Chapter Eighteen
“Fucking girl code,” he muttered as he finished adding the yeast to the giant fermenter of stout he’d begun that morning. “Fuck that shit.”
Sweat streamed down his face. He reached for his towel but couldn’t find it. Cursing a blue streak, he hauled the yeast container onto the ’gator so he could drive it across the brewery and back to the cold storage. When he turned to complete the process then clean the area, a small white towel met his gaze. He looked at it, then at the person holding it.
“Thanks,” he grunted, grabbing it from Elle’s hand and applying it to his face. Every cell and molecule in his body was aching, sore and exhausted. He’d been at this, without direct contact with Elisa after their odd encounter for a solid five days now with little sleep. Either brewing himself like he’d done today to spell the staff, or pitching in with bottling and packaging around-the-clock to catch up after the series of disasters.
He wanted nothing more than to fall into his hotel bed—he’d declined Austin and Evelyn’s invitation to stay at their house—and sleep for a solid ten hours. After he ate a giant steak, some potatoes, and drank a few pints.
She stood there, hands behind her back, staring at him. He could sense her nervousness as a visible shimmering movement in the air around them. It was akin to the kind of sexual chemistry he’d experienced before, but milder, slower to act. And in its own way, pleasant.
She’d come to him, he figured. So, he was gonna jump right in to this. Something was urging him forward. And if it were the same something that had allowed him to let go of his unhealthy obsession with his friend’s wife, then he was by-God going with it.
“So,” he said, tucking the towel into his belt loop where it belonged. “I think you owe me a beer. At the very least for ignoring me for the past week.” He spoke in German, figuring it might ease her anxiety as much as it did his.
She blinked, and lifted her hand as if she were going to touch the tattoo he now hated so badly he could taste it in the back of his throat—slippery and metallic, like blood. He kept his eyes on hers and she lowered her hand slowly.
“Nothing more than that,” he said, crossing his arms and willing her not to drop her gaze. “Just a beer. And a nice little chat between…what did you call us? Oh, right. Colleagues.”
“I’m…I don’t drink with colleagues.”
“I think those are the best people to drink with. I’ll see you in the pub in an hour.” He didn’t formulate it as a question but also tried to keep the bossy tone out of his voice. He turned away from her to fiddle with the fittings on the tall fermentation vessel. “Are Rick and Scott cued up for the next brew? We must keep to the schedule.”
He looked up and saw her still frozen in place. Her hand was at her neck now, which infuriated him for reasons he couldn’t explain. “Go on,” he said, more gently this time. “Check and see if those guys are all set. I know the brew house is ready, thanks to the second cleaning crew you made Austin hire.”
She worried the ball that was pierced into her lower lip, making Ross wish he were doing that exact thing.
God damn, I am turning into a full-on sap.
Fuck it. He wanted to at least find out what had happened to this strange, alluring woman. Even if nothing ever came of it.
He raised an eyebrow at her, keeping himself low, still checking that he’d closed all the connections, recalling that this batch of stout was one of many he’d brewed to make up for the sabotage at one of these very vessels. But he also knew he was staying low for another reason. He didn’t want her to feel threatened by him, and he’d figured out that looming over her like some kind of ogre would do exactly that.
“All right. I will check with them.” She turned away as if to leave, then glanced over her shoulder at him. “I’m not certain that we should be fraternizing. I don’t think that’s a good idea for either of us.”
“Really?” He stood, wincing at the pain in his back from the last week of non-stop brewing. “Allow me disagree, just this once?”
She frowned but sort of smiled at the same time, giving him hope that she’d pop off with something smart ass and the stupid tension between them would be broken. “Fine,” she said in English, making his heart sink. “I will allow it. And meet you for one beer in one hour, and nothing more.”
“I’ll take what I can get,” he said, smiling. But her frown seemed embedded onto her face now so he figured he’d best leave it for later. Wondering what, exactly, he wanted from her later, he resumed the final tasks of his brew.
Once he’d supervised the mash-in for the third brewing shift, he took a quick shower in the locker room and redressed in a clean pair of jeans and plain gray T-shirt. He pondered his image in the foggy mirror for a few seconds. The relief he’d experienced a few days earlier, when the whole Evelyn obsession had slipped away from him was still the most prominent thing in his mind. He ran fingers through his wet hair, then tied it back with a bit of leather string as he let that new, but very pleasant sensation suffuse his bloodstream.
While he wasn’t positive that the reason he’d had that burden lifted off him didn’t have a direct correlation to his new obsession with the German brewer lady, and that that might prove even more difficult to shake down the road, he was nothing but grateful for it. He even felt the urge to hang out with them, to hold Rose and be a part of their family, but in a safe, uncle-type way. He brushed his teeth, then grabbed his backpack, whistling his way around the back of the still-busy brewery to the pub.
“Hola, Adolf,” Melody called out. “How’s it hangin’?”
“Low, heavy, and to the left, chica,” he answered. “Hey, shouldn’t you be cleaning my hotel room right now?”
“Go fuck yourself,” she replied merrily as she poured him a beer without asking what he wanted.
“Ah, if only I could. Then I could retire on proceeds from my Nobel Prize.” He took a seat at the bar, blew her a kiss after she set the glass in front of him.
“Food?”
“Maybe,” he said, feeling his stomach growl when the delicious odors wafted from the kitchen.
“Angus beef burger is particularly delish today,” she said, leaning forward on the bar and wincing.
“What’s the matter, doll? Feet hurt from running across the border?”
“Shut up, genocidal Nazi.”
“Touché,” he said, lifting his glass and polishing off the hoppy IPA in two long drinks.
“I’ll order up a burger for you. Rare, right?”
“Si, por favor. Almost mooing.”
“Disgusting Kraut,” she said, smiling. “Oh, hello there.”
Ross sensed her before he saw her. The hairs on the back of his neck and on his arms trembled as that uncomfortable combination of lust and extreme protectiveness coated his brain. Melody flicked a coaster, landing it square in front of Elle—or Elisa as he was starting to think of her. Ross kept his eyes forward, watching while the woman pulled them both a pilsner, once again without asking. Funnily enough it was the perfect chaser to the astringent pale ale he’d already consumed.
“Can I put in an order for something for you, Elle?” Melody’s tone had gone soft and mushy. Her mother-y voice, Evelyn called it.
“No, thank you very much. This will be fine. I won’t be staying…long.”
Ross glanced over at her when she spoke the last word.
“Shall we?” she asked, in German, indicating an empty booth away from the busy bar filled with eager-for-gossip ears.
With a shrug, he got up and followed her, keeping his eyes anywhere but the tight ass of her dark jeans. She’d also changed, he noted, recalling that she’d been wearing cargo-shorts earlier. All the better to house wrenches, measuring devices and pens, he mused, admiring her all over again.
He slid in across from her, determined to get something resembling a back story out of her and wondering what it would take. Typically, he had little trouble making small talk, which then ended up being a full-frontal assault of unwanted personal details from women he was trying to pick up in bars. But right now, at this precise moment, sitting across from the most interesting woman he’d ever encountered in his entire life, he was dry-mouthed with stress.
She sipped her beer, patted her lips with a napkin, put it neatly in her lap, propped her elbows on the table, and met his gaze. “All right. I’m here, having a beer with you. And what are we to chat about? Do you want study the bottling line output? I have that right here.” She reached into a pocket of the sleeveless denim vest she was wearing over nothing, best he could tell.
Stymied, he gulped down some beer then coughed for the next few seconds when it went down his breathing hole. She had, he saw, matching circles of thorns around each biceps, high up, near her spare shoulders. There was also a series of stars running up the inside of one arm.
Shocked when his mouth actually began watering at the thought of how her near translucent skin would taste, he cleared his throat and leaned away from the table. “Nice ink,” he said, by way of super-awkward segue.
She nodded, sipped and put her elbows back on the table, waiting him out.
“Well, um, no I don’t require a bottling line update. But we will have to check in on it first thing tomorrow. Make sure it’s keeping up. I know there was an issue with it last week.”
“Yes,” she agreed, sipping again, her gaze wide and expectant but somehow guarded at the same time.
“Your eyes,” he blurted out, likely surprising them both. “They’re a very unique shade of blue.”
She shrugged and looked down at the table.
“Don’t do that,” he said, his voice low and soft.
“Don’t do what?” she asked, picking up her glass. Her hand shook so hard she had to put it back down. “You need to leave me be,” she whispered to the table top.
Confused by this honest comment, Ross stayed silent, studying her. The thick ropes of her dreadlocks were piled high. The tiny bands holding them together were all different colors, he noted for the first time. As he watched, one slipped free and fell over her face. He reached slowly across the table, and held it between his thumb and index finger. Marveling at its silky texture, given the somewhat brittle appearance of them, he allowed himself a quick fingertip graze to her cheek. She flinched, but not nearly as violently as she had earlier.
In a matter-of-fact way, she took the rope of hair from him and tucked it up into the mass on her head. The action exposed her bare armpits to him and Ross was jolted by the sight of them. Dear Lord but he was definitely losing it if the sight of a woman’s pale, delicate underarms was making him pop a boner harder than concrete.
He greeted the server who’d brought his dinner, thankful for the distraction. Grinding his teeth and feeling like a god damned teenaged boy on prom night, about to get his first feel of actual pussy, he downed his beer and clunked the glass on the table so hard the people next to them glanced over at him.
“I am telling you again, Ross Hoffman, we do not need to be anything but colleagues.”
She spoke this in stilted English, giving it a formal finality he didn’t like.
He took a breath, cleared his mind ever so slightly, and smiled over at her. “Well, why don’t we see how things progress?” he replied in German, popping a tater tot into his mouth. “Mmmm, want some?” He turned the plate around so the pile of strange potato products he loved were facing her. “I love these damn things.”
“What are they?” She picked one up and rolled it over in one small palm, sniffed it, then took a tiny bite. “Tastes like frites,” she said, finishing it off. “Sort of. But different.”
He dredged one through ketchup laced with hot sauce. “Try it this way.” He handed it to her, letting their fingers touch on purpose.
Teenager! Next thing you’ll do is yawn and reach for her boob.
“My God! That is delicious.” She grabbed another one and dunked it in the red sauce, then another. She grinned across the table at him and Ross honestly believed his heart may have skipped a quick beat. He took a huge bite of his burger to cover his discomfiture.
Elisa wiped her lips. Ross reached over and touched his fingertip to a splotch of ketchup she’d missed, then put it in his mouth. She flushed. And his dick got hard again. So hard he felt his zipper bite into it which made him flinch and put the burger down.
This is too weird. She is so not my type.
He caught her staring at his burger. “Don’t you start too,” he said before taking a long swig of beer, wondering how he could politely extract himself from this before he did something truly stupid.
“I am very sorry to break this to you, Hoffman, but I’m not quite sure that animal is dead yet. Shall I stab it for you? Just to be safe.” She brandished a knife.
He frowned. “So, Elisa. Tell me about that tatt around your neck.”
She froze, knife still raised in mock burger-stabbing mode. Her face, so prettily flushed, drained of all color in an instant. “This is none of your business,” she said, her voice strained. “I’ve finished my beer. Thank you for the round pommes frites. Now I must go. Oh, and it’s Elle, as you well know.”
He exhaled, cursing his sudden inability to be subtle. “Okay, I take it back. Sit. Stay. Good girl. And why not Elisa? It’s a lovely name. Fitting.”
He patted the table next to her beer and treated her to his best, charm-the-panties-off-’em smile. She hesitated, half-standing already. “What is this strange face? You have indigestion? Weren’t you taught to cook the meat before you put it in your mouth?”
Ross picked up the burger and took an obnoxiously large chomp, letting the grease and hot mustard ooze out the sides of his mouth. Elisa rolled her eyes. But she slid back into her seat, even though her stance was wary again, guarded, afraid in that way that made Ross want to punch somebody. To beat them until they couldn’t walk.
This was going to take longer than he’d bargained for. But hell, it wasn’t like he was going anywhere. The beer blogosphere had been apoplectic by his ignominious firing from Jefferson’s brewery. Brad had made sure some of the more salacious but not quite grossly explicit pictures Holly had taken of him, pissed off his keester and being serviced by two girls at once got wide distribution. He’d had to cancel his Facebook page, thanks to all the attention. Much of it from chicks who had zero qualms shooting him wet, split beaver shots in his personal message inbox.
Bizarre and somehow titillating at first. But after a few hours perusing them, he felt sad for the women, and disgusted with himself. He’d saved some of the better tit pix of course. He wasn’t a monk after all.
The server brought them both a stout. Elisa thanked him and asked for two glasses of water while Ross made short work of the bloody hamburger. Finally, he groaned, wiped his face with his napkin and shoved the decimated plate away from him. She kept her icy gaze on him as she sipped the dark brew. “This is very good,” she said.
“Thanks,” he said, taking his own sip.
“I am not complimenting you, fool. I made this batch, with Bryan, the clumsy asshole.”
Ross grinned. “I know. I was just testing you.” Determined not to spook her again, he set his beer down and contemplated his next conversational gambit.
A shout hit his ears, jarring him. Elisa craned her head up, trying to see around his shoulder. He turned, annoyed by the interruption.
“Hey, Hoffman,” Melody called. “You guys are needed in the main brewery. Now.”
They both jumped up, ran behind the bar and into the back of the pub then across the parking lot. Ross slammed the door back, taking in the chaos. An out-of-place aroma hit his brain just as he looked down and spotted the thick ooze of propylene glycol. Before he could stop her, Elisa ran past him, headed for the corner where the stuff was stored. Fitzgerald didn’t use much of it, since they only had a few lagers requiring non-stop glycol cooling. But there was enough to cause a mess, just like the one he was staring at.
“No, Elisa, stop!” He reached for her but caught nothing but air at the precise second both of her booted feet hit the stuff. Her fall was in acrobatic, slow motion, sending her feet up and her head down. She landed hard on her butt right in the middle of the worst of the spill, and bounced the back of her skull on the concrete.
The damn stuff was more than a little caustic, even in the low concentrations they kept, so even as he yelled for Rick to run over and turn off the power to that part of the brewery to stop the leak, he scooped her up in his arms and ran for the locker rooms.
As he ran, he yelled orders, telling someone to call Austin, and someone else to start diluting and squeegeeing the thick liquid down the drains. She struggled, using that surprising strength of hers to try to escape. But he figured since he had eighty pounds of muscle on her, he put it to use, gripping her tighter as he shouldered his way into the ladies’ locker room. There were only a few straggling employees, mostly pub staff on a shift change.
“Out,” he barked. They scattered.
“Let go of me, you giant oaf,” she screeched. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. My skin…” She began to whimper in a way that freaked him out. Elisa did not strike him as a whimperer.
“Sh. It’s all right. Hang on.” He leaned into the shower and turned on the water, then climbed in, still holding her in his arms. The water hit his face first so he turned, keeping her under its wide spray. One of the things Evelyn had demanded was an upgrade to these facilities, insisting that since so many people used them post shift or sometimes early in the morning to get ready, she wanted them to be top-notch, the level of a high-end gym. Ross thanked her mentally for that, grateful for the strong, wide swath of hot water sluicing the viscous fluid off Elisa’s exposed skin.
She shivered and clutched his neck, keeping her face buried in his chest as they were both soaked through to the skin. He kept making nonsense sounds, trying to calm her, trying not to notice that he had a full view of her left nipple in the gape of her wet denim vest. At some point, she looked up at him, water streaming across her face so he did what he’d been wanting to do all day.
Her lips were full, firm under his but he went slow, easy, hoping not to scare her. When his tongue found the hard, gold ball in her tongue, he groaned, turned on even more. Not wanting the kiss to ever end. But it did, leaving them both gasping. Ross looked down and saw that the small, rosebud pink nipple he could see was rock hard. His dick slammed against the back of his zipper once more. But he held on to her, sensing this was what she needed of him right now. Nothing more.
“You’re a pretty good kisser…armleuchter,” she claimed with a small smile.
“Oh, my heart,” he said, over the sound of the water. “You break it with your sweet talking.”
“Then put me down,” she said, pushing against his chest. He let go of her. When her feet hit the tiles, her legs buckled so he caught her under her arms, pressed her against the shower wall, and decided to show her how good he really was at the kissing thing.