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  “No. Everything is perfect. Touch yourself. Let me watch.”

  She reached down and flicked her clit, rubbed and arched up on the bed. Wrapping both legs over his broad shoulders, she proceeded to make herself come, hard, pinching her own nipple, stroking her small nub of enervated flesh.

  Erik’s breath came in harsh gasps along with hers as she rubbed herself to orgasm, the amazing erotic sensation of his nearness sending her over the edge. Once she’d calmed, she stretched her arms up, but kept her legs hooked over his shoulders.

  Erik watched Helena’s amazing, lush, beautiful body writhing, climaxing under his gaze. Her smell teased him. The sensation of her legs on his shoulders felt perfect. He’d been half in love with this woman for years. Her soft curves, sexy laugh, gorgeous blue eyes, beer business savvy—he’d been a walking hard-on any time she’d been around.

  When he’d caught sight of her in the lobby earlier, her face a mask of sadness and barely concealed fury when he’d shown up a day late, he knew he had to act. He’d ducked behind a column then, not ready to face her. The compulsion to touch, kiss, treat her the way he knew his friend Dustin had for so many years pulsed so strong he had to bite it back—had been doing so during the last few days as they worked out the terms of her return.

  Something about this day had felt right. So he’d acted on it and now, nothing seemed more perfect in his universe than to have Helena Turner—former girlfriend of his good friend, and newly appointed head of the brewery where he’d be working—spread and ready for him. All those hours he’d spent in the last years staying away, giving her space, listening to Dustin bitch and moan about her, but always recalling her classic beauty, her smile, her lips—he’d done more fantasizing about her than he cared to admit.

  That weekend years ago, when they’d consummated an undeniable mutual attraction, stayed etched into his memory like a never-healing scar. He fully acknowledged it probably did him no good to obsess over her. But today, he’d fulfilled a long fantasy with this woman and would keep doing it the entire weekend if he had any say in it.

  He groaned at the irony, lowering his face to her flesh to lap at the juices flowing down the inside of her thighs. His brain buzzed with sexual energy and tension. Making his way up, he captured her hard clit between his lips and sucked, forcing another ecstatic cry from her lips.

  His cock jerked and leaked more at the sound and smell of her. He closed his eyes, but opened them when Dustin’s dark stare appeared. His deep green gaze had been mesmerizing when they were together. Erik pushed the memory aside, groaned and plunged two fingers inside her warm body.

  She shuddered, coating him with her delicious fluid. He climbed up between her legs and captured her lips once more, letting her taste herself. Her moans suffused every inch of him, made him happier than he’d felt in years. He grinned and flipped onto his back, bringing her with him. He grabbed the condom he’d pulled from his pocket earlier and yanked the thing over his cock, clumsy in his eagerness. Damn things were no more comfortable than a dick girdle might be, but given how much he’d played around in the last few years, he was not about to put her at any risk. She lifted her hips, poised herself above him, her lush breasts inches from his face.

  “Please.” His body ached to be inside her. The connection they’d shared in the bathroom wasn’t enough. The memory of her, with Dustin, the three of them together, crashed around in his psyche. He gritted his teeth against the need for release. Erik wanted to fuck her silly, fall asleep with her in his arms, then wake and start all over again. He’d gone nearly forty years of existence, fucked countless women, several men, and fallen hard for only two people. The two people who couldn’t hold their own relationship together but who needed each other like a fish needed water.

  She lowered herself onto his cock, enveloping him. He sucked her nipple into his mouth, tugged on it, then pushed her up, wanting that angle, needing to see her face.

  “Please what?” She rocked against his body. He groaned at the sweet sensation of her glove-like grip on his shaft. He clutched her thighs.

  “Please. Do that.” He thrust into her “Please do exactly what you’re doing. Please don’t stop. Please fuck me. Please make me come.” She leaned down to suck the dark pink circles of his nipples, making him cry out and move faster.

  “Hmm. Aren’t you the polite one?” She grinned and brought her face to his, her long blonde hair cascading around him. He cupped her neck, tugged her close. Her body held him, released then clutched tight again, milking him, pulling him toward the inevitable. At that moment he saw him. Dustin. Pictured him behind her, posed to, oh fuck. He thrust faster, harder, his fingers dug into her thighs.

  “Erik!” she yelled. He groaned, released, letting her body take him, while her pussy clutched and spasmed around him. He held her, blinking at the emotion flitting through his brain. She lifted herself off and flopped down beside him. Erik’s breathing slowed, his body absorbing the climax and pushing him toward sleep.

  But he couldn’t get the vision from his head. There had been a brief moment, when three had been a perfect number, at least for him. He would have gladly carried that relationship on forever. Something about both Dustin and Helena had fulfilled him more than anything he’d ever experienced. But now, lying here with her, the new possibility of happiness emerged. One without Dustin, granted, but one he now wanted, and was determined to get.

  Chapter Twenty

  The mantra running through Erik’s brain resembled something like wrong, wrong, totally, completely wrong. He let the sweat drip from his hair. His shoulders and biceps seized up from the unnecessary effort. The strong odors of the wet barley grains from his latest concoction filled his nose, distracting him from the one thing he’d fought for the last month, ever since returning from Denver and admitting how ass over elbow in love he now was with Helena. It strangled him, kept him up nights with a bizarre combination of guilt and terror. Terror she would figure out that she still loved Dustin. Because he knew she did.

  He clenched his eyes shut and pictured her face the night before, when the anxiety had worked its cold-shower magic on his cock. “Oh, honey, it’s okay,” she had soothed him, her lush body enveloping his. “I’m sorry for you, you know? I mean you always make sure I’m taken care of. Seems unfair.”

  Erik had leapt from the bed, pulled his jeans on before stomping into her kitchen to slam some water and get a grip on himself. One of the best things about their relationship so far, besides the near constant mind-blowing sex they had in pretty much every corner of the brewery, the bar and her place, was her ability to leave him alone when he needed to be left alone. Her understanding that his natural reticence about “feelings” was part and parcel of Erik. But he figured it couldn’t last much longer, this patience.

  They had progressed from random, illicit sex to sleepovers pretty quickly. The fact that whenever he woke up without her in his arms he honestly felt unhappy alarmed him.

  She’d followed him to the kitchen of her condo. The look in her eyes when he turned to face her held something he couldn’t place at first. He knew they were in dangerous emotional territory. Years spent alone, staying aloof, even when faced with the extreme irony of their shared connection, were crashing in on him, making him want to do crazy shit, like buy her jewelry. Or even more insane, make her pregnant.

  “So, you gonna pout all night or come back to bed?”

  He ran a hand down his face. “I should probably go home.” Absolutely the very last thing he wanted to do. With a flash of self-awareness, he needed her to ask him to stay.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t let me keep you.”

  He had to close his eyes once more at the feel of her of soft, warm body against his. If he let himself, he could love this woman. But something seemed off, and he knew it had to be his problem, not hers. Their relationship had been intensely physical from the beginning—something they both agreed they needed. And sometimes he regretted cornering her at the National Beer
Festival last year. But the night he’d been named Brewer of the Year, he’d given in to some sort of base urge, and their connection ever since had been amazing and at least physically fulfilling. He smiled into her hair, pulled away and tilted her face up to his. It truly did feel right to have her there in his arms.

  If they were well matched as emotional cripples, so be it. They’d had the support they both needed in Dustin. Perhaps without him they could forge a bridge with baby steps. And plenty of arguing it seemed. Dustin had been right about her on many levels including the one about her always needing to be right. “Then again, maybe I won’t go.”

  *

  Helena had lain awake in the early morning hours, watching Erik sleep, her body languid with satisfaction. He’d rallied—and then some—proving once again that he was better at physical than emotional. She’d sighed, brushed a strand of his hair back behind his ear. He stirred, opened his eyes, shocking her all over again with their brilliant sapphire hue.

  “Morning.” He pulled her into his arms. “Want coffee?”

  “Sure.” She followed him to the kitchen and sat, observing him as he moved around and made them breakfast. Erik had to be the most emotionally constipated man on the planet. But one she knew in her soul she could never live without. What had started for her as a purely physical release had become a link to Dustin, and she believed held something much deeper. Every day that passed lately had meant Dustin faded even more. The maddening sensation of ever-present loss had faded going as well, leaving behind relief and guilt. Was it possible to love two men equally? It was something she had wondered once, then let go. But it was back, almost as strong as her need to see Dustin again—ask him the same thing.

  Her fear that the Denver hookup had been just that had dissipated within twenty-four hours of their return. She’d had a Skype conference with her “Brewer Twenty”, a group of fellow west Michigan breweries that compared notes on the expo and talked about the various challenges they all faced. By the time she’d fired up the computer and stood looking out into the darkened brewery from her office window, Erik appeared, his hands all over her, fisting in her hair, his amazing lips on her neck and shoulders.

  “Shh,” he’d whispered. “Have your meeting. I have plenty to occupy me.” And he’d proceeded to fuck her silly, standing up from behind, forcing her to switch the Skype video off and the sound on mute.

  Now that she had him near night and day lately she would admit that she needed more. She wanted Dustin. She had Erik. And the whole fucking mess could have been avoided if she herself had been willing to talk to Dustin that horrible day. Time and distance had convinced her that Valerie had conspired with Virginia to ambush the man emotionally the same day Virginia told her off at lunch. The one time she’d allowed herself to listen to one of Dustin’s late-night drunken voicemails had given her the first hint. He’d “lost” his phone that day. Had wanted to call her after Valerie had done a subtle number on his nerves over lunch. The day he’d lost the phone had been the day Valerie had answered for him. She must have taken it.

  The whole friends with benefits thing with Erik was nice, but was starting to make her edgy and miss Dustin more. The three of them should be here, working in the brewery together. His continued, distinct absence from their well-balanced triangle was not working for her. And it made Erik more and more irritable she could tell. She owed it to herself to talk to Dustin again. But she couldn’t do it. It had been too long and was probably too late anyway.

  *

  “Hey, Helena.” Her assistant’s voice cut through the cobwebs that lately kept invading her brain.

  Helena leaned on her hand, staring out the raised office complex inside the brewery. The irritating mental loop of the moment she walked away from Dustin ran again. It so often did when she found herself staring at Erik. She followed his tall form, making his way around the twenty-thousand-square-foot space filled with a state-of-the-art brew house and the newest one-hundred-barrel fermentation vessels she’d just purchased.

  His broad back flexed under the brewery T-shirt, while he did his usual berating of the brewery boys. She smiled at the level of tension tinged with camaraderie he’d developed amongst the staff. After nearly a year as her brewmaster, he’d made changes Dustin would never have instigated.

  And pissed off more staff members than she could count.

  “It’s Sean, from Imperial. Line one.”

  She rolled her eyes and prepped herself for an argument with one of her less motivated distributors.

  She could practically hear Dustin’s calm voice in her head. Those soothing sounds had been her touchstone for years. She’d loved that man so much, losing him made her hate waking up every morning. Having Erik back in her life had certainly helped. But she’d risen this morning and made a decision. She needed to get some distance from him, needed to sort out how she really felt about Dustin before going any deeper emotionally with tall handsome brewer.

  By the time the day had eased into late afternoon, exhaustion had taken over. Between expansion plans and personnel issues, the thought of facing a huge beer dinner crowd that week made her slightly ill. A sudden loud shout made her look out into the brewery floor again.

  She watched Erik stomp away, leaving another other man standing, arms crossed, anger clear in his eyes. And something else that made her heart beat a little faster. She jumped to her feet, knocking her water bottle to the floor. Dustin stood, hands on his hips, dressed in a very expensive-looking blue suit. He looked good enough to eat—his dark hair close cropped, his eyes snapping with emotion. Her pulse raced as she watched them clenching her hands into fists to keep from pounding on the window, yelling at him to come to her. The brewery darkened as staff members started flipping off lights, shutting down until the next shift came in at four a.m. She moved to the window, pressed her hands against it.

  Erik had turned around again. He pointed at the large fermentation vessels. She watched as Dustin spoke just as heatedly. She swallowed hard, observing the man who’d rocked her sex life for the last year take the five or six steps separating the two men, put a hand on Dustin’s arm and force him backward against a stainless steel vessel. The look in Erik’s eyes was one she knew well—pure, unfiltered lust.

  She gasped, unable to stop watching, unwilling to admit what appeared right in front of her. The two men continued to yell in each other’s faces, but their proximity, the energy in the room that even permeated the office made her face flush and her knees wobbly. She sat. Erik had stopped talking. Dustin’s chest heaved.

  Before she could blink Erik grabbed Dustin’s arms and maneuvered him between two tall fermenters, cutting off her view. She stood up, clutched the back of her chair and tried to process what was likely happening between the men in the stainless steel maze. And that she very, very much wished she could keep watching, the memories of Erik and Dustin together, as clear as day in her mind. Someone flipped off the last light, plunging the huge industrial brewery into near darkness.

  The fact that Erik might be engaging in something that could be construed as cheating on her punched through her lusty haze. She had no claim on him she knew, but the easy way they had with each other’s bodies now, the lovely familiarity of his presence in her house even as they went about mundane chores, made the small green monster take on Hulk-like proportions and roar through her brain. Her palm landed on the first thing it encountered and she flung it against the tall bookshelves that lined one wall of the office.

  The tinkle of glass from the shattered pint made it worse, as she pictured the calm way Dustin would simply clean it up and leave her to her tantrum, like he always had. She realized the absurdity of being angry at him, but the scene with Erik burned holes in her brain. Her throat ached, as if it had only been days, not a year since she’d last seen him, in this very office when she’d resigned and he’d let her walk away.

  *

  Erik could not believe it. The S.O.B kept yelling at him across the empty brewery floor—furiou
s over the fact that he’d let the amber lager get exactly one and a half degrees too warm a day early. What the fuck?

  He crossed his arms, watching as Dustin’s broad-suited back retreated, his gaze drawn unconsciously to his tight ass. He quelled the urge to call him out, to ask him why they’d hired him. He opened his mouth to speak, Dustin whirled around and pointed at the fermenters.

  “You will be responsible if that entire fucking batch is ruined. Do you hear me?”

  “Dustin, Jesus, both you and I know that isn’t going to happen. What the hell—”

  Before he could finish, the guy moved up in his grill, tight, too tight. Erik’s body reacted in a primal fashion. His skin pebbled, muscles clenched and cock sprang to pretty obvious attention under his jeans. He didn’t move, still completely floored by the whole scene. His brain fogged over with memory of Dustin’s strong body, his full lips. The stainless steel at his back sent a cold shudder through his body. But he had to know something. “Why are you here, Dustin?” His voice was barely a whisper. “You told me, you made me promise her, that you wouldn’t do this. Wouldn’t come here, remember?”

  His palms itched with the need to run them down the other man’s rough face. He looked so stressed. So utterly unhappy.

  Erik reached out, cradled Dustin’s square jaw between his palms, watched from some strange middle distance, leaning in and touching his lips lightly to the ones he’d been obsessing over for years, the electric connection between them immediate and familiar.

  Dustin broke the kiss before it became anything beyond a quick touch. “Shit.” He spit out the expletive before grasping Erik’s biceps and tugging him between the fermenter, reconnecting their mouths.

  Dustin groaned when Erik shifted him up against the hard concrete block wall, never releasing his mouth. The man’s tongue forced his lips open, swept in, tangled with his own. Oh hell. He tasted of coffee, smelled of brew house. Erik’s hips tilted as his cock throbbed beneath his zipper.