Page 57 of Crazy Little Thing Called Love

“Oh.” How disappointing. She could always go for more sex with Del. Truthfully, she could live the rest of her life naked in bed with this man. And that right there was her problem. They weren’t supposed to add sex to the mix, but they did and now her emotions were mixing everything up. “Good, because I have a very busy day.” Lie.

“Okay, but can we talk about—”

“No, Delta. I’m sorry, I don’t have the time. I think it’s best if you stay at your own place tonight. You can let yourself out.”

Turning away from the perplexed look on his face, she hurried to the bathroom, quickly shutting the door behind her. Her heart raced, ear pressed to the door as she heard him shuffle about the room for a minute. She listened intently as his footsteps retreated from the bedroom, jumping slightly when the front door opened and slammed shut.

Letting out a sigh of relief, she slid down the door to sit in a heap on the floor. The sheet she held tightly around her naked body smelled of sweat, sex, and Del. Without thought, she brought the pale gray material to her nose, inhaling deeply. Memories of this morning, of the past few nights, filled her head and heart. So many confusing emotions cluttered her brain, screaming for attention.

“I can’t deal with this right now.” Her voice broke in the emptiness of the small bathroom. She wanted to cry, scream, laugh, rage. What the hell was going on with her? Everything had been fine moments ago, when Del had been buried deep inside her. What happened after to make her feel so…unbalanced?

She feared she knew the truth, but at the moment she couldn’t face it. Instead, she rose to turn on the shower. Once the water got to a nice boil, she dropped the bedsheet. If the stream got hot enough, she could burn away all these weird emotions that kept cropping up around her fake fiancé. She certainly hoped so, because as the hot jets pounded her body, her heart feared certain things weren’t as fake as she thought.

CHAPTER 19

Del shoved the botanical basket in with a lot more force than necessary.

“Hey, watch it!” BJ looked up from his clipboard with a scowl. “We don’t have enough insurance on you to cover the hospital bill when I beat your ass for breaking the still.”

He grumbled a half-assed apology to his brother. The equipment they worked with cost a pretty penny. Distilling did not come cheap. Between the stills, mash tuns, the chiller, proofing tanks, and all the other machinery they needed to turn grain to sugar to alcohol, they’d gotten a sizable business loan from the bank. Good thing people loved to drink what they’d produced because they’d paid back the loan years early. Still, buying a new still because he’d broken it in a fit of temper wouldn’t exactly show his brothers he was mature enough to handle running a restaurant.

“You get up on the wrong side of your bed this morning or what?”

“Something like that.”

He hadn’t woken up in his bed. He’d had the distinct pleasure of waking up in Cassie’s, and as far as he was concerned, there was no wrong side of her bed. Not while she was in it. The morning had started great, better than great. In fact, this whole week had been one of the best of his life. Hanging out with Cassie after work, talking, eating, watching dumb TV shows. And the sex, hot damn, who knew the woman would be so dynamite in the sack? She blew his mind every time. He kept expecting to get bored or freaked by the domesticity of the situation, but he wasn’t.

Spending time with Cassie, with or without clothes, exhilarated him. Surprised the hell out of him, to be honest. He’d never been much of a one-woman kind of guy. Or a long-term guy either. He loved women; they were soft and fun, and as long as things didn’t get too deep, he was game for whatever they had in mind. But things with Cassie were different. He couldn’t explain the weird sensation he got deep in his gut whenever she was near, the warmth in his chest when she smiled or laughed, usually at him.

“Did you screw things up with Cassie again?”

He glared at his brother. “No, I didn’t screw things up again.” Because he hadn’t screwed anything up in the first place. That whole story had been a lie they fed everyone. One he felt kind of bad about, but he shoved the prick of guilt away.

“You better not have,” Ace commented, checking the charcoal run on the vodka still. “Charlie will kick your ass if you hurt her best friend.”

He took a step toward his older brother. “Why does everyone think I’m going to hurt Cassie?”

She’d been the one to practically throw him out of her apartment this morning. All he’d done was ask her on a date, and the woman turned all Mr. Hyde on him. Confusing as hell. Weren’t women supposed to like the whole dinner and a movie thing?

“Because you’re you.”

Ouch. Leave it to Ace not to hold back. Sometimes he wondered if the military had drilled all the feeling out of his brother.

“I think what Ace is trying to say,” BJ stepped forward, holding out his hands between the two, “is that you don’t exactly have a reputation as a long-term kind of guy, in anything. We’re simply concerned.”

Shit. This wasn’t about Cassie at all. This was about the restaurant. His brothers still didn’t think he could do it. They didn’t believe in him. Would they ever? Sure, he’d jacked-off in his late teens and early twenties, but he was almost thirty. He had a degree—one no one knew about—he understood the gravity of the responsibilities he wanted to take on. Shit, would they ever see him as a man and not their snot-nosed kid brother?

“Despite what some people think,” he threw back his shoulders, giving each of the twins a hard stare, “I’m not the same person I was at eighteen. I have grown up a bit since then, and I understand the responsibilities of the plans I undertake. All of them.”

BJ tilted his head, a small smile curling the corner of his lips. Ace just stared him down. No smile. He didn’t think his eldest brother even knew how. After a tense moment of silence, Ace nodded.

“Glad to hear it. We look forward to seeing the new you in action.”

With that, Ace turned and headed back to the back office. BJ gave him a full-on grin.

“What?” Del said.

Large shoulders shrugged. BJ tucked back a loose strand of his long hair when it fell in his eyes. “Nothing. Just surprised you didn’t call him a dick and tell him to kiss your ass.”

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