Page 6 of Single Malt

That didn’t mean I wanted to come back to Stanford again, especially for another business meeting where I was treated to a lengthy lecture about a discussion he had with a colleague about his latest paper. I appreciated people who were passionate about their work – hell, I was one of them – but you had to learn to read people to figure out if you were boring them. Dr. Josephs didn’t have that particular skill, and there was only so much a person could listen to before wanting to stick something sharp in their ear.

If I hadn’t thought that a contract with Stanford’s English department would be good for my business, I might’ve politely declined the second invitation, putting the responsibility on him to reach out if he was interested in using Shannon’s to supply whiskey. Money wasn’t the reason I was interested in Stanford, anyway.

In the decade since Shannon’s had released its first whiskey, I’d built a reputation for quality liquor, starting with bars around San Ramon and then moving outward. About six or seven years later, I’d had contracts with bars and hotels all over the West Coast. Most of the larger chains had put my whiskey in their hotels all over the world, which had expanded my reach exponentially. Financially, I could’ve left it there and not really done much of anything else, or I could’ve stepped back completely and let someone else do the rest of the work, but McCraes didn’t know how to be lazy.

So, I’d decided that I wanted to grow my client base in a different area. My parents served on various charity boards, and I was familiar with the type of fundraisers they attended and held. Not wanting anyone to accuse my parents of nepotism, I’d decided to find my own way into upper-class society circles.

Granted, two of my brothers were Stanford alumni, but neither of them was in a position to actually make any decisions on behalf of the university, and they weren’t my only siblings who’d graduated from prestigious colleges. My stepsister Paris Carideo had a degree from Yale and my step-cousin slash brother Blaze Gracen was a Professor of Education at John Hopkins, his alma mater.

Still, I’d wanted to go to a few other universities first, so that when I approached ones connected to my family, it would be clear that I wanted to be judged on my own merits. When I’d finally reached out to Stanford a few weeks ago, I’d been able to tell them that my best whiskey was being served at alumni and faculty fundraisers at both Cornell and Columbia.

I sighed as I pulled into the Stanford Shopping Center parking garage. Neither of the faculty members at either of those schools had taken this long to make a decision. I liked Dr. Josephs, but I honestly wondered how anything got done when he was in charge. Then again, maybe he was put in charge of things like this because it guaranteed that nothing would change.

I found a good spot and then headed for Fleming’s. Shannon’s didn’t make wine, but I’d made it a point to get a bottle or two from a few places near the universities I scouted since wine and champagne would be my primary competition for the type of events I was pitching.

I was halfway there when I saw a familiar face…and a familiar body.

Freedom had her head slightly turned, so she hadn’t seen me yet, and I took advantage of that to admire her. She wasn’t in the same sort of dress she’d been in the first time I’d seen her, obviously, but she looked just as good in the simple dark blue dress she wore right now. The heels looked like they were the same, but I wouldn’t have placed a bet on it. I was more interested in how they made her legs look than what they actually were.

Even as I found myself staring, she was reaching for the door and caught my reflection in the glass. She turned, surprise on her face. “Brody?”

“Hey.” I gave her my usual charming smile. “Just getting off work?”

The question was stupid, but I wanted to know if she was meeting a guy, and that seemed a better way to find out than flat-out asking or thinking I might be jealous.

“Are you?” She gave me an almost-defiant look, the sort intended to quickly remind me that she and I hadn’t been on a date the other night. When we’d parted, neither one of us had ever planned to see the other again. We owed each other no answers or explanations.

All right. I guess I’d have to try something else.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

“I don’t date.”

I supposed that answered my question about whether or not she was meeting someone.

Before I could respond, she took a step closer to me, those eyes of hers blazing, and spoke again, her voice low enough that I barely heard her. “I don’t date, but I do fuck.”

My eyebrows shot up, but I managed to control the rest of my expression. “Is that an invitation?”

“More like a challenge.” She reached up to run her finger down my cheek. “You up for it?”

“I don’t have a room.” It killed me to say it, but I wasn’t about to suggest we hook-up in some random bathroom. I definitely didn’t know her well enough to do that.

“Do you have a car?”

I gestured toward the parking garage. “I do.”

“Let’s go.” She walked past me in the direction I’d pointed.

My head was spinning, but I wasn’t about to turn down a second go with her. Since New Year’s Eve, I’d been dreaming about her every night and woken up hard every morning. I’d been with my fair share of women, but none of them had gotten under my skin the way she had.

Tempted as I was to stay behind her just so I could watch that amazing ass, I moved up next to her so I could direct her to where I’d parked. I’d never been so glad to have tinted windows in my car or to have found a space that would limit visibility. I still wondered if she was going to have me drive us somewhere, but the fact that she’d been the one behind the wheel last time, it seemed more likely that we were actually going to hook-up in my car.

Fuck.

Blood rushed south as I pushed the unlock button on my fob…and then realized that I didn’t know which door to open.

“Your call,” she said. “I’m on top.”