Free His Illegitimate Heir by Sarah M. Anderson

contributes to the full experience,” she said in that voice that was serious yet also...wistful. “How does the color make you feel?” She brought the glass back to her lips—but she didn’t drink. Instead, her eyes drifted shut as she inhaled deeply. “What does it smell like—and how do the aromas affect the taste? How does it feel in your mouth?”
    Her lips parted and, fascinated, Zeb watched as she tipped the glass back and took a drink. Her eyelashes fluttered in what looked to him like complete and total satisfaction. Once she’d swallowed, she sighed. “So we’ll rate each beer on a scale of one to five.”
    Did she have any idea how sensual she looked right now? Did she look like that when she’d been satisfied in bed? Or was it just the beer that did that to her? If he leaned over and touched his fingertips to her cheek to angle her chin up so he could press his lips against hers, would she let him?
    â€œMr. Richards?”
    â€œWhat?” Zeb shook back to himself to find that Casey was staring at him with amusement.
    â€œReady?”
    â€œYes,” he said because, once again, that was the truth. He’d thought he’d been ready to take over this company—but until right then, he hadn’t been sure he was ready for someone like Casey Johnson.
    They got to work, sipping each beer and rating it accordingly. Amazingly, Zeb was able to focus on the beer—which was good. He could not keep staring at his brewmaster like some love-struck puppy. He was Zeb Richards, for God’s sake.
    â€œI’ve always preferred the Rocky Top,” Zeb told her, pointedly sampling—not drinking—the stalwart of the Beaumont product line. “But the Rocky Top Light tastes like dishwater.”
    Casey frowned at this and made a note on her tablet. “I’d argue with you, but you’re right. However, it remains one of our bestsellers among women aged twenty-one to thirty-five and is one of our top overall sellers.”
    That was interesting. “It’s the beer we target toward women and you don’t like it?”
    She looked up at him sharply and he could almost hear her snapping, Women are not interchangeable. But she didn’t. Instead, in as polite a voice as he’d ever heard from her, she said, “People drink beer for different reasons,” while she made notes. “I don’t want to sacrifice taste for something as arbitrary as calorie count.”
    â€œCan you make it better?”
    That got her attention. “We’ve used the same formula for... Well, since the ’80s, I think. You’d want to mess with that?”
    He didn’t lean forward, no matter how much he wanted to. Instead, he kept plenty of space between them. “There’s always room for improvement, don’t you think? I’m not trapped by the past.” But the moment he said it, he wondered how true that was. “Perhaps one of your experiments can be an improved light-beer recipe.”
    She held his gaze, her lips curved into a slight smile. It was disturbing how much he liked her meeting his challenges straight on like that. “I’ll do that.”
    They went through the rest of the beers and, true to her word, Zeb couldn’t have said that he’d drunk enough to even get a slight buzz. Finally, as they’d eaten the last of their cupcakes, he leaned back and said, “So what are we missing?”
    She surprised him then. She picked up what was left of her Rocky Top and took a long drink. “Look—here’s the thing about our current product line. It’s fine. It’s...serviceable.”
    He notched an eyebrow at her. “It gets the job done?”
    â€œExactly. But when we lost Percheron Drafts, we lost the IPA, the stout—the bigger beers with bolder tastes. We lost seasonal beers—the summer shandy and the fall Oktoberfest beers. What we’ve got now is