15
KELSEY PICKED A collapsible shovel off the shelves at Lucky Hardware and considered how many times she might have to hit herself over the head with it before her brain would move on from two nights ago. Once? Twice? If she did it enough, she might knock herself out. Theoretically that ought to do the trick, only she’d dreamed about Ian the last couple of nights, so maybe not.
This was ridiculous. No doubt she’d messed up by going for so long without sex. Her body and brain had forgotten what they were missing, but now they were like a dog who’d discovered the taste of steak, and going back to dry food was never going to cut it.
On one level, she was thrilled. Sex with Ian had been amazing—his word, not hers, although she agreed. She’d passed the test she’d created for herself, and that meant she could put the last stubborn issue preventing her from completely moving on from Anthony behind her.
On another level, it created these complications. These cravings for more. Ian had already been a potent force invading her thoughts prior to taking his clothes off. Now he’d basically taken up residency in her brain.
Naked residency. She’d called him pretty, but the man was such perfection that even the tight T-shirts hadn’t done him justice. From his broad shoulders to the sprinkling of hair over his chest to the hard stomach and the impressive organ hiding beneath his pants . . .
“Hi, Kels.”
Rather than smacking herself in the head with the shovel, Kelsey almost dropped it at the sound of Maggie’s voice. Sticking it in her basket, she turned around. “Hey.”
“Resupplying your car?” Maggie’s gaze turned questioning as she glanced at the basket, which, along with the shovel, contained an ice scraper, a thermal blanket, and a prepacked first aid kit.
“It’s for Ian Roth. He’s woefully unprepared for winter, so I thought I’d give him a starter set for his car.”
“Ah.” Maggie smiled in a way Kelsey did not at all care for. “I told you the guys were nice.”
“It’s more like I owe him. He offered to compensate me for my help, and in doing so went way above and beyond what he might reasonably owe me. So now I’m stuck owing him. It’s annoying.”
She’d told herself the same thing since she’d come to the decision to buy Ian some supplies. It was a better reason than I’m scared Ian will blab my secret profession to the entire town, so I need to placate him. And it was a much better reason than The man gave me the two best orgasms of my life and repaired the lingering hole in my self-esteem, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him since.
Way, way better than that last one.
But regardless of the reason, the decision was stretching Kelsey’s monthly budget and yet she was doing it anyway. So possibly the real reason was temporary insanity.
“You’re going to get locked into a cycle of owing each other.” Maggie laughed, heedless of the distress her comment caused. “So, since I’m assuming you’ve spent more time in the men’s company since we last talked, have you found out the answer to my burning question?”
Maggie had asked a question? Shoot. Kelsey’s brain had dumped all nonessential, non-Ian information over the past several days. “Um . . .”
Maggie lowered her voice. “Are they together? Are they single? Are they looking?”
Kelsey glanced down the aisle to either side. Lucky Hardware was large, but it wasn’t empty today, and it was possible Ian or Micah was roaming somewhere unseen. “That’s three questions, and, uh . . .”
How did she answer that? I hope Ian is single otherwise he’s a shitty boyfriend for banging me against a wall on Monday?
No. Best to keep that to herself.
“I haven’t gotten the impression they’re together,” Kelsey said. That was true enough. Anything else would be an assumption.
Maggie chewed on her lip. “That’s a positive sign. I might need to step up my flirting game the next time they’re in the store. Too bad these work aprons aren’t exactly flattering.” She tugged at the maroon canvas with Lucky Hardware printed across the front.
“It’s a good color for you,” Kelsey said, recalling that Ian hadn’t exactly cared that she’d been wearing leggings and an old sweatshirt when he’d come over. “For what it’s worth, I get the sense that Micah is more your type.”
She needed to shut her mouth. It was nothing to her—nothing—if Maggie flirted with Ian, or if Ian reciprocated. As the two of them had discussed, the sex was a one-and-done thing. It wouldn’t happen again, and there was nothing more to come from it. So if Ian wanted to screw every other woman in Helen, it had nothing to do with her. She had no right or reason to feel unhappy about it.
So damn it, it was beyond annoying that she did.
Ian was totally back to being insufferable as of this moment.
“You think?” Maggie raised an eyebrow. “I’m not much into long hair, but he does have a sexy lumberjack thing going on.”
“Who has a sexy lumberjack thing going on?” A new voice joined the conversation from the other side of the metal shelving that displayed bags of ice melt.
Kelsey didn’t bother holding in her groan. At least it wasn’t Ian or Micah butting in, but Parker Ivanson was almost as bad.
He wasn’t only a jerk because he’d broken into the Lipins’ hotel over the summer and tampered with the guests’ wine. Kelsey had taken a dislike to Parker as far back as elementary school, when he’d put earthworms in the girls’ lunches, and his grossly sexist behavior hadn’t exactly improved as he aged. She couldn’t figure out why Kevin remained friends with him.
Rather than respond, Kelsey turned her well-practiced displeased, disgusted, and definitely dismissive glare on him through a gap between the bags of ice melt, and Parker took a step back. Kelsey smiled inwardly. Nice to know that, despite Ian taking over her brain, she still had it in her to wither a man’s balls with a glance.
Her mood significantly improved, she opted to buy Ian a snowbrush too.
“THAT’S THE LAST of them.” Ian leaned the hand truck they’d been using to transport the kegs of pumpkin ale and a brown sugar stout against the brewery’s wall. The deliveries would go out tomorrow morning. Two more batches down. One step closer to the brewery being financially solvent.
He felt good mentally, but physically he was exhausted. Filling the kegs and prepping the orders had taken most of the day, even with the additional help he and Micah had hired. His muscles were sore, and his shirt was coated with sweat. How he was supposed to be sociable later was a mystery, but if he were lucky, he might be too tired to be concerned about Kelsey’s dogs.
Or, more to the point, too tired to imagine all the things he wanted to do to Kelsey that didn’t involve her dogs.
Tonight would be an experiment. Could he handle being in Kelsey’s house without her holding Juliet at all times? Could he handle being so close to Kelsey without fixating on jumping her bones? Both situations required a lot of his self-control.
Ian waved goodbye to the guys helping out and shut the brewery’s back door. It was time to go home and shower.
“Are you leaving?” Micah sounded surprised as Ian grabbed his jacket.
It was also time to explain to Micah that he was going out. Somehow, he’d managed to “forget” his plans with Kelsey whenever there had been an opportune moment to mention them.
“It’s after five o’clock,” Ian said. “Aren’t you usually nagging me not to work late every night?”
“I am.” Micah stroked his beard thoughtfully. “And you’re usually ignoring me. I’m not upset, just surprised. I’m also beat. How does pizza sound for dinner?” It was Micah’s night to cook.
“Actually, I have dinner plans, so knock yourself out.”
“Dinner plans?” Micah positioned himself between Ian and the back door. “Do they happen to involve a certain blond-haired woman with an incredible ass?”
Since the description of Kelsey was apt, Ian shouldn’t have wanted to punch Micah for it, but part of him did. What the hell? He’d slept with her once—an accident. He had no business getting possessive.
“I have to return her table.” He’d fixed it over the weekend, and the glue should be good and cured. He hadn’t wanted to take it over to her until he was sure it wouldn’t fall apart again.
“Returning her table necessitates dinner, does it?” Micah did not look convinced.
Ian sighed. “No, but it’s more complicated than that.”
“Naturally.”
“It’s not what you’re thinking.”
His friend scoffed. “Sure it isn’t. I called it back at the coffee shop.”
“It’s not like that.” So Ian told himself. “She’s working with me on the dog problem.”
If anything, Micah’s eyes opened wider. “You told her?”
“It kind of came out when I was helping her unload her grandparents’ furniture.” That was vague, but true, and Micah could concoct plenty of scenarios for how it happened on his own. “Maybe if you’d been there to help . . .”
“What?” His friend smirked. “And deny you these additional chances to spend time with Kelsey? Never.”
“It’s just to help me with the dog issue. Don’t look so pleased. You’re not some sort of matchmaker.”
Micah’s smirk broadened. “Bullshit. Is that where you were Monday night too?”
“Yes.” Although running away was going to make him look guilty, Ian started for the main entrance.
“You hooked up with her, didn’t you?” Micah called out. “I knew it. You were in too good a mood on Tuesday while we were dealing with the town nonsense.”
“You didn’t know anything.”
“I do now—you just admitted it.”
Ian closed his eyes, laughing even as he lowered his head against the door. “It’s nothing. A one-and-done mistake.”
“It’s hardly one-and-done if you’re seeing her tonight.”
“That’s for the dog problem.”
“Riiiiiiight.”
Ian waved a finger in his friend’s face. “Doubt me all you want, but you’ll be wrong. There will be nothing else between me and Kelsey except her help with dogs.”
He didn’t need the kind of complication that anything else entailed, so he would make absolutely, positively sure of that.
He hoped.