Page 76 of Whiskey Proposal

Those lips of his turn downward. I trace the corner of one side with my thumb. Not a full frown, but enough to show that he doesn’t like where my question leads him. “I do a lot that I enjoy.”

“Unfiltered delight?”

“Being buried in you.” He brushes his hands down to the flare of my hips. “Having my face between those legs. That’s a whole lotta unfiltered joy.”

Lust tightens my belly. “Sex aside, what do you do that’s for you?”

“Everything I do is for me.”

It’s to earn a place for himself. “When I lived with Brooks, and he started dating Katie, I could tell it was getting serious.” I shrug and slide my hands onto his broad shoulders. “She had her claws in him and it didn’t bother him enough to care.”

He scowls. “I’m not your brother doing things out of obligation.”

That’s not exactly what I’m getting at. Is this a pointless endeavor? Lane is Lane. He does what he does and he doesn’t think about the why, only that someone he loves needs him. “You like working on an engine. What’s that other vehicle in the shop?”

“A 1969 Chevy C10. I got it after my first year of working for both Bailey Beef and Foster House. The previous owner found it in the back of his dad’s garage after he passed.”

“How often do you get under the hood?”

Lane’s gaze swivels toward the valley. “I’ve been busy.”

“When’s your next day off?”

He slowly inhales as he thinks. “Next Saturday. I work the tasting room that evening, but I have the day off.”

So no real time to himself. “Work on that car.”

“But your dad’s old pickup still needs⁠—”

I put my finger over his lips. “It runs. Work on that car.”

He flicks his tongue out to lick my finger. I groan, but I don’t jerk my hand away. I run it over his lips.

He tugs me against him and the growing erection in his pants. “If I do, will you come visit me in those cutoffs?”

The heat curling through my belly answers before I say, “Yes.”

“Then you have a deal. Now . . .” He starts gathering the material of my skirt. “It’s plenty dark enough for me to do that other thing I enjoy.”

Yes, please. It’s just the escape I need after our earlier conversation. “What about your family?”

“Why do you think Wynter suggested this? My brothers have also probably smuggled their wives off somewhere private where teens can’t overhear.”

Need whips through me like a forest fire. “Okay, but I’m keeping my boots on.”

Emerson

I wake up smashed into a chest. Strong arms are wrapped around me, and my legs are tangled with Lane’s. Blinking, I pull away, but he tugs me back to him. I bury my face in his pecs. “I need to brush my teeth.”

“Me too.” His voice is sleep-rough and sexier than it has a right to be. “Just let me hold you. It’s not often I don’t have to rush out as soon as I wake.”

I relax. He usually spends the morning with stinky animals so he’s probably not scared away by a little morning breath.

He traces circles on my back, and his morning wood is pinned between us. My body is still satisfied from the valley-view sex we had last night against the side-by-side, but I know we’re not going to do anything. Lane’s gone out of his way to make me comfortable, and he was willing to sleep on the floor. He won’t push me to do anything while his family is on the other side of the wall.

“Mae’s coming over for breakfast,” he says.

Usually, that sort of news would make me stiffen, but in the cove of his arms in a quiet room, I’m not bothered. “She sounds amazing.”