Page 57 of Brewing Up My Fresh Start
The words hit me like a strike to the ribs—because I do feel everything, more than I should, and it’s cost me too much already. Admitting that out loud would undo years of carefully built walls.
“I think you’ve been telling yourself that destroying my dreams is just business because admitting you care would complicate your nice, safe, emotionally unavailable world.”
Frank chooses this moment to hop onto my shoulder and gently preen my hair, like he’s trying to make me presentable for something important. I should be annoyed, but my pulse is pounding too hard. I’m standing inches from the one woman who can tear my control apart with a single look, and for the first time in years I want to let it happen.
“You want to know what complicates my world, Michelle?” I step closer, ignoring Frank’s grooming efforts. She has to tilt her head back to meet my eyes, and the movement exposes the elegant line of her throat. “You. You drive me absolutely crazy.”
Her breath catches, pupils dilating. “Good.”
That single word—breathless, defiant, loaded with seven years of buried attraction—detonates inside me. My restraint doesn’t just crack; it shatters. I’ve wanted this for so long that the hunger feels like a living thing.
I frame her face in my hands and kiss her like I’ve been dying to do since the first morning she smiled at me over a coffee cup.
Frank squawks once, apparently satisfied with his matchmaking, then settles in to watch the show.
Seven years of careful distance and buried longing explode into this moment. Michelle tastes like coffee and cinnamon and every risk I’ve been too scared to take. She makes a surprised sound against my mouth, then her hands fist in my shirt andshe’s pulling me closer, kissing me back with the same fierce intensity she brings to everything else.
Her lips are soft and eager, and when they part under mine, I lose whatever remains of my mind. This isn’t gentle or tentative—this is years of suppressed hunger finally breaking free. Her hands slide up to cup my face, a slight tremor in her fingers, and she melts against me like she’s been waiting for this as long as I have.
I’ve kissed plenty of women, but never with this sense of coming completely apart, never with the feeling that I could spend forever learning all the ways Michelle Lawson can wreck my carefully ordered world and still want more.
Never with a seagull providing live commentary.
Frank gets bored with our display and hops down to investigate Michelle’s purse with the focused determination of airport security.
When Michelle breaks the kiss, we’re both breathing hard. Her forehead rests against mine, and her eyes are wide with shock and want.
“Oh,” she whispers.
My chest heaves like I’ve run miles. Every nerve is lit, every wall I’ve built flattened. For once, I don’t feel locked up at all—I feel wrecked and alive, like kissing her rewired me in ways I can’t undo.
“Yeah,” I agree, because kissing Michelle has reduced my vocabulary to caveman basics.
From behind us comes the sound of Frank discovering an emergency granola bar. The crinkling wrapper provides oddly festive background music to our romantic crisis.
“We just...” She touches her lips, looking dazed.
“We did.”
“That was...”
Crash.Frank has attempted granola bar surgery and knocked over Michelle’s coffee mug in the process.
A laugh bubbles out of Michelle, slightly hysterical. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“The kiss or Frank’s hostile takeover?”
“Both. Either. All of it.” But neither of us steps away. Her hands are still pressed against my chest, fingers spread over my heartbeat. “This changes everything.”
Fear knots low in my gut—not of her, never of her, but of what this means. Business and survival have always been simple: numbers, deadlines, permits. This is chaos I can’t blueprint or control. And I don’t want to.
“Everything,” I agree, brushing that rebellious strand of hair behind her ear. Finally. “Your committee is expecting you to stop my development.”
“They are.”
“And I’m supposed to be convincing the town to accept progress.”
“You are.”
