Page 30 of The Distiller's Darling

She let out a contented sigh, but her body remained tense.

Time to turn things up a notch, Brennan.

“On second thought,” he said, tugging her forward until her ass was almost off the table, “I like you better here.” He dropped to his knees between Naomi’s spread legs and raised his gaze to meet hers.

“Iain?”

That wasn’t a no … but it wasn’t a yes either.

“Let me. Please.” He set his palms on her thighs and coasted upward, until her skirt bunched around her waist. “Yes?”

Naomi chewed her lip, and he held his breath waiting for her decision. After a few seconds, she nodded and flashed him a real smile. “Yes, you fiend.”

Returning that smile with a wicked grin of his own, Iain set to work driving her crazy.

Drawing the cotton panel of her underwear aside, he bent forward, pulling her sweet, spicy scent into his nose. He teased her with light flicks of his tongue, and she wiggled as if to move away, but he held her still. Finally, when she began making desperate little noises low in the back of her throat, Iain set his lips to her petal-soft skin.

She tangled her fingers in his hair, and for a brief moment, he worried she might put a stop to his eager explorations. Eager to finish what he’d started, he flattened his tongue and licked a broad path over her seam. And then, with a long, anguished moan, Naomi pulled him tight against her, and Iain set to work making her come apart.

* * *

“Here you go.” Naomi set a grilled cheese sandwich down in front of Iain before dropping into the seat across from him with one of her own. “It’s not Frankie’s, but you won’t starve either.”

Iain bit into the toasty bread and melted cheese concoction and stifled an appreciative moan. Swallowing, he said, “You won’t hear me complain when a beautiful woman decides to feed me.” He took another big bite, letting her see how much he enjoyed this. It wasn’t just the food either, although that was good too. It was hanging out, getting to know each other better. It was not being kicked to the curb two seconds after having one of the most intense orgasms of his life. If ever there was a way to kill one’s post-coital high, it was immediately being shown to the door.

“At the risk of sounding too couple-y,” Naomi drawled, “how was your day?” Her face looked pained, almost as if it cost her something dear to ask him such a basic question.

He chuckled and shook his head. “Asking me about my job doesn’t make you my girlfriend, Naomi.”

She grabbed her bottle of beer and tipped her head back as she swallowed. Iain tried not to get too distracted by the sight of her throat working. He blinked and shook his head to push those dirty fantasies aside.

“No, it doesn’t,” she agreed. “But letting you give me orgasms and then asking about your day? That comes dangerously close.” She raised an eyebrow, as if daring him to contradict the sentiment.

To avoid having to offer up an immediate opinion, Iain stuffed his mouth full of the remainder of his meal and spent longer than necessary chewing. It was a good thing Angelica had given him a heads up about Naomi’s fear of commitment. Not that he wasn’t intimately familiar with it already, but at least now he knew it wasn’t an issue with him specifically.

Not that you’re looking for a girlfriend, he reminded himself.

And yet, he didn’t relish the idea of them being completely casual either. It would be easy to spend the next two months fucking Naomi whenever they each had an itch that needed scratching, but that just wasn’t him. He hadn’t been in a serious relationship in a long time, but the women he’d slept with between then and now fell into one of two categories: either they were of the one-and-done variety—like when he was traveling—or he remained friendly with them. Sometimes they were both, to be honest. Maybe it made him old-fashioned, but if a woman was good enough for him to stick his dick in, she was more than good enough to have a conversation with.

And he very much enjoyed conversations with this particular one. He wasn’t going to force Naomi to be friends, but he wasgoing to let her know this wasn’t just about sex for him. If it turned out that’s all she wanted from him, the next sixty days were going to be … hard.

“Tell me if you think I’ve got it wrong,” Iain pushed his plate away and sat back in his chair, “but we get along pretty well.”

Naomi sat back too, mimicking his posture. “Yes?” The word came out sounding more like a question than an answer; like she wasn’t sure where he was going with this line of questioning, and she didn’t want to commit to something she might have to walk back later.

Iain chuckled and shook his head. If he wasn’t so fecking charmed by her, he might be exasperated instead. Miss Naomi Klein really was the biggest commitment-phobe he’d ever met—and that was saying something. Undeterred, he pressed on. “And this is nice.”

She nodded slowly, and her pulse visibly kicked in her neck. “It is.”

“And it might be fun if, in addition to giving each other epic orgasms, we also hung out sometimes. Not as my girlfriend—” he rushed to clarify “—but as my friend. A friend I think is beautiful, funny, smart, and talented. A friend I like talking to and fucking.”

She stared at him for a beat and then swallowed deeply. “We could do that.”

Suddenly, Iain felt guilty. Not guilty enough to take it all back, mind you, but enough to want to set her worried mind at ease. He leaned forward and squeezed her fingers. “Relax, Naomi. I just want to hang out with you while I’m here. I’m not asking you to marry me. Sixty days … that’s all. After that, I’ll be gone. And then years from now you can sit around with your girlfriends, drinking a bottle of Noah’s wine, gossiping about the sexy Irishman who made you come like no one ever had before. Or since.” He winked and slid his hand away, watching as her shoulders instantly relaxed. Good; now he was getting somewhere.

Almost as if a switch had been flipped, Naomi’s face came alive and her eyes danced. “I think I like the way you think, Iain Brennan.”

---