Chapter Seventeen

Aspen grabbed her bag and water bottle and headed out the door.

"You're singing."

She yelped and jumped around. Her sister sat on the front porch with her laptop and a glass of sweet tea. Dressed in a cute beach dress from her store, she flipped up her Coach sunglasses and gave Aspen a suspicious look. "You scared me. What are you doing?"

"Going in for the afternoon since I got back late last night. You still haven't told me what happened when I was gone. Must be good if you're singing."

She wouldn't blush. And she refused to go into details of her sex life. They weren't teenagers anymore, sharing exploits. "Sorry, I was writing and didn't hear you this morning. I wasn't singing, just humming. How was your trip?"

"Successful. We're moving forward with the partnership. Did you sleep with him?"

Aspen kept her face neutral. "Yes."

"Tell me everything."

"No." Sierra narrowed her gaze in warning, but Aspen refused to be bullied. "It's my business, okay? I'm not gossiping, and you have to respect it."

Her sister let out a long sigh. "It's worse than I thought. He did what Brick does best—pulled you right into his spell. You were singing Justin Timberlake, and you only do that when you're seriously happy."

Sometimes, Aspen hated having a sibling who knew all her quirks. "Things are going the way they should," she said firmly. "We're enjoying each other's company."

"How's the book?"

She hesitated. That was a tricky answer because she was making progress on the story, but it wasn't flowing like she'd imagined. The night with Brick had been mind-blowing. Their connection had strengthened as if he'd imprinted his touch, taste, and scent on her body. Aspen felt giddy like she was keeping a wonderful secret all to herself.

But each time she tried to write a scene depicting her emotions, it emerged with a distant flatness she didn't understand.

At least she'd filled up a whole new notebook of Zany Zoo .

"Still slow," Aspen finally said. "I'm on track to send my agent a partial to look over, though."

"Where are you going?" Sierra asked.

"To help Brick with some marketing stuff. Renovations are almost done, and he needs to hit the ground running to save the summer profit."

"With the money you gave him."

Aspen winced. Yes, it was a business deal, but she didn't like to remind herself that he was forced to be with her. "Loaned," she corrected. "Why are you being bitchy about this?"

"I'm not. I'm worried, okay? I've seen this before with women he's previously dated. The high before the fall is intense. Are you sure you need to do this? Maybe the book can be written if you stop right now, and no one gets hurt."

Aspen briefly considered her sister's plea but knew she had to take it to the end. The book was still a struggle, and she needed to get it to a point where it flowed raw and true, like Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover . "Getting hurt is the only way to make this worth it," she said. "I need you to have my back on this one. Please."

Sierra groaned and pinched her nose. "Fine. I hate it, though."

"Thanks. Gotta go." Aspen zipped away before her sister could launch her second-prong approach to the argument. She drove to Ziggy's Tours with a pounding heart and sweaty palms. Nerves jumped in her belly at the thought of seeing Brick after their night together. They'd spoken on the phone yesterday but both needed to work.

Would it be awkward? What if he was having regrets or doubts about moving forward? Now that he'd secured the money he needed, would he politely end this thing between them while he promised to pay her back?

She parked and got out of her car, noticing the new sign. It was big and bold, and she loved the way it stood out. The front window had a beautiful logo imprinted on it, and when she walked in, her breath caught. It was a total transformation.

The walls weren't painted yet, and the furniture wasn't in, but Aspen immediately felt drawn to the casual but upscale vibe. The floor was a beechwood mix, and the new counter was high, extra-long, and boasted a sleek blue granite top that gave the place an ocean-type vibe. A cute coffee station offered a variety of hot and cold drinks. New lighting had been installed, giving the space a less garish glare and adding to the natural sun glow. Brick came around to greet her. "Hi. What do you think?"

She shook her head in wonder. "It's beautiful. Anyone who comes in will have a hard time not booking a tour with you. What's the rest of the setup going to look like?"

"The furniture for the waiting area over here will be delivered tomorrow." He pointed to a decent-sized open space to the right. "Brochures and information displays will be by the door, and I'll feature some of Marco's T-shirts there. I have some photographs on canvas getting done, and my grandfather had some beautiful art pieces I'll bring in."

"The sign is epic. Easy to see from the road."

"That's what I wanted." Satisfaction was carved into the features of his face. Aspen's insides squeezed with pleasure at his obvious pride in fulfilling his dream. She must've been staring because he suddenly met her gaze and gave her a slow smile. "Hey, baby."

Her entire body softened, and butterflies tickled her stomach. She felt stuck to the floor, wanting to cross the room and kiss him, but worried it would look too needy. "Hey."

His blue eyes heated, and he took deliberate steps forward. Her mouth dried up as his delicious scent wafted toward her, and she fisted her fingers so she didn't reach out and grab him. Was she staring at him like he was a five-course meal, and she hadn't eaten in days? The sexual energy he gave off fried her brain. "Aspen?"

She opened her mouth, squeaked, then tried again. "Yeah?"

He placed a finger under her chin, tipping her head up. "You know you can touch me, right?" His deep voice slid over her ears like molten honey. "I give you permission for full access to my body."

She blinked. Swayed on her feet. Then brought her hands up to wrap around his rock-hard biceps. "Oh."

His lip quirked with amusement. "Chatty today, huh?"

"Yes?"

He laughed then. His lips lowered to hover an inch from hers. "Take what you want, baby. "

Knees saggy from the blistering heat of his body, Aspen surrendered and did exactly what he told her to—what she wanted more than anything.

She leaned in and took his mouth in a hungry kiss.

Digging her nails into his arm, she skipped right over flirty and teasing and went straight to devouring him, her tongue sliding between his lips and touching his in demand. He let out an animalistic groan and accepted her challenge, kissing her deeply and thoroughly, and she opened like a flower to give him full access. Sliding her arms up, she thrust her fingers into his hair and hung on, grinding her mouth against his with all the pent-up arousal she'd banked for the past twenty-four hours since he'd been in her bed.

She had no idea how much time had passed until they finally broke apart. His eyes were slightly wild when he looked at her, and a thrill raced down her spine at being able to make this man want her. "Much better," he murmured, swiping his thumb over her damp lower lip. "Dangerous, but better."

She laughed, knowing her cheeks were flushed. He made her feel like a flustered teen, desperate for both his attention and affection. The only thing that soothed her was the obvious erection visible in his jeans, confirming his desire. Aspen playfully swatted him away. "I'm here for business marketing, remember?"

"Got it. Work first, then we'll break in the new counter." At her confused look, he shot her a wicked grin. "Figured I'd strip you naked, lay you out on this new granite, and take my time feasting on your sweet pussy."

Fire lit up her veins. She was immediately wet and aching. The image of such a decadent fantasy flashed and imprinted on her brain. "We-we can't. There are no shades on the windows."

His laughter burst out in the room, so deep and loud she couldn't help but smile with him. God, she loved that sound. She wished she could make this man laugh all day. "Trust me. After that expression I just caught, my first task tomorrow is installing blinds."

"You're terrible," she said, frowning. "Stop teasing me."

Suddenly, the door opened, and Kane marched in. "Hey, I'm taking off to—oh, hello, beautiful."

Aspen stared at one of the most handsome men she'd ever seen. "Um. Hi."

She heard Brick's sigh behind her. "Aspen, this is Kane. The friend who's staying with me. "

"I've been dying to meet you," Kane said smoothly, stepping over to politely kiss each of her cheeks in greeting. "Now I know why Brick has been keeping you from me. He always wants to keep the best women for himself."

She blinked at the male vision in front of her. Wavy, russet hair with strands of gold. Sea-green eyes filled with intelligence and a hint of mischief. A face caught between timeless elegance and beauty with cut cheekbones and arching brows. A short beard hugged his firm lips, keeping him from looking too pretty. He wore a crisp, button-down lavender shirt, perfectly tailored pants, and soft leather shoes that looked Italian-designed. Like Brick, he owned the room, stealing the air and attention from everything around him.

Aspen couldn't help it. She started to laugh.

Kane gave her a curious look.

"I'm sorry. This is just too much. The two of you are actually friends? Do you bring oxygen with you when you enter a bar?"

Kane shot her another curious look, grinning. "I don't understand."

"She's insulting us, Kane. Calling us pretty boys," Brick drawled, shaking his head.

Aspen laughed harder. "Seriously, it's like Thor and Iron Man hanging out together. You don't give a woman even a slim chance at survival. It's not fair."

Delight danced in Kane's eyes. "I like you," he stated. "Now I know why Brick has been singing."

Her head swung around. "You were singing?"

Brick glared at his friend. "Fuck, no. I don't sing."

Kane grinned but didn't push. "Will you join me one night for dinner, Aspen? I'd love to get to know you better."

She bit her lip hesitantly. "Um, Brick will be there, too, right?"

Kane chuckled. "Unfortunately, yes. It's his house."

"Then I'd be happy to have dinner with you."

Brick practically roared with grumpiness. "Out! You are not inviting her on a date at my house. She's mine."

Kane's face fell. "Fine. I knew you were afraid of competition. But I'm a gentleman, so I'll back off. Pleasure meeting you, Aspen."

With a wink, he disappeared. The room seemed to shrink without his large presence. Aspen turned to Brick. "Did you burn New York to the ground as the dynamic duo?"

"I knew you'd be a smart-ass about this."

"It's difficult not to be when confronted with such male beauty. "

Brick gave her a warning stare. "I mean it, Aspen. Or we'll find out if spanking is a thing you'd like to explore."

Her mouth fell open like a guppy, and Brick grinned slowly. "There we go. There's definite interest."

"Stop!" She threw her shoulders back and tried to keep her blush contained. "We have work to do."

"Truce." Still grinning, he took her hand and pulled her around the talked-about counter, where he had his laptop set up. "I made a spreadsheet of hook lines for the ads, possible graphics, and media outlets. Figured you could look it over and let me know your thoughts. Want to sit?"

"No, been sitting all day. Standing feels great."

They dove into analytics, and Aspen took out her iPad, where she'd brought up some possible designs in Canva. "You want to hit a niche but not lock yourself into just one. Families will be the number-one priority, but I think you can do something fun for couples, too. What's Maleficent's main client base?"

"Partyers. Younger guys. She's great at grabbing all the rented beach house crowds, friend groups, etcetera. She gives off that fun, flashy persona that does well there."

"Makes sense. Bet she also picks up a lot of impulse buys. I think we go with the pirate treasure chest for kids, and the planners who like to set up their vacay the moment they arrive."

Brick nodded thoughtfully. "Never considered that. I like it."

They spent the next few hours picking apart his media plan and budget and setting up a bunch of new ads. "You need to do videos, Brick."

"Ah, hell, no. I'm not chasing after social media likes or looking stupid live."

She put her hands on her hips. "Listen, you can be very authentic and just be you. But it's a bigger organic reach when you're talking to the camera, directly to your prospective customers. I hated it, too, but I found a way to do it so I was comfortable."

"What do you do?"

She ticked off the stuff on her fingers. "I read excerpts from my books. I talk about what inspired certain scenes or a setting. I talk about being a writer in NY and joke about my isolation. I show my working area. I give shoutouts to other writers. Things that aren't staged."

Brick groaned. "I'm not sure I can offer anything but my ugly mug staring back at people. "

She snorted. "One look at you online, and your tours will be booked by every available female, young and old."

"My tour company is not a dating app," he said grumpily. Aspen took in his reddened cheeks with delight. Was the mighty Brick Babel blushing at being a sex symbol? "I hate that shit."

"Look, let's film one right now. I'll show you how easy it is." Ignoring his anxious expression, she grabbed her phone. "I can do it on mine, but it'd be better on yours."

He offered his phone. "I already have an account but haven't posted much. Don't have that many followers."

Aspen tilted her head. "Are you sure you want me looking at your phone?" She knew that was a big privacy thing. He probably didn't want her to see how many other women texted or messaged him daily. Lord knew, she didn't want to see it.

"Sure. Got nothing to hide." He recited his passcode, and she quickly surveyed his account. She snapped a few pics of him and then the logo. "You need to use more hashtags."

"Yeah, I know. Just haven't wanted to."

"You may have the best tour company, but people need to know about it."

He flashed her a grin. "Business 101—discoverability. You're right. I know better."

Aspen liked that she didn't have to battle his ego. Too many men liked to mansplain crap and refused to listen to advice. He seemed to have no issue admitting his weaknesses. "Okay, I'll film you. Why don't you just do an invite to check out the new place? Say you're running specials."

He dragged in a breath and nodded. "Let's do this."

Aspen gave him the signal countdown and pressed record. Brick launched into a quick intro of his place, giving that lopsided grin that was kryptonite to women. He was to the point, funny, and kept it short. When she was done, he looked miserable. "I suck at this."

"Brick, that was amazing. You need to do a few of these. We can set them up to post daily and figure out what hashtags and times work best."

When they were done, a nice inventory of videos, graphics, and ads was ready to go. "You're a miracle worker," he said. "Thanks for helping on this."

"Of course." They smiled at each other. "I want to stop in and talk to Marco. He had a few questions for me, and I said I'd be here today."

Brick tugged on a wayward curl. "He likes you."

"Marco? He's a kid. He likes everyone. "

"No. You're easy to like, Aspen Lourde."

"Why do you like to use my first and last name?"

"Not sure. I just like saying your full name. It feels good on my tongue." His eyes darkened. "Like other parts of you."

She put out a hand. "Don't. When you talk like that, I get distracted. And I feel weird."

His brow shot up. "Yeah? Like how?"

She bit her lip, and he laughed. "Off-kilter."

"Know how I feel when I'm near you?"

It was a setup, but she couldn't help asking, "How?"

He pressed his mouth against her ear. "Hard. Needy." His teeth nipped at her lobe. "And happy."

Aspen blinked, shock filtering through her. Before she could process the words, he pressed a kiss to her lips, patted her ass, and pushed her gently toward the door. "Go see Marco before I decide to break in this counter, after all. Then I'll take you to dinner."

She opened her mouth. Shut it. And flew out the door, his laughter echoing in the air.

Brick took his time wrapping up. He made a few more calls to coordinate for tomorrow and responded to some hopeful emails. Many of the restaurants, mini-golf vendors, and museums agreed to let him distribute coupons for tours, mentioning they were glad to see Ziggy's Tours back to advertising.

He'd enjoyed working with Aspen today. She was both creative and practical, which balanced him well, and they'd been able to share ideas that grew organically. He discovered a new part of her he liked every day. Brick hadn't fed her a line when he admitted that she made him happy. It was a simple fact, and it had just popped out of his mouth without thought.

He locked up and headed next door. The T-shirt shop had a few customers browsing, and he nodded to Patsy and Burger who worked the cash register. He looked around for Aspen but couldn't find her, so he spent a little time poking around the inventory. Brick had to admit the store wasn't too bad. When they first opened, supplies had been stark and catered to surfers, but now, there was a bigger clothing selection, children's toys, and even a jewelry counter offering fun items.

Guess they were both finally getting their shit together.

He wandered toward the back and heard low voices. Brick stopped at the door and peeked in.

Aspen was tapping the screen, and Marco was peering over her shoulder with an excited expression. "You think it can work?" he asked.

"Why not? People like to think they're getting something for nothing. You literally have boxes of these tanks that are just sitting here. Buy a tee, get a tank is a great promotion. All you need is foot traffic, and you can upsell them. You have them in all sizes, right?"

"Yeah, I told the guy to cancel, but I missed the deadline. Now I'm stuck with them."

"Look at this heading with this photo."

"That's fire! Hey, what if me and the guys stand outside and take our pic with the promotion on a big banner?"

"Love it. Do some reels, too, and boost them. Make it for a limited time. That's key."

They chattered away, and as Brick stared at Aspen, a funny ache crawled into his chest, buried itself deep, and stayed. Her wild curls bounced around her shoulders, and her cocoa-brown eyes sparkled. Marco must've given her one of those free tanks because she sported a hot-pink Barbie-colored Beach Bum one that she'd tied at the waist since it was obviously big on her. This was a bestselling author who owed nothing to Marco or his souvenir shop, yet here she was, using her precious time to help. She was sweet and shy, witty and sharp. She made him laugh and want. Aspen was not only beautiful, but she also had a kind heart.

And he was starting to fall for her.

Emotion broke over him as he tried to pull himself together. What was happening to him? How had she crawled under his skin so quickly when this whole thing was a carefully contrived setup? How had she snuck under his usually unscalable walls?

"Brick, there you are," she said with a smile. "Marco and I came up with a great idea to get rid of all these tanks he got stuck with."

Marco straightened and shot Aspen an adoring look. "Well, she did. And it's gonna be epic." He launched into their plan, and Burger and Patsy wandered in to hear. All were full of enthusiasm, and then they suggested taking pictures and creating a banner from some old posterboards.

"I think Aspen and I are getting something to eat," he said. Brick wanted some time alone with her. He wanted to share a meal, drink a cocktail, and have a quiet conversation. He wanted to hold her hand and hear her laugh. He wanted to figure out why she was beginning to haunt him.

"We can take a few pics," Aspen said, cutting Brick an apologetic look. "Right?"

Brick sighed, but the guys looked hopeful, so he agreed.

They finally finished up after an hour-long photoshoot and a homemade craft session with markers. The guys all high-fived. Brick finally took control. "We'd better head out to dinner."

Marco lit up. "I'm starving. Can we come?"

Brick opened his mouth to say, " Hell, no ," but Aspen responded first. "Of course. You can all join us."

"Awesome, we need a few beers after such a hard day," Marco said.

Patsy scratched his head. "Yeah, man, we were here like at noon, and I must've run up a dozen sales. I'm exhausted."

Burger nodded. "I had no idea work could be this intense," he said seriously, dressed in a yellow bathing suit, flip-flops, and one of the giveaway tanks in turquoise blue.

Brick stared at them in growing frustration. "I don't think—"

Aspen cut in. "Let's go, sweetheart. Marco can follow us there."

Aspen dragged him out of the store before he could protest.

He wanted to say more, but Brick kept thinking how good it felt when she called him sweetheart .