Hollywood on Tap (11 page)

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

There was plenty of gossip in Tinseltown, but the reporter had dogged Sean’s footsteps for years, writing too many magazine articles and televised reports to count and even publishing a book about the “talented young actor who’d vanished from the face of the Earth.” Crowley had built up Sean to be this generation’s James Dean just without the dead body inside a twisted car’s wreckage.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

A car horn blared behind him. Sean rolled down the driver’s side window and waved the minivan around. The soccer mom gave him a one–fingered salute and peeled off toward the right. Following the van with his gaze, he leaned forward until he could see the Sweet Salvation Brewery turnoff. Natalie waited two miles down that asphalt road.

Long answers to short questions. Soft sweaters with tiny little buttons. The clipboard always at the ready. Hungry lips and soft moans. Tightly wound hair. The teasing scent of honeysuckle that followed in her wake. Five–billion–point plans. Endless possibilities.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

He glanced the other direction at the open highway. Freedom and anonymity lived along that road. All he had to do was turn left and Sean Duvin would stay buried. Maybe forever if he did a good enough job of running. He was good at disappearing. Always had been. He’d been eight years old the first time he’d lost himself in a role, escaping his frustrated actor slash domineering stage father and the backhands that came out of nowhere for no reason. After that, he’d never looked back.

He couldn’t afford to now.

But the idea of leaving Natalie while someone was doing their damnedest to sabotage the brewery left a foul taste in his mouth, sour without any hint of sweet. He couldn’t fucking do it.

Truth was, he was tired of play acting at being himself.

Easing his foot off the break, the SUV rolled into the intersection before making a right turn and heading toward the brewery and Natalie.

Chapter Nine

With four hours to go until most of the brewery staff left, Natalie was officially going stir–crazy waiting for something—anything—to go wrong. If she stayed another minute in her office, she was going to start accessorizing with a straightjacket instead of pearls.

Armed with her clipboard, her red pen, and the anxiety jitters reminiscent of downing ten shots of espresso, she marched out of her office on a mission. She’d find Sean, work out a schedule for the stakeout tonight, and plot a course of action for when they found the son of a bitch messing with her brewery.

Turning the corner, she crossed into Sean’s office. “Hey, about tonight.” She looked up from her clipboard and almost dropped it.

The office was empty.

And clean.

“Holy shit,” she muttered to herself as she walked in slow motion around the space.

The paper towers were gone, as were the coffee mugs that had littered Sean’s desk. The overturned pen holder had been righted and filled. The stack of brochures sat in the inbox with the brewers invitational on top. He’d said last night that he’d found the paperwork in the third pile he searched, but she hadn’t thought…

She shuffled over to the filing cabinets. Only the smallest line of sticky residue remained of the tape holding the drawers shut yesterday. Wondering if it was a dream, she yanked open the top drawer. Perfectly organized files filled it. They weren’t color–coded, but it was a start.

“Not one word.” Sean stood in the doorway, one shoulder propped up against the doorframe and his mouth sealed in a straight line.

Natalie blinked in surprised and opened her mouth.

He held up his hand. “I mean it.”

He had to be kidding. It was a total office makeover. He deserved high praise. “But it’s so—”

“I’ll take all the paper out and scatter it.” It wasn’t an idle threat. The stubborn man would do it.

She preached the gospel of organization and efficiency with the zeal of a born–again devotee. She couldn’t let that happen. So instead of a well–deserved “I told you so”, she pursed her lips and mimicked locking them closed with a pretend key that she tossed over her shoulder.

Shaking his head, he pushed off the doorframe and strutted across the room, stopping a foot from the filing cabinets. Too far away to touch, but too close to ignore the tension winding up her insides like a rubber band airplane. Unable to have what she wanted, Natalie clutched her clipboard close enough that the metal clip scratched her collarbone, a discomfort that registered dimly in the back of her mind.

Sean moved closer, slid the clipboard free from her grasp, and turned it over to read. “What’s on the agenda today?”

Yielding ground to give herself breathing room, the back of her thighs hit Sean’s desk.
Pull it together, girl.
“A schedule for tonight, a contingency plan for if he shows up, and another one for if he doesn’t.”

He flipped through the pages. “You’re kidding, right?”

Why would she be? She’d never been a girl to leave things to chance and she wasn’t starting now. “No.”

Sean tossed the clipboard over her head. It landed on the desk with a clatter and skidded to the edge, teetering for a second before staying put on the flat surface. “You need to focus on something else.”

“I can’t.” She twisted around to grab her clipboard, feeling as lost without it as an alien in rush–hour traffic.

Before she could grasp it, he took her by the hand and pulled her toward the door. “Come on.”

Heated electricity tingled up her arm, dancing across her skin, danger and a comfort jolted her system. “Where?”

“My office.”

“We’re in your office.” She took one last glance around before crossing into the hallway.

He turned, his face only inches from hers, an icy determination in his eyes. “No. The real one.”

Calling the Sweet Salvation Brewery’s reference library a “room” was being kind. Roughly the same size as Natalie’s walk–in closet, the room had books about everything from the history of hops to the modern brewery operations and everything in between. A worn stool sat in the corner next to a small table crowded with spiral notebooks and handwritten diagrams listing various beer ingredients’ properties.

When she’d first gotten to the brewery, she’d poured over the books to better understand how breweries worked. Then she’d moved on to the internet and interviewing everyone from other brewery owners to the staff at the National Craft Brewers Association.

Sean followed her inside and shut the door behind them. He stayed by the door, but in the tiny room the distance was more an illusion than a reality. In actuality, he filled the space from wall to wall until even the idea of him pushed against her, as tangible as the books on the shelves.

Awareness of him jolted through her body, as if she had a sixth sense for hotness. It made her jittery and unsure. Two of her least favorite feelings. She backed up until her ass hit the table’s edge. Shit, she was doing that a lot around him.

Floundering for words—something else that happened whenever he was near—she blurted out the first thing that came to mind that didn’t involve her licking his abs. “So this is one of the places besides the cooler where you hole up whenever I’m looking for you.”

God, it seemed so obvious now. No one would be calling her Sherlock anytime soon.

He shrugged. “Pretty much.”

He slouched against one of the bookshelves, his brown–eyed gaze locked on her. Though his body language was relaxed, an underlying sexual tension came off him in waves.

And damn her, she wanted to drown in him. Another place, another man, Natalie would be planning which item of clothing to discard first. But he was an employee and she couldn’t cross that line with him again.

Needing to touch something, she raised her hand to her necklace and rubbed one pale pearl between her fingers. “Why are we here?”

“You need to be distracted before your head explodes.” The too–knowing smile curling one side of his delicious mouth showed that he knew exactly how much he’d thrown her off balance. “I’m working on the stout recipe that will win the Southeast Brewers Invitational. I’m making small batches to test out each recipe, and this is where I come up with combinations to try out.”

Falling into research mode, she relaxed. “How does that work?”

Sean pushed away from the bookshelf and joined her by the table. Standing only inches in front of her, he let his dark gaze dropped to her mouth.

So much for getting comfortable. Her heart jackhammered against her rib cage. There were a dozen reasons why she should leave now, but standing so close to him, none of them seemed to matter.

Leaning forward, his arm snaked around her, close enough that his bare forearm brushed against her waist as he reached for something on the table.

Her breath caught. It would have taken an earthquake to move her even the barest inch as she inhaled his clean–soap scent mixed with the brewery’s distinctive hoppy aroma. Somewhere between inhalation and exhalation, she gave up the ghost. While she hadn’t moved a millimeter, inside she felt like one of those animated gifs declaring “My body is ready.”

“First…” His whisper tickled her ear. “You have to figure out what kind you’re making.” Sean pulled a red spiral notebook from behind her and took half a step back.

He stood far enough that she could make an escape if she wanted but close enough that she didn’t want to. He flipped open the notebook but kept staring at her, not even trying to temper the lust swirling in his brown eyes.

The man was a first–class tease.

Remembering the night before at his house and the experimental beer, followed by him shirtless and the kiss that had burned its way into her forever memory, a slow shiver worked its way up her spine. “You’re making a stout.”

“Right.” He reached up and drew her fingers away from her pearl necklace, sending an atom–bomb–level frisson of need through her body. “What makes a stout a stout?”

Fighting her way through the zero–visibility fog in her brain, she sputtered out the first answer she could come up with. “It’s thick and has a foamy top?”

“Not foam, a head.” He laughed and stroked his thumb down the center of her palm before releasing it. He squeezed his eyes closed, clenched his jaw shut and gulped. After a deep breath, he reopened his eyes and sidestepped her so they stood shoulder to shoulder.

At least she wasn’t the only one affected. Triumph and relief battled inside her as she pivoted to face the table.

He laid the notebook on the table and flipped to a page filled with his cramped, printed writing. “Usually, a stout is an opaque black or brown with dark–red highlights. A typical dry stout has a roasted, grainy sharpness, a hint of unsweetened chocolate, and a bitter bite from the hops. The one I’m working on has a touch of an acidic sourness too.”

Natalie made the bitter–beer face, as if she’d just sucked a lemon.

That made him laugh out loud. The sound released some of the sexual tension stringing both of them tight. “Don’t make that face. It’s a good kind of tart sour, not nasty sour like milk gone bad.”

The warm sound of his voice was doing more to ease the worry curdling her lunch about tonight’s stakeout than three trips up and down her pearl necklace. “Why a stout?”

“Ales and IPAs are everywhere, but there aren’t that many small–craft beers that make a stellar stout that stands out. So it’s good business sense for the Sweet Salvation Brewery.” He said it as if reciting a line he’d had to memorize.

The man needed to learn he didn’t have to guard every piece of information as if it were the combination to Fort Knox. “But that’s not all of it.”

“No.” He shook his head and spoke slowly, as if building up to something. “I like the strength of it. The stouts were created to capitalize on the porters that came first. The difference was the stouts were fuller, creamier, with more body and alcohol punch—though not so much anymore.”

“And yours, will it have a higher alcohol content?”

“Not mine. Ours. Sweet Salvation Brewery’s.” The brewery’s name came out in a rush. “And why not? It’s a good differentiator—like an imperial ale’s ten percent or more versus an IPA’s five to seven percent.”

“And the dry stout, is that what you’re making?

“No.”

She stared at his profile, but he’d lost himself in the notebook. “Are you gonna make me go find the great big book of beers back in my office so I can go through them all to make another guess on what kind of stout?”

He looked up, crossing his arms in front of his strong chest, his feet shoulder–width apart as if he were expecting a blow. “I’m making a hybrid of a dry stout and a Russian imperial stout.”

For most people, that wouldn’t be a revelation. But Sean wasn’t most people. For some reason she couldn’t quite grasp, he’d cracked open the door and was letting her in.

Natalie sank down onto the stool. “Go on.”

He let out a deep breath and took off his baseball hat before running his fingers through his thick hair. “The Russian is rich and complex, with fruity esters and roasted grains, hops, and a coffee– or chocolate–flavored malt.”

“Remember I’m still new. Fruity esters?”