Page 96 of Spicy Ever After
Beck glances back at the screen door then leans in closer, his voice low. “It’s not my first choice.”
The puff of his breath tickles my neck and I swallow hard.
“Wh-what is your first choice?”
Beck glances over his shoulder again. I’m crap at lowering my voice. For sure, his dad can hear it all the way in the kitchen.
“Sorry,” I hoarse-whisper.
But I catch Beck’s one parenthesis grin before he leans in even closer. His breath feathers over my ear.
“Honeysuckle.”
I gasp as the word zips straight to my pussy.
When I picture Beck pulling the stamen of a honeysuckle through the flower’s flute and catching the dew drop of nectar on his tongue, a shiver runs over me.
I’m the honeysuckle.
Does that mean he wants my nectar on his tongue?
I shiver again.
Beck chuckles, and I feel it on my neck. “C’mon.”
He tugs my hand and I follow him down the steps.
“Okay if we walk?” he asks, closing my hand snuggly in his. I love the feel of it. Big. Calloused. Tight around mine.
“Walking is good. Running is the devil.”
His grin is a solar flare. “No running. Just wanna show you around.”
The paved semicircle drive in front of the farmhouse gives way to the gravel road I came in on, but Beck leads us in the opposite direction. Plowed and unplowed fields stretch out to the left of the road. To the right is a cluster of trees that separates the house from a row of giant shed-looking buildings.
“Are those sweet potato warehouses?”
Beck laughs. “Yeah, pretty much. Cure sheds and store sheds.”
“How do you cure a sweet potato?”
“Pretty simple. You keep it in a warm, humid environment for about a week.” He nods toward the buildings. “Our systems are set to eighty-five degrees and ninety percent relative humidity. It helps the sugars come through and makes the potato sweeter.”
“Eighty-five degrees and ninety percent humidity?” I wrinkle my nose. “That sounds gross.”
He laughs. “It’s not my favorite place to hang out. But it’s also when the sweets heal from cuts and knicks. They look a lot better after curing. More like what you see in the grocery store.”
“And then you sell them?”
Beck shakes his head and his rough thumb strokes over mine, making it really hard to learn about sweet potatoes. “Then we move them to the store house for another ten days to sweeten a little more. The store house is a lot cooler. Sixty degrees, but still humid.”
“And then you sell them?”
His parenthesis smile is back. “And then we sell them.”
We approach the first building. It’s big. I don’t even really grasp how big it is until Beck opens the door and leads me inside. My house isn’t small, but it could fit neatly in here. And it feels like a sauna.
Shelves bearing huge wooden crates full of sweet potatoes line the walls on each side of the building. From the cement floor all the way to the corrugated tin roof.
