Chapter 3
DELANEY
KAK-WEEEEE!
I was sleep-working at my desk the following morning when a sound like a deranged cuckoo clock and an air-raid siren ripped through the house.
For a single, startled moment, I sat bolt upright in my chair and looked around in a panic, thinking it was a fire alarm and there’d been a second Delaney-involved blaze in twenty-four hours.
Then I remembered the hasty plan I’d concocted—the delivery I’d scheduled — and realized it was the doorbell. I jumped to my feet and hurried out into the hall before it could shriek again.
The man on my front stoop wore a purple baja hoodie, a green Kitchen Couriers cap, a pair of Birkenstocks over fuzzy socks, and a name tag that read KEL in block letters. More importantly, he carried a large, white bakery box that contained strawberry croissants from Fanaille—aka the single best food in New York or, possibly, the world.
“Good morning,” I said politely, reaching for the box. “Thanks for the?—”
Kel took a step back, taking my croissants with him. “Dude. You’re Delaney Monroe?”
I frowned. “Doesn’t it say my name on the order?”
“As in… Tam Monroe’s brother?”
This again? I blew out a breath. I was running on zero sleep—a side effect, it turned out, of being jumped at by a flyer-bearing Coppertian, crotch-sniffed by a canine with dubious intentions, intimately involved in a home burning, and then saddled with the world’s sexiest, bossiest contractor and his dog as houseguests.
I had no patience for this game.
“Yes,” I said shortly, reaching for the box again.
Again, he kept it just out of reach. “The one who?—?”
“The one who doesn’t play hockey, who caused a small fire in his own home, and who may have contributed to the… the accidental destruction of Brewer’s camper?” I asked defiantly. “Yes. Yes, to all of it. Now, can I please have my croissants?”
“Dude.” Kel the delivery guy managed to insert a wealth of rebuke into the single syllable. “I was gonna say the guy who sent fourteen handwritten letters to the Kitchen Couriers corporate office asking them to extend our delivery area ’cause we never delivered out this far before you moved in.”
“Oh.” I paused, taken aback. “Well. Fourteen seems excessive. I don’t recall there being quite that?—”
“Fourteen,” he assured me solemnly.
I cleared my throat, feeling my cheeks heat. There was no shame in strategically influencing corporate policy, was there? It wasn’t a crime to enjoy croissants.
“I may have… taken the lead on an issue that affects the entire neighborhood, yes,” I said stiffly. “Did you know, studies show small towns are one of the fastest-growing sectors for delivery expansion, especially in rural and exurban areas where populations are increasing?”
He frowned deeply. “I guess. But dude?—”
“And you should also know that the revenue from expanding these markets often outweighs the initial cost of longer-range deliveries. Which, obviously, means more tips for you.”
“Yeah, but like?—”
“Have a nice day, Kel.” I took the box from his hands with extreme dignity.
“Wait!” Kel called. “You didn’t actually destroy Brewer’s camper, did y?—?”
I closed the door firmly, then leaned back against it and took a deep breath.
It was just after 7:00 a.m., and this morning was already so far off the rails I couldn’t remember where the rails were supposed to be.
Then I headed to the kitchen to arrange my peace-offering breakfast.
Brief confession time: I hadn’t actually intended to ask Brewer to stay with me after the fire. When I’d offered to help him out, I’d meant to hellllp pay for the overpriced hotel that accepted dogs, not to move him into my home.
It was bad enough for my equilibrium having the man in my home five days a week doing renovation work. Only a truly deranged person would volunteer to have their sexy nemesis in their house 24/7, sucking up all their oxygen and distracting them constantly, and I flattered myself that I wasn’t quite that deranged.
At least not yet.
But something about Brewer’s defeated expression yesterday and the sight of his belongings in a sad, soggy pile on the snow had tangled my words, and when he’d misunderstood my offer…
Well, I wasn’t a monster, okay? Of course I’d brought Brewer and his dog to my house.
And of course I’d placed Brewer’s antique teacup collection with the hand-painted peonies and gold-leaf trim—“I use them every day,” he’d explained when I’d looked surprised, which had only raised more questions—in my kitchen cabinet.
And of course I’d agreed that Brewer could use a blow-up mattress in the attic above the garage—a space that was heated, insulated, and mostly empty—so he could keep Teeny contained, and I wouldn’t have to give up my office to be his bedroom.
I’d even sort of consoled myself with the knowledge that I was doing a good deed and earning some Copper County karma points that might help me fit in better.
I’d forgotten, temporarily, what they said about good deeds not going unpunished.
Imagine, if you will, my mentally, physically, emotionally exhausted self, freshly showered, slathered in night cream, and clad in my favorite silk pajamas, as I’d finally crawled into my bed last night.
I’d made it through the harrowing events of the day, through a scrupulously polite pasta dinner I prepared, through the weirdly domestic scene of burly Brewer scrubbing dishes, and even through feeding time for the dog—which I’d observed from a great distance and which had sounded not unlike running a Dyson over a bed of rocks.
I’d wanted nothing more than to curl up and sleep.
So I’d burrowed my head into my pillow and lain there in the dark, practicing some yoga breathing I’d once learned on an overpriced retreat. I’d allowed all distracting thoughts of fires, and dogs, and the solid wall of Brewer’s chest under my hand, and the charged moment when we’d both realized I was touching him to just float through my brain. I’d felt sleep reaching out her arms to claim me…
And then Brewer’s deep voice had murmured something I couldn’t quite make out, right in my fucking ear , sending an unwelcome zing of electricity to my balls and making my cock hard almost instantly.
My eyes had flashed open, and I’d blinked disorientedly into the darkness, my heart pounding a million miles an hour… but my room had been empty.
And then the voice had come again—a low, soothing chuckle that time, followed by the jingle of dog tags—and I’d realized what I must have blocked out when I’d helped Brewer tote all his stuff to the little attic over the garage.
Namely, that although Brewer’s attic room was as far from mine as you could get in terms of walking distance—down and around the stairs, through the house, out the kitchen door to the little breezeway that led to the garage, and back up another staircase—it was also right next to my fucking room as the crow flew, so to speak.
To put it more succinctly, Brewer’s bed was inches from mine, separated by a single, thin wall.
To say it took an hour for my cock to deflate would not be an exaggeration. Not when I’d spent that hour motionless in my bed, afraid to move or sigh or breathe too hard for fear he would hear me . Not when I’d spent the majority of that time listening to Brewer shift around on his mattress, murmur to the dog in soothing words I couldn’t make out, and laugh at whatever she was doing in response.
And the torture hadn’t ended there.
My alarm had gone off mere minutes after I managed to fall asleep, but I’d dressed and shuffled downstairs like a zombie to prep for my Zoom with Marjorie, only to collide—literally, forcefully —with the exact same wall of warm muscle I’d spent the night trying to forget.
“Whoa, careful.” One of Brewer’s big hands had wrapped around my biceps. The other had—no word of a lie—reached out to fix my glasses.
I’d mumbled something incoherent, partly because I was half-asleep but mostly because Brewer’s hair was damp, and he was wearing nothing but low-slung sweatpants, and the droplets of water clinging to his chest made rainbow patterns in the early morning light, and he smelled like a combination of my sea-salt and bergamot bodywash and his own Brewer-scent of grass and sawdust.
“Steady now?” he’d asked in that same voice I’d heard all night.
My tongue tied itself into a knot, but my dick had no such qualms. Apparently, at some point the evening before, it had become the victim of an inadvertent Pavlovian experiment, and it rose now, thinking the sound of Brewer’s voice meant it was erection time .
I’d squeaked out a mortifying “yes, thanks” that sounded shriller than a recording played at five times speed and scurried into my office.
But while Brewer had taken the dog for a walk, I’d paced around my office and had a stern talk with myself, which had mostly centered around a single mantra:
I cannot keep doing this.
Yes, Brewer was attractive. While I would never suggest I had a type—the very notion was crass, not to mention outdated—I could admit that I had a… a propensity toward finding large, muscled guys attractive.
But that didn’t mean anything would come of it. I barely knew Brewer—our conversations had been limited to polite arguments about the house—but what I did know drove me insane. Like most big guys, Brewer didn’t seem to respect someone smaller than him. And while that apparently wasn’t a deal-breaker for my dick, it was for me .
I refused to spend days or weeks tiptoeing around my own home, which meant I needed to put our relationship back on better footing. No more fighting, no more chest touching, no more… Pavlovian dick response. We could be cordial coworkers, of a sort.
After pacing and perseverating for fifteen minutes on how best to accomplish this, I’d finally pulled open my Kitchen Couriers app and ordered croissants to be delivered.
Peace-offering croissants.
I blamed my sleeplessness for thinking this was a sound plan.
By the time I heard Brewer’s boots hitting the steps as he came down from the attic after taking Teeny upstairs, I’d arranged the pastries on a plate, poured us each a coffee—Brewer’s in one of his “everyday” china cups—and tried to channel my most professional, most rational, most focused self.
Then he stepped into the kitchen, muttered a surprised “Oh. Hey.”… and just like that, the very air between us trembled and thickened.
At least, it did for me.
Brewer’s broad shoulders stretched his T-shirt, and as he took a cautious step closer, I had the visceral sensation of my space shrinking and heat curling into the room. His scruff-darkened jaw—had I ever fixated on a man’s jaw before? Did this mean I was a jaw man now?—scrambled my concentration.
A beat too late, I forced a bright smile. “Hey. Good morning.”
Brewer’s gaze flicked to the pastries, then back to me. His brows drew together in suspicion. “Did I miss something? Are you having guests over?”
“What? Oh. No, of course not. It’s just breakfast.” I slid his coffee toward him.
He didn’t move except to raise one eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware buying me breakfast was part of our agreement, boss.”
I set my teeth together. Did the man not understand that the first rule of peace offerings was that you didn’t talk about peace offerings?
“I didn’t buy you breakfast, per se,” I argued. “I just felt like eating croissants, that’s all. Croissants are serotonin in a bakery box. Practically… practically medicine. And since you’re staying here now, I bought you one, too.”
His gaze dropped to the mountain of food—admittedly, I might have gone slightly overboard, but I’d had to assume a man his size ate as much as my brothers did—then back to me. One corner of his mouth hitched up. “Okay.”
“It’s not a big deal,” I went on. “It’s simple politeness and respect. It’s… fair and right.”
“I said okay, Delaney.”
Brewer stepped closer—close enough that I could say for certain the heat coming off him had not been my imagination—and reached for his coffee cup. I got another burst of bergamot-and-Brewer that made my pulse stutter.
Fuck.
“Delaney?” Brewer waved a hand in front of my face, and I realized I’d spaced out for a second.
My face flushed. “Pardon?”
He lifted his cup. “I said thanks . You remembered I like cream and sugar from when we were at the bakery that time?”
“Oh. Er. Yes?” My stomach flopped like a fish on a line, and I added, “That’s also not a big deal. I have an excellent memory.”
Brewer held my gaze for a beat longer than necessary, like he was still trying to figure me out. Then he took a sip of his coffee. His fingers—strong, calloused—curled around the cup. His throat moved as he swallowed. His tongue flicked out to catch a stray drop?—
I tore my gaze away, mortified.
Delaney. For the love of tiny baby Jesus.
“So.” I cleared my throat. “Great news! Hen told me yesterday that the vanity for the downstairs bathroom came in. So if you could go pick it up this morning?—”
“Wait. You got a vanity for the downstairs bath?” Brewer’s tone was neutral, but his gaze sharpened.
“Yes.” I straightened my shoulders. “Problem?”
His shrug seemed forced as he reached for a croissant. “Of course not. It’s your house.”
“Yes. Yes .” I nodded once. “Hen said it’s pretty heavy, so you might need some help getting it in. I’d go myself, but I, ah…”
Brewer ripped off a bite-sized piece of croissant with his teeth, then licked the crumbs from his lips, and I lost my train of thought. In fact, I lost all higher brain function. For a second, it was just me and his mouth in that kitchen.
“You?” Brewer prompted, his lips so shiny and full I had to grip the edge of the counter to stop myself from leaning in to discover exactly how they’d feel against mine.
“I, um…”
Brewer’s jaw flexed as he chewed. His throat worked as he swallowed.
Mortified by how fucking aware I was of him, I reached for my own coffee mug—a task I’d performed since I was my infant niece’s age, I was pretty sure—and misjudged the distance. Hot coffee sloshed over my hand.
“ Fuck !” I cried, snatching my hand away and shaking it off.
“Shit, Delaney.” Brewer instantly reached for my hand. “Did you get burned?”
“N-no!” I yanked my hand away. The only thing burning me was the hot, tight ball of embarrassed want in my stomach. Brewer touching me would only make it worse.
“Let me see?—”
“I’m fine,” I insisted. “What was I saying?”
With a sigh, Brewer stepped away. “You were explaining why you can’t pick up the vanity yourself.”
“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “Right. Because I have a call. A work call. With my editor,” I explained, wondering why I felt compelled to offer any explanation at all. “About the story I’m writing.”
“The same one you’ve been working on for a while?” Brewer asked. “How’s that going?”
I was sure he was only asking out of casual politeness, but I wondered if maybe it was the same kind of politeness that had made me order a whole box of croissants, so I stopped and considered his question before answering.
“It’s going well. At least… I think so? It started out as a piece about corruption and bribery of some town officials—not this town, obviously,” I added with an eye roll that made Brewer smile.
“It’s… it’s actually a bit of a departure from what I usually write,” I went on. “A little less… sensational, I guess? But a whistleblower came to me directly a couple months ago and asked me to take a closer look at the situation. He claimed he got a raw deal, which in and of itself isn’t that interesting—I mean, if I had a nickel for every person implicated in a scandal who swore they were innocent, I’d be the Nickel King of New York?—”
Brewer laughed, a deep sound that vibrated through me.
I swallowed hard and continued. “—but my editor freaking loved the idea, and a bunch of news outlets are interested, and… honestly, something about the guy got to me. My gut is telling me he is a decent guy who got caught up in something bigger than he knew. That he made the best decision he could at the time and ended up paying the price. He wants redemption and a second chance. And I’m not sure my article will actually make things, you know…” I waved a hand.