Bree laughed. Kit was very careful to cultivate her smooth, calm, professional facade, but Bree had seen her raving angry, puking drunk, and can"t-stop-giggling silly. She really did wish more people could see those other sides, too.
Her straw sucked up nothing but air on her next pull, and Bree realized she was empty. She headed for the bar.
She should go home, too. She could use the sleep. She definitely didn"t need the alcohol.
But the idea of her cold bed, where she"d no doubt lie awake for at least an hour like she had ever since Max had come back, wasn"t a bit appealing. Not even with her favorite vibrating buddy there to help her through. After their rendezvous in the locker room, her purple plastic friend hadn"t been quite satisfying.
"Another?" Becky asked, indicating Bree"s empty gla.s.s.
"A beer and a shot," Bree said.
"You got it."
A moment later, Becky set a bottle of beer in front of her and then slid a shot gla.s.s of red liquor across the bar to her. Cinnamon schnapps. Her go-to. The sweet fire of the shot always made her feel better. She loved that it was sweet but also burned a bit. It was like a lot of things she loved-the rush on the way down was nice, but the end always stung a little. And just like it was a bad idea to have shot after shot after shot, it was impossible to go up again and jump, then up again and jump, then up again and jump.
But sometimes it felt like that was all that would really make her happy.
"Hey."
She felt the solid heat of him against her shoulder as his voice made goose b.u.mps trip down her arm. She felt her stomach flip a little, and it startled her. She wasn"t sure her stomach had ever flipped while she was sitting down and having a beer.
Bree pivoted toward Max as Joey Conner vacated his stool to let Max slide up beside her. Max shook Joey"s hand and then held a finger up to Becky, who set a beer in front of him, too.
Max lifted the bottle as he turned to her. "How are you?"
"Good." And she realized she was better now that he was here. That was always true, actually. Yep, she could definitely count on Max to make her happy-a lot like Sweet Cream Dream.
But d.a.m.n, that first bite of the Caramel Cashew Cache last night had been moan-worthy.
"How are you?"
He gave her a half smile. "Tired."
She studied him as she took another draw on her beer. Did she really have to choose between something that would always make her happy and something that would make her moan?
She immediately flashed back to the ditch and then the locker room and the fact that Max-her Sweet Cream guy-had made her moan.
In fact, she felt heat spread through her belly . . . and lower . . . as if she"d just taken the shot of schnapps. Sweet and hot. That definitely described how things had been with Max.
She knew from experience that things that made her moan were awesome. And short-lived. She"d moaned with pleasure over more than ice cream. She"d had that same reaction to her first jump, her first dirt-bike ramp, her first dive, and so many more experiences.
But the high faded. The happiness-that was much more consistent and long lasting.
She studied Max as she drank again.
Happy and moaning. That"s what she wanted.
She"d been getting it from a combo of Max and their adventures, but the moans had been harder to come by lately.
Until that ditch where this-whatever it was-had started.
"I missed you today," she told him. One thing she and Max had always had was full honesty.
She watched Max swallow his mouthful of beer hard and cough slightly. Then he looked at her.
"You saw me this morning."
"When you started me on a job with Kevin and then disappeared while I had my hands in drywall paste," she couldn"t help but point out. Not flirtatious, but she was a little annoyed by it and couldn"t totally let it go.
He shrugged and studied his beer bottle. "Something came up."
She turned more fully on her stool. "Really? What was that?" She tipped her bottle again.
"I had to deal with Jake."
Bree arched a brow. "Deal with Jake?"
n.o.body dealt with Jake Mitch.e.l.l. Except maybe Avery. And Bree was sure Max wasn"t taking care of Jake the same way Avery did. Jake was typically the dealer. He took charge wherever he was, and one of the beautiful things about having Max and Jake both home at the same time was that they could get twice as much taking-charge done. Jake would go one way and Max would go the other, and they would take care of everything together. Add Dillon into the mix, and it was the trifecta of get "er done.
"We had a disagreement about the roof on the barn you and I inspected the other day."
Ah, the barn. It had been fun scaling the wall and getting out on that beam. She knew it was dangerous-that was part of the thrill. But she wouldn"t have done it if she thought she couldn"t handle it.
And she"d wanted to handle it. For Max.
He wasn"t getting up there because of his knee. She knew it. He didn"t have to admit it. The comment about strength and flexibility had been as close as he"d ever gotten to confessing that it held him back sometimes. But she got it. Without climbing gear, getting up in those rafters was riskier. If he wasn"t 100 percent sure of his footing and balance, it would have been a dumb move. But she was sure of her footing and balance.
She didn"t like that he"d doubted her, and she hadn"t gotten the reaction she"d wanted after she"d proved it, either. She"d wanted to see admiration in his eyes, maybe even pride. A "Wow, Bree, that was awesome" would have been perfect.
Instead he"d griped at her.
Then the last couple of days, she hadn"t even had the chance to impress him. He"d dumped her off at a site and hightailed it out of there.
She suspected that he was afraid she might try to kiss him again.
He was right.
She had to know if Max could be a source of that hot, sweet thrill over and over.
If not, well, things would be the way they"d always been. They"d be friends, they"d have adventures, he"d be her Sweet Cream Dream.
But if he could be that and a Cookie Dough Frenzy once in a while . . . wouldn"t that be the perfect world? She wouldn"t have to keep thinking up new ways to take on gravity and physics. Instead, she could be buying lingerie and browsing s.e.x-toy sites on the Internet.
Now that would be a new adventure.
Heck, they could even come up with some new ways to enjoy Cookie Dough Frenzy.
Her heart kicked as she thought about those possibilities, and her gaze dropped to Max"s lips as he took another drink of beer. The warmth she"d felt in her stomach dipped lower between her legs, and she pulled in a short breath.
"What was the disagreement about?" she asked.
"He doesn"t think we should take the time to reshingle the entire roof."
She was distracted from thoughts of licking ice cream off Max"s washboard abs for a moment. "You think you should reshingle the entire roof?"
He nodded. "Best way to be sure it"s all fixed and solid."
"That will take days," she said. "Patching the one spot will be only a few hours."
He frowned. "Thought you wanted to learn from me."
"I do."
"Then lesson number one is you don"t half-a.s.s things."
"Jake doesn"t do half-a.s.s things," she said.
Max frowned at that. "Apparently he does," Max told her. "The water damage is old. That means the shingle issue is old."
"In that one spot."
"If there"s one spot, there"s a good possibility that there are others we"re just not seeing yet."
"But that will take time-"
"I have a crew coming up from Grand Island just for that job," he said, cutting her off. "It won"t take any manpower away from anything else. And Jake has the National Guard here to give us more hands and feet." He frowned at her. "You wanna go follow Jake around and learn how he does things instead?"
Was that a twinge of jealousy from Max? And why did that make her pulse trip? She didn"t like jealous guys.
She could tease him more about this, but instead she decided to let Max know exactly what she was thinking and feeling. She"d never seduced someone before. She"d never even really flirted. She might not be great at this, but she already liked the sense of excitement that went with the antic.i.p.ation of it.
She reached out and covered his hand with hers. "I don"t want to follow Jake around, Max. I want to be with you."
His gaze dropped to her hand. He took a deep breath. Then he pulled his hand away from hers, wrapped it around his bottle, and lifted it.
"Tomorrow. I want to be with you onsite tomorrow," she insisted.
"Yeah. Okay." He didn"t sound thrilled, by any means.
She wanted him to be thrilled. Max liked being with her. He came home regularly, in part to see her. She knew that. She wanted him to look at working together like he looked at going zip-lining together-with antic.i.p.ation and that grin that always got to her.
She hadn"t realized it until right then, when she wasn"t seeing it, but she loved that grin. The grin that said he was happy and excited and totally into the moment with her. Partly because of her.
She was tuned in to him. That idea sent a buzz through her. She knew he was tuned in to her as well. Max knew her better than anyone, and suddenly, that was . . . exciting. To be close, to really appreciate and enjoy him, to let go with him all sounded so tempting. Which was crazy. She"d been close to him and had enjoyed him and let go with him a number of times. Or so it seemed. She"d known him forever, always loved spending time with him, had done some wild things with him.
Now, in this moment, for some reason, it didn"t seem like enough. She wanted more closeness, more letting go.
It seemed to her that meant a couple of o.r.g.a.s.ms. But that might just be her hormones talking.
"I was on your website last night and read a bunch of your articles. I"d love if you"d show me an example of a concrete foundation that needs replacing versus one that could just be repaired," she said.
He looked at her quickly. "You were on my website last night?"
She nodded.
"Why?"
She ran her hand up his arm and squeezed the impressive biceps bunching under the soft cotton of his Henley. She a.s.sumed that touching him like this was flirtatious, but that quickly became a secondary concern as she felt the heat against her hand and appreciated the solid contour of the muscles. She didn"t need any other reason to touch him besides liking it. A lot.
"Because I didn"t work with you all day, and I wanted to somehow get into your head."
She felt his muscles tense under her hand, but she wasn"t sure if it was because of her words or her touch.
"You wanted to get into my head?"
She nodded. "I want a lot of things from you."
"Bree-"
"No, listen." She leaned in closer. "I know you said no more climbing or kissing, but I spent the whole day with my feet on the ground and not seeing you, and it was completely-"
"If you say boring," I swear to G.o.d I"ll throw you over my shoulder, take you outside, and paddle your a.s.s."
Bree felt her quickly sucked-in breath lodge in her lungs, then blossom and heat, spreading through her chest and up the back of her neck, making her tingle from her nipples to her scalp.
Holy c.r.a.p.
Not only had the idea of having her a.s.s paddled never turned her on, but she would have never in a million years imagined hearing those words-or that s.e.xy, firm tone-from Max. In fact, she wasn"t sure she would have believed that Max would ever snap like that. Not at her. When she pictured him at work, it was with the same humor and smiles that he always displayed. Of course, she"d a.s.sumed that there were times he had to be commanding and firm. But he had never been that way with her. Ever. Max was the most accommodating person in her life.
The other day when he"d told her to get down from the rafters, he"d had a little of that command in his voice, but since she"d been up in the ceiling at the school, he had definitely been dictatorial. And the tingles were still not fading.
"Hi, Bree."
Little shocks of awareness still dancing through her body, Bree turned toward the sweet voice.
It was Ashley. Bree noticed that the rest of the university students had filed into the bar behind her.
"Uh, hi, Ashley," Bree said.
Ashley gave Max a little smile, but her attention came right back to Bree. Shockingly.
"I was wondering," Ashley started. "I just thought-I was really interested in talking to you some more."
"Me?" Bree asked. She glanced at Max. He was smiling, but his eyes were on the TV behind the bar.
"Yeah. I think you being a cop is really cool, and after Max told us all the things you"ve been involved in with the emergency management around here, well, I"d love to talk to you about it. And maybe do some shadowing while I"m here?" Ashley almost acted shy as she asked.
Bree stared at her. "Seriously? You want to follow me around?"