Chapter 6
SIX
RONAN
SUNSHINE & APPLES
I double checked all the batches I started.
The sterilizing process was harder here than in the lab I used to work at, but I took it as a challenge instead of a detriment.
I liked having my hand in the actual process from start to finish since the larger batch processing would be less about me and more about the end product for bottling.
Right now I just needed to perfect the base.
Each bucket had a notebook full of details in front of it. And they were tacked down with some Velcro I found in a drawer.
I didn’t have a lot of wiggle room for fuck-ups. I had the rest of the season to play with fresh apples for the winter and special batch barrel aging. But this first trio of hard ciders needed to be done early for the August kickoff party.
Ian Kagan was doing a show at the concert stage, and the Brothers Three Taproom would be having their grand reopening with the new name and branding. A major reason why I’d been hired was because I was damn good at handling these tight timelines.
I was learning far more about this farm than I ever had working for three years at the Chicago plant. Damn near everyone was related to someone either by marriage or blood. And those who weren’t had an unusual level of loyalty bred into them.
It was refreshing and scary as hell. I knew the cost of family and weight of it. My family tree was as wide as a five-hundred-year-old oak, with just as many roots embedded deep in the earth. But that didn’t track into my job.
Not like the Brothers Three operation. Beckett Manning ruled the orchard with startling fairness which, in turn, created a place where people actually liked working hard.
I was the new guy and I expected to have to prove myself, but it felt bigger than that. Not just to challenge myself—though that was a large part of why I’d taken the position.
I wanted to belong.
And damn if that didn’t make me nervy on a level I haven’t experienced before. I’d prided myself on being unattached to the businesses I worked for so I could take what I needed and move onto the next.
And here I was babying twelve batches of mash to make the perfect cider. I had six buckets already fermenting. I could add more flavors to the base on the back end, but I was experimenting with a mix of the apples from the freezers for a little something more special.
Using frozen fruit accelerated some of the process, and the scorching heat of July made for an extra variable.
The one nice thing about a lab was the temperature control aspect.
This was an earthier and more back to basics situation, which made my blood hum and my brain whirl with the possibilities.
I lifted the top on one of my buckets and swore at the sludge inside.
“Fuck.”
But there were also more mistakes. Something must have happened to the seal or it had been a shitty batch of apples. I lifted the bucket and the handle snapped off, dropping with a thunk on the floor, splashing the contents on me from crotch to neck.
“Motherfucker.”
I bent at the knees and lifted the whole damn thing up, hugging it to my applesauce-and-shredded-apple skin-covered chest before I hauled it out the door.
Thank God I’d opened the huge barn doors for some cross breeze. I was ten feet from the compost pile when the bucket slipped out of my hold again, splattering across the stone path, leaking into my boots, and pooling around my feet.
I stared up in defeat. “Fucker.”
The sun was high in the sky and blazing down on the entire mess, bringing out the bugs to add to the shit show. A sticky film congealed on every part of me.
I looked around for anything to help and suddenly a shot of cold water hit me square in the back.
I whirled around and Kira stood there with the hose dripping. She’d been watering the plants in the seating areas and had her hand over her mouth. She lowered her hand and I could hear the laughter bubbling up. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
I stalked toward her and she turned it back on, thankfully this time at a lower setting. But not by much. “I don’t want you to get stung. It’s for your own good, Ronan. There were bees.”
She ducked around the massive planter as I headed for her.
“Bees, huh?”
She nodded and held up the sprayer like a weapon. “Stay back.”
I swiped the water off my face as she backed up the walk. “You were just helping, right?” My voice was cajoling as I stripped off my dripping tank. My heavy Celtic cross stuck to my chest hair with the sticky, now soaking wet apple mash clinging to me.
“Right.” Her huge amber eyes were bright with laughter. “Absolutely.” She scratched at her cheek lightly. “You got something…”
I had a lot of something all over me. I pushed a chair out of my way and she squeaked, letting the water jets go on full blast at my chest. When the stream headed south, I managed to grab the hose and turn the blast upward, getting both of us in the process.
She shrieked and the threadbare cropped T-shirt she was wearing went nearly translucent as water dripped from our faces and chests.
After the initial shock, the water felt damn good. The hose was kinked and only let out a dribble of a stream between us. She looked up at me, her dark hair hanging in a wet hank along her makeup-free face. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were gonna kill me.
Bronze colored now and dilated with the shock of the water and how close we were.
Her nipples beaded up as my fingers dug into the loops of her cutoff jeans, locking her in place.
It was just so she wouldn’t hit me with the hose again.
Bullshit.
I couldn’t resist the slice of skin above her jeans. My thumb slid across the silky flesh. It was tight with surprising muscles. She was lush and solid in ways that made me want to put her on my bench and see how strong those thighs really were.
Around my neck.
Around my hips.
I didn’t really care.
Her skin was wet and warm and now she was as sticky as I was. My knee slid between her legs as we lined up perfectly. I was a big guy and not used to women actually fitting against me.
This woman wasn’t breakable or coy.
She was made for a man like me.
The flush raced up her neck and bloomed across her cheeks as she stared up at me.
I jerked her tighter against me and her lips parted. “You started this.”
Her gaze bounced from my eyes down to my mouth then back up. “You gonna finish it?”
My fingers moved down to dig into her hip, surprised she would own up to it. She’d been actively avoiding me for the last week.
Until today.
Of course I was the one to look for her earlier. Catching her mid-brainstorm when she was puzzling through the layout of the main dining area had been fascinating. I’d ducked in a few times to get a lay of the land but never managed to catch her alone.
She was always rushing around, giving orders, or on the damn phone. Always iPad at the ready as she put out fires with distributors, doing interviews for staff, or training those she’d already hired. Through it all, she was friendly and scarily proficient at damn near everything.
I was definitely in the way every time, which had me hightailing it back to my brewing barn. All day I’d tried to put her out of my mind.
It was getting harder every damn day.
And now she was in my arms—finally.
My thumb slid higher along her middle to dip under the cropped shirt. The cotton clung to her chest, outlining the lace underneath and the nipple tightening in reaction. To me or the cold water? I swiped under the heavy curve of her breast then coasted a little higher.
Her eyelids slid down, leaving a slit of gold as she watched me.
The gentlemanly part of me that my ma raised kicked at me to ask for permission.
To beg for the right to touch her in the bright summer sun beating down on us in this space between our two worlds.
The taproom she was working so hard to pull together and my brewing house that would pull in the people.
Was this the liminal space where we could be just us?
Or was this the space out of time, and we’d go back to our respective corners and forget it happened?
My cock hardened painfully, hampered by wet denim and apples, but no less eager to get her naked.
She swallowed hard and my gaze drifted to the wild fluttering of her pulse. I wanted that under my mouth as much as I wanted to see if her nipples were a soft pink or cinnamon dark.
Her breast filled my hand, firm and weighty. One swipe of my thumb and she let out a shaky breath. Another swipe and it hitched and stalled.
My other hand palmed her ass, lightly rocking our hips together. Her head dropped back, exposing that endless neck. A single chain glittered at her throat today.
I dipped my head to trace the tiny rubies clustered just above the notch of her collarbone. Salt and that rich moonflower scent lingered there.
And now apples.
My failed recipe clung to her skin, making it so much better in a way I didn’t want to examine too closely. I nosed my way up the column of her neck to scrape my teeth over her chin.
My beard left abrasions on her golden skin. Marks I ached to leave all over her.
There was no gentleness left in me, not when her nipple stabbed the center of my palm and her lips were so close to mine.
My thumb slid over the tip gently before I pinched it tight enough that she gasped. My other hand raced up her back to the heavy tangle of hair knotted at the nape of her neck and anchored her to me as I finally took her mouth.
She tasted of sunshine and something citrusy and sharp laced with a groan I took inside of me to feed the beast I hadn’t expected to rage between us. The kiss held little finesse and all aggression.
For a moment, I thought I went too far.
She made a soft sound of surrender, then her arm came up around my neck and she was all in. We were a tangle of tongues and breath, lips and even teeth as we slanted first one way and the other to get the perfect combination.
Her mouth was as lush as the delicious handful of ass I couldn’t stay away from in one hand and her breast in the other. She didn’t seem to be in any more control than I was if the nip of teeth on my lower lip was any indication.
As I stepped back to get my mouth on more skin, the Adirondack chair hit me on the back of my calf just right and I stumbled.
Instead of saving me, she pushed me into the chair and climbed into my lap. The chair was oversized and made of sturdy teak. The angle forced her knees to hug my hips and my cock to lodge itself into the wet denim between her thighs.
She gripped the back of the chair and loomed over me, all golden fire and heat. I snaked my hand between us, roaming over her wet shirt and lightly circling her neck. Her eyes flashed and her pulse went wild before I slid around to release the hair tie at the back of her neck.
Her curtain of dark hair slid forward and teased my cheeks and neck. My hands went back to her ass and ground her against me.
“Lift that shirt for me. Let me see you.”
She touched her forehead to mine.
“Let me see you, Kira. Your beautiful golden skin. Here in the sunshine.”
Her arms tightened. I could feel her muscles lock and the first vestiges of unease crawl through her.
“Eyes on me. No one is around. It’s just us.”
“How would you know?”
“Because you’re not ordering anyone around. This is how you end the day. Watering the plants before you leave.”
She frowned. “Watching me, Viking?”
“Yes.” I lifted my hips. “But you knew that.” My fingertips teased the edges of her cutoffs to the curve of her ass.
I slid the denim higher to get to more skin, rubbing her against my cock more firmly.
“Now lift your shirt for me. I want to taste you.” I brushed my fingertips along the lace of her panties.
“Or do you just want me to get you off here? I don’t mind if it’s just for you. ”
Her golden eyes were wary, but she leaned back and lifted her shirt up.
The black lace made my chest ache. Christ, she was beyond beautiful. “Off.”
“You just said lift.”
“Now I want more. I have a feeling that will be a problem for me.” I nipped at her chin and stroked over the panel covering her pussy from me. “I will always want more.”
“And if I don’t want to give more?”
I relaxed back in the chair, but I didn’t move my hands. “I can wait. I’ll have my hand on my cock in the shower every morning and every fucking night, but I’ll wait.” I brushed my nose along her neck. “But I don’t think you really want to wait or you wouldn’t have climbed onto me.”
At her silence, I had two options. To let her keep the safe distance. It was probably the smarter way to go, but it didn’t feel right.
“Or do you want me to take away the decision?” I found that fluttering pulse and licked at it gently. “Are you tired of making decisions?” My voice was gravel-rough and I was harder than stone.
Her grip tightened on the chair and her pulse kicked—hard.
“Is that what you need, baby? Just say the word.”