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plate.
    However, Stirling was blissfully unaware of the way my pulse jumped every time my gaze connected with Breck’s. Or the coiled tension in every inch of my body as I imagined his rough-skinned hands gripping my ass as I thrust my cock into that Hoover of a mouth of his.
    “You are starving,” Stirling said as we sat at an empty picnic table. “You just made a growling noise.”
    I forced my gaze away from Breck and concentrated on chatting with London’s little sister. “So who is this Liam guy? And why did you call him a lab loser?”
    Stirling sighed and signaled to the bartender closest to us. Immediately a server dropped off two Fat Tire beers.
    Handy to be dining with one of the Gradsky princesses.
    “I’ve spent the last seven years literally working in the corporate meat market, using my animal science degree to breed better beef cattle on a large-scale commercial level without growth hormones.”
    A concept I was familiar with since we didn’t use growth hormones.
    “Now I’ve partnered with my brother Macon and we’ve jumped into the organic farming market.”
    I said, “What organics are you growing?” even when I already knew.
    “Marijuana, man. It’s what all the cool farmers are doing.”
    I snorted.
    “But seriously, only three quarters of our total acreage will be devoted to pot. The rest is slated for organic vegetable production, concentrating on ‘heritage varieties’ that haven’t been crossbred.”
    “I knew that cold, corporate hard-ass persona of yours was totally fake.” I pointed at her with my beer bottle. “I always suspected you secretly wanted to be a professional pothead.”
    “Busted.” Stirling smirked at me. “What kind of farmer doesn’t regularly perform quality control tests on their crops?”
    “So this Liam dude is in charge of quality control in the lab and he’s blocking your access to product testing?”
    “Not hardly. Dr. Liam is my brother’s former client, supposedly a brilliant Ag bio-engineer and our secret weapon in advanced splicing technology. But he lives in his own little bubble. He doesn’t write anything down. He doesn’t follow instructions. He’s conceited. And he’s utterly lacking in any social graces. Lucky me has been tasked with teaching him to be a team player.”
    “I take it he’s resistant?”
    She rolled her eyes. “He’s a know-it-all jackass with an IQ of like a billion but he is incapable of learning basic clerical duties. He refuses to even try.”
    “Did you try getting high with him and see if that mellows him out?”
    “Twice. When that didn’t work I even tried to bribe him with a five-hundred-dollar bottle of scotch.” She shook her head. “No go there either.”
    “I’m guessing money isn’t a factor since you probably pay him plenty.”
    “We pay him a fuck-ton. So that left me with sex as an incentive. I hired this super-sweet, super-smart, super-hot college student with a porn-star mouth and a pair of DD’s.”
    For the first time ever, stick-in-the-mud Stirling reminded me of her wilder older sister London. “How’d that go?”
    “The woman might as well have been wearing a sackcloth and ashes or a nun’s habit for all the attention he paid to her,” she complained.
    I laughed.
    “Cres. This is not funny. This is part of what’s holding up production. Neither his formulas nor his gene splicing technique can be a secret from us . We need the ability to recreate in case something happened to him.”
    Keeping my attention on Breck, I pressed my lips to my bottle of beer and took a big swig, swallowing thickly and making a show of licking my lips when I finished.
    His wicked smile promised retribution.
    Bring it.
    “Cres. Are you even listening to me?” Stirling demanded. “I need your help.”
    I refocused after discreetly readjusting the crotch of my jeans. “What can I do? High-grade pot didn’t work, booze didn’t work, dangling a juicy, young coed didn’t work—”
    “Maybe