Good fucking Lord, he was sexy.
My breath caught. My stomach swooped. My body hummed with awareness. I felt the urge to casually pinch myself, but… fuck, did I really want to wake up when Brewer was looking at me like this? Like he…wantedme?
“Delaney,” Brewer growled again, right in front of me now. The word was a question.
I licked my lips. “Y-yes?”
He bent down, grabbed my hand, and pulled me to my feet.
My toes curled into the hardwood floor, and I sucked in an unsteady breath of Brewer, laced with the tangy scent of beer. Suddenly, the precipice I’d feared wasright there, so much closer than I’d realized. And as Brewer pulled me against him, I felt the very ground beneath me start to crumble.
But did I run? Or fight? Did I move a fucking muscle or say a word to save myself? Nope.
I leaned against his warm chest and gave myself over to it.
And, I realized, this—this—was exactly what I’d been afraid of. Not that I’d fall, but that, like an idiot, I would jump.
But in that moment, with Brewer’s eyes holding mine, I couldn’t remember a single reason why I shouldn’t.
CHAPTERSIX
BREWER
The second Delaneytipped his face up toward mine and whispered, “Y-yes?” I was gone.
I didn’t think. I didn’t hesitate. I took his lips with mine.
His mouth was warm, pliant, wine-sweet, and when he sighed into me, it wrecked me completely. Weeks—months—of tension, of low-key wanting to strangle him and high-key wanting my hands on him, unspooled in a flashfire. I groaned as I wrapped one arm around his waist and hauled him closer.
Delaney made a surprised, eager sound and pushed onto his toes, hands curling into my shirt like he couldn’t get close enough. His body melted against mine, all silk and heat under my sweatshirt. His lips clung to mine like a promise.
Fuck, he tasted good.
Delaney kissed like he argued—instinctively, no holds barred. There was nothing tentative in it, no trace of hesitance. Just heat and need and hunger. His mouth moved under mine eagerly, and every sweep of his tongue sent a jolt down my spine.
My fingers slid beneath the hem of my sweatshirt he wore, finding the smooth, warm skin of his hip as I backed him toward the couch. I was desperate to get my hands on more of him, to feel more of his skin and hear whatever ridiculous noise he might make if I bit?—
Without warning, something in the house gave a loud mechanicalpopand cut off with a dying wheeze. All the white-noise electrical whirring of a home with electricity ceased. And the room was abruptly, eerily quiet.
We jumped apart like guilty teenagers, panting and wide-eyed.
“The, uh… That was… “ I ran a hand over my kiss-bruised mouth. “Storm knocked the power out, I think.”
Delaney made a huffing sound—a laugh, but not—and straightened his shoulders. “Yes. Right. Good… good observation.” He glanced around the firelit room, his eyes darting from the couch to the windows to the bookcases—anywhere but at me. “That was unexpected.”
He probably meant the electricity, but my face went hot anyway.
What the fuck had possessed me?I had no business kissing my clientlike that. Jesus, I had no business kissinganyonelike that—no warning, no preamble, like I wanted nothing more than to crawl into Delaney’s mouth and write my name there, to brand him from the inside.
I sure as fuck had no business wanting to do it again. Immediately.
My brain knew better, but the beer buzz running through me made everything seem… looser.
Possible.
Down boy.
“I’ve had beer,” I said stupidly. “Three? Four? Not… not too many. But I didn’t have dinner, so they hit me hard. Hard-ish. And Reed—you know Reed Sunday?—was at the Hive, and he offered to drive me home, so.”
