Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 88262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“I’ll let her know. You’d like her brother, too. He makes all those foo-foo cocktails you suck down every night.”
“He’s a mixologist?” Dominic asked.
“Bingo.”
“I like him already,” he said. “Keep that one close, Draven.”
Max was never truly going to be mine.
His sister was my ex, for one, and while that would never stop me from fucking Max until he was a heap on the floor… I was pretty sure it eliminated me from his prospects, even if he was on a fun little experimentation journey with male attention.
But my desires didn’t listen to logic.
They never did.
And one desire was stronger than all the others, ravenous inside me, one wolf that was gnawing at its leash.
I will protect Max Burnett like he’s my own personal possession.
Maybe it was fueled by guilt.
I couldn’t fix anything in Montana, but…
I could fix something for Max.
Or maybe I really was just thinking with my dick.
Max’s body was like catnip to me. And his attitude was like a drug. Even when he was obviously intimidated by me, or when he told me I was a monster…
He still treated me like I was his equal.
And I liked watching him tear down the restrictions he’d had on his life forever. The things he thought he knew, crumbling, as his sexuality opened up and his world quickly bloomed, spilling open like a rose.
He said he didn’t like change.
But he couldn’t avoid it, and it looked good on him.
“Call me if you hear anything, Dom,” I said before I hung up the phone. “Talk to you later.”
“Any ghost cat sightings lately?” a young, athletic guy was saying to Max.
I was two beers deep. It had been an hour since the festival had started, and I’d been going around to each of the stalls, trying samples and specifically avoiding Max’s tent, even as I kept a close watch on it.
Every time I caught Max smiling, I felt pulled toward his tent by an invisible string.
I was completely fucking addicted to him.
That smile was so charmingly sexy that I really couldn’t believe Max didn’t know his online videos would perform so well.
He was radiant and welcoming, every time he smiled. I liked him so much, already, and I didn’t tend to like anyone.
No wonder a burly, gruff bar owner like Kane wanted Max around.
The Hard Spot tent had string lights hung along the top, with blue and pink backlights coming up from the ground. It looked like a miniature club.
I knew Max had seen me, I knew my presence was driving him crazy, and I liked the idea of making him feel that way for as long as possible.
“Hey, Andrew. No. Ghost cat’s been weirdly missing in action,” Max said to the other guy.
“Haunting somebody else’s bar?”
“I guess so. Hey, want to make a cameo in this video?”
“Fuck yes, I do.”
I took a sip of my beer, looking down for a moment and pretending to be interested in some of the craft IPAs on the table in front of me. Max still didn’t know I was at the stall next to his. He was facing mostly in the opposite direction, and when I turned toward him again, he was holding up his phone and filming a video of himself and Andrew.
“Hello, all my cocktail bros, babes, and homies,” Max said, turning on his best social media charm.
“Hello, all of the people who like alcohol and love looking at Max,” Andrew said.
“Oh my God,” Max mumbled, giving Andrew a shove from the side. “Don’t say that. I’m going to restart the video.”
They redid the intro, Andrew introduced himself again, and Max continued on with his video.
“We’re out here at the Bestens Beer Fest, with combos that aren’t your daddy’s beer,” Max was saying. “Ever had a Radler with a candied citron twist or a shandy with a habanero kick? You could find it here. Because, as always: that’s how we do it in Tennessee, baby.”
Fuck, there was something so pure about him. Seemingly innocent, but after my interactions with him, I knew better.
Muscled but soft and curved, masculine but approachable. Nothing like me.
But he enjoyed catching me with my hand around my cock, so…
Maybe a little bit like me.
I downed the rest of my beer, tossed the cup into a recycling bin, and slowly started making my way toward the Hard Spot tent.
Chapter 9
Max
Iwas going to jump out of my own damn skin.
There was definitely something wrong.
When I’d spotted Draven at the beer fest, my first thought about him had been loud and clear in my mind: get the fuck away from me. A flash of heat had gone through me earlier as I watched his black hat and the hard curves of his muscles as he made his way from tent to tent, chatting with other people and even making some of them smile.