Page 21 of Knots About You
We uploaded the clip to all of their accounts. I applied every marketing and PR trick I could think of on short notice. I’d never been wholly on the marketing side, handing the public relations side more, but I’d worked closely with so many marketing whizzes to be able to show them a trick or two.
Isla got a call from the fair committee, grabbed her phone and vanished, leaving Owen and me with a knowing look. The small distillery had started winding down for the day, with staff heading home and tourist groups long gone.
And then there were two.
Silence hung between us like a heavy curtain, and I itched to barge through it. I’d never been feral for a man, but Owen made me feel like I needed a giant fan any time I was close to him.
‘You know you look dreamy in that video, right?’ I said, placing my elbows on a barrel top and bending over enough to make my skirt ride high. ‘I’d be saving it in a heartbeat.’
‘That so?’ Owen closed a barrel while looking utterly unperturbed by my attempt to flirt. The way those competent hands flexed sent my mind on a deviant sojourn about what else those hands were good at.
He caught me looking. I fixed him with a sunny smile and toyed with a loose lock of my hair. That’s what they do in the movies, right?
Grumpy pants remained stoic.
I shifted again, sticking my butt out as I pretended to wipe an imaginary drop from the other edge of the barrel. Cool air whisked around my nether regions, and a modicum of shame filled my cheeks. A tiny amount. Not enough to make me stop.
Damn. I had to be ovulating or something.
Stop being so needy, Claire.
I glanced over my shoulder in time to see his eyes lower to the hem of my skirt.
Caught you.
It danced over my exposed skin, slow as dripping honey. When he met my eyes, the temperature rose a multitude of degrees in my face alone.
When he moved, I followed, watching as he washed his firm hands and put away his tools. I leant against the wall and ate him right up with my eyes.
‘Why are you playing so hard to get?’ I asked. ‘Am I barking up the wrong tree?’
Owen sighed, running a hand through his thick hair.
‘Because you don’t know what you’re trying to get yourself into.’
God, his voice did unholy things to me.
His warning sounded suspiciously like a test of the waters. I needed more information.
‘I’m thirty.’ I tried to be demure and hoist myself up onto the barrel beside me, using the wall behind it for leverage. Not so easy in heeled boots.
It required a wriggle, a squeak, and a mortifying half-fall to squirm most of the way there. Hardly the vixen I was hoping to be. Owen rushed to me and put one solid hand on my waist, steadying me until I sat with the wood against my backside. The slick city version of me would be appalled. ’I can get myself involved in whatever I like.’
He kept one hand at my hip until he was sure I wasn’t going to topple, then dropped it to the barrel beside my thigh. Good lord, he smelled like wood and whisky. I wanted to devour him.
‘And what if what I like is too much for you?’
‘Define too much,’ I said lightly. ‘Anal? Feet? Calling me awful names?’
For a second, his lip quirked into a smile before falling. There was nothing funny at all in his eyes. He reached for my wrists and encircled them in his hand. I let him take them. The sensation of him touching me gave me goosebumps. He brought them up above me and pressed them firmly against the wall as I gasped.
Tension rose as he paused there, with me pinned, and took an achingly slow look at me. A shiver stole up my spine at the delicious pause.
Then he leant closer, his mouth finding my ear.
‘I likecontrol,’ he murmured. ‘I like telling you what I want and having you so eager to play. I want to learn what you like andtouch you until you beg me to stop. I want to hear you using my name as a plea and a curse all in one.’
My heartbeat went bananas. I hadn’t dabbled much with power games, but the thought of Owen commanding me in the bedroom has me foaming. ‘That’s a very long way of saying you’re a kinky grump.’
