15. Ezra
JUNE
“Fucking hell, Brie,” I gasped as I bent over my bathroom sink.
“You are so sexy when you come,” she said, her voice tinny through the phone speaker.
I choked on a laugh. We were a far cry from that day in the winery kitchen, but I loved how comfortable she continued to feel with me.
I supposed that’s what happened when you watched each other work toward multiple orgasms through the phone a few nights a week.
It was almost like I couldn’t get off anymore without her watching me, like a reverse voyeur situation. Ever since our fight—and especially long makeup phone sex after the fact—my desire for her constantly scratched and clawed at my skin. I took my hand to myself more frequently during the day, the ever-fading memory of her scent in my mind, those sounds she made as she climaxed on a loop as I found my own.
So now, nearly every night after Hansen was fast asleep and Dad was holed up in his room with the latest in an impressive stack of crime and thriller novels, I locked myself away and called Brie.
This thing with her…it wasn’t only about the scorching hot phone sex. We talked too, a lot, about everything. I remained shocked I managed to find so much in common with a woman so much younger than me when we were at very different places in our lives.
“You think I’m sexy period,” I quipped at last as my breathing returned to normal and I pulled my sweatpants back up.
“True,” she said with a giggle.
“So how did today go?” I asked when I reclined on my bed and nestled into my mountain of pillows.
Yeah, I’d chosen to get off before we even had a conversation. I’d had a shitty day, and I needed that release. Brie hadn’t complained. I loved how her sparkling emerald eyes darkened to pine green when she was turned on, and I loved her soft, sexy words of encouragement while I worked myself over. She’d been happy to let me, whispered how good she knew my cock would feel inside her. How my hands would feel on her body. How badly she wanted to taste me.
I was spilling all over my bathroom sink in minutes.
But today was a big day for her. She’d been so nervous the past few weeks as the date of her competition with Bryce neared. I had to remind her frequently that she was talented, capable, and was going to wow the judges. If she didn’t come out on top, that was okay. The experience alone, having industry professionals give honest critiques of her work, would only make her a better baker.
But her worth wasn’t tied up in some contest that wouldn’t mean anything in the long run, and I hoped however today had gone, she remembered that.
Secretly, I’d been making it my personal mission to ensure she did.
“Amazing!” she breathed. “I blew everyone away.”
“Gonna need a bit more than ‘amazing,’ honey,” I said.
“Ez…” she trailed off. Then, tone full of awe and wonder, she added, “I won.”
My heart expanded so quickly and widely in my chest, it felt like it was going to burst. With pride. With excitement. With a whole slew of other emotions I wasn’t prepared to name.
“Fuck yeah, you did!” I whisper-yelled. “I’m so fucking proud of you!”
She was practically preening for me now, her head held high, the most satisfied grin I’d ever seen her wear dancing on her lips—which was saying something, given how many times I’d dirty talked her through an orgasm.
“Guess all those nights spent coaching a helpless chef through pastry baking really paid off.”
“Watch it,” I growled, and Brie laughed. “I’m not helpless. My area of expertise is just elsewhere.”
“You have turned me into a much better chef,” she conceded.
“You’re damn right.”
“And…you’ve helped me become more confident too.”
The pride coursing through my veins morphed to something softer and sweeter in an instant. All I wanted in that moment was to hug her.
Kiss her.
Maybe fuck her .
Okay, definitely fuck her.
But the distance had been good for us. It had given us the opportunity to explore this thing without the stakes being too high. We could seek our pleasure together from over three hundred miles away, and no one would be the wiser. While we texted almost all day, every day between work and other duties, it hadn’t affected our daily lives in any negative way.
In fact, my life was richer for having Brie in it, even if it was unorthodox.
But she was moving home in less than two weeks, and while I knew she’d be busy getting her bakery up and running and I was in the middle of the summer season at the winery, I wondered how we’d navigate that new terrain. Would the pull I felt to her be stronger, knowing she was only a few miles away? Would we be able to resist, or would we damn the consequences and give in?
Six months ago, none of this would’ve bothered me. I had been so focused on settling into our new life and keeping Hansen happy and cared for that I hadn’t balked when Brie pumped the brakes. We had, after all, only spent a handful of hours together. That wasn’t enough to go turning my—and my son’s—entire world upside down.
But that was six months ago.
Now, confronted with Brie’s impending return to Apple Blossom Bay, a date that was no longer some shimmering mirage in the distance but sharply in focus right in front of us, it was time to take a good, hard look at what our relationship would look like going forward.
I wanted her in ways I’d never wanted a woman before, but her dad was my boss, which, according to him, made her off limits. We’d gotten away with it so far because it was easy to keep these nightly phone calls a secret. If her father found out what I was doing with his youngest daughter—and how badly I wanted to move things from cyberspace to a physical one—he wouldn’t hesitate to kick my ass out the winery door. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t piss on my life and set it on fire.
“What’re we going to do, Brie?” I asked quietly.
“About?”
“About us.”
“Is there an us?”
Fucking hell, I wished and wanted and hoped and dreamed.
But it was all a fantasy.
“You don’t know how badly I wish I could say yes,” I told her honestly.
“I wish you could too,” she said quietly. “I wish…so many things were different.”
“Me too, honey.” I scrubbed my hand over my face and through my hair, settling it on the back of my neck and rubbing circles, as if that would make this all okay, as if I could massage into my scalp that the idea of “us” was a bad one when nothing else in my life had ever felt more right.
“What are we going to do?” I asked again.
I needed her to make this choice for me. Exactly like that day six months ago, I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to do it for us.
She inhaled deeply, her chest rising and falling. “The second I get back…this has to be over. It’s the only way.”
I swallowed hard, my throat thickening with emotion at the thought of letting this easy intimacy I’d found with her go. Still, I knew she was right.
“Friends?” I asked.
“Always.”