beg him to move in with her. But he remained aloof. As he’d told Lori, he’d travelled this exact road once before.

The brewery in Oregon, two jobs before this one, he’d fallen for the owner of the company, after they’d given in to a long simmering sexual chemistry—frequently, and with gusto. Her husband had not been amused and the resulting chaos had been a nightmare. Eli finished the coffee, then slid the photo out of the two of them together at the National Beer Fest in Colorado, the year they’d been discovered deep in each other’s pants. He’d begged her to come with him, to move, to escape, to run away. Of course she didn’t. “Grownups stay put, Eli.” She’d said. “They take responsibility for their action. Please stay—with me?” She’d asked. He didn’t.

He’d heard through the grapevine that she’d divorced and her ex-husband had tried to take the brewery from her but had failed. She reached out to him once after that, sending a newsy, noncommittal email informing him that she was now single. With a simple question at the end. “Did you ever really love me, Eli?”

He’d deleted it in seconds unwilling to address it in his own head, much less to her. Because he had, desperately, and had spent the intervening seven years or so doing everything in his power to forget her, he would never make that mistake again. Then he’d clapped eyes on Lori Brockton that morning, her eyes wide and naive, glancing around to see who the “girl in his brewery” might be. And his long held resolve had shattered as if made of glass.

Jesus Christ, Buchanan, will you never learn?

She was out of his league, not his type, practically his boss and, as a bonus, now living with the guy who was indeed his boss. But his palms itched to touch her again; his lips burned to taste her one more time. The few intense moments they’d shared he’d forced on her, just to see what she’d do. Her response had been immediate and satisfying and utterly unacceptable. So, he stopped and contented himself with helping her learn how much she loved his work. Brewing. Now, she claimed she would go study at the Munich Institute.

Yeah, as if her father and boyfriend would allow that. He groaned, tugged automatically at the crotch of his jeans, making room for the familiar and irritating hard-on. Remembering how she tasted, the soft curve of her hip under his hand, the soft noise she made when he—. The sound of a slamming door made him jerk backward, dumping himself unceremoniously onto the office floor. Irritated, he clamored to his feet and took a breath. One more week with her. Then what? Would he even stay here? He already had another brewery courting him away, as usual.

Brockton had state of the art equipment, a dedicated staff, and the willingness to let him experiment. But he knew himself well enough to realize that if he stayed much longer he’d be the catalyst for another human resources mess. Then he saw her, flipping through the brew log, tugging her long hair up under a hat, exposing the line of her neck. He licked his lips, then slid back inside the office to get himself under control before stomping out, yelling at anyone in his way. This was going to be a shit day. One that would make her happy to be shed of this rotation — and of him. He gulped when she turned, a smile lighting her face. He frowned and pointed behind her.

“So, what the fuck were you thinking last night, leaving vessel number five at forty degrees, Brockton? I think you may just have ruined an entire batch of expensive pilsner.”