Muse
Chapter One
Jen pulled the sweat-soaked shirt away from her skin. The Running Rock bar was hotter than the seventh level of hell. Wilted and wishing for nothing more than a shower and the cool sheets of her hotel bed, she glanced around at the crowd. She sipped water, which didn’t really help her aching throat, as she observed the party. The media and fellow brewery VIPs were buzzing at a fever pitch about her company’s experimental concoction. Cheeky Blonde—her brewery’s delicious, new, and risky Imperial pale ale—was a hit.
Its debut at the largest beer festival in the nation had been worth all the trouble, if she could believe her eyes and ears. She wrapped her fingers around a cold glass of the golden ale when another reporter walked up to interview her, then turned and bumped right into her co-worker, brewer, and sometimes lover, Dylan LeDuc. He smiled, and the exhaustion she saw evident in his deep brown eyes must have matched her own.
The Running Rock was a three-story legend of beer bars, and they’d agreed to host the Cheeky Blonde coming-out party at the weekend’s National Beer Festival only after months of pressure and campaigning on her part. Dylan had originally balked at the entire concept, worried as any brewer would, about brett,
the bacteria that coated the inside of many wine barrels. If it escaped from the barrels they were using to age the ale into their brewery, it could literally ruin all the other beers they had, causing other yeast to go into hyper drive until all the brews went sour.
But for the Cheeky Blonde project, it had been crucial. She had persevered, knowing the wine-barrel-aging trend was hot, and Dylan could handle its quirks. And he had, if the raving of the beer writers and VIPs around her were any indication.
She took a breath and watched as her brewer answered questions, laughing and joking with the media. His calm, handsome face lit from within as he accepted kudos. He talked with his hands, explaining the intricacies of the processes. She observed the long, tapering fingers that had recently brought her such pleasure. He truly was an amazing talent—on many fronts.
Their relationship had started out tense. His borderline obsessive compulsion about his brews, demanding naming rights, setting the special release schedules without wanting to consult her clashed with her own controlling tendencies. At their last knock-down-drag-out fight, she’d called him a fucking control freak artist, and he simply shook his head, muttered something that sounded like cunt,
and stalked out. But a few months ago, after a party where they’d announced sales growth figures to their biggest investors, she’d fallen into bed with him as if it were the most natural act in the universe.
Not for the first time, she mentally kicked herself for letting their relationship get physical. Their first night had been, in a word, amazing. But it wouldn’t work and she had told him so the next morning. Over coffee, in her tiny kitchen, she had stared into his dark brown eyes and declared the slip the first and last time for them.
He had her writhing in ecstasy up on her kitchen table, screaming his name through a monster orgasm in minutes using those oh-so talented fingers.
I’m not looking to get married,
he’d declared, as he leaned against her kitchen sink later that day, drinking a beer, and dressed only in a towel. Can’t we just enjoy each other? I mean we seem fairly compatible.
She smiled, recalling how he’d gasped and clutched at her hair not five minutes later when she wrapped her lips around his long, lean cock, and sucked him to climax.
He’d certainly brought out the horny in her. But since she’d arm-twisted him into trying this wine barrel-aging thing, for what he considered a purely promotional gimmick, he’d been sullen and uncommunicative. The plane ride out had been full of tension. Janice Reilly, one of the founders of the company, acted like nothing was wrong, but at one point, asked her point blank if the two of them were on the outs.
Jen reminded her they’d never been in,
other than in each other’s pants.
Janice had given her a skeptical look, but dropped it.
Moving out of Dylan’s way with the reporters, she looked across the room and immediately clashed eyes with a set of deep sapphire ones that belonged to the supreme Alpha male of their craft-brewing world. She shivered. Then squared her shoulders and met his gaze.
Sean Garrison, along with his twin brother Liam, owned and ran the most successful brewery in Michigan. And there he stood, glass in hand, part of a group of nationally famous brewery owners, staring straight at her. She swiveled around to see that Dylan was surrounded by another group of beer writers and frowned. Surely Sean was fixated on someone else.
Garrison Brothers Brewing was the Sam Adams of her state, having started small and been made bigger by huge injections of family and investor money. The expert marketing guidance from the man now openly staring at her from across a clichéd crowded room hadn’t hurt either. She gave a little wave, as if they were old friends, and he raised his glass. Her face blazed hot as she processed she was flirting with the man many called the Evil Emperor of Craft Brewing—both class-A jerk and marketing savant.
Ah yes, Mr. Garrison.
Jen jumped at the strange, gravelly voice, before realizing it was the woman who owned the bar. Oh hello, Becky. Yeah, he…um….
Words stuck in her throat. She had nothing to say about the guy. Nothing that didn’t start with that asshole
anyway. Her face flushed.
He’s staring at you like you were the last drink of water in the Sahara desert.
The woman’s harsh laughter held a tinge of anger. The guy can’t rein it in. Ever. It’s why he’s divorced, you know. Can’t keep it in his pants.
Jen frowned, not really wanting that information.
Poor Victoria.
The other woman kept talking. She put up with it for a while, after their twins were born. She’s a good friend of mine. And that man is a cheating prick.
She started to move back into the room to Jen’s relief then stopped and said, Don’t let him near you, hon. You’ll regret it the rest of your life.
Jen shook her head hoping the woman would get the hint and leave her alone. She closed her eyes to collect herself then opened them only to come face-to-face with all six-foot-five-inches of the man himself. Her first thought: No guy should have eyes that blue. She took in his ruggedly handsome face, coal-black wavy hair that skimmed the collar of the soft white cotton shirt hugging his classic male torso. If she did not know better, she would swear that her toes curled. She gripped the beer glass in an effort not to close the distance, reach out, and touch to see if his hair felt as silky as it looked. She also struggled not to stare too obviously at the dark indigo crotch of his jeans. The small Garrison Bros.
logo on his left shirt pocket brought her crashing back to reality. The din of the bar seemed to die down when their eyes locked. But he stayed silent. Impressed, and simultaneously unnerved, she started to walk to another group of reporters. She nearly jumped out of her skin when he touched her arm.
She tossed her hair back, attempted nonchalance, and glanced at the large hand that had moved to her bare shoulder. Knee-jerk sarcasm won out over fear. Holding me down, Garrison?
He smiled—a lazy, crooked thing. His eyes narrowed in a way that made her feel utterly undressed. A chill ran down her spine. Sean was known for cutthroat tactics when it came to preserving his market share. Infamous for making promises and bestowing sales incentives on distributors that small breweries like hers had no chance against, effectively shutting them out of major restaurants and bars. She’d been on the receiving end of it just last week, when a distributor they shared in the middle of the state more or less laughed her out of the room when she suggested a goal for them. She had no expensive trips or golf outings to offer as reward for high sales, unlike her competitors. Her own brewery, Brick Street, was about an hour from Garrison’s and had sales projected for nearly one sixteenth of theirs. Garrison Brothers was the mother ship of Michigan craft beer. And Sean Garrison knew it.
The realization of that inspired her to shake him off and take a step back. His amazing smile never faltered, as he shoved his hand into his pocket, raised his own glass of Cheeky Blonde at her, and took a long drink of what she knew had to be a damn better beer than anything his company had to offer.
Nice gimmick,
he said after he’d drained about half the glass then held it up, letting the light pass through the remaining deep golden liquid. Wine-barrel aging is risky though. Gutsy for a start-up like yours.
She nodded, speechless, and her insides coiled in a combination of irritation at his left-handed compliment and no small measure of lust. He seemed inclined to take the whole strong, silent type
thing pretty seriously, so she shrugged and tried to move past him. He took one step forward directly into her personal space and loomed over her. An aura of malt, cigars, and subtle cologne enveloped her senses. Her whole body tensed when his fingers touched her arm. A shiver jolted down her spine. Did she imagine his lips grazing her ear?
Couldn’t have done it better myself.
His voice brushed over her skin. And her entire body pebbled in automatic, visceral response.
Without another word, he walked away and was absorbed in a group of national travel and food writers, already joking with them about the golf outing they’d attended that morning. As she took a step backward and slumped against the cool oak wall, Jen tried to calm her wildly pounding heart while she watched him work the room.
She regained some semblance of control and made to move in the opposite direction when she caught his eye again. The man pinned her with a look that undressed her in her own, overheated fantasy—the one inexplicably starring him. Her stress level notched up every time she looked up and locked eyes with Sean. It became unnerving in the extreme.
Dylan appeared back at her side and led her to a table filled with more reporters and bloggers. Once she was seated in a claustrophobic booth with him on one side and yet another beer writer on the other, he touched her knee. She flinched.
Jeez, jumpy much?
He draped his arm around her, as if sensing her distress. I think it’s going really well, don’t you?
He nodded to the guy on the other side of her who was busy trying to look down her shirt while simultaneously scribbling in his notebook.
She sighed, put a hand on Dylan’s strong thigh, and leaned her head back on his arm. Her body finally began to unwind from the long day.
Reach up higher. I’ve got something for you.
He smiled at the reporters as he whispered in her ear. She glanced at him. He grinned and raised his eyebrows in question. But she shook her head and elbowed him in the side, angry at herself for dragging this whole thing out. It was unfair to them both. He was incredible, without a doubt, but she was certain he wanted more from her than she was willing or able to give.
Let me out. I gotta pee.
Dylan slid out of the booth, drinking down what remained in his glass, and offered a hand to assist her.
She stood and stretched, unconsciously seeking Sean in the crowd. Simultaneously relieved and disappointed when she decided he must have left, she worked the crowd to the back of the room. The out of order
sign on the ladies’ room door baffled her. How did a place like this let that happen on such a busy day? She recalled there was a downstairs bathroom so she headed that way, laughing and greeting the hordes of press and industry people between her and the steps.
The sounds of the event, the stress of the day, hell, the entire month weighed on her like a stone. The ghostly memory of Sean’s voice in her ear, his light touch on her skin made her shiver all the way down the dark steps.
Chapter Two
Jen tied her hair up into a messy bun and appraised herself in the bathroom mirror. It was a hugely successful event, as Dylan had said. And it was their moment. She had no idea why she was letting some self-declared beer rock star give her the jitters. Her tall, five-foot-eight-inch frame, blonde-haired, green-eyed good looks didn’t hurt her in the male-dominated world of beer. She’d learned years ago to use them, even exploit them if necessary to get shit done.
The last four years of backbreaking, wallet-busting work she and her business partners had endured passed through her brain in a quick montage. They had collected and pleased investors, found and retained the most creative brewer they could afford. Her brother had thought her nuts, leaving a perfectly stable job in pharmacy sales. Craft micro-brewing had a strong foothold in their state already. Why jump in now and crowd the market?
But Frank and Janice Reilly, founders of the company, had done their homework and were convinced they could turn the country’s new obsession with bitter, sour, high alcohol and otherwise over-the-top beers into a successful business, complete with radically different brewing recipes and a semi-celebrity brewer lured from the west coast. They’d reached out to Jen for her known sales abilities. When she balked, they’d offered her twenty-five percent of the company and a decent salary on top of it. She had never looked back.
