Mutual Release (42 page)

“How often do you see her?” Julie asked as they pulled into the nearly nonexistent traffic.

“Once a week, usually on Sunday. And about that beer, you may be in luck. I happen to have a set of keys to a place…” He glanced over at her, his face starting to lose some of its tension.

“You are a nice guy, aren’t you… Francis?”

He winced. “Yeah. I suppose so.”

Within a few turns they were at Big House Brewing. The Tap Room parking lot was empty, but there was a car by the brewery entrance. He frowned as he climbed out and came around to open her door. Julie marveled at herself for waiting for him. She had never been the type of woman who waited for men to open doors for her. But now, somehow, she expected him to do it. He handed her out.

“Who’s here?” She pointed to the late-model BMW.

He sighed. “Looks like my marketing manager’s car. It’s a soap opera. Tell you about it sometime.” He unlocked the heavy metal door and held it open for her. Sights and sounds she recalled from her last visit here and all the breweries she’d toured before, hit her senses. Warm maltiness combined with cardboard and cleaning products – typical for a non-brewing day – wrapped around them. The place seemed empty but for a light up above, in the three offices Evan had constructed above the brewery floor.

He looked up at it, shook his head, then guided her through the towering fermentation vessels and through a glass door to the dark Tap Room. “Have a seat. I’ll pour us something from the back after I go up and check on Suzanne.” He flipped on the lights, and she pulled a couple of tall chairs off the bar for them to use.

After about ten minutes he returned, bearing two full glasses and a smile. “False alarm. No one is up there. Who knows why her car is here.”

She sipped, and made happy noises. “God, that is good. I swear, you should… well, we should talk about,” she made a circling motion with her finger, “us. As opposed to
us
. If you get me.”

He nodded, took a drink, and set the glass down on the bar. “I officially withdraw my request to have Dawson Associates represent Big House Brewing in any way, shape, or form.”

She frowned and shook her head. “No, you need Dawson. This beer is fucking amazing, but there isn’t a single other distributor who knows how to market it.”

“Wow – full of ourselves much?” His eyes twinkled. But her brain was on full business mode now.

“No, my company is the best when it comes to craft beer. You know it; otherwise, you wouldn’t have bothered to show up that day.”

He put a hand on her knee, setting her skin under her jeans alight. “Yeah. Lucky me I bothered.”

“Well, let’s see if you still sing that tune after you really get to know me.” She tossed her hair back, shifted, realizing she’d already started obeying him by forgoing anything between her skin and her jeans.

“Oh, I really know you,” he said, his voice low. “Move closer.” He grabbed the back of her bar seat and jumped the entire thing nearly a foot nearer, making her yelp and grab the bar’s edge. “I need a kiss,” he muttered, cupping her neck and slanting his lips over hers, transporting her once again into a zone where she would do anything to keep him doing exactly that forever. She gripped his thigh as he got serious with her, threading his hands in her hair and sweeping into her mouth with his tongue. He broke away with a light nip to her lower lip. “Okay, I’m better now.” He smiled and put his forehead to hers.

“So, is this us, dating?” she said, her voice a little wobbly and her brain still unwilling to accept it.

He leaned on one elbow, holding her gaze while brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “No. Not exactly.”

“Oh?” She sipped, ordering herself to remain casual.

“It’s a little more intense than that.”

“Ah, well, yes, I suppose it is.”

“However, we will go out on dates. Lots of them.” He smiled, setting her mind at ease. “I mean, if I feel like taking you out in public. I get a little possessive sometimes… want to keep you to myself.” He looked down at his phone and frowned. “Hang on, sorry.”

She watched him, admiring his broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist. The dress pants he’d had on when he arrived at her place the night before still looked fresh, cupping his butt in a way she wished her hands were doing right now as he walked away and took the call. She sighed, continuing to admire him – her… what? Boyfriend? No. Her man. Her… Dom.

A shiver shot down her spine and settled nicely between her legs. Where this would go she had no idea, but she did know one thing: Evan Adams was one amazing specimen, and although he’d only given her a taste of what was to come, including the little orgasm-denial stunt he’d pulled for them both earlier today, she could not wait for more. The tiny voice that tickled her, reminding her that he brought out good but also bad, as if opening some kind of weird Julie-memory-repression floodgates by his very presence, she tamped out, firmly, with the longest, sharpest mental stiletto she could muster.

* * * *

Evan stood staring out into the empty parking lot of his beer bar and listened as his friend Jack filled his ear with loud, worried ranting about Suzanne.

“Calm down, Gordon. Listen, her car is here for some reason.” He listened a minute, shocked by his friend’s words. He paced, taking quick looks back at Julie who sat fiddling with her phone and sipping beer.

He was still reeling from the visit with his mother. On many levels it had been one of their best yet; she’d even remembered him for a split-second, long enough to say his whole name, anyway. But the fact that she said Damian had been by with papers for her to sign made him a nervous wreck. He had to find that fucker. Releasing his clenched fist, he leaned his forehead against the glass front door and kept listening.

“Yeah, she called me yesterday. I’m with my sister’s family up North for the holiday, though, so I couldn’t get to her…” Jack’s voice faded.

Evan closed his eyes and tried to sort through all the information rolling through his brain. Julie’s willingness to submit and his failure to really close that deal last night he’d made up for this morning, giving her a small taste of what was in her future with him. But then the dinner with his mother had thrown him, and the way Julie had handled it, calming everyone concerned – that made him even more rattled. Because the visions of her, of them together, were invading his subconscious in ways he was a little afraid to acknowledge.

“Oh, hang on, Jack.” He opened the blinds further and saw Suzanne, her petite form walking towards the front door. “She’s coming. She’s fine. I’ll talk to her.”

Suzanne had been through utter hell in the last years, abused by her husband to the point she’d landed in the hospital, then when he’d died after a not-so-mysterious fall down his own front steps, Suzanne had taken up with Evan’s very-much-younger-than-her brewer. Then without warning had dumped him. Which had led to the kid leaving Big House Brewing altogether. It had been a real cluster-fuck, but he and Jack had seen Suzanne through it and had tried to be as supportive as they could.

What was it about him and women who were victims? He glanced over his shoulder at Julie again. Her thick blond hair curtained her face, her tall-boot-clad foot was propped on his bar seat. The long line of her leg made his mouth water. He shook it off. She may have been a victim at one point in her life, but he was going to make it his mission to make sure nothing bad ever happened to her again.

He set his jaw and opened the locked Tap Room door so Suzanne could enter. But not before he sent a text to Kyle and made a reservation at The Suite for New Year’s Eve in one of the club’s exclusive overnight rooms.

Chapter Ten

Evan ran his hands along the leather chair arms, nerves dancing with anticipation. He’d spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s working through a marketing plan with Suzanne and Julie that they were going to roll out with a giant party on January fifth at one of the biggest beer and wine retailers in metro Detroit. Then they would spend every night that week at a different marquee bar or restaurant hosting “tap takeovers” where most or all of the beer taps would feature Big House products.

His two brewers were working around the clock to back up all the beer they’d be depleting to cover the taps and the ramped-up bottling schedule. Julie had been adamant she would not support such a giant launch unless he was one hundred percent sure he had all the product the bars and stores wanted. It was going to be a real stretch, but he and his staff had figured out a way to make it happen.

The week had also been a fun test of will for him as Julie had dropped more than enough hints she was ready to play again. But he’d denied her, claiming they were too busy, needing to focus on the business stuff first. Her ramped-up lustiness was like a damn neon sign over her head by the time December twenty-ninth rolled around. And as he’d promised, they had gone out on dates – once to a movie and dinner, and once to a concert at the Filmore, plus drinks after. It was odd to him, but he would admit he loved simply sitting and talking with her, listening to her smart-ass, sarcastic sense of humor almost as much as… well, almost.

He squirmed in his chair, the ever-present semi-hard state of his cock getting real behind his zipper at the thought of how much he was making her work without her realizing it. She was fun as hell, truth be told. Now that she had finally relaxed around him, they’d spent hours talking, laughing, sharing stories. He put his feet up on his desk, and looked at the email he’d composed to send her with the official New Year’s invite, recalling last night’s one rough moment.

“Why didn’t you go back and press charges against Bart?” he’d said, sipping his bourbon at their perfect window table in the Rattlesnake Club. They’d sung and danced their way through a killer rock concert, and enjoyed a late night snack and drinks. He wasn’t completely sure why he’d brought it up, other than the fact the question was burning a hole in his brain – he needed to know why. And where the guy was now so he could murder him.

She’d stiffened, put her glass down, and touched her napkin to her full lips. His eyes trailed along her neck to her arm and across her breasts, the tops of which were visible thanks to the slinky silk shirt she’d been wearing under her leather jacket.
Focus, Adams. Focus
, he’d had to remind himself.

“Because, Francis, I was barely seventeen, terrified, in pain, and had one thing on my mind – getting the fuck away from him. You think it would have been in any way possible for me to waltz into some police office and claim my mother’s husband had repeatedly raped me, and it had taken me almost twelve weeks to report it? Isn’t there something about ‘possession as nine-tenths of the law’ or some shit that would have made it look like I had been consenting all that time?”

“The phrase you want is ‘preponderance of evidence’,” he’d replied. He kept watching her and cursing himself, but it was out there now, might as well keep going down the path. “You are just so… strong-willed and independent. It seems bizarre to me that once you reached the point where you were brave enough to run away, you could have…”

“You know what, I don’t want to talk about it.” She’d put her drink down and got up. “Excuse me, I need the ladies’ room.”

He’d stood and taken her hand. “One thing you need to know about us is there are no secrets. None. Okay?”

She’d yanked her hand out of his grasp. “I’m not withholding a secret, Evan,” she ground out, her face flushed. “I just don’t want to fucking talk about it. Let go of me.”

He did and sat back down wondering how he’d get through his own issues with the man who’d harmed her, his woman, his Julie, without bringing it up to her again.

But that had been two nights ago. She’d avoided him the last couple of days, but they were busy, that was a fact. And his surprise plan for a New Year’s Eve she would never forget, lay out in front of him sparkling and full of promise. He re-read the email once more, then hit
send
, but then sat up with a frown when he got an immediate reply.

This is Julie Dawson. I will be out of email contact until January 3. Please direct all questions or concerns to
…

What the fuck…? He picked up his phone and called her. It went straight to voice mail. He sat back, stunned, his heart pounding.

By the time he finally figured out how to contact James Dawson to make sure she was all right, he had the whole thing figured out. Question was, what should he do about it?

* * * *

Julie sat in her condo the second day after her last date with Evan, still dressed in workout clothes, sweat drying on her face. Her body was exhausted, but no matter how hard she pushed herself, her brain would not still. All she heard was his voice asking her one question. After nearly a week of rebuffing her physically, but taking her out on dates, Evan had to open his stupid mouth and bring it all up again.

Why didn’t he get it? She was done with all of that, had moved on, grown up and out of the bullshit. Yes, he had dragged it out of her at Thanksgiving, but that was all the purge she needed. God, he was like a dog with a bone – unable to stop gnawing at it.