Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
MEREDITH
I hated to send the kittens home with Bowen and Landry, but I had to fill the fermenter and do the hot washes.
Before Bowen and Landry left, a delivery guy arrived with Calder’s order—kitten and cat food, bath shampoo, litter-box supplies, and toys.
There’s been no talk of rehoming the cats, and I’m not going to bring it up.
I want to see Calder hunch his big frame over a mama cat like he plans to protect her for the rest of her life.
I want to see him cuddle a little wriggling pile of fur because he can’t help himself.
I like the hard edges to the man, but I like when he melts and doesn’t realize he’s doing it.
“Everything done for the night?” Calder comes down the stairs from the office, his face grim.
We rode together, but I told him he didn’t have to wait for me. I’d call him when I was done. But he didn’t listen, helping me with the brew side of the house before retreating upstairs to tackle the financials. His expression says it wasn’t a good time.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Are we at A Scandalous Affair this year?”
“Yes.” Scandal’s street fair is something I look forward to every year, but now that Jules Creek has a booth, I anticipate it even more.
He shoves a hand in a pocket. “No weddings? Company parties? Any other vendor fairs?”
A thousand conversations with Ransom run through my head.
“I pushed for it, but we didn’t have the staffing.
He and I enjoyed it. It was like our big game.
” Holly used to love hearing us talk logistics back and forth across the dinner table.
She said I would light up like never before, and her priority was always taking care of me.
Seeing me happy made her happy. “But then I’d have to be here instead of sitting a whole weekend at a vendor fair, or vice versa, and Ransom needed to be around for the ranch.
Likewise, he thought it’d take too much manpower to host events versus just having the taproom open so people can come and go. ”
“You think it’d be more lucrative?”
“We make bank at the street fair, but we also don’t have to travel and transport products, and Sawyer is around to help.
So, yeah, I thought it’d be good for visibility and networking to do more, and with more breweries popping up, I still think so.
” New places like the one Duncan is planning.
“Same with other events. We could do more in house.”
He folds his arm, listening in a way his dad never did. This conversation would’ve been brushed off by now. “Like what?”
This is the most dangerous side of Calder. He listens. He notices. It’s intoxicating.
“Maybe we charge, I don’t know, a thousand bucks to reserve the taproom for a party of fifty.
That’s a guaranteed thousand dollars, and the chance for people to remember Jules Creek’s name.
We need to stand out, or our product will sit on the shelves, and we need to keep our name alive, or people aren’t going to drive out of city limits to have a drink. ”
The muscles in his jaws flex. “Yet we can’t afford to hire anyone to help with the extra load.”
The brewery now has four owners, but I’m the only actual employee. “Not unless you think Landry wants to use his marketing skills for—”
“No. He doesn’t.” His brows are drawn together. My fingers itch to smooth them out, take away the darkness that’s crowded into the light since lunchtime. “Bowen won’t be using any of his time on this place, either, once he returns to Vegas.”
“And you?”
He clamps his teeth together again.
“When are you leaving?” I almost choke on the last word. He hasn’t said. He’s staying for the cattle drive, but he hasn’t mentioned what will happen beyond that. My life is a black hole beyond it, and maybe that should tell me something. Maybe it’s saying I should start thinking about me.
His brows draw together. “I don’t know.”
I twist my fingers together. “How is this going to work?”
He blows out a gusty breath. “I guess it depends, Meredith. How much time do you want to make a decision?”
Do I really want to delve into this now? It’s been a good day. I came to work well-rested, and I’m looking forward to going home with Calder to a houseful of cats.
“How about after the cattle drive? You’re all leaving afterward anyway.”
If anything can change their mind, it’s one of the events they loved to do. Something that’ll help all the good memories surface.
He dips head. “Okay. I’ll let them know”
My work is done, and anything else can wait.
I start for the door, wishing I drove myself after the end of our discussion.
I wouldn’t have to be closed in a cab, surrounded by the smell of him, right next to his big body, witnessing how he leans on the console, his hand loose over the wheel.
He’s all masculine energy, and I feel like a little girl waiting to get dropped off at home so he can go do adult things.
Important things. I’m just the brewer, not the creator.
He beats me to the door with long strides and slaps a hand on the heavy wood panel. “Meredith, wait.”
“Why?” Does he want to tell me he doesn’t hate Scandal? Is he going to confess that our messing around is affecting him on a visceral level? Or is he going to tell me he can’t get enough of me, and he is in fact not ditching this town—or me—after he fulfills his promise to move the cattle?
Because I can’t keep my distance from him, and it’s messing with my head.
He’s there when I go to bed. My sheets smell like him when I wake up.
I go to work and he’s there. He hasn’t been in town that long, but I’m tumbling faster and harder than I ever have, and it’s for a guy who wasn’t ever supposed to be mine.
“You’re upset,” he says, blocking me between him and the door. Heat blooms low in my belly. Our position resembles that of the shower, and my body remembers everything that happened there.
“I’m not upset, just…” Disappointed? Confused? Apprehensive? I might as well tell him. He’s not budging. “I hate to be left wondering. About my job. About us. You. Everything’s changed, but nothing has. I’ve been here before, and I don’t like being here again.”
His gaze glides over my face. “I didn’t think I’d ever come home again,” he says quietly.
“Or that when I did, so much time would’ve passed that grudges wouldn’t mean a thing.
A lot of time did pass. But those grudges still have meaning.
Dad didn’t even live to see retirement age, and here I am.
” He dips his head until our foreheads touch. “And there’s you. Unexpected.”
“And you don’t want that—”
He shushes me with a kiss. “I want you, rosy.” Another kiss, and then he runs his thumb over my lower lip. “I like being with you. I like waking up with you. I love watching you come.”
Everything he’s saying is exactly what I want to hear. Yet there’s an emptiness inside me that wants more. The orgasms fill the well, but before long, it’s run dry again.
But I don’t say that. I want a reprieve from wanting more, and he can give it to me. He’s the only one who can fill me up, however temporary.
“I like when you lose control.”
I love it when a ragged groan rips from his chest because of me. I love it when his body shudders into my hold, and for a few seconds, I have the power. He’s mine to command, and he’s doing exactly what I want.
“You’re the only one who can drive me out of my mind.” He trails his fingers down my chest. “You’re doing it now.”
My chest rises and falls faster. “We can’t. Not here.”
“Why not?”
I look around but can’t see much around his broad shoulders. “The windows.” The sun’s sinking, but it’s not dark out yet.
“No one’s here, the lights are off, and the cameras only film outside.”
Thanks to the angle and the recessed door, someone would have to get right up to the tall windows and look directly at us to see anything.
His fingers are at my waistband. Desire curls through my bloodstream, filling me with a need only he can satisfy. I lick my lips when he undoes the clasp of my jeans and his warm hand brushes against my lower abdomen. Yes, this is just what I need to get out of my head.
“We can do a lot without condoms.”
His arrogant lips curl into a lazy grin. He releases my jeans. “I didn’t just order cat supplies.”
“You bought condoms?” A new level of anticipation surges inside me, pushing outward until I’m not sure if I’m excited or scared. What this man can do with his tongue and his fingers has flipped my world around and turned me into a multi-orgasm fiend.
“I have plenty now.” He drags my jeans down past my ass then crouches down, his head at crotch level. “And so many fucking ways to use them.”
Oh my god. This is happening. I need to squeeze my legs together to ease the pounding between my thighs. I’m embarrassed to find out how wet I am, and that he can see it.
He slips one shoe off, then the other. My jeans go next. I inhale a shuddering breath. My nerves are mixing with arousal, and a tremor races through me. I’m bare from the waist down, and his hot breath wafts over my belly.
“You can be nice and loud in here, Meredith.” He lifts my leg to his shoulder.
“I can’t believe we’re doing th—”
He licks through my seam right to my clit.
“Calder!” The leg bearing my weight quivers, but he doesn’t stop. He’s a starved man, and I let loose. Finally, I can be loud, and I’m not missing this chance.
His big hands are bracing my thighs open. The door shakes as I buck against him. I don’t know what to do with my hands, moving them from his hair to flattening on the door and back to his scalp.
My orgasm builds like a storm cloud inside me, growing and expanding. Soon, I’m going to shatter.
“Yes. Yes, Calder.”