Page 27 of Brewing Up a Bad Boy

But then he was back, holding a couple of glasses in his big hands. He set them on the table in front of her and straddled the stool next to her.

“This one is my favorite. I was going for something that tasted like summer,” he said.

She took a sip, aware that he waited for her reaction. The beer was good, and she could taste the notes of the fruit he’d used to flavor it. As they talked more about the beer, she realized this didn’t feel like something he was doing simply to bide his time.

Since his main repertoire of meals consisted of omelets and ramen, Poppy had suggested dinner out instead of ordering in, and he’d made a reservation at a nice pub near his place.

“Can we walk?” Poppy called from her bedroom.

The clouds from earlier had cleared away. “If you want to. The restaurant is probably twenty minutes from here,” he said.

“Great. I need to move after all the time on the plane and then sleeping,” she said. “Am I okay?”

She stepped out of her room, and he glanced over at her. She was trying to kill him. The dress she had on was summer weight, a slim-fitting sheath with thin little straps. Due to the heat, she had her hair up, which drew his eyes to her neck. He wished he’d kissed her there, and his fingertips tingled from remembering the feel of her skin under them.

“Great. Me?” He’d put on a button-down shirt and some shorts.

“You know you look gorgeous. You always do.”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Yeah, right. You were the hottest dude on campus and posed with your shirt off for the calendar.”

“You’re right. I do know I look fit, but that doesn’t mean you like it.” Poppy wasn’t into giving those kinds of compliments. She’d tell him his eyes were the color of her favorite tea or that his hand in hers made her feel safe when they were out late. But physically...

It wasn’t like he needed her words; the chemistry between them had always been off the charts. So he knew there was something about him that still turned her on.

Coming over to him, she stopped when she was close enough that he could feel the soft exhalation of her breath. The bracelets on her arm jingled when she brushed a curl from his forehead. She traced the line of his jaw before placing her hand on his shoulder and rising up on her toes. Her lips brushed his. Heat burned a path from his mouth straight to his dick.

His hands trembled as he tried to keep them by his side, despite every instinct he had telling him to grab her and pull her closer to him.

He wanted to feel the curves of her body against his hardness. She was a summer sprite tonight, bubbly and light, drawing him closer to her even though he knew he should keep his distance.

He wanted her to crave him enough that she forgot about keeping things platonic.

“You look very good. Everyone in the place is going to be envious of me,” she said.

She tipped her head to the side as she winked at him and stepped back. Laughing at him. He had to join in. He’d never been the man who needed that kind of compliment. “Just seems like we should keep it fair. Like, why should only women get told they look good?” Ali asked.

“Is this your bid for feminism?”

“Ah...not what I said. I just meant...never mind. I was just playing around.”

She shook her head. “It’s okay if you weren’t. All your life, people have cultivated friendships with you because of who your father is so they could use your connections.”

“Not you,” he admitted.

“Yeah. How clueless was I?”

“It was refreshing.”

The first time they met, she got his name wrong because she’d heard Gemma call him Ali and thought his name wasAdi. She’d had no clue that he was connected to Lancaster-Spencer or that his dad was titled and that Ali himself would inherit lessor property and land when his father died.

She’d treated him like any other guy. Both humbling and challenging. That worked in his favor when he courted her, because she hadn’t realized that his family had been after her family tea recipe for centuries.

“I liked you as just ‘Adi,’” she said.

“Too bad Adi wasn’t real.”

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